One of the icons of the southwestern Sydney fringe that has long disappeared was the car museum and picnic ground known as Greens Motorcade Museum Park at Leppington on the Old Hume Highway.
The car museum opened in 1974 and had a collection of cars under cover in a museum hall. Museum volunteer Ray Sanderson recalls that the manager was David Short. He
was George Green’s right-hand man of his large collection, not just at the museum but storage sheds about the country. Not far from the museum was an old chook farm shed (commercial size) [that] housed more unrestored vehicles.
On the car museum site, there was a re-creation of an early 20th-century village with The Oaks Tea Rooms, the old Beecroft Fire Station, a garage complete with hand-pumped petrol, and a train ride, which was a former cane train from Queensland. Rides were also provided by a 1927 Dennis Fire Engine and a 1912 English Star.
The Beecroft Cheltenham History Group states that the fire station was carefully shifted piece by piece from its original site to the museum park. They state:
In 1975 changes in equipment and the expanding number of personnel meant that the oldest fire station building was carefully taken down and reconstructed at Leppington in Green’s Motorcade Museum Park.
The museum collection was owned by wool-broker George Green, who lived at Castlecrag in Sydney and was a member of a number of car clubs in the Sydney area. George Green was a keen collector of Rolls-Royce motor vehicles and a foundation member of the Rolls-Royce Owners Club of Australia in 1956. He was also a member of the Veteran Car Club of Australia (1954) and The Vintage Sports Car Club of Australia (1944), which holds the annual George Green Rally in his honour.
Club historian John Hewitt, from The Council of Motor Clubs, Inc, formerly The Council of Veteran, Vintage and Thoroughbred Motor Clubs, has written a short biography of George Green. It states in part
George had his own collection of Veteran and Vintage cars that included many exotics such as two Rolls Royce Silver Ghosts, veteran Crossley, De Dion Bouton, Speedwell, Prince Henry Vauxhall, Hispano Suiza Alphonso and Vintage Bugatti, Bentley 8 litre and Isotta Fraschini. In the 1970’s George opened the Greens Motorcade Museum on the Hume Highway at Leppington now the Camden Valley Way in partnership with Sydney businessman Frank Illich who operated Sutherland Chrysler and Mitsubishi, Blue Point Motors and Viscount Caravans and also an avid car collector and restorer. George Green died in 1982 and his collection dispersed. (Hewitt 2026)
George Green owned the museum in partnership with car dealer and collector Frank Illich. The manager of the museum was David Short of Camden from its foundation to its closure in 1982 when George Green died, and the collection was auctioned off on-site.
On the old Hume Highway, the visitor and their family were met by the steam traction engine that was originally used to drive the timber-cutting machinery at the Woods Timber Mill at Narooma on the New South Wales South Coast. It was presented to the museum by Mrs Woods.
A large picnic area also hosted many community events, car club days, children’s Christmas parties, corporate functions, and other events.
The Vintage Vehicle Car Club of Australia held its foundation family day event at the picnic ground at Greens Motorcade Museum on 21 August 1977.
The museum occasionally supplied its ‘old cars’ for film shoots, commercials and corporate events all over Sydney. At one time, the museum management organised shopping centre car displays across Sydney, with a display at Birkenhead Point Shopping Centre after it opened in 1981.
One car in the collection was a Leyland P76, an Australian icon.
On the death of George Green in 1982, the collection was auctioned off and dispersed. Greens Motorcade eventually closed shortly after.
The dispersal of the Greens Motorcade collection
At one time a 1922 Stanley Steamer Car was part of George Green’s collection. The Powerhouse Museum states
In about 1958 the car was purchased by George Green who from the mid 1950s collected some 100 vintage and veteran cars which he displayed at Green’s Motorcade Museum at Leppington, NSW, from 1974. In 1971 Green swapped the Stanley for a 1904 Vauxhall which belonged to Allan F. Higgisson of 22 Banner Street, O’Connor, ACT. Higgisson was keen to work on the Stanley, while Green wanted to restore a veteran car he could enter in the annual London to Brighton car rally. It was an unwritten agreement that should Higgisson tire of restoring the Stanley it would be returned to Green.
The National Museum of Australia has a 1913 Delaunay-Belleville Tourer, which was part of the Greens Motorcade Museum Collection.
Read the 1913 Delaunay Belleville Tourer story at the National Museum of Australia and here. It’s also in the NMA Collection Database here.
According to Cliff Chambers’s Broken Dreams: Australian Six (1919-24) website, he claims that an Australian Six from the PowerHouse Museum Collection was part of the Greens Motocade collection around the mid-1980s. (Chambers 2025)
Another part of the Greens Motorcade Collection appeared at the Unlock Camden 2023 History Festival.
References
Chambers, Cliff 2025. Broken Dreams: Australian Six (1919-24). RetroRides, Performance Collector and Classic Cars. 19 February. Online at https://retrorides.com.au/originals/broken-dreams-australian-six-1919-24/ Accessed 13/8/26
Freymark, Susanna 2024. Bob Trevan wants his 1909 motor buggy ‘back where it should belong’ IndNR.com, 12 December. Online at https://indynr.com/bob-trevan-wants-his-1909-motor-buggy-back-where-it-should-belong/ Accessed 13/8/26
Hewitt, John 2026. The Council of Motor Clubs. CMC Home. Online at https://councilofmotorclubs.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1:cmc-profile&catid=10:profile-documents Accessed 13/8/26.
Simpson, Margaret 2008. Stanley Steamer model 740B 20 hp steam car, 1921-1922. PowerHouse Museum Collection. https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/212253 Accessed 13/8/26
Disclaimer
AI auto-correction (Grammarly) was used during proofing this post.
Updated 13 August 2026.
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It was one of the only Leyland “Force 7 coupe”, not a plain P76! I grew up at Castlecrag with Georges Grandson Simon Garrett and spent many hours at Georges workshop underneath his house in Linden Way which was next door to his daughters house. Many hours spent “Helping” on restorations of the 1913 Delauney- Belleville Tourer, De Dion Bouton, Hispano suiza sports, learnt to drive a 1910 BRUSH and many rides in the old Waratah Festival in Rolls Royce “Munster” silver shadow etc. Somewhere around I have an owners handbook for the Force 7 that the museam sold as a souvenir, Original books not a copy as Leyland started the printing of the handbooks before cancelling the production!
As it is the 50th Anniversary of the London to Sydney Rally, I would be interested to know if the Museum had in its collection one of the Rover 2000’s which were in the Rally. The car was entered by the British Army and completed the rally in Sydney and it was thought that one of these Rovers ended up in the Greens Motor Museum. I was hoping you may have a list of the cars that were on display. Best regards Rob Harrison.