# AE 1440 - The Goss: The Cars We Drove Growing Up In Australia

An episode of [Aussie English](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1089059076), 18 Oct 2026, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2011718/episodes/19970588-ae-1440-the-goss-the-cars-we-drove-growing-up-in-australia.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:08] SPEAKER_02: Dad, which family car were you the proudest of?
[0:13] SPEAKER_02: Because I have a I have a feeling it's one that we were probably embarrassed to sp to be seen in.
[0:18] SPEAKER_00: You reckon?
[0:19] SPEAKER_02: Nah.
[0:21] SPEAKER_02: Nah, it's probably I reckon it would be.
[0:24] SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
[0:25] SPEAKER_02: It's a topest.
[0:26] SPEAKER_00: The one that I liked the most was probably the Toyota Land Cruiser.
[0:32] SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
[0:33] SPEAKER_02: 80 series Land Cruiser.
[0:34] SPEAKER_02: The white one that we had.
[0:35] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[0:35] SPEAKER_02: Back what 15 years ago or more.
[0:37] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 20 years ago.
[0:39] SPEAKER_02: Why that one?
[0:40] SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just it was well, it was the first four-wheel drive I'd owned.
[0:43] SPEAKER_00: It was the first one that we used to we could actually fit everything in.
[0:47] SPEAKER_02: We had that Subaru, or was that all-wheel drive?
[0:49] SPEAKER_02: Oh, the little red Subaru.
[0:51] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[0:51] SPEAKER_02: Some sort of weird red sedan.
[0:53] SPEAKER_02: Oh no, um wagon type Subaru, wasn't that four-wheel drive?
[0:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was, but yeah, it wasn't.
[0:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not a real one.
[1:00] SPEAKER_00: Well, it was real in a sense that it actually had low range and everything else, but it you didn't take it off-road.
[1:04] SPEAKER_00: It wasn't it wasn't a family camping vehicle.
[1:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[1:10] SPEAKER_02: G'day guys.
[1:11] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Aussie English podcast.
[1:13] SPEAKER_02: Grab a cupper, get comfy, and let's have a yarn.
[1:17] SPEAKER_02: So today we're talking about the cars our families drove, not the best cars on paper, the ones we remember, the one dad loved, the one the kids hated, and the one that somehow kept going forever.
[1:31] SPEAKER_02: So, what was the first car you could drive regularly?
[1:34] SPEAKER_02: Was it yours?
[1:35] SPEAKER_02: Was it someone else's?
[1:36] SPEAKER_02: Mine.
[1:37] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
[1:38] SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just trying to remember the dates and times.
[1:45] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because my my f my father had a car for work when he was working with the um what was at the time State Insurance Office.
[1:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[1:53] SPEAKER_00: Um doesn't exist anymore.
[1:55] SPEAKER_00: It got subsumed into another bigger insurance company.
[1:58] SPEAKER_00: Um so he always had a car for work, but he was the only one who could drive it.
[2:02] SPEAKER_00: And so mum couldn't drive that.
[2:04] SPEAKER_00: And so she didn't have a car until we were probably uh she couldn't drive it because she wasn't allowed to drive it.
[2:08] SPEAKER_02: Wasn't allowed to.
[2:09] SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't allowed to, it was a government car.
[2:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
[2:12] SPEAKER_02: Um wasn't insured for her.
[2:14] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[2:15] SPEAKER_00: And uh so then she bought a car when we were, I think I was about eight years old.
[2:20] SPEAKER_00: Um it was an old Austin.
[2:23] SPEAKER_00: Austin Healy.
[2:24] SPEAKER_00: No, not just an old Austin, Austin A40 um British made cars, yeah.
[2:33] SPEAKER_00: Um and then she had a series of cars.
[2:36] SPEAKER_00: Um by the time I had a driver's license or was learning to drive, she wouldn't teach me to drive in her car.
[2:43] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[2:44] SPEAKER_00: And so why why dad?
[2:45] SPEAKER_00: Were you a bit of a hoon, a bit of a late foot?
[2:47] SPEAKER_00: Well, I wouldn't know.
[2:49] SPEAKER_00: I'd driven before, yeah.
[2:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I had driven before.
[2:52] SPEAKER_00: My grandfather taught me to drive in his car um when I was about 14.
[2:57] SPEAKER_00: Um and uh but yeah, by the time I got a learner's permit, I was you know 17, and then I didn't actually do anything with it until I could buy a car of my own.
[3:07] SPEAKER_00: And I was 18 by the time I could afford to buy a car and didn't get a driver's license until I was 19.
[3:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[3:13] SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, but even then I had to drive my own car.
[3:17] SPEAKER_00: My mother wouldn't have let me drive her car.
[3:19] SPEAKER_00: It was just nope, it's my car, you don't drive it.
[3:21] SPEAKER_00: The end.
[3:22] SPEAKER_02: Is that the same for your dad?
[3:24] SPEAKER_02: Like he wasn't allowed to drive it either because it was her car, or was she like, no, it's kids.
[3:28] SPEAKER_00: He used to drive my car.
[3:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
[3:31] SPEAKER_02: Right.
