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Panoramic Drive in - 115 S. Gippsland Highway, Dandenong, VIC -

Statement of Significance - Last updated on - December 28, 2007

The Dandenong Drive-in opened in May 1956 in the first wave of drive-in construction, just two years after Australia’s first, the Burwood Skyline. Built by a local syndicate, it was located on a land-locked industrial site, could hold 634 cars, had a typical lightweight fibro-clad ticket box and diner, a screen supported on a timber structure, a ‘walk-in’ (a fibro shed for patrons without cars), and was named the Panoramic Dandenong. A row of cypress trees was planted along the south boundary to screen the lights of exiting cars. In the 1960s, the diner was extended forward and the sides re-clad in concrete block.In 1973 the site was purchased by Village, who renamed it the Village Dandenong and replaced the timber supported screen with a steel one. Trade was good despite competition from other subsequent drive-ins in the outer eastern suburbs. However, with the introduction of multi-screen cinema complexes and the VCR in the late 1970s, patronage dropped substantially across nearly all drive-ins in Australia and Dandenong closed in 1984. It was sold intact to Trash & Treasure P/L, who have run successful markets there on Sundays ever since, the only alteration being the removal of the speaker posts. Nearly 20 years after closing, a new syndicate took up a lease and invested in reopening it again as a drive-in in 2002. The screen was replaced, a second screen added, and the diner/bio box building was updated, painted in a bright and dark blue colour scheme.

Renamed the Lunar Drive-in, a third screen was added in 2003, and capacity expanded to close to 1000 cars.

It has become a successful operation, attracting a new generation of drive-in patrons, many too young to remember a time when there were drive-ins dotted right across Melbourne and Victoria.

Contributed by Greg Lynch -