Reunion in 2024 unveils hanging mystery of 1971 Adelaide University Prosh prank stringing car on river footbridge
The Adelaide University engineering students' 1971 Prosh prank, to hang a gutted FJ Holden body from the Victoria Drive footbridge over the River Torrens in Adelaide city, was replicated when a 2024 reunion (inset), coinciding with the university's 150th year, unveiled the mystery of the students' indentities.
Images courtesy Adelaide University Lumen magazine.
The hanging mystery behind one of South Australia's most notorious stunts in August 1971, involving a FJ Holden car dangling from the steel footbridge spanning the River Torrens near Adelaide University, was revealed in 2024.
The stunt was a more spectacular example of Adelaide University students’ Prosh week tradition going back to 1905, with pranks to raise money for charities evolving in the 1970s to kidnapping Adelaide radio and television personalities or releasing greased pigs in Rundle Mall city shopping strip.
The FJ Holden stunt in 1971 was created by a group of the university engineering students whose identities were lost along with the FJ Holden that prematurely dropped into the River Torrens. The identity of the 20 engineering students involved was unveiled in 2024 when university's Lumen magazine editor Mark Douglas arranged a pranksters' reunion as part of the Adelaide University 150th year celebrations. Of the 20, Alan Palmer, Dean Eckert, Hamish Robson, Ross Patterson, Wayne Groom, Geoff Wallbridge, Andy Parsons, Lou Baggio, Peter Wilson, Brian Saunders, David Fitzsimmons and Andy Dunstone attended the reunion.
The reunion revealed that the idea for the car hanging was first flagged by engineering student Ross Patterson who wanted to match a similar stunt at Cambridge University in England during the 1960s.
The first Adelaide University students' attempt at the prank in 1970 had failed. Wayne Groom, Adelaide University Engineering Society president at the time, had approved the prank by the group of mechanical and civil engineers via society secretary Hamish Robson. Robson was chosen in 1971 as driver of the FJ Holden vehicle, with no motor, gearbox or brakes, as it was pushed several hundred metres under cover of darkness from near Adelaide Zoo to under the Victoria Drive bridge on the university side.
The car was lifted using beams and lifting gear attached to a small hand-operated crane on the footbridge. The crane, with car attached, was pushed out to the centre of the bridge. The car was firmly secured to the bridge using a large chain, before the crane and students quickly disappeared around midnight.
Next morning, a group of architectural students placed a makeshift fence in the middle of the bridge as their own Prosh prank. As numbers swelled on the bridge, the students blocked from crossing began to bounce the bridge structure, shifting the “impact loading”. Their weight prompted a vital chain to snap and sent the FJ Holden plunging into the water. Luckily, someone took a photograph before that as the only record of the prank.
A few years later, when Adelaide city council was cleaning the River Torrens, officials went hunting for someone to help pay for the car's removal – – without success.