He’s no truckie or diesel mechanic.
In fact, Stefan Nechwatal is a sculptor and has never been super involved with trucks.
By looking at ‘Little Yvette’ – the 1917 mini Mack – that Stefan built, you would think trucking is the only thing he lives and breathes for.
But he’s a man with a passion for art.
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“When I was a boy, I would go up to this dairy farm on the school holidays and help out, which involved driving trucks,” he says.
“When you’re young, on a farm and like cars and trucks, you can’t help but ask to drive one around. My whole mind was set on it, nothing else would matter. I just used to want to drive a farm truck around.
“Because I had learnt to drive from an early age, driving the truck came second nature to me. It was such fun on the farm, during harvest season the boy would often drive, while the men would load, and it was the best.”
When Stefan moved from Melbourne to Daylesford, he bought a truck to move loads of his things over, but this is as far as his history with trucks go.
Little Yvette is a 1:3.5 scale tribute to the legendary Mack AC Bulldog trucks that were sent from Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA to help the allies in France who were fighting on muddy battlefields, there and in Belgium in 1917.
What began as an idea for the prestigious Toorak Village Sculpture Exhibition in 2014, turned into a six-month obsession that tested every skill Stefan had built over decades.
The self-taught furniture maker had previously done training in steel and welding before becoming proficient in working with metal.
After developing these skills, he started to enter exhibitions for his sculptures, before being invited to the Toorak Exhibition along with other talented sculpture artists from all around Australia.
“I thought I would do something different, something with a motoring theme,” he says.
“I’m quite fond of vintage American pickup trucks, so I did a bit of Googling. Now at that time, I wasn’t interested in trucks at all really, I just loved pickup trucks. I thought a hot rodded pickup truck was the ultimate weapon, but there was nothing I could work with artistically.”
That’s when Stefan started looking at some earlier trucks, and the more he researched, the more captivated he became.
“I became interested in some funny looking early trucks which led me to the Mack Bulldog. It was renowned for its funny looking blunt nose, and I became more fascinated,” he says.
“As an artist, I get immersed into what I’m creating, I often like to find a story or something personal about the object.
“And then I read about World War I, how America got involved and started sending over supplies, including thousands of units of the AC Mack model to France.
“The story I found was about Royal British engineers that were given a number of these trucks to help move around heavy artillery and supplies in very muddy battlefields. They found that these Mack trucks were incredibly invaluable for the tough work that was needed in these boggy fields, as they performed magic.”
Stefan says the officers loved them so much, they gave the trucks a nickname, ‘Bulldog’ inspired by the face of a British Bulldog and their pugnacious do or die, never give up attitude and strength.
While the Bulldog played a large role in
the WWI Allied effort, its last 20 years of production mattered even more.
The AC became the standard of the construction industry, building skyscrapers, subways and dams as well as logging, mining and heavy general hauling.
“These stories really overwhelmed me with the emotion, it was just so very fascinating,” he says.
“I spent months building this truck and it was very challenging because I’ve never done anything like that before, so it was a learning experience.
“I had to come up with a way of designing a smaller truck that would fit in my ordinary car box trailer but would also fit through a doorway when it got to the Toorak Village. It wasn’t easy.”
He started by scaling down a black and white image of the truck, carefully drawing vertical and horizontal lines through the truck to determine proportions.
Not only did it need to be scaled appropriately, but it also needed to be portable and have steering to be transported around.
Once he had an idea for size, it was time to gather resources and parts.
As it turns out, Stefan’s always been a recycler, collecting material, steel and timber, and this formed the backbone of the tiny truck.
“I bought an old Toro wheel horse lawn tractor, and when I pulled it apart, I found it had a really fantastic steering box in the front end, and it looked just like a Mack Bulldog,” he says.
“I put on some trestles, created the chassis and started working upwards to create structure, from the cabin to the back tray, which was initially a slide on steel and timber section, and then decided to build an optional slide-on salvage wrecker unit at the back since I became very interested in recovery work.
“The truck now has the ability to winch itself into the trailer using its salvage wrecker. I then built a timber stake side tray that goes on the back as an option.
“I like to create functional objects that look older, everything I make looks hundreds of years old.”
To make the wheels period correct, Stefan had to make them. As a metal collector, he had a steel hot water service cylinder.
“I cut it down into bands, and then I welded it in the centre. I welded plough shears and then it had axles,” he says.
“I bought some very heavy duty rubber from an industrial supplier, and I cut it into strips, and then I riveted it onto the wheels, so that it’s got hard rubber tires, giving it that authentic look.”
The sculpture was complete with a patented green and red paint to achieve the aged appearance.
By the time it was finished, Little Yvette measured 2,150 mm long, 1,200 mm high at the enclosed C-cabin roof, and 850 mm wide at the wheel track.
“She ended up quite heavy, weighing 600kg. She might be a little thing, but she’s heavy,” he says.
Stefan laughs about how kids always try to climb inside the truck at heritage shows, only to find the cabin so tiny, that only a toddler can fit inside.
“People always ask for reasons why my Mack doesn’t have a motor, and that’s because it’s so small, a typical driver would be a two-year-old,” he says.
“The reality is, I built this truck for a sculpture exhibition, for people to enjoy and look at, not drive around. That would have been a whole other project.
“I’ve never built anything like that before, building Little Yvette for six months, day after day, was making me go crazy and the deadline for Toorak was approaching.”
He submitted it as an unfinished project at the Toorak Exhibition and brought it back home to finish off completely. Now he takes it to plenty of heritage events.
Since her debut, Little Yvette has done her rounds on the heritage show circuit, including the Ballarat Heritage Festival, Castlemaine, the Australian Historic Motoring Festival, the Daylesford Agricultural Show and many, many more.
“What I love is watching people stop, stare and get absorbed,” he says.
“It doesn’t matter their age or gender, everyone’ fascinated by her. And I feel very pleased knowing that they enjoy my art.”
And Little Yvette’s story isn’t over just yet. Stefan is ready to let her go to a new owner who can carry her story forward and enjoy showing her off, just as much as he does.
If you’re interested in purchasing Little Yvette, please contact Stefan at 03 5348 6600, anytime.
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