It’s funny, the things you find when you go poking around the Internet. In search of Indiana’s jacket is an article from Melbourne’s The Age newspaper (now sans-byline for some unknown reason), for example, about one Australian’s bid to get an Indy jacket all through the 80s and 90s until, via the legendary Indy Gear website and forum that I’ve mentioned before, he finally got onto Wested Leather Co, had a conversation with the late Peter Botwright, and finally got himself an Indy jacket at long last.
The story is quite charming to read in a general sense, but it also resonates for me because this is pretty much my own story; of longing to have Indy’s jacket but never getting anything remotely like it… until the early 2000s… until Indy Gear… until discovering Wested… talking to Peter (I did it all by email; I never had the pleasure of speaking to him on the phone)… and, at long last, getting into ‘the jacket’. I dare say it’s the story of many gearheads ‘of a certain age’ who all went through the same experience.