[3:31] SPEAKER_00: Because I had it for a year before I could, you know, before I could drive.
[3:34] SPEAKER_00: Why was she funny about that?
[3:36] SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
[3:36] SPEAKER_00: She was just funny.
[3:37] SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it was you know, it was her car.
[3:39] SPEAKER_00: And look, to be honest, it was the first new car that she'd ever owned.
[3:43] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it was just something very special.
[3:45] SPEAKER_00: This is mine, yeah, and you know, just not gonna let anybody else drive it.
[3:50] SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
[3:50] SPEAKER_00: I mean dad was a perfect in fact, dad was safer than me.
[3:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, yeah, well, she was a good driver as well, but um, he was a perfectly safe driver.
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: He um actually had a um state government award for um state government employees for safety on the road.
[4:08] SPEAKER_00: Like he'd been driving for 25 years without an incident or something in a government vehicle.
[4:14] SPEAKER_00: So um I don't know.
[4:17] SPEAKER_00: She I think she was very possessive about this new car that she had.
[4:21] SPEAKER_02: But it's always funny, those people that are out there.
[4:23] SPEAKER_02: We were just talking about so there's a guitar sitting behind dad.
[4:27] SPEAKER_02: You guys probably know I I'm into guitars, and I was telling uh dad was asking, Do you have any fenders at the moment?
[4:31] SPEAKER_02: You've got two here, but do you have the other ones you used to have?
[4:33] SPEAKER_02: And I used to I the first guitar that I ever owned that was mine was a Stratocaster that dad bought for me 500 bucks or something.
[4:40] SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
[4:41] SPEAKER_02: With an AMP A and B music in July.
[4:48] SPEAKER_02: Literally on my birthday.
[4:49] SPEAKER_00: Literally on your birthday, yeah.
[4:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, here's a guitar and tooth work.
[4:53] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, enjoy.
[4:55] SPEAKER_02: Um, but I so I have this guitar, and I remember I was telling dad um my best friend in high school had uh another um Fender Stratocaster, and he was super possessive of it.
[5:07] SPEAKER_02: Don't even look at it, don't touch it, don't pick it up, don't smell it, don't just don't even be in the same room with it.
[5:13] SPEAKER_02: And I was like, it's funny how now, um, because I have a lot of expensive guitars, it's my thing, but I'm much more of a oh, do you want to borrow it?
[5:22] SPEAKER_02: You want to play it?
[5:23] SPEAKER_02: Like, this is for everyone.
[5:24] SPEAKER_02: Like I want you to experience it.
[5:25] SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm out, you know, like obviously I don't want you to damage it, but they're there to be experienced and to share that kind of thing.
[5:33] SPEAKER_02: But when I take them to the guitar store, there are loads of people that you end up meeting and they are not like that at all with their possessions.
[5:41] SPEAKER_02: They're much like my old mate Marcus with his Stratocaster who would not let you look sideways at it.
[5:46] SPEAKER_02: So it sounds like your mum is similar, but with cars.
[5:48] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, with that car, I don't know about anything else.
[5:53] SPEAKER_02: So um what about your first car?
[5:55] SPEAKER_00: What was the one that you saved up for?
[5:56] SPEAKER_00: It was uh Holden Tirana, Tirana, Tirana, and not the um later models, which uh were the sort of the young guys' hoon cars.
[6:09] SPEAKER_00: Um what did you what colour was it?
[6:10] SPEAKER_00: What age?
[6:11] SPEAKER_00: White.
[6:12] SPEAKER_00: Um it was 1968 white Tirana, and it was the old HB series before the L series, which were the the sporty ones that uh that people used to hot up.
[6:21] SPEAKER_00: Um mine was your yeah, your sort of mother's the old mother's car.
[6:25] SPEAKER_00: Um perfectly reliable.
[6:26] SPEAKER_00: It only had about 10 moving parts, so if anything went wrong, you could basically fix it by yourself.
[6:32] SPEAKER_00: Um and when you buy a 10-year-old car back in those days, uh well, seven or eight-year-old car, um lots of things did go wrong with them, but uh, which is funny now because seven or eight years is not old for a car these days.
[6:43] SPEAKER_02: Well, this sort of appearance of them's kind of modernized too, where they're all they all look the same now.
[6:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[6:48] SPEAKER_02: I think it's just it's kind of all become this standardized, very bland world now where no one's really trying to push the boundaries of what appearances or colours are or anything.
[6:58] SPEAKER_02: And they're probably also very, very restricted by the shapes and dimensions based on regulations and everything, right?
[7:05] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[7:06] SPEAKER_02: So the old anyway, my point is I find, yeah, you're right.
[7:09] SPEAKER_02: You look up, I'll look at a car and I'll be like, I don't know, maybe it's a few years old, and they'll be like, 2007.
[7:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[7:14] SPEAKER_02: And you'd be like, whoa, 20 years, like fair enough.
[7:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but still working.
[7:19] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[7:19] SPEAKER_02: Whereas I feel like you can sit when you look at cars from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, the change is rapid between how they appeared, what they looked like, right?
[7:28] SPEAKER_00: Lots.
