In 1915, when Holderness Motorist’s Guide set out to record every car and owner in New South Wales, it captured more than machines—it preserved the lives and ambitions of their owners. Each of the 9,318 entries in this database tells a fragment of a story: a grazier who invested his wool profits in a sturdy American touring car; a Sydney surgeon who preferred the refinement of a French-built roadster; a country publican whose small two-seater brought him status as well as convenience.
The origins of this register lie in the Finance Tax of 1914, which required vehicles to be taxed according to horsepower. What might have been a dry exercise in revenue-raising instead left behind intimate glimpses of individuals. Alongside technical details—cylinder sizes, gear ratios, and even original purchase prices—we glimpse the class distinctions and personal choices of those who could afford a car in 1915.
Some entries are bare, lacking registration numbers or technical specifications; others are richly detailed, spelling out the cost of a machine that might equal several years’ wages for an ordinary worker. Where the guide left blanks, researchers have filled the gaps from contemporary sources, even tracing the origins of the cars themselves—whether French, German, British, or American—restoring the international reach of early motoring in New South Wales.
To read across the database is to move through a mosaic of lives. It speaks of pioneers on the dusty inland roads, professionals in the growing suburbs, and families who saw the motorcar as both tool and symbol. Each entry, however brief, marks the moment when its owner stepped into modernity—when horsepower meant not only taxation, but the thrill of the road.