New Cyclone Tracy exhibition opens at MAGNT ahead of 50th anniversary
John Garner was asked to paint the replica Torana for the exhibition. (Supplied: Georgina Campbell)
In short:
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory has opened its renewed Cyclone Tracy exhibition.
The display has been redeveloped ahead of the 50th anniversary of the natural disaster.
A replica Holden Torana adorned with infamous graffiti is one of dozens of new items at the exhibition.
Warning: This story contains coarse language
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) has opened a refreshed collection of work at its popular Cyclone Tracy exhibition ahead of the 50th anniversary of the natural disaster.
The revamped display now features a misspelt slur for Darwin's deadliest-ever cyclone, which killed 66 people on Christmas Day, 1974.
The replica Holden Torana, adorned with the infamous graffiti "Tracey (sic) you b*tch", is one of dozens of new Cyclone Tracy exhibits at MAGNT.
John Garner was asked to paint the replica Torana for the exhibition. (ABC News: Robert Baird)
The museum's senior territory history curator, Jared Archibald, said the sculpture was chosen based on the popularity of an image of the car in the old exhibition.
"When you have a disaster like what happened, these things get you through. It's that dark humour," he said.
This image of the Torana was one of the most popular exhibits at the old exhibition. (Supplied: Darwin Camera Club)
Mr Archibald and assistant curator Caddie Brain tracked down the owner of the car in the popular photo, John Garner, only to find he was a regular visitor at the museum's in-house cafe.
Together, Mr Garner and the museum team recreated the car as the exhibition centrepiece.
The Torana was crushed in preparation for use in the revamped exhibition. (Supplied: Georgina Campbell)
Speaking ahead of the display's opening, Mr Garner recounted pulling out a paint tin after Cyclone Tracy had crushed his beloved Torana.
"A couple of days later, we pulled the car out from under the wall … and found a pot of paint and I thought 'I'll have a go at this'," he said.
"It was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek thing — 'Tracey you bitch' — but being on the highway, people going in and out of Darwin saw it and they would stop and take a photograph of it.
"There's always someone who's got to make their comment and say 'that's not how you spell Tracy ... you don't know to spell ' — I really couldn't care."
John Garner's car was crushed during Cyclone Tracy. (Supplied: MAGNT)
Mr Garner said he was thrilled when the museum contacted him about recreating the car.
"They brought me in here and they said 'look, this is what we propose to do, bring this thing back to life'," Mr Garner said.
"I've never been so excited in all my life."
The exhibition first opened at the museum in 1994, 20 years after the disaster, and some long-standing elements of the display remain.
That includes a darkened sound booth playing a looped audio recording of the cyclone, which has now been enhanced with vibrating walls.
New elements of the new exhibition include a 1970s-era weather bureau, and a restored replica of a doll made famous by a picture on the cover of a Women's Weekly Cyclone Tracy edition.
A replica of a doll featured in the Women's Weekly is another new exhibit at the display. (ABC News: Michael Donnelly)
Ms Brain said it was a unique exhibition to curate.
"It's about the absence of objects, it's about the fact that everything got ruined, trashed waterlogged," she said.
"But people who went through it seem to have a touch-stone object, they've kept something from it.
"In the lead up to the 50th [anniversary] we're finding more and more people have been open to donating their thing — whether it's a Christmas decoration, a toy, a Christmas tree, a table."
A recreation of the Bureau of Meteorology on the night of Cyclone Tracy is part of the revamped exhibition. (ABC News: Dianne King)