[7:29] SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so that was my first car, and eventually it died after about four years.
[7:35] SPEAKER_02: Um you just couldn't be bothered putting more money into it.
[7:37] SPEAKER_00: Well, it got to the point where um it needed some serious repairs on the engine.
[7:44] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[7:44] SPEAKER_00: And they were going to cost me twice as much as the car was worth.
[7:47] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.
[7:48] SPEAKER_02: So just buy another one.
[7:49] SPEAKER_00: So bought another one.
[7:51] SPEAKER_00: I bought an old uh Valiant station wagon, which is a great car.
[7:54] SPEAKER_02: Yep.
[7:55] SPEAKER_00: Went about 150 miles an hour in a straight line, but don't expect to stop or turn a corner in it.
[7:59] SPEAKER_00: It's a boat.
[8:01] SPEAKER_02: Boat on wheels.
[8:02] SPEAKER_00: But it was good fun.
[8:04] SPEAKER_00: Yep.
[8:04] SPEAKER_00: And it was a car that I could sleep in as well.
[8:06] SPEAKER_02: So what did you have to do to afford it, Dad?
[8:09] SPEAKER_00: You have to sell your body?
[8:11] SPEAKER_00: How did you save up for these cars?
[8:13] SPEAKER_00: Um well, the first one I bought um when I was 18.
[8:18] SPEAKER_00: Um, I bought working um at a I worked at a the local hardware store um from the time I was about 15 years old um on weekends and school holidays.
[8:29] SPEAKER_00: Started off at a dollar an hour.
[8:32] SPEAKER_00: Um and saved up enough money to buy a um a racing bike, you know, 10 speed racing bike.
[8:39] SPEAKER_00: Cost me$145.
[8:41] SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
[8:42] SPEAKER_02: Um that would have been like what the equivalent of a thousand dollar two or three thousand dollar bike now.
[8:47] SPEAKER_00: Still have it.
[8:47] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
[8:48] SPEAKER_00: It's still falling apart and rusting.
[8:50] SPEAKER_00: Still riding it?
[8:50] SPEAKER_00: Uh no.
[8:52] SPEAKER_00: Um and do you plan to?
[8:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[8:54] SPEAKER_00: No.
[8:55] SPEAKER_00: And um, and then I also um had a couple of you know holidays, school holiday jobs working for the uh landscape gardener who lived across the road just as a labourer.
[9:06] SPEAKER_00: So that was paying a bit better money than a dollar an hour.
[9:08] SPEAKER_00: And well, I was thinking I was by then I was earning three dollars an hour in the uh in the shop.
[9:12] SPEAKER_02: Really?
[9:13] SPEAKER_00: Um by the time I was eighteen.
[9:14] SPEAKER_02: That's pretty impressive to go three times pay ride.
[9:18] SPEAKER_02: Like I remember working at the pizza store making ten bucks an hour off, I think, cash in hand.
[9:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[9:23] SPEAKER_02: So that if I'd been paid thirty dollars an hour when I turned 18, that would have been ridiculous income, you know.
[9:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a dollar an hour to three dollars an hour.
[9:31] SPEAKER_00: So you were getting slave wages more than that.
[9:32] SPEAKER_00: I was getting slave wages.
[9:33] SPEAKER_00: I was getting 15-year-old slave wages.
[9:37] SPEAKER_00: Pretty much, exactly.
[9:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, gotcha.
[9:40] SPEAKER_00: Oh, that makes more sense.
[9:41] SPEAKER_00: But they used to buy me lunch every Saturday as well.
[9:43] SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah, good.
[9:44] SPEAKER_00: I'd get they let you take your chains off every now and then too.
[9:47] SPEAKER_00: I'd work exactly.
[9:49] SPEAKER_00: I'd walk I'd work from um 8 30 in the morning until 12 30, and I'd go to At night, yeah.
[9:55] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, take home four dollars and they would close at 12 30, but then they would always buy fish and chip lunch.
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's probably worth more than you want to do.
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: And then we and then we go off to athletics, yeah.
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: Because the guy I worked for was the um the coach of the athletics club that I belonged to.
[10:11] SPEAKER_00: So um he'd go off to athletics in the afternoon on a Saturday.
[10:14] SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like the communities were just smaller back then?
[10:16] SPEAKER_02: Like, did it feel like everyone was sort of into these?
[10:19] SPEAKER_02: You watch TV shows like dramas, right, that are usually set in small towns, and this is probably the same no one no matter what country the drama's set in, but they always end up kind of creating a very, very small spider web of connections between main characters that don't seem to really reflect reality, at least today.
[10:37] SPEAKER_02: No, the the the fish and chip owner isn't also going to be the footy coach who's also the main character at the church or something, you know.
[10:44] SPEAKER_02: It's well, I but it feels like old Australia used to be more like it.
[10:48] SPEAKER_00: But I I grew up in in Beaumoris, uh suburb of Melbourne, but it's it's a we it's a small country town.
[10:56] SPEAKER_00: It was that it that's a suburb in the middle of suburbia in Melbourne because it's it's one of these weird places that it it's like a middle class ghetto because it has no uh train service going to it.
