The history of the Shepparton automotive industry is on display.
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The Mechanika exhibition at the Shepparton Motor Museum and Collectibles aims to showcase the extensive retail, repair and custom modification businesses of the Shepparton area, highlighting the growing industry in the region.
Running until this Sunday, curator Shaun Lennard said the exhibition had attracted large numbers with people travelling to see the display.
‘‘We have a mixture of displays here from new car retailers, repairers, suspension places, exhaust places, accessories, forklifts, truck engine builders, a range of different businesses from across the Shepparton area,’’ Mr Lennard said.
‘‘Shepparton’s got a history of being known as an automotive centre, there are people here who do some high-class vehicle modification work, so there’s an opportunity to bring those people together and have them here in the one place.’’
Mr Lennard said the display demonstrated to the broader community that the automotive industry was alive and well, saying people often took vehicle maintenance and modification for granted.
‘‘There’s a big vehicle culture here in the area, so all those great cars that people see at car shows are either modified by the people who own them or they have had businesses do work on them,’’ he said.
‘‘Some of the businesses that do vehicle modification have cars here as examples of the work they do.’’
At the exhibition’s end, Mr Lennard said the displays would be removed to make way for some new cars for a fresh display.
During the year he said the museum had a handful of themed shows that rotated between a permanent collection of about 60 vehicles.
‘‘After the end of Mechanika there’s about 15 or 16 different cars that are coming in, then we’re starting to prepare for our next feature show in the middle of the year, which will be XT and XW Fords... there will be between 12 and 20 cars over those ranges that are 50 years old,’’ Mr Lennard said.
Mechanika will be at the Shepparton Motor Museum and Collectibles until Sunday. The museum is open 10am to 4.30pm every day.