THE American city of Memphis produced writer Tennessee Williams, gave a start to Elvis and Johnny Cash, and hosted Martin Luther King when he gave his seminal ''Mountaintop'' speech. Do you know what else Memphis can boast about? Melbourne's W-class trams. Memphis now has nine of them rattling along its streets and the irony is that, unless something is done soon, it may end up with more than the Yarra village that invented them.

''There were 300 W-class trams operating in Melbourne in 1990,'' says Rohan Storey, architectural historian with the National Trust. ''There are now about 48 in working order with about 25 on the street at any one time. In two years' time they are all supposed to be gone under the government program. That would leave just the 12 W-class tourist trams on the City Circle.''

"Trams are a unique form of transport... it's the psychological certainty of having those tracks in the road. Bizarre but true," says architectural historian Rohan Storey. Picture: John Woudstra

The W-class trams, big and clunky, patriotically green and gold, were born and bred in Melbourne. They have become our postcard equivalent of Sydney's Harbour Bridge but, unlike many cities overseas, Melbourne authorities have shown little enthusiasm.

''Seattle and San Francisco have bought some,'' says Storey, ''and Christchurch, New Zealand. Savannah, Georgia, bought one and fitted a motor powered by chip oil. It is the first carbon-neutral W-class. And there are those nine in Memphis, with expansion plans for more.''