Inventor Cor Marcus. Photo: Supplied.
Cor Marcus is a born inventor/maker/fixer of machines.
“I was fiddling with machines from the day I could walk,” Cor says. “I was 12 years old when I built my first motorbike.”
Cor went on to build a speedway race car, the Cor Marc Special, which won 17 of its 23 races. He then built a miniature version for his three-year-old son, as well as a three-wheeler motorbike and sidecar. For a disabled friend, he created a motorised bicycle that could go up stairs, and a bicycle-powered trishaw that can power two wheelchairs at 14km/hr.
One of Cor’s more outrageous creations is a three-person bicycle; the front and rear riders pedal forwards, as in a tandem bike; the rider in the middle pedals backwards, propelling the bike to speeds of 50km/hr. His can crusher is slower, but pleasingly effective.
“At the Mt Gravatt Show, a fellow had a can-crushing machine that was steam engine driven. I asked if I could pinch a few of his ideas, and he said, ‘Mate, use anything you like’. A neighbour gave me her exercise bike and using the principle of a push-along toy car, I made a bicycle-powered can crusher.”
Cor, a qualified motor mechanic, machinist and welder, was born into circumstances that encouraged his inventive turn of mind.
“My father was an interstate truck driver and a self-taught mechanic,” he says. “When he was home at weekends, he worked on things, and I learned a lot from him. I served my apprenticeship in post-war Holland; the war had severely reduced Holland’s resources, so we had to improvise, using German car parts to repair English cars, things like that. I learned a lot about welding techniques and now I have five welders of my own.”
Cor’s tools, equipment and imagination are truly impressive, in both range and meticulous organisation – and they’re put to good use.
“After losing power in the recent cyclone, a neighbour borrowed my generator to run her fridge; it was fine but really noisy. That gave me an idea. I thought, hang on, they’ve got hybrid cars, why not build a hybrid generator?”
The result was an arrangement that links a battery to a car alternator and a solar panel with a petrol motor as backup for the solar panel. Silently.
Perhaps the best-known of Cor’s restorations is the vintage dentist chair on display at the Redlands Coast Museum.
“When I joined the Redlands Museum, Norm Dean found that I like to restore things, so he asked me to repair the internal cracks in the cast iron frame of the dentist chair. I took it home, and while I was working on it, listening to the ABC, a program came on about the chair! The job’s still holding up; I had to reinforce it using cup-head screws and fibreglass, and now you can’t even see the cracks.”
Cor’s next project is still under wraps – watch this space!