[11:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[11:09] SPEAKER_00: The two train lines, one stops two suburbs before it, and the other one goes past it.
[11:14] SPEAKER_00: Um and so you've got a bus, a couple of bus services that go through it.
[11:18] SPEAKER_00: So buses are the only public transport.
[11:20] SPEAKER_00: There's no commercial um large commercial buildings or anything.
[11:26] SPEAKER_00: There's a few warehouses and stuff in the northern part of it, but the southern two-thirds of the um the suburb is just residential.
[11:35] SPEAKER_00: There's not even a large supermarket, there's an IGA, small supermarket in there.
[11:40] SPEAKER_00: And now it's one of the you know most sought-after wealthiest suburbs in Melbourne, but uh it still doesn't have a supermarket.
[11:47] SPEAKER_00: It's one of those places that and so it's still you still go there and it still feels small and local.
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: And and so, you know, the the local shops where you go, um, there are really any there's one shopping centre, but there's not a mall, it's just a a horseshoe-shaped street, you know, uh street um shops.
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: And um you go there and it just feels like still a small community.
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: It's it's one of those weird places.
[12:12] SPEAKER_00: And it was certainly like that 60 years ago.
[12:14] SPEAKER_02: You know, do you think that that they've actively maintained that and prevented big because I imagine McDonald's, Bunnings, so Safeway, Woolworths, whatever, they would have been eyeing off that area and been like, where can we get it set up here?
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: And it's zoned zoned residential, yeah.
[12:29] SPEAKER_00: Certainly south of Balcombe Road, um, where you know I lived, which is yeah, Balcombe Road's this big east-west main road that goes through and cuts the the suburb um and Black Rock, the suburb next to it, um, in you know, half.
[12:43] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: Well, in two.
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: There's three quarters on the south side and a quarter of it north of it.
[12:47] SPEAKER_00: And most of the north part is still um residential, but there's a little bit that borders with the suburb of Cheltenham that's become much more sort of warehouses and a few small factories and things, but there's no big commercial development at all.
[13:01] SPEAKER_00: It's one of those weird places.
[13:02] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I grew up with that sort of community feel, and I'm pretty sure it's still the same.
[13:08] SPEAKER_00: I go there now and it it looks different because every house in there is worth two to five million dollars.
[13:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's ridiculous.
[13:15] SPEAKER_00: Um I know, but it's but it's that uh it still has that little community village feel about it.
[13:20] SPEAKER_02: It's we're getting a bit off topic, but it's worth chatting about.
[13:23] SPEAKER_02: I feel like that with Ocean Grove.
[13:25] SPEAKER_02: So our hometown or my hometown, I I guess I consider myself now a native of Ocean Grove.
[13:29] SPEAKER_02: We moved to the U.S.
[13:31] SPEAKER_02: When when I grew up there, you had like middle class and lower class Australians living there.
[13:38] SPEAKER_02: There were some upper class, well like richer Australians, but by and large the majority were middle class Aussies, and now it feels like when you go to Ocean Grove, it's middle to upper class Australians, especially around the centre of the the town, right now.
[13:52] SPEAKER_02: Well, the old town.
[13:53] SPEAKER_02: Those houses now are all two, three million dollar properties plus, yeah, yeah.
[13:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's weird because it kind of feels like the soul has kind of gone a bit.
[14:03] SPEAKER_02: And I feel like when you drive down these streets, they're all these developed houses where they all look the same.
[14:08] SPEAKER_02: Well, they're mirror-image townhouses, so all of them have been knocked down.
[14:12] SPEAKER_02: The original sort of characterful houses that were there from what 50, 60, 70s um, have been knocked down every time I I assume someone dies and they sell the property to you know get rid of the inheritance or whatever, and then someone gets one of those, you know, architectural mirror image townhouses to split that property in half and maximum.
[14:30] SPEAKER_00: Which is the same as the one next to it and the same as the one across the road.
[14:34] SPEAKER_02: Because they're quite tall, they're all like two stories, you kind of can't really see the surroundings as easily.
[14:40] SPEAKER_02: So I feel like it's kind of lost its vibe a little bit from when we were younger.
[14:44] SPEAKER_00: The main street's still nice.
[14:45] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's one of those places, one of those places that you go when you yeah, we moved there 30 years ago, and it's sort of you know, it's it was uh just past paradise, but still pretty close then.
[14:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[14:56] SPEAKER_00: Um, and you it if when you move into paradise, you want to lock the doors behind you.
[15:01] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you want right, not to change.
[15:03] SPEAKER_00: We're the last people to ever move in here.
[15:05] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, but it's never gonna work that way.
[15:07] SPEAKER_02: I always get that vibe when I watch the TV show Sea Change.
[15:10] SPEAKER_02: Yes, like and if you guys haven't seen it, if you get on iView, ABC iView, if you're in Australia, you can sign up for free.
[15:17] SPEAKER_02: If if you're overseas, use a VPN and you can.
[15:19] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[15:20] SPEAKER_02: But um, Sea Change is on there for free with subtitles.
