User:Wonderboygs

 William George Smith   6/10/1923 - 09/09/1980 

William George Smith was a Sydney Motor Body Builder who is best known for manufacturing and refining the design of the Mobile Barrier starting method in Australia, essentially a pair of hydraulically operated gates mounted on the back of a utility (originally a Chrysler) or pick-up truck and used worldwide for starting Harness Races, commonly referred to as Trotting and sometimes Pacing. Bill, as he was known to all, had a passion for Harness Racing that spilled over in to his work life, and in his later years Harness Racing dominated his motor body building manufacturing business.

The Early Days

Bill Smith was born in Sydney to Arthur Frederick George Smith and Rachel Smith nee Freeman, a family of mixed ancestry of English, Scottish and Antiguan descent. His father was a Blacksmith and joined the Australian Infantry Forces Howitzer Battalion in World War 1 and became a Farrier Sergeant. After a promising swimming career in his teens, Bill's hopes for Olympic glory were over with the cancellation of the 1940 war torn games. He left school early and trained as a panel beater in the motor body building industry with his father, who had realised that the car was rapidly making horses redundant. Panel beating did not satisfy Bill's creative side, so he went on and became a Motor Body Builder, in the process helping to evolve the courses in this relatively new area of vehicle manufacturing, something which he continued to contribute to throughout his life. It quickly became apparent that Bill Smith had found his calling, and he took advantage of the transport revolution brought about by the introduction of post war vehicles and new materials and set up his own motor body building business by the time he was 25.

WG Smith and Sons

Bill was 16 when WWII erupted and he, his father and brother sub-contracted to William Stanley and Oliver Grice Motor Body Builders at Summer Hill NSW manufacturing mobile army kitchens and ambulances. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=141950

W. G. Smith and Sons went on to become a premier Motor Body Building firm in NSW. Many vehicles, now vintage, still remain and are still registered to this day (notably pantechnicons, horse trailers, ambulance and hearses). Some of the work produced included: ambulances, hearses, The Sun, David Jones, W D & H O Wills, Arnott's delivery trucks, refrigerated trucks, Racehorse Transport, Racing Pigeon Transport and Release vehicles, Removals Trucks (Waltons, Pettit & Sevitt), Historic Vehicle Restorations, Mr Frosty Ice Cream vans and a host of others. The Mobile Barrier though was his most significant achievement and it has been in continuous use ever since.

The Mobile Barrier Harness Racing has long been a popular hobby in Australia, a legacy of horse and cart transport days, with the carts becoming sleeker and faster and known as sulkies. Predominantly a working persons sport, it is relatively affordable for anyone who wants to spend their leisure time with horses, and due to Australia's obsession with betting, was becoming increasingly popular as a professional sport. It was difficult however to compete with the glamour and popularity of thoroughbred racing, and the Mobile Barrier came about as a way of using new transportation technology to modernise the image of this particular type of horse racing, bringing it in to the 20th Century and inline with the United States.

The introduction of the Mobile Barrier is generally considered one of the key attributes that led to Harness Racing's continued success in to the 21st Century. The importance and complexity of the development and fabrication of the Mobile Barrier today is hard to imagine. When it was first built, aerodynamics and hydraulics were the domain of the aircraft industry. The amount of innovation and investment that went in to the Mobile Barrier was significant for the time. It had to be able to be used on any track, it had to be timed correctly, be aerodynamic, reliable, solid, and, most importantly, safe; both the horses and their drivers as well as the operators of the Mobile Barrier itself all risked injury or death if it went wrong. Bill Smith pressed on with his ideas to modify mobile starting in Australia, they worked and it was quickly successful. Bill was interviewed by the ABC at the time of the new barrier's introduction, copies of which can still be obtained.

Legacy

Despite W. G. Smith & Sons dying with Bill Smith, along with the mobile barrier, the last of which is still preserved at Sydney's new premier trotting facility at Menangle, a number of other Bill Smith's vehicle masterpieces continue to be enjoyed by Australians, one of whom is possibly an unlikely admirer. John Marsden from the Aussie rock band Wild Turkey, based out of Melbourne, owns and has restored several times over the years a Ford Hearse built by Bill Smith. The hearse features in a music video of the band for the song Surfin' Hearse, which can be seen on youtube. Coincidentally, Bill Smith, who was taken on his final journey in a hearse that he built himself, died at Marsden Park in New South Wales.Other examples of his work can still be seen throughout Australia in the form of Horse Trailers and Horse Floats, Ambulances and Hearses, as well as many vehicles built by the people who he trained, including his sons, one of whom Kevin Smith still builds horse trailers and horse floats in Queensland.

http://www.wildturkeymusic.com/biography.cfm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFhwP9IZqcc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harness_racing_in_Australia http://www.funeralcoaches.com.au/history-of-australian-hearses-builders4.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/immaculateconcepts/4537552476/ http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=10688 http://www.flickr.com/photos/50415738@N04/sets/72157627790507430/detail/