His books have sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and been made into the TV series, Round The Twist, Driven Crazy and Wicked.

An exhibition of his work will open at Newcastle Library's Lovett Gallery on Friday.

It features sculptures, interpretive panels and illustrations that reflect the "magical and immersive world" of his stories.

Jennings became a popular writer when his 1985 book Unreal became a bestseller.

The exhibition, titled Paul Jennings: Unreal, will be displayed for the first time away from the Warrnambool Art Gallery.

Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said Jennings was among "Australia's best loved storytellers".

"I know many parents who grew up loving the stories of Paul Jennings and I hope they have passed this love onto their children," she said.

The car detectives have struck again.

For those who don't know, car detectives are car lovers who have great knowledge about the model, make, year and parts of many, many vehicles.

A few weeks back, we ran a photo of an FE Holden in Charlestown's main drag. It was initially identified as a photo from 1954, but car detectives noticed that the FE Holden driving along the Pacific Highway was actually produced in Australia from 1956 to 1958.

Then we ran a story about Elermore Vale's Tony Davis driving his "FJ" Holden across the country. Car detectives said it wasn't an FJ, but a 48-215 Holden - commonly called an FX.

Then last Saturday we ran a story on a bush mechanics' exhibition at Newcastle Museum, which included an "EH Holden with its roof cut off".

Wallsend's Dennis Smith [a car detective] said this Holden was an "EJ model station wagon, the model prior to the EH series".

"The difference is very easy to identify by the tail-lamp shapes," Dennis said.

"The EH station wagon has vertical rectangular-shaped tail lamps and the EJ has the square flat shape, as shown on the one in the photo."

Further displaying his encyclopedic knowledge, Dennis said: "The EH utility and panel vans carried the EJ-style tail lamps, but the vehicle in your photo is a station wagon".

Lambton's Bruce Smith added that the Holden with the roof cut off was a 1963 EJ.

"The EH's came out in late 1963, but they weren't registered until January 1, 1964," he said.

He said the EJ was an "absolute rust bucket".

"I've had 'em all in my time - FXs, FJs, FEs, FCs, EJs, EKs, EHs, FBs. I remember a few weeks back that photo of Charlestown from '1954' that was a '57 FE. I had one of those actually, too."