Set amidst the UNESCO World Heritage listed Cockatoo Island, with the backdrop of one of the world’s most iconic harbours, the 2026 edition of the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance glittered. Over three days, more than 2,000 guests experienced a rare assembly of vehicles, from vintage legends to futuristic hypercars, while sipping Pommery Champagne.
One of the few utes/pick-ups presented at this year’s event was a 1968 Austin 1800 that had been meticulously restored by Bronte and her father, Dave. Having known the founder of the event James Nichols, for almost 30 years, Bronte and her family had attended the Concours every year. This year, the decision was made to display their restoration, which James enthusiastically encouraged.
Dave is an artist trained in stained glass and has completed several major church restorations. He has always had a passion for anything with an engine that will go fast, and collects boats, cars, and motorbikes, especially with an interesting history. Bronte has grown up in the shed watching her dad complete restorations and bringing things back from the dead.
“I have also always been driven to use my hands and have a knack for making things and love to understand how things work and fix them,” the 18-year-old student who is studying a Bachelor of Arts degree at Uni told Driven Women Magazine. Bronte has a keen interest in the humanities, especially modern history and how societies operate.
With the state of the university institutions currently cutting huge aspects of humanities degrees, and society’s growing opinion that the arts are useless, Bronte had been disenfranchised with the academic system at present, so she wanted to turn her hand at creating something. This is how Bronte came about restoring the Austin 1800 with her dad, to satisfy an itch to get her hands to make something.
“I have always been restless to create, and I’ve built so many Lego models, and wooden kits, miniature scenes, and helping dad fix things at home whenever they break. Tackling this huge project has been thrilling!” shared Bronte.
The Austin came into their lives after five years of hassling by Dave to buy it from the previous owner. Its large tray is what attracted them as it lends itself well to fitting a full-sized motorbike or a go kart. Bronte was keen to restore something and learn about the whole process and the Austin was sitting there and they had talked about the idea of doing it. But is wasn’t until the Austin 1800 was entered into this year’s Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance that the motivation to get it done kicked in at full tilt!
Between June 2025 and up to the day it was due to be trailered into Sydney to load on to the barge bound for Cockatoo Island, Bronte and her dad had been working on the Austin almost full-time. Over the past summer that included 8-10 hours per day, seven days a week, and whenever Bronte wasn’t working or at Uni. Between them hundreds of hours have gone into rebuilding the Austin from the ground up.
The restoration has been challenging with every part that they had taken off and put back on the ute fighting them. One of the most challenging parts for Bronte personally has been the reality that she is not actually physically strong enough to do a lot of the things involved in a major project like this by herself. Over the restoration Bronte learnt numerous techniques to try to overcome many of these, but there had been some moments of doubt in her own ability because she felt useless when she couldn’t achieve what she thought she could.
“I pride myself on being independent, capable, and physically strong, but there have been so many parts of this which I couldn’t have done without the help of my dad. Not only because I didn’t know how to, but even with the help of leverage, heat, and good old WD-40, I still couldn’t do some things, such as undoing rusty old bolts, or removing the exhaust system from a parts car, putting in the fuel tank, and the list goes on. I could still push the car into our workspace of a morning on my own though!” said Bronte.
The most enjoyable part for Bronte though has been the satisfaction from seeing it all come back together after so many hours spent doing terrible jobs. So much cleaning rusty, dirty, and grease covered parts. Painting, polishing, checking. Hours spent on things which she never thought could consume so much of their time.
“To see a nice shiny finished product, get screwed back on is incredibly rewarding. All our hard effort paying off. Like when we put the headlights in! Or the engine finally running and then fitted in the engine bay. Or even when we tested the wiring and not only did the dash lights work, but even the radio and speaker!
And of course, being able to do this with my dad is a truly special experience to me. I’m so fortunate that he can share his passion, creativity, tenacity, and huge skillset with me. This project has meant I can spend so much time with him working on something we both enjoy and will get to use, and I’ll have memories and stories forever. That means so much to me,” beamed Bronte.
Bronte now looks forward to taking her Austin to other car shows and on club runs. It’s something really quite special, as there were around only 2,100 Austin 1800 utilities ever produced, and all were made in Sydney. Of those, 800 were Mark 1, the same as Bronte’s and there are not many around at all today. After putting all their effort into it, she definitely wants to be able to share the end result with the wider car community.
Not being busy enough with the restoration project, Bronte has also recently started go kart racing in a club that has set up a sponsored all girls team to encourage women into the sport. It is endurance racing and last year’s longest race was around 14 hours.
“I had never raced before, so it was terrifying and I had so much to learn about it all. I spent a lot of time on the tools fixing things, and a lot of time in the seat. Everyone has been really supportive in helping mechanically, providing parts, and coaching me in technique and team management. This season my team has all now had a year or more of experience and we have a new chassis, so are hoping to be competitive,” added Bronte.
A panel of international automobile judges assessed more than 45 meticulously restored and maintained historic and iconic vehicles on show at the 2026 Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance. The classic cars were among more than 70 vintage vehicles, supercars, hypercars, motorcycles and boats on display at the three day event. Their 1968 Austin 1800 Ute won the Post-War Passion award at the 2026 iteration of this iconic motoring event, congratulations to Bronte and Dave!
“I also would like to add that I think it’s fantastic there is a magazine [Driven Women Magazine] dedicated to women and motor culture. It’s definitely noticeable how male dominated the environment is, and it’s awesome that there’s a platform where women can see and be seen getting involved in all things driven!” concluded Bronte.
Restoration photographs supplied and other photographs by Driven Women Magazine.