Perspective. It’s something we should always keep in mind. Because it makes different people react very differently to the same thing.
Let’s say you’re out walking around your local lake, enjoying the sunshine and the fact that you left your phone at home. You round a corner and there, at the edge of the lake, is a bloke tossing mouldy old bits of bread into the water.
And here’s where your perspective comes in. Because depending on your point of view, this geezer is either A: Illegally dumping contaminated organic waste into a public waterway, or, B: Feeding the ducks.
Now, I’ll bet London to a brick that the bloke is indeed, doing the ducks a favour and getting rid of the last of his mouldy high-tin at the same time. And, if you’ve ever fed wild critters, you’ll know the warm fuzzies that can generate. It’s why kids love feeding ducks at the lake, fish at the pond and, less optimally, the seagulls at the beach café. Everybody (mostly) wins.
But I would also be prepared to wager that, in this country at the moment, a certain percentage of folks would berate poor old Bread Man on the grounds of pollution and the destruction of the native mallard’s natural ability to feed itself in the wild. In this instance, the observer has worked themselves up in to a tizz, Old Mate’s pleasant day out has been ruined and the ducks are bobbing around in the water, looking up as if to ask: “Hey mate, you gonna eat that bread?” No winners there, that I can see.
I honestly don’t know how some people progress from torturing insects to becoming such confidently-wrong arseholes as our enviro-Nazi here, but there’s no shortage of them in my experience.
Of course, I’ve somehow managed to position myself in the community such that I seem to draw a fair bit of their misguided fire. And being a petrol-head is definitely one of my behaviours constantly brought in to question.
As far as the do-gooding dingbats are concerned, those of us who enjoy old cars are simply destroying the planet and getting in the way of their Teslas on the school-run. We’re grubby low-brow types who neither bathe nor possess functional manners. It’s a convenient stereotype, for sure, because it means the dingbats can ignore and marginalise us without any crisis of conscience. We’re the new gypsies.
But this is where – and here comes the P-word again – perspective comes in to things.
See, what their point-of-view (typically, head-up-bum) is hiding is that there are all sorts of good things that come out of our hobby.
Let’s start with mental health. I don’t know about you, but I’d be a six-foot pile of nerve endings and white-noise were I not able to switch off the world, pick up a spanner and change a pair of rear shocks on whatever shitbox is dangling off the hoist at the MBC that day.
Working on cars, driving them around and sharing experiences with mates is a magnificent way to keep the black dawg at bay. Meditation for meat-heads? Call it what you like, it’s a thing. Even proper, qualified, book-learning, people in white coats will tell you that having a hobby is a great step towards giving yourself a check-up from the neck up.
Avoiding this view is just like the jerk at the lake completely ignoring the fact that Bread Man feels a lot happier after hurling his crusts in the drink. Not as happy as the ducks, but far less likely to throw himself under a tram later that day.
Oh, you don’t have any worries (apart from getting hot and heavy when somebody ignores your personal rule-book)? Great. I’m happy for you. But let me assure you, you’re in the minority in this department. Most of us have dramas to deal with. Some of them are bigger than others, but they can all weigh pretty heavy some days.
Let me also assure you that we’re not running the nation’s fuel reserves down any faster than anybody else, either. Sure, we might own multiple cars, but near as I can tell, you can only drive one of them at a time. And let’s also not forget that the average classic car does a lot fewer kays every year than a modern transport lozenge. So even if fuel use and tailpipe emission are higher per kilometre, overall they can actually be less.
Then there’s the contribution we tappet-heads make to the country’s economy. Think multiple registration and insurance payments as well as all the stuff we need to buy to keep our old dungers on the tarmac. You own some mining shares? Nice. Now go out and thank a classic-car owner for helping to keep the share price off the mat and your superannuation policy heading the right way.
Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but that grimy bloke three doors down who bought the Phase 3 GT-HO way back when they were still 30-grand, has done a lot better – both fiscally and morally – with his `investment’ than you have buying shares in a company that employs pre-teens to stitch fake designer clothing together in a sweat-shop somewhere horrible.
Then here’s the social benefit to everybody else in the community. Yep, while we gypsies are busy in our garages and driveways, fixing exhaust leaks and swapping dodgy ball-joints, we’re not running around the suburb, smashing in your back door and legging it with your flat-screen. Can’t actually say the same for every other social group out there. We’re also much more likely to use a knife to trim a boot carpet than jab it between somebody’s ribs.
I’m never going to try to tell anybody that our past-time doesn’t include a few drop-kicks. I still shake my head in disbelief when some tool blows the tyres of his VL Commodore when leaving a car show.
But, dearest Karen, beyond that dopey element, I reckon you’ll find most car-nuts are just normal people, living in normal houses, doing normal things nine to five. We just have a different hobby to yours.
Please hold on tightly to your perspective, as I fear the one-eyed, fractured nature of society right now
means this could be a bumpy journey.
And please, think of the ducks.
Sin Bin Central
I stumbled on to the 51st Australian Van Nationals the other day. And I mean stumbled. I was actually in the small Murray River town of Corowa to meet up with my sister and watch the carnage that would surely be the annual Corowa billycart races down the main street. So you can guess what happened when I overheard that the panel vans were in town. See ya, Sis.
And it was beaut. I managed to meet up with a couple of blokes I’d been meaning to meet in person for a while, including Unique Cars’ own Dave Carey.
Having previously only talked with Dave on the phone, I spotted the beard and the bucket hat and knew it was him. Apparently, I’m taller than he thought I would be, too. And within a couple of minutes we were deep down the rabbit-hole of Mazda Roadpacers and whether the bodies were assembled here or in Japan. I still don’t know, but Dave reckons Japan. Could be, and I doubt there are too many people on the planet who would know more about this stuff than Dave.
Anyway, beyond the social aspect, the Nationals incorporated a huge show-and-shine in the park at Corowa with the sun shining down and all those murals and metallic paint glistening. And, man, did those vans bring back some memories. Not to mention a reminder of cars I’m yet to own.
Among the vans on show at Corowa, a certain HQ Sandman reminded me how much I love that LJ Torana/HQ Holden colour called Orchid Metallic. Its sounds terrible when you describe it simply as metallic pink, but if I ever summon up the courage and the dollars to buy the LJ two-door I’ve wanted since I was four-years-old, it’ll ideally be Orchid Metallic. Or dark metallic green. It’s all academic at the moment, anyway, cos I don’t have the freight. But who knows …
My perfect LJ would also run to a lighter interior (maybe a light tan or grey) and it wouldn’t be an XU-1. Why not? Because my plan would be to stick with a Holden six, but run a stinky-hot blue motor with maybe injection and a five-speed box. None of which you’d do to a genuine XU-1.
Two-fifty horses should do the trick in the sub-1100kg Trarna, and that’s entirely possible with modern induction and one of my little brother’s ported cylinder heads. Should still be entirely streetable, too, and, with the right camshaft, those Holden sixes can sound as tough as anything else out there. And there wouldn’t be too many jobs on it I couldn’t tackle myself, such is the grace and simplicity of 1970s Aussie automotive engineering.
And every time I drove it, I’d be transported back to the little kid staring at blurry black-and-white footage of P Brock serving it up to the V8s at Bathurst, or peering out into the driveway at home where the local HWP boys in their dark green GTR would pull in to talk shop with my copper dad.
Apparently, Holden made more than 81,000 LJs. Surely there’s still one out there with my name on it. Anybody selling one? Even a blue or yellow or white one? Maybe even a four-door? An LC would be okay, too, honest.
And all this because I stopped to watch a billycart race and tripped over a pano show. See, your mother was right … stay away from panel vans; they’ll only get you in to strife.
Mileage Mistress
We have another entrant in the Mileage Masters roll of honour. This time it’s a young lady named Tara who has been punting a VE Holden Commodore Sportwagon SS for the last 490,000-odd kliks. I’m not sure where Tara is from, but judging by the pic, it’s somewhere pretty remote which would explain how the SS (with a manual gearbox, no less) has racked up almost half a million kays on the original engine.
Says Tara: “There’s nothing fragile about my old girl – this is a proper Aussie workhorse with stories in every kilometre. My Holden Commodore SS wears its 489,861km like a badge of honour, still running its original engine and rowing through a six-speed manual the way it was always meant to be driven.
“It’s hauled kids, groceries, gear, furniture and undoubtedly a fair bit of chaos, surviving my two boys and everything that comes with them. School runs, weekend sports, road trips – this car hasn’t just been driven, it’s been lived in.
“There’s a quiet pride in a car like mine. It’s not about polish or perfection – it’s about reliability, resilience, and character. In an era where cars come and go, my Holden Commodore SS stands as a reminder of when vehicles were built to last, and when driving was something you felt, not just did.”
Tara, you’re a poet and I think I speak on behalf of the men of Australia when I ask: Have you got a sister?
