Once upon a time, Australia had 330 drive-ins. Now there are about 14. Where did they all go? Was it a natural death or did someone murder this once significant part of our culture? A number of people reading this were probably conceived in a drive-in. They were once sites of public pleasure; now they're mostly parking lots.

Recently, I stumbled across David Kilderry's tribute website to Australian drive-ins (www.drive-insdownunder.com.au), which has some great photos and background.  The first one opened in Victoria in February 1954. The Skyline at Burwood in Melbourne, with speakers that attached to your car window, was an instant hit, although less popular with the neighbours. The access road was dirt and the cars produced a dust cloud that had an effect on the regulations in other states. NSW insisted that drive-ins had to be paved with tarmac.

Kilderry doesn't just love the history. He and his brother Matthew own and run the biggest site in Australia, the four-screen Lunar at Dandenong, in Melbourne's outer suburbs. It's a haven for local families, partly because parents and kids can watch different movies at the same time. You just turn your deckchair around.  Sound now comes by FM signal to your car radio.

The Lunar opened in 1956, just before television, and two years into a drive-in boom in Melbourne. George Griffith was second-in-command at Hoyts in Melbourne and the lone believer in the new American concept of drive-ins. His colleagues at Hoyts disagreed, so he started a separate company and built the Burwood Skyline as an independent. The majors jumped in once they saw how successful it was. Hoyts bought him out. By the time the Lunar opened, there were already seven drive-ins in Melbourne. The Lunar is the oldest one still operating, although it has not been continuous.

"We opened in 2002," Kilderry says. "The site had been closed. Village had taken the site over in '67, and ran it until '84. They had 40 drive-ins across Australia. In Victoria, unlike NSW, there was a drive-in war between Village and Hoyts right through until the '80s. There were nine Village drive-ins in Victoria and Hoyts had eight, and there were a few independents. Village and Hoyts fought hammer and tongs for 30 years, which was good for the customer. Sydney never had that."

Sydney retains one tenacious site: the recently refurbished twin at Blacktown. There are a few in the other states, but nothing like the heyday, when Western Australia alone had 100 sites.

From the beginning, drive-ins appealed to two kinds of audiences. Families liked a cheap night out together; and horny teenagers could have sex in their cars. In the end, families lost the battle. Drive-ins became grind-houses in the '70s, showing soft porn and exploitation. They also became gang hangouts. The new VCR hit them hard because second-runs were bread and butter for the ozoners. The drive-in was already gasping by the 1980s when the major movie companies decided to kill them off. Kilderry worked at all three major companies – Hoyts, Village and Greater Union – in a technical role throughout the period, so he saw it from the inside.

"Inside the companies, I started pushing for them to put more effort [into drive-ins], but once the multiplexes started, they weren't interested," he says. "Their money was in multiplexes. Even Oakleigh Drive-In near here – a good one – made half a million profit a year. The first year that Hoyts opened the Chadstone multiplex, they made $4 million profit.  Why would they be interested in drive-ins?"

Kilderry had seen how American sites had converted to multi-screen operations. He and his brother, a chef, toured Australia looking for the right site. Close to a million dollars later, they are now seeing good returns at the Lunar – a nice payoff for their persistence.

"If you grew up in my era in the '60s and '70s, it's the way most Australians saw movies and it had rapidly disappeared," Kilderry says. "I knew they couldn't remain in their old form. In the '50s and '60s, the food was good, they were exciting, new and shiny, but by the '80s, joints like this were running porno films ... They were reheating steaks and burgers from the night before. We do simple food but we do it well. You have to get those things right. If you get the movies right, and the food right, and you make it a safe location, people will come."

How does he get the movies right? "The only movies that are really successful here are popcorn American stuff. Family, action, comedy. You can't go too edgy. We had complaints when we ran Master and Commander, the Russell Crowe film, because subtitles appeared on the screen. People came in saying get that shit off the screen, we can't understand what they are saying. It is a basic audience here – the other end of the market to Palace and Dendy, that's where we operate."

And yes, he still has to throw people out when they try to smuggle someone in inside the boot. It's comforting to know that some things don't change.

Twitter: @ptbyrnes