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The History of the The Vigilanties Motorcycle Club

The Beginnings:

The origins of the Vigilanties date back to 1958 when a bunch of guys from the Glenroy / Pascoe Vale area had an interest in motorcycles and formed a club. In those days Elvis was prominent and the movie the Wild One created a society of young rebel riders on motorcycles.................Overseas in America the Hells Angels had formed and sporned a number of clubs throughout the US.

In Australia the Angels formed around 1955 and were the biggest motorcycle club in Australia at the time....................a number of smaller motorcycle clubs began to start up in the years that followed.

The Vigilanties were one such club: In the beginning, a few of the blokes named below used to hang out at a cave in the Glenroy/Jacana valley near the trestle bridge..................and on one occassion, they decided they wanted to be called something and the name which was spelt "Vigilantes" came about....................in the following years, other friends from the same area joined and the Vigilantes grew into 12 or so members with a number of friends that hung around them from 1958 through 1964.

There were 12 or so guys from Glenroy and surrounding suburbs that rode motorcycles and considered themselves Rockers.

The names of these riders in no particular order were:

Max West

Louie Mallia

Laurie Nash

Eddie Newman

Tom Dickson

John Disher

Jeff Wilson

John Van Ross

Graham Vowels

Merv Key

Bill Perkins,

There was no club patch in those days but the club had a small sheild made up with the name Vigilantes. 

  

The Second Generation:

 

Original Membership

After a period of approximateley four years a group of mates from Coburg, Glenroy, Jacana, Broadmeadows, Preston, and Reservior got together and approached the original members of the Vigilantes and asked if they could use the name to start a motorcycle club. The date that the club started up was Feb 1968 and it was on a ride to Blackwood Victoria where the club was actually formed. The spelling of the club named changed from Vigilantes to Vigilanties. 

Rex Ogden was the original president and Egg and Grunter, setup the Vigilanties which was the basis of the club that exists today.

Rex was President from 1968 to 1974, from there his younger brother Dane became president and the club became interested in motorcycle club racing.

Over the years the club had quite a following and some very prominent members such as Angry Anderson. The club would hold an annual dinner dance at various venues which got everyone to come along wearing suits and the girls would dress up to the nines......................

The Vigilanties became members of the Auto Cycle Racing Union of Victoria and a number of members regularly raced at these events in open class as it was called in those days.

 

The club patch

The very first club patch was designed and painted by Rex Ogden in 1968, since then, the patch has gone through a number of evolutions to the patch you see today.

The patch design was based on the dead mans hand and a lucky strike in rolling dice indicating an even mix of good luck and bad luck and the skull wearing a cracked motorcycle helmet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  

Mad Max

 There were three Mad Max Movies as follows: Mad Max, Mad Max  II , Thunderdome

In the original Mad Max in the 70`s, a number of Vigilanties road in the film and some performed most of the stunts. Two of the bikers were: Dale Bensch (Donut Dale Nowadays) and Terry Gibson (PI)

 Here is Dale Today

Dales Patch from the 70`s

Dale`s Club Insignia

Rumour has it that to be able to get one of these insignia you first needed to "obtain" a doctors brass signage 

 

Peter Barton created the MAD MAX website and he has put together a massive amount of information on each of the Mad Max movies and explains the stunts that Dale and Terry performed which were hailed as some of the most impressive motorcycle stunts in their day.

If you follow the link below then look down the left side of the web page index, you can go to the forum section where Donut Dale has put up some rare scenes from the movies and there are links to the actual stunts, one of which the motorcycle unintentionally whacks Dales head...........

Here is a link to Peter Barton`s website:

http://www.madmaxmovies.com/cast-and-crew/mad-max-cast/Mad-Max-Bikers/index.html

  
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