A Toowoomba family ninety-nine years ago became the first to drive across the Australia’s Nullarbor Plain and you’ve probably never heard of them. I told a version of this story on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

The first person to drive a car across Australia was Francis Birtles in 1912 and he did it from Perth to Sydney. Birtles was an Australian adventurer, photographer and filmmaker. As well as being the first to drive a car across Australia, in 1927 he was the first to drive a car from England to Australia.

It was a year earlier in 1926 that a Toowoomba family made their own piece of motoring history. Where as Birtles drove his car from West to East from Perth to Sydney, Toowoomba’s Alfred De Grussa drove his motorcar the other way, from East to West and travelled even further. De Grussa started from Toowoomba and went via Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, across the Nullarbor and onto Perth that way.

That’s around 5,200km. He did it in his 1926 Model T Ford which was made here in Australia, in Geelong, Victoria. (See photo top of page.) The photo shows that he chose the new wire wheels as an optional extra.

The first remarkable thing about this feat is that De Grussa did it at the start of summer. He set out from Toowoomba on the 5th of November and arrived in Perth just before Christmas around the 23rd of December. The days were sunny, hot and dry, with temperatures consistently over 30 degrees Celsius or 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you think the desert heat would have been hard for you, you should realise that the De Grussa family had not much earlier migrated from London, England, so the searing Australian desert temperatures would have been almost unbearable for them.

To make their trip even more newsworthy is that it was undertaken without any real preparation. They set out with only two travelling rugs and no special supplies. No food was taken, they simply relied on the people they met along the way. They passed some along the way, including a group from the Harley-Davidson Club, and later some Fiat Club motorists. With the exception of a mishap to one of the wheel rims, they didn’t have trouble with the car at all.

The De Grussa family – including Alfred, his wife Mary and five children – was the first family to drive a car across Australia.

But why would an English family of seven after having migrated to Toowoomba on the fertile Darling Downs, then take on such a foolhardy trip across Australia’s arid deserts.

Well, just months before they left, the De Grussa’s seven-month-old daughter passed away. It was a life-changing event because that’s when Alfred and Mary De Grussa decided to be independent missionaries. They made it their mission was to carry the Gospel to outlying parts of Australia, while depending for sustenance only on the offerings of those to whom they preached.

That’s how they made it across the country in 1926, driving their Model T Ford from Toowoomba to Perth, covering the 5,200km in seven weeks.

The desert experience doesn’t appear to have affected their children at all. In fact, three of the boys went on to serve Australia in the Second World War.

The oldest Alfred lived to be one hundred years old.

The next one Ernest was serving with the RAAF in Darwin when he wrote home to his wife. He had met a girl he liked a lot, and said their friendship was platonic, until he could see she was going to have a child.

A grandson served with the SAS in the Vietnam War and was Mentioned in Despatches.

Today there’s even a De Grussa decedent in the West Australian parliament who is deputy leader of the opposition.

So the Toowoomba family who in 1926 became the first family to drive a car across Australia really had an impact, and should be better known today.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4AK.

Photo credits:
An overlanding family: Mr. and Mrs. De Grussa set out from Toowoomba – Western Mail, Perth, 20th January 1927, page 34.
Francis Birtles in Arnhem Land – National Library of Australia.
Alfred, Ernest and Leonard De Grussa – WW2 enlistment records, National Archives of Australia.