In an alternative universe where petroleum is in abundant supply, the dominant lifeforms have assumed a complex and sophisticated way of life. Here we see Sgt. Chev, still a bit red eyed from sleepless nights on stake out, arresting Morri for involvement in a string of crashes. Little does he know that it was the Zephyr did it.
Digital Crime Scene By Warrigal
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
My work car is a Ford KA. I soon realised it was meant to be called a KAR but Ford couldn’t fit the R on the end
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Are they the one that has a disconcerting tendency to flip onto their roofs with just the slightest provocation?
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Your car has no R’s ?
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Hung only utters two letter words lately: yo, ca, ta…
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fanks
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My first car was a 1950’s Ford single spinner. Leather upholstery, build-in ashtrays and about ten years old when I bought it for 265 quid. It was bought on ‘easy terms’, which was the vernicular for credit . In those days, even electric fry-pans were bought on easy terms. I smashed the car after I had just made the last payment.
Since then I have had the following second hand cars, invariably bought at Pacific Auctions on Parramatta Rd ; Never again ‘easy terms’.
Hillman station wagon which broke in half.
Holden ute.
Ford Zephyr ute ($60.-)
Holden station wagon
Ford station wagon
another Ford St.W
VW Kombi
A Porsche (most uncomfortable. This was a strange move on my part.)
Renault ( very comfortable,wow)
Subaru StWg
Mitshibishi Magna sedan
Holden Astra StWg at present
A very middle of the road choice, I never really fancied cars and loath washing them. We now get it washed and vacumed every three months or so and relish the luxury.
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When the Hillman broke in two, which half were you in?
I loved the Renault, and hated the Porsche. The kids and I hated the BROWN Ford station wagon.
No interest in cars; when someone asks me about our cars, I usually say; I think it’s blue or its new, it’s big or small.
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The back half and still waiting to arrive.
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Stay put dear, I’m a bit busy right now…
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You see this is what happens when you watch “Busy Busses” or “Koala Bros” or specially the Pixar classic “Cars” or any number of the new digitally animated kids cartoons. You see things like this in your head and you want to share them because you think they’re fun.
Then you discover that someone your age shouldn’t be watching kids cartoons no matter how well done they are and that people won’t see this as fun but just odd.
Sigh. OK so I’m not Walt Disney and the captioning isn’t all that good and I forgot the pupils in Chev’s eyes and Morri seems to be suffering from some dreadful strabismus, and yes that is Orange Railway Station in the background and so on and so on and so on……, but I still like it. I grew up in a town where big red cars with blown monster engines, fat tyres and a bad attitude regularly terrorised little Morrises, Hillmans and aging and unmodified Holdens and Fords.
Car culture was big in my boyhood.
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Waz, my Dad’s penultimate car – after a string of similar English motoring disasters was a Morris Minor 1000. I hated our pissy little four cylinder English cars – because everyone else’s Dad was driving six cylinder Holdens or Fords. His last car was a 1963 1300 VW Beetle – the Delux version (with lined doors and a radio.
This was a lot cooler than the Morri, because hippies had VW Kombis.
But the old bus had crap electrics where you got to choose one of: wipers, turn indicators or radio – as well as headlights. If you chose wipers AND headlights because it was raining at night, you got nose prints all over the windscreen from straining to see. Forget the radio and indicators then. Out of the question.
I sold the VW when Dad died – because Mom never drove. He bought it for 300 pounds, and I sold it for $800 in 1985. It was a shocker – random steering, thin tyres and possibly brakes. But it couldn’t be killed with an even an axe. We put a new clutch in it – the only repairs in over 100,000 miles – and he said that was because I stuffed it when I learnt to drive.
They say that men end up getting the car of their childhood dreams when they have their mid-life crisis. Well, I have had/am having my midlife crisis and that 1964 Corvette Stingray still hasn’t shown up. I live in hope, and if any of the Pig’s Patrons has a lazy hundred grand (‘coz that’s what a good one costs these days), I can certainly help you out.
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I own no cars these days. I ride a bike because it’s better all round. Sche keeps a small Ford because it’s impossible to provide the support services for Wordsworth without one.
In fact if you go to Google Earth and look at our cul de sac, the last car I owned is still parked on the street outside even though that car was trailored away from that parking spot some years ago and the image source credit says 2008.
You’re absolutely right. Men with too much poorly prioritised spare cash and having not really thought about it, usually acquire the car they loved at about ten sometime in their forties. For me it started with a second hand Jag XJ6-4.2C Coupe which led to a V12 Sovereign. Well you can see the trouble I had rationalising that upgrade, and Sche wasn’t that thrilled. She had a similar attitude to the Jags as my Dad who said that owning a collectible Jag was like standing up to your hips in used sump oil burning hundred dollar bills one at a time. He’d accepted the Coupe with a strangled laugh and a smile because it was a second hand car, but when I turned up in the Sovereign he laughed outright and put his arm round my shoulder and said, “You obviously need a cuppa and one of our little sit down talks.”
He was right and I should have listened to him; but driving that Sovereign was pure pleasure. World War 3 could be kicking off outside, but inside in the loving embrace of all that Connolly Hide, with “Pomp and Circumstance” blasting out of the surround sound, you could be forgiven for thinking this was automotive heaven. I feel more righteous these days but I do miss the smooth purr of that cat’s big 12. If they’d made it in a hybrid it would have been perfect.
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I haven’t seen Cars but the style is familiar, maybe from shorts for the movie or from that animated commercial with the talking cars a few years ago. The picture is brilliant Warrigal, as an illustration to your story fragment that was playing bass to one of Emmjay’s trebles.
I’m not a car person (surprise, surprise) but I love the look of Jags. Does that make me a typical female? In fact, they are the only car make I’ve ever felt something for. Classy.
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Yes, “Class”. That’s what Jag.’s have, “Class”.
Not the showoff class of a Maserati, the “look at me” class of a Ferrari, nor even the “I’ve got planty of money” class of the more rareified Mercedes and BMW models. A Jag becomes a friend. You become familiar with their foibles, like bad electrics and oil spotting the garage floor. The way the Coupe would vapour lock on hot days before I got it injected. (What else would you expect from an English lady who weighed in at just on two tonnes?) As the old Angels song goes, “She keeps no secrets from you”. It’s a quiet self respecting “class” that keeps itself nice just for you.
In fact I remember when Jag.’s used to race at Mt Panorama at Bathurst back in the days when the race was broken into all manner of classes for all manner of production cars, not just hypertrophied Fords and Holdens. Jag. was always in a class of its own. Probably because the other luxury saloon manufacturers probably lacked the conceit Jag has always maintained about their engines. They never won outright but they came back year after year for a while there. Now that’s “class”
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