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Old 25-02-08, 10:39
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Jan Thompson Jan Thompson is offline
Corowa Project 30
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Posts: 519
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The event in 2009 will commence on Monday 9th March and will finish on Sunday 15th March. It will be the 30th Year of the event and the 29th Anniversary. It will definitely be a big year and the themes will be 'Year of the Amphibian' and 'Year of he Blitz 2'.

History of the GPA Swim-In and Military Vehicle Rally

Annually a group of ex-Military Vehicle Collectors gather at Ball Park Caravan Park at Corowa on the beautiful Murray River to display their lovingly restored military vehicles, conduct a parade, swap meet and have a ‘swim-in’ with amphibious vehicles.

The event was initially organised by Ian Grieve [Qld] and Alan Newton [SA] and was for Amphibious Jeeps [Ford Model G.P.A. ¼ -Ton 4X4 Amphibian] but with so much interest amongst military vehicle enthusiasts it became a large-scale gathering not only with GPA’s but also other historic military vehicles.

People have asked “Why was Corowa chosen as the venue of this event?” Corowa, on the Murray River, just west of Albury is a fairly central location. It has fresh water, with easy river access and is an historic town. The collectors enjoy the wrecking yards and disposal stores in Albury and Wodonga. There are a variety of shops, wineries and antique shops to make this a family orientated event. The townsfolk of Corowa have always welcomed our presence and we look forward to returning each year to enjoy their hospitality and support.

The event now attracts collectors from throughout Australia and the world.

In 1999 we achieved recognition by the Guinness Book of World Records for “the largest gathering of Ford GPA amphibious vehicles since the Second World War”. This number being 16 including the famous Amphibious Jeep “Half-Safe” which circumnavigated the world during the 1950’s and has been donated to the Guildford Grammar School in Perth. In March 2002 we achieved recognition by the Guinness Book of World Records for “the greatest gathering of privately owned Ford and Chev Blitz trucks since 1945”. In 2003 the theme was to get as many WW2 Studebaker trucks together. We had 21. In 2004 the Theme was ‘Year of the Dodge’. We had 34 Dodge’s and a total of 120 ex-military vehicles in attendance. In 2005 our theme was WW2 Pattern Carriers. We had 21 Carriers. The theme for 2006 was Armoured Cars and we had a variety of rare types of vehicles.
In 2007 the themes were Year of the Cycle and Year of the Staff Car. The total number of vehicles was 166. We had a number of vehicles in each theme category and we were really impressed with the large number of motor cycles.


You are guaranteed to have a great time.
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Jan Thompson
Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Research & Development
THE COROWA YEAR 30 PROJECT
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