About Matilda – Giant Kangaroo
Giant Matilda the Kangaroo – Refurbished
The original Matilda was built for the Commonwealth Games over 30 years ago. Natureworks has now refurbished a slimmer version and allows it head to turn 45 degrees in two directions and one eye winks.
Giant Matilda Story
The original Matilda stood at 13 metres tall and made her debut at the Commonwealth Games in 1988. She was the star of the show but was never designed and fabricated to weather the elements and the passage of time. She was stored away in a paddock and forgotten about for some years before being bought by the Matilda Petrol Station Group in about 2007. They spent well over $100,000 to renovate her and relocated this icon to their signature servo north of Gympie, where she resides hidden from the passing traffic in the new roadhouse sold by the Matilda Fuel Group to the new owners “PUMA” who relinquished their connection with the kangaroo. Prior to the sale, Matilda Group intended to use this ICONIC figure as their mascot, to reside over their vision for what was to be hundreds of Matilda service stations Australia-wide.
Natureworks was engaged to re-design a slimmer version without losing the spirit of the original sculpture. The rear end of the original Roo was over 4.2 metres wide and posed a problem for both fabrication and transport of the piece, so this width at the hips was reduced to 2.4 metres and the height to 9.0 metres, making it easy to transport. The head and ears were built as separate components and Natureworks installed the first piece at Tugun on the Gold Coast in 2009.
When negotiations for the sale of the service station group later began the fabrication of further pieces was put on hold. A year later the concept died once PUMA took over the group. The Tugun fuel depot now owned by Puma sold the sculpture back to Natureworks, who is now offering the piece for sale in Australia.
Giant Matilda Description
The fibreglass sculpture is in excellent condition finished in pre-pigmented polyester gelcoat. It has been designed so as to enable a head turn and an eye-wink as an option. It can be easily assembled on a concrete slab in less than a day. This highly refined version of Matilda is designed to sit in the open forever. It is the next BIG THING waiting to put your business on the Australian map!
