As a young man Mr Coomber became interested in vehicle restoration and began looking for the right vehicle to restore after joining a local car club.

It’s hard to image the magnificently restored vehicle, which is now fully registered, has been completely rebuilt from a wreck which Jim found languishing under a tree in a paddock near Orange.

“I joined the car club 40 years ago and I started looking around,” he said.

“I found the car sitting under a tree in a paddock near Forest Reefs.”

With the priorities of paying off a house and raising a family however, his restoration took 40 years to achieve.

“At that stage spending the money to restore the car came at the bottom of my list,” he said.

As his children grew older and the financial pressures eased Mr Coomber was able to fix the vehicle, spending as much time trying to be faithful to its original interior and exterior.

In 1996 he was eventually in a position to fully register the vehicle. The number plate reads the letters CH to represent the type of vehicle (Chrysler) and 1928 to represent the year it was made.

Now as a member of the Orange and District Antique Motor Club Mr Coomber  takes part in rallies to show off his vehicle.

“It certainly gets a fair bit of attention wherever I go,” he said.

“People just really seem to love old cars.”

It’s not all good news however. Jim says getting a flat tyre, for example, can be a massive challenge.

“It can be an expensive business,” he said.

Mr Coomber regularly likes to take the car out on jaunts in and around Orange and the vehicle is no slouch when it comes to keeping up with the other traffic.

“It can comfortably do about 80kmp/h,” he said.

janice.harris@fairfaxmedia.com.au