1925

http://www.ozroads.com.au/SA/history.htm

No freddie it was in the 1970's I'm sure

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@clair.de.lune wrote:

Here's a question, what year was the S.A. bitumen road made to W.A.?

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We drove over here from Sydney in 63 and there was still over 1000 miles of dirt road then. I'd only been in Australia a few months so it was an incredible adventure. I remember driving along this highway in SA and suddenly,  off to our right, there was this little dirt road winding away into the distance and a signpost saying Perth xxxx miles. 

I remember the W.A. side was done first and people were complaining about the S.A. side. We might've taken buses but we didn't drive the family car until the road was complete

Thanks for the link freddie, you tried I know LOL

We did t in the same trip in reverse at Christmas  71/72 (with 5 kids) and there were still a couple of hundred ks of dirt then - but if I remember rightly it  was all on the WA  side of the border. 

I did the trip a number of times in the 80s on the bus.  I had no idea that the road was so new.

From wikipedia about Eyre Highway

Construction on the Eyre Highway first started in July 1941 and was completed six months later. First known as the Forrest Highway (named after John Forrest) Originally, the roads that followed closely to the route were very rough in condition, and during the road around Australia road trials in the 1950s, movie newsreels would show cars on very sandy tracks. The current route of the highway has not been deviated from significantly during various upgrades to the highway.

The differences between the condition of the road on either side of Eucla were notable as late as the mid-1980s. The last section was finally sealed on the South Australian section only in 1976