“Mark was like my older brother,” Edwards said this week. “They used to call us Bib and Bub because we always did everything together.

“Guy had asked me to join him to look after the commercial side of the company; its growth. He’d look after the flying operations. We got to be the biggest helicopter company in Australia, servicing oil rigs, and then took over the National Safety Council’s search and rescue work and its medivacs, so that meant eight more helicopters – twin-engined Iroquois.”

The helicopter business really took off when they expanded overseas. India, Burma, the Philippines, New Guinea and New Zealand were added to the list. Lloyd Aviation was on the cusp of buying Robert Maxwell’s enormous helicopter interests in the UK when the newspaper publisher disappeared from the deck of his luxury yacht, in timing more unfortunate for Edwards than the troubled Maxwell, off the Canary Islands in 1991.

Still the acquisitions continued. There were interests in National Jet Systems and a venture with Qantas flying BAE 146s on lower-density routes. It was as profitable as the sky is high.

Lloyd and Edwards were rich men. Very rich. Guy Lloyd, one of the most remarkable men of the modern South Australian era, died from cancer at the age of 47. “I lost my best mate,” Edwards says.

At 55, Edwards now wanted to retire. Then came the conversation with John Olsen, and the start of Classic Adelaide. Edwards threw himself into the venture with the same zeal he’d given the aviation business.

It brings at least $7 million into the state. It’s the biggest event on the calendar in Macclesfield. Basket Range puts all its eggs in. It’s the height of the social season at Norton Summit.

For seven days in November the event feeds and accommodates 750 people, co-ordinates 1000 volunteers, and brings 30,000 people into Gouger Street to gawk at the parade of sports and touring cars of yesteryear.

It’s still an amateurish event for all that. International spectators are poorly served, its website needs work and it’s difficult to know what time the cars will be where. A lack of “classic” cars, from which the rally gets its name, has meant a field of modern cars like Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin and Lamborghini, spoiling it for some purists.

Government support is ludicrously small, considering the economic benefits, particularly compared with the mega-dollars Treasury pours down the V8s’ carburettor throats at Victoria Park for little return.

For Edwards, who says he’s tipped in a million dollars of his own money, it’s more a passion than a business.

“We might break even,” he says. “In fact, the future is a little worrying.”

Naming rights sponsors like Aeromil Pacific come and go. But Edwards remains indefatigable. He’s already planning his next trip to Europe, with his Ferrari 550 in the 747’s cargo hold ready for the sales hitch from its boot.

Success usually buys arrogance, and money usually costs men their humility. David Edwards has a quid or two, that’s for sure, through talent and hard work. Now he’s entitled to a little fun, and that’s something many rich men simply can’t afford.