[15:23] SPEAKER_02: That was filmed in our neighbouring town, or I guess all along the coast, but it was bits of ocean grove, bits in bow and heads in bow and heads.
[15:29] SPEAKER_00: There's bits in Melbourne, there's bits all over the place.
[15:31] SPEAKER_02: So and that I guess that show, for me at least, is the quintessential Aussie small town vibe that I'm nostalgic for.
[15:40] SPEAKER_02: That's probably every place that you grew up in, but yeah.
[15:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I'm very, I don't know, it's very like everyone knows each other, it's friendly, it's near the beach, and you're kind of like, oh man, I I sort of miss those places.
[15:51] SPEAKER_02: I feel like they've kind of gone.
[15:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, they are a little bit, but again, it it it's it's obviously a fictional location, even though we know we can look at it and go, I know where that was filmed.
[16:01] SPEAKER_00: Um, but we never got a sense of the size of the town, yeah, but you got the sort of implied sense that it was small.
[16:10] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[16:10] SPEAKER_00: And I guess that's because you combine lapping.
[16:13] SPEAKER_00: Bowen Heads and Ocean Grove are the two towns on either side of the Bowen River with the bridge in between.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: And um you combine those and they've got a population of 20,000 plus, which is outside of Sunday.
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: Which is which is not yeah, which is a permanent population, which is not a small village.
[16:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's Bowen Heads is only probably 3,000.
[16:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[16:32] SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's doubled in size in the 30 years that we've been here.
[16:36] SPEAKER_00: So um it is a small village, but Ocean Grove isn't.
[16:40] SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
[16:41] SPEAKER_02: It isn't I I love I love being in the town that I'm in now and knowing people all over the place.
[16:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[16:48] SPEAKER_02: I went to the fish and chip shop.
[16:50] SPEAKER_02: Um, I go to the same place, and there's this Chinese couple that run it, and I'm always like, Nihau, mean you, which is like, hello, beautiful lady.
[16:58] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[16:58] SPEAKER_02: And it the initially the lady was like, What you want?
[17:02] SPEAKER_02: Like, didn't realise that I was trying to speak Chinese.
[17:04] SPEAKER_02: So you order something.
[17:06] SPEAKER_02: And then anyway, so the other day, I don't know if I told you or not, but I went in and we've had this good relationship ever since she realized I was trying to speak Chinese.
[17:13] SPEAKER_02: She's like, Hey, Nihao.
[17:15] SPEAKER_02: Um, and she all of a sudden was like, You YouTube guy.
[17:18] SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I was like, Yeah, I've got a YouTube channel.
[17:22] SPEAKER_02: She's like, Ozzy English, you YouTube Aussie English guy?
[17:25] SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Yeah, and she's like, What are your videos?
[17:27] SPEAKER_02: You not make videos anymore.
[17:29] SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I know, I've been lazy, I'm sorry.
[17:31] SPEAKER_02: But it was just, it's funny now.
[17:32] SPEAKER_02: We just every time we see each other, there's just that sort of like, hey Pete, hey, you know, and so I love that vibe.
[17:39] SPEAKER_02: And there's a few different stores where we go and go into the school and seeing the same teachers, and it's nice having that kind of you know the place.
[17:47] SPEAKER_02: You go out and you see people working in stores or walking around, and you're like, I know that guy, I know that guy.
[17:53] SPEAKER_02: Anyway, back to cars.
[17:54] SPEAKER_02: So, what did you do to afford it?
[17:56] SPEAKER_00: You were working, yeah, just working for a few dollars a week, and um, and then my first year at university, which was I bought the car in probably I don't know, September the year before I went to university when I just finished school.
[18:09] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then uh first year at university, um, I was on a uh a scholarship from the state government um for um they were back in the early and mid-70s, there was a shortage, a severe shortage of high school teachers.
[18:24] SPEAKER_00: And so they were paying people to go to university and become a high school teacher.
[18:28] SPEAKER_00: You lucky son of a bitch, which at the time not only was it free, I know, but I got paid to go.
[18:35] SPEAKER_00: But they would have paid my fees as well if there had been fees.
[18:39] SPEAKER_02: Paying off my bloody ex debt fees from you were there for 12 years, but only I only had to pay for the first, I don't know, seven.
[18:46] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[18:46] SPEAKER_00: Um and so I was earning money then, yeah, like it was two and a half thousand dollars a year, two thousand three hundred, I think, in the first year.
[18:56] SPEAKER_02: I'm in the money, yeah.
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: I'm in the money, yeah.
[18:59] SPEAKER_00: That also went to you know, my mother at that stage decided she wasn't gonna feed me, so I had to pay for my own food.
[19:06] SPEAKER_02: You required more food than everyone else combined, pretty much.
[19:10] SPEAKER_02: Because I was I was you're telling me you used to eat a litre of um yogurt in a sitting, yeah, yeah.
[19:16] SPEAKER_00: Um and um yeah, so I was earning that money, so that helped in terms of buying the car.
[19:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
[19:24] SPEAKER_00: Um and when that one died, um another one carked it.
[19:28] SPEAKER_00: No, well when then the first one died.
