{"id":666895,"date":"2026-05-12T22:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666895\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:26:11","slug":"today-in-history-may-13-australian-adventurer-circumnavigates-the-globe-in-a-modified-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666895\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – May 13: Australian adventurer circumnavigates the globe in a modified Ford"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Australian mining engineer and adventurer completed his circumnavigation of the globe in an amphibious car on May 13, 1958<\/a>.Ben Carlin first hatched upon the idea to drive around the world when he first saw a Ford GPA in World War II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“With a bit of titivation, you could go around the world in one of those things,” he said of the amphibious vehicle.<\/p>\n

\"FordFord refused to sponsor the journey because they feared the car wouldn’t make it. (Guildford Grammar School Archives)<\/p>\n

After adapting the vehicle to be fitted with a bed in the back, he convinced his bride Elinore that they should spend their honeymoon driving across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Carlin offered Ford the opportunity to sponsor the voyage, but they refused, believing the trip would likely kill them.<\/p>\n

It was anticipated to take 10 days, but took 32, after the pair unwittingly drove into a hurricane.<\/p>\n

After losing radio contact, it was feared the Carlins had been lost at sea.<\/p>\n

Along the way, both Ben and Elinore suffered hallucinations while trying to stay on the correct course.<\/p>\n

But they emerged to great fanfare at Madeira<\/a> after getting a refuel from a passing cruiser mid-Atlantic.From there, they were from the Canary Islands on to Morocco<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They then took their car across the Strait of Gibraltar, up through Europe and across the English Channel.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe pair had to drive through Morocco at night because of the overwhelming heat of the day. (Guildford Grammar School Archives)<\/p>\n

After three years in England, they set out again, driving across Europe, over the Bosporus Strait into Turkey and into the Middle East.<\/p>\n

“The 2000 miles across the Atlantic from Nova Scotia to the Azores were in many ways much less worrying than a similar distance covered on murderous roads in Persia,” Carlin later said.<\/p>\n

They then took a break from their international odyssey by taking their car by steamer from Calcutta to Perth.<\/p>\n

But when Carlin set out to continue the voyage, his wife decided to stay in Australia. She was tired of the seasickness she suffered in the car and needed a break.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Carlins were feared lost in the Atlantic but emerged safely weeks later. (Nine Archives)<\/p>\n

Instead, Carlin set out alone from Calcutta before picking up another Australian travelling companion in Burma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From Vietnam, he went overwater to Hong Kong, then Taiwan, then Japan.<\/p>\n

From Japan he went to the USSR, then Alaska, through the United States to finally Montreal.<\/p>\n

The journey had taken ten years and crossed 17,000km by sea and 62,000km by land.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven months later, Ben and Elinore were divorced. She went on to remarry a pilot she met on the Azores, at the end of their first leg of the journey.<\/p>\n

The amphibious car is now on display at his former school, Guildford Grammar in Perth<\/a>.\"BenBen Carlin nicknamed his car the Half-Safe, named after the slogan of a deodorant company. (Guildford Grammar School Archives)<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Australian mining engineer and adventurer completed his circumnavigation of the globe in an amphibious car on May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-666895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}