“I’m a car nut, through and through as you can see,” Peter says, pointing at the vehicles and multiple car parts on display in his backyard, including an Alfa Romeo wheel and a SU carburetor.

A beautiful 50-year-old creamy-white Triumph TR4 that took him four years to restore is sitting in the shed, its nose taking a sunbath.

 “Look at this beauty, I bet you’ve never seen anything like that,” he says about a Chrysler Distributor.

Peter, 68, was born in Daylesford, but he moved to Bendigo in 1964 where he started restoring cars at 16.

“I always just loved cars, their design, driving them and being around them,” he says.

At the time, the Bendigo Swap Meet didn’t exist.

Smaller swap meetings were happening in all different communities in Victoria, but everyone had to travel around the state to find the car parts they were looking for.

There was a need for a bigger event, bringing all the others together.

In November 1973, Peter was the president of his local classic car club, and he submitted at a meeting of the Federation of Veteran Vintage and Classic Vehicle Clubs the idea of bringing the Ballarat swap meet to Bendigo.

The submission was accepted and the Federation started working on it in 1974.

A year later, the first Bendigo Swap Meet was happening.

The event is now in its 39th year and is known worldwide in the Historical Vehicle movement; it has more than 1600 sites and attracts in excess 20,000 people.

For Peter, who has been the founder of the very first event and who’s been involved with it ever since, it represents 39 years of passionate memories.

“It’s my little baby, I wouldn’t miss it for anything and I’ll go every year while I’m still above ground,” he says.

“I remember when I had a 1927 Chev Tourer; I was looking for parts and one of the things I needed was a distributor.

“That would probably be the first part that I bought up there.”

Nine out of 10 times people will find the pieces they're looking for at the Swap Meet.

But from Peter's point of view, the event has become more of social event where he can meet up and have a chat with long-time friends.

“I don’t need to buy or sell parts anymore, catching up with old friends is the highlight of the Bendigo Swap Meet for me,” Peter says.

“The Swap Meet is just so close to me because I’ve been involved with it for so long; it’s been a part of my family.

“My son Paul – the CFA community education coordinator – used to be the Bendigo Swap Meet secretary when he was younger,” he says.

The social aspect of the event is very important to Peter, who jokes about meeting someone he knows every 20 metres or so during the event.

“Sometimes, I don’t remember their names but thank god we live in Australia where we can simply say ‘G’day Mate!’,” he says.

Over the years, Peter met people from South Africa, America, Europe and even Papua New Guinea.

“A lot of overseas visitors come out here for a holiday and they go to the Swap Meet just to see what it’s like,” Peter says.

Apart from being the biggest event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, the swap meet is also the first in the world to have been set out as some form of grid, where lines are marked out on the ground to determine the different sites.

Today, all the important swap meet around the world are using this system.

This weekend''s event runs Saturday and Sunday and will be the occasion for Peter to exhibit his Triumph TR4.