[19:29] SPEAKER_00: Oh, I gotcha.
[19:30] SPEAKER_00: Um, then I had a bit of money to spend on the second one, but my grandfather gave me a few hundred dollars and topped it up to uh to do that as well.
[19:39] SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, took one of my sisters overseas for a holiday and gave me a couple hundred dollars to buy a car.
[19:44] SPEAKER_00: Which would you have preferred?
[19:46] SPEAKER_00: The car.
[19:47] SPEAKER_00: And you can drive yourself away on the holidays.
[19:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
[19:50] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's funny.
[19:51] SPEAKER_02: I remember I was working at the pizza shop making a threepence, you know, an hour, ten bucks an hour.
[19:56] SPEAKER_02: And then I had a what are they?
[19:58] SPEAKER_02: I had a you know how you used to buy video games for the computer and it would come in like a box?
[20:02] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[20:03] SPEAKER_02: I had one of those and I'd filled it with I'd put duct tape all around it and then cut a slit in the top of it to put money in.
[20:09] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that effectively forced me to keep putting money in.
[20:11] SPEAKER_02: Piggy bank.
[20:12] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[20:12] SPEAKER_02: And I think eventually I ended up with three thousand dollars in there.
[20:15] SPEAKER_02: So it would have been like 300 hours worth of work at the pizza shop.
[20:19] SPEAKER_02: Oh family's home.
[20:20] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[20:21] SPEAKER_00: Um circus is in town.
[20:23] SPEAKER_02: And we went hunting online.
[20:25] SPEAKER_02: Would have car sales would have been a thing at the time, I think.
[20:28] SPEAKER_00: Well, they were certainly available online.
[20:30] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, car sales is in the restaurant.
[20:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, I know, but I don't know whether it was that or whether there was a lot of things.
[20:34] SPEAKER_00: I think it was.
[20:35] SPEAKER_02: We got a visitor here.
[20:36] SPEAKER_02: Hey Church.
[20:36] SPEAKER_02: Hello.
[20:37] SPEAKER_02: My daughter's just shown up.
[20:38] SPEAKER_02: So car sales was was a thing, and I think I found the um we were looking for a VN Commodore wagon, some kind of Holden wagon.
[20:46] SPEAKER_02: We had that split between like people drove forward, people drove Holden.
[20:50] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[20:50] SPEAKER_02: I was for whatever reason decided I was a Holden person and wanted a wagon, and I ended up buying a VN wagon with a body kit on it.
[20:58] SPEAKER_02: Blue, beautiful blue thing, had a paint job, and um it was my birth year, wasn't it?
[21:03] SPEAKER_02: 1987.
[21:04] SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
[21:04] SPEAKER_02: So it was the same age as me at the time.
[21:06] SPEAKER_02: And um a manual, which was cool, yeah, and had a sound system in it, and it was all I think at the time it was three thousand, three and a half thousand dollars.
[21:14] SPEAKER_02: It was basically what you had in your maxed it out, and um that thing I beat the shit out of.
[21:21] SPEAKER_02: Like didn't ever service it, and it just kept I mean, I chopped up the oil and everything.
[21:25] SPEAKER_02: And looking back, I probably only owned it for what three or four years.
[21:28] SPEAKER_02: Oh, something like that, yeah.
[21:30] SPEAKER_02: But that thing just kept going.
[21:31] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[21:31] SPEAKER_02: Like, talk about a good engine and everything.
[21:34] SPEAKER_00: And then after it was the same engine they had in cars for 20 years.
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: Well, there's a V6, wasn't it?
[21:39] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
[21:40] SPEAKER_02: That was it sounded like farts because they put an exhaust on it as well.
[21:44] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, going down the street, you know, and always I'm sure you heard me coming late at night, driving up the hill.
[21:54] SPEAKER_00: Uh Pete's home.
[21:55] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[21:56] SPEAKER_02: I thought I was cool.
[21:57] SPEAKER_02: Um What I got a BMW.
[22:01] SPEAKER_00: You did.
[22:01] SPEAKER_00: And that was a nightmare.
[22:02] SPEAKER_00: Went completely mad.
[22:03] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[22:04] SPEAKER_00: Against my better advice, I will have to add.
[22:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
[22:07] SPEAKER_02: Wow, and you saved me from that one.
[22:09] SPEAKER_02: Helping me pay it off.
[22:10] SPEAKER_02: That was a nightmare.
[22:11] SPEAKER_02: I got that from someone who um told me it was fine.
[22:13] SPEAKER_02: My friends looked at it, said it was, gave it the once over, and it seemed to be okay, and it was not okay.
[22:18] SPEAKER_02: Had a blown head gasket and needed, I think in the first six months of owning it, needed about six thousand dollars worth of repairs.
[22:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then two thousand dollars every time you had to service it.
[22:27] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was pretty brutal.
[22:29] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, don't buy used European cars, guys.
[22:32] SPEAKER_02: Run away, get Japanese and Korean.
[22:34] SPEAKER_00: The bizarre thing is that uh you that car when when you bought it, you paid, I don't know, what, sixteen thousand or something?
