The Start of Something New About the Old

Welcome

This is a blog dedicated to the J&S Fibreglass Company of NSW, Australia. The company was started by two friends, Jeff Simmonds and John Jennens on 23rd September 1959. Prior to that, as will be seen in the following pages, they had already built cars. This was an era of the "can-do" attitude.

The company was sold by Jeff around 1985 (John sold out to Jeff),  they had close contact with an incredible Sydney motoring scene which needs to be written about before it is lost.

This is hopefully, a start of that, a recorded history for others to read, follow-up and write. The close contacts and working relationships by J&S were with the following (but by no means limited to):

• Len Moir - Len lived close to Jeff and is the designer for the Renault/Moir car, Hunter, hardtops for sports cars and beach buggies for J&S.  

Len Moir at the wheel. Image Source

• Jack Pryer - Already famous for the Prad (PR = Pryer + AD = Adams), Holden, designed the chassis for the Buchanan to accept Holden mechanicals. It was this chassis the Jack subsequently developed for the Hunter.

• Hunter and Delbridge -  They designed and made a disc brake conversion for the early Holden kingpin front ends the J&S used in the early hunters.

• Frank Kleinig Jnr

• Lovell springs

• Nat Buchanan - They bought the rights for the Buchanan body and the Buchanan Cobra. Yes, the name Cobra was used well before Shelby used it.

There were numerous more as the Sydney automotive scene was quite close.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

My name is Stacey Nicolaou a wanderer and Australian vintage car enthusiast. My first contact with Jeff Simmonds was not long after I bought my first Hunter on 19 November 1981. I had no experience in fibreglass and the body did need work. I visited him at the factory on Parramatta Road, at that time there was a Citroen based Hunter on the roof, so you could not miss it. He was also in the middle of developing the full-length VW chassis beach buggy, as the shortened one was being outlawed by the motoring authorities. 

What began was a constant walk down to the factory to see the progress and to just be there, Jeff's hospitality I have never forgotten and nothing was a worry to him. He also owned the Hindmarsh Hunter at that time and there was an interviewer a journalist at this time. 

Jeff asked if he could "Have a little freedom", in the design of my Hunter, as he thought with a bit of modification, the design would stand up still. The one thing he did not do was what he thought was a 'design weakness' of the original design - change the windscreen.

He liked the idea of the 204z type screen, but at the time when the Hunter was built, that type of screen was thin on the ground. It is this, the last Hunter Jeff worked on, that has kept me from changing it, despite many thinking it was me that did it. When I picked up the Hunter, he said he was thinking of selling, and so if I was welcome to the moulds of the Hunter. Another story, but all I now have is the bonnet mould that was rescued before that too went to the tip.

And So....

It is from this I want to preserve the memories of a company that was always at the forefront of the car, sports car hardtops, beach buggy, flares, spoilers and side skirts for numerous cars, catamaran and industrial areas (the GRE building in Sydney has a J_&S exterior while the 'red' building in North Sydney uses J&S paneling) and because Jeff was just a great of an era when people just did things instead of putting barriers in front of themselves.

This is by no means a comprehensive history, and anyone is welcome to add information, pictures etc. of the company or the people associated with it.