Coburg Drive-In

Coburg Drive-In is a heritage-listed drive-in theatre operated by Village Cinemas in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg. Films are screened throughout the week, and the site is also used for the Coburg Trash and Treasure Market on Sundays during the day.

History
The Coburg Drive-In opened on 25 November 1965 with a double feature of Marnie and McHale's Navy. The Big Six chain were the original owners for the first two years of operation, until Hoyts acquired the theatre in 1967. The 1960s and 1970s were the peak of drive-in culture's popularity in Melbourne, and at one stage the theatre competed with six other drive-ins within the surrounding suburbs alone.

In 1974, fire trucks from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade entered the drive-in with lights flashing in order to put out a grass fire along the banks of the adjoining Merri Creek. Coincidentally, the film screening that night was The Towering Inferno, which led many audience members to believe the fire trucks were part of a publicity stunt.

Drive-ins quickly declined during the home video era of the 1980s, a decade in which 23 theatres closed throughout the city and were sold to property developers. The Coburg Drive-In closed and was put up for sale in 1982. However, the land did not sell. This was said to be due to the site's location in a quiet industrial area, which made it unsuitable for residential development, while the poor road access down a single long driveway and unstable ground on the site of a former rubbish tip meant industrial development would also be difficult.

In 1986, the site reopened as a joint venture with Village Cinemas, and a second screen was added. This was the beginning of an unusual situation in which, because of its obscure and unprofitable location, the Coburg Drive-In remained open where all others of its kind in the area had closed. This meant domination of the market as drive-ins accumulated a retro cult following and became fashionable again.

On 3 May 1987, a film entitled Automania at the Drive-In was screened as part of the Automania series of car-themed events around the city conceived by artists Ted Hopkins and Sue McCauley. The film was a custom 75-minute compilation of car chase scenes from various films, including Mad Max and The Terminator. This was followed by a live reading of Gerald Murnane's novel Landscape with Landscape, set to an experimental film by Peter Lyssiotis called Lonesome Trees that consisted of photos of trees in bleak urban settings. The 900-strong audience of local car enthusiasts reacted with violent disapproval, threatening to invade the projection room and leading to a near-riot. Order was restored with the Whoopi Goldberg film Burglar.

Since at least 1988, the site has been utilised on Sundays for the Coburg Trash and Treasure Market.

A third screen was installed in 1995.

The Coburg-Drive In was heritage-listed by the National Trust in 2007. The Trust noted in the site's Statement of Significance that the cinema had ironically survived only because of its poor location and access, which made the land unattractive to developers. They also stated that:

"The Coburg Drive-in is of historical significance as a reflection of the Americanisation of Victorian cities and country towns in the 1950s and 1960s... Inspired by American cultural trends, drive-ins functioned like mobile extensions of the family living room, and were consistent with a trend in personal behaviour to be less formal and inhibited in public spaces... They catered, for example, for people who had problems with parking and walking; young children; and teenagers and young adults who were attracted to particular film genres and intimate evenings. Along with motels, service stations and other places and urban forms associated with the rise in private car ownership, [the Coburg Drive-In] is significant for [its] association with the development of a car culture in Victoria during this period."

In 2018, the land was sold to the Charter Hall property development group for $12.5 million and leased back to Village Cinemas until 2028. David Harrison of Charter Hall described their purchase as a "mid-ring infill investment opportunity (with) better use in the long-term" but did not specify details beyond that, especially given the heritage listing. The site's future beyond 2028 is yet to be determined.

In 2020 and 2021, the drive-in was allowed to remain open under strict conditions during various stages of the COVID-19 lockdowns, when regular cinemas remained closed across the city.

It remains one of two surviving drive-in theatres in Melbourne, along with the Dromana 3 Drive-In on the Mornington Peninsula.

Layout
The theatre is accessed via a long driveway that extends from Newlands Road into the triple-screen field. Visitors are greeted by a large sign installed in 2008 that features a lit-up arrow directing cars inside. A ticket booth at the end of the driveway features a vintage Dodge Phoenix car permanently attached to the roof, originally red but at some stage repainted yellow. The field is surrounded by warehouses to the south and east, and Merri Creek to the north and west. Sound was once accessed via speakers on poles in the traditional drive-in style, but from 1978 onwards the cinema also began offering sound via FM radio. The poles still exist today, but the speakers themselves have been removed. The central building in the field includes a 1950s-style snack bar, toilets and a children's playground. Cinema 1 is the largest of the three screens, and according to the National Trust, it is also the largest outdoor cinema screen in the Southern Hemisphere.

In media

 * In 1991, the film Holidays on the River Yarra featured a scene filmed at the Coburg Drive-In in which the two young protagonists attempt to sell ill-gotten car parts at the Trash and Treasure Market.