[22:42] SPEAKER_00: Uh it was thirteen.
[22:44] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[22:45] SPEAKER_00: And um, but when it was new, because it was only about eight years old.
[22:49] SPEAKER_00: 120 grand.
[22:50] SPEAKER_00: $120,000.
[22:51] SPEAKER_00: So they lose their value so quickly.
[22:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[22:53] SPEAKER_00: And the reason they lose their value so quickly is they fall apart.
[22:56] SPEAKER_00: Once they're outside of warranty, it's not only that they had an enormous amount of money on these cars, and they they're made for driving on autobains in Germany.
[23:03] SPEAKER_00: They're not made in for Australian conditions, and they fall apart.
[23:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[23:06] SPEAKER_02: So that was it.
[23:08] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[23:09] SPEAKER_00: So what did your first car look like, sound like, smell like?
[23:13] SPEAKER_00: Um, it was a little white four-cylinder car.
[23:17] SPEAKER_00: Um, it actually smelled good because bizarrely, back in those days, um, those cars had leather seats.
[23:23] SPEAKER_02: Well, that's what got me with the BMW.
[23:25] SPEAKER_02: I think that's that was the thing that was.
[23:26] SPEAKER_00: Leather seats in this little eight-year-old car that I paid$899 for.
[23:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, crazy.
[23:32] SPEAKER_00: Um, could not talk the guy down at all.
[23:34] SPEAKER_00: But when you're 18 years old, what's he gonna do?
[23:36] SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, take it or leave it.
[23:38] SPEAKER_00: Take it or leave it.
[23:40] SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, there's this sort of red uh leather seats in it.
[23:46] SPEAKER_00: Wow.
[23:46] SPEAKER_00: The front seats, the back seat was fabric, which is sort of not leather throughout.
[23:50] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, interesting.
[23:51] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it was great.
[23:52] SPEAKER_00: Great little car, little you know four on the floor manual, but yeah, those cars they they were made to last about ten years, and that's about what it lasted.
[24:03] SPEAKER_00: I kept it on the road for another year and then it just died at the end.
[24:07] SPEAKER_00: And um said bought the Valiant station wagon that lasted for a while until the um the auto transmission ended up going on that.
[24:15] SPEAKER_00: It was still working, but it was slipping, and it just got worse and worse and worse to the point where eventually you couldn't drive it.
[24:21] SPEAKER_00: And again, replacing the auto transmission on a 10-year-old Valiant was gonna cost me twice as much as the car was worth.
[24:27] SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what ended up having to make.
[24:31] SPEAKER_02: That's what happened with me and the Kia.
[24:33] SPEAKER_02: I had I had the Kia Sorrento as a family car more recently, and the transmission went as well as both the front and the back diffs, just shattered.
[24:42] SPEAKER_02: And the guy was like, Well, front diff will be three grand, back diff will be three grand, transmission will be eleven grand.
[24:48] SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm not paying$17,000.
[24:50] SPEAKER_02: This car's worth probably$10.
[24:53] SPEAKER_02: If that, yeah.
[24:54] SPEAKER_02: I was like, just have it.
[24:55] SPEAKER_02: And I gave it to him for a hundred bucks, and it's still on the road, so he must have repaired it and sold it and made some money.
[25:01] SPEAKER_02: Um, but the it's still registered.
[25:03] SPEAKER_02: Yes, so that's interesting.
[25:04] SPEAKER_02: I keep I think I've seen it once, right?
[25:06] SPEAKER_02: And I'm kind of like, oh damn, I should maybe I'll keep an eye out and buy it back like now that the everything's been trended, like um fixed.
[25:14] SPEAKER_02: Like anyway, yeah.
[25:15] SPEAKER_02: So I and that was the BMW.
[25:17] SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, that was obviously a very emotional purchase.
[25:20] SPEAKER_02: It was just I wanted a V8 and I wanted something nice.
[25:22] SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was a great car, but it was it was an eight-year-old, ten-year-old BMW.
[25:28] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it smelled amazing.
[25:30] SPEAKER_02: It was that smell of I don't know what it was because I've had other leather cars since, yeah, and they don't have it, but the whatever the BMW had inside the way that the leather was made or whatever, had this amazing luxury smell to it.
[25:43] SPEAKER_00: Well, my little Tirana didn't have the luxury smell to it, but it's Yeah, I can imagine.
[25:49] SPEAKER_02: Just cigarettes, right?
[25:51] SPEAKER_00: No, not in my car.
[25:53] SPEAKER_00: No smoking in my car.
[25:54] SPEAKER_02: Who was the first person you gave a lift to?
[25:57] SPEAKER_02: Uh, first person I gave a lift to.
[25:59] SPEAKER_00: Actually, the first person the homeless guy that lived on the screen.
[26:02] SPEAKER_00: No, the first person that I gave a lift to was my um school friend John, um, who was also a university friend, um, who he actually gave me the lift.
[26:13] SPEAKER_02: In your own car.
[26:14] SPEAKER_00: Because he had a driver's license and I didn't.
[26:16] SPEAKER_00: Ah, but he didn't have a car.
[26:18] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, our powers combined.
[26:20] SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
[26:21] SPEAKER_02: We have transport.
[26:23] SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
[26:24] SPEAKER_02: So that's what he brought to the relationship.
[26:26] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, driver's license.
[26:28] SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think who I would have.
[26:29] SPEAKER_02: It would have, it must have been a friend or something.
[26:32] SPEAKER_02: Because I remember I remember it being a weird feeling of learning to drive as a as a kid, 16 with the L plates, and always having someone in the passenger seat with a full license.
[26:42] SPEAKER_00: And then the first time you get out by yourself and you're like, the car's empty.
[26:46] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's no one else in the car.
[26:47] SPEAKER_02: It's weird.
[26:47] SPEAKER_02: Not having someone next to me.
[26:49] SPEAKER_02: That was a strange feeling driving and having my own car and being able to drive it around.
[26:54] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[26:54] SPEAKER_02: And not having anyone next to me, you know, being like, this is fine.
[26:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
[26:59] SPEAKER_02: Baby.
[26:59] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[27:00] SPEAKER_02: Where did you go simply because you finally could?
[27:03] SPEAKER_00: Wilson's Promontory.
[27:04] SPEAKER_02: Yep, in the Tirana.
[27:05] SPEAKER_00: In the Tirana, camping with my little two-person hike tent.
[27:10] SPEAKER_00: And um, back then I didn't have any camping gear in the sense of cooking stuff and whatever.
[27:16] SPEAKER_00: So one of the reasons for going to Wilson's Promontory is it's got a great little campground.
[27:19] SPEAKER_00: It's my favorite place in the world anyway, but it's got a great campground which has a shop there and a takeaway food place.
[27:26] SPEAKER_00: So you can buy food and you don't have to be cooking or anything.
[27:30] SPEAKER_00: So and I stayed down there for about four or five nights.
[27:33] SPEAKER_00: It was over a it was over a break at university.
[27:36] SPEAKER_00: Um, and um it must have been it wasn't the Easter break, it was another mid-year break, but it was it was just outside when the university holidays and school holidays didn't overlap.
[27:46] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was the time when universities were still working on three terms and schools had gone to two or something.
[27:51] SPEAKER_00: So it was, yeah, it was one of those ones that just I'm just gonna go to Wilson's Promontory because I can.
[27:55] SPEAKER_02: And what did it feel like?
[27:56] SPEAKER_02: What was that like having the keys, having the car, not not having anyone else with you?
[28:00] SPEAKER_00: It was it was the freedom.
[28:02] SPEAKER_00: It was that, hey, this is I can go to a I can go to the place and do what I want, when I want, how I want.
[28:07] SPEAKER_00: And it's not that you know I'd been travelling on my own since I was about 16.
[28:13] SPEAKER_00: Um I went first time I went, you know, went to Sydney, I went to Sydney, caught the train to Sydney um by myself when I was 16 and was camping up there.
[28:22] SPEAKER_00: Um again, no cooking facilities, so camp near a campground that's near a shop so you can eat.
[28:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[28:28] SPEAKER_00: Um and uh so it that wasn't it wasn't that freedom, but it was the I can get there by myself.
[28:34] SPEAKER_00: You know, I can drive there.
[28:35] SPEAKER_00: I don't have to rely on a train or you know, go somewhere near public transport.
[28:39] SPEAKER_00: So that was pretty cool.
[28:41] SPEAKER_02: So if that exact car appeared outside tomorrow, would you be happy or or slightly terrified?
[28:48] SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd be very terrified because I'm sure it's actually been crushed and recycled in the city.
[28:52] SPEAKER_00: I guess the same model then, maybe not the exact car.
[28:55] SPEAKER_00: No, they it they well, it would simply you could not make it to the same standard now, yeah.
[29:02] SPEAKER_00: Uh, because it just wouldn't meet the required standards for safety or because it's yeah, no airbags, no seat belts in the back, um, no um emissions control, none of that stuff.
[29:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
[29:15] SPEAKER_00: This is a 50-year-old car we're talking about now.
[29:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[29:19] SPEAKER_00: 60-year-old car, 1968 it was built.
[29:22] SPEAKER_02: So what imagine you're sitting in in the driver's seat.
[29:24] SPEAKER_02: What do you remember about the interior and inside of it?
[29:27] SPEAKER_02: What it was like to drive.
[29:28] SPEAKER_00: Um It was actually fun to drive.
[29:30] SPEAKER_00: It's one of those weird things.
[29:31] SPEAKER_00: It's just this dinky little little old lady's car, really, but it was it was fun to drive because it's a manual, and you know, I haven't had a manual for a hundred years now, but it was they're almost hard to find.
[29:42] SPEAKER_00: They are, they are.
[29:43] SPEAKER_00: Um rightly so, too.
[29:44] SPEAKER_00: I mean, who wants to be changing gears?
[29:47] SPEAKER_00: Um, but it so it was fun to drive and and it was easy to drive because it's a tiny little car, you know, in in terms of weight.
[29:56] SPEAKER_00: You could fit five people in, three in the back and two in the in the front in bucket seats.
[30:00] SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it was uh