A father and son with a combined love of all things Ford have opened a new Museum just outside of Mareeba, containing cars and tractors.
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Tablelands based father and son Ron and Paul Blundell are sugar, lime and avocado farmers.
In 2010, Paul suffered a severe cardiac arrest which left him legally blind and partially paralysed.
This then led him to want to open his lifelong dream of a Ford Car museum.
Not to be outdone, his father decided he needed to start his own collection so he started hunting down Ford tractors as a way of complimenting his son's car collection.
"When I moved to Australia from New Zealand we had John Deere tractors and every man and his dog had a John Deere collection," he said
"Ford have now finished tractor making in Australia so I thought why not start collecting them to add to my son's car collection."
When they decided to launch the idea of an all things Ford Museum, son Paul had already collected around 40 cars.
"I thought to open a museum we needed at least 60 displays for people to look at," Ron Said.
"So I bought about 20 tractors in the last 18 months, to be honest it's cheaper to buy old tractors rather than old ford cars."
So far the Blundell's car collection includes a 1961 Fairlane 500, a 1963 Consul Capri, a range of 1960s Falcons, a 2003 Ghia Stretch Limousine and a a limited edition 2015 Falcon XR8 Sprint which has never been registered or driven.
In the tractor collection they have just over 20 Ford tractors, including Farm Majors, and Super Majors.
Ron said there are a few Ford tractors that he would love to buy if he could find them.
"What I'm chasing is a Ford 6000, 8000 and a 9000," he said.
"I think the 6000's are quite rare, if someone has one please get in touch.
"That would help me to complete my collection."
The museum which is based on the outskirts of Mareeba has only been open for 10 weeks and so far they had over 1100 visitors, despite only being open to the public 4 days a week.
"We get a lot of grey nomads who have been to the top of the cape and are coming back," Ron said.
"We have had great reviews on social media.
"We needed something like this in town to get the visitors coming back."
Ron estimates that between cars, tractors, sheds and the cafe they have spent at least 1.5 million dollars making Paul's dream a reality, with more sheds to come.
"Every cent the museum makes goes back into adding to the collection," he said.
"I'm now 77 and I want this to stand on its own two feet and then our grandchildren can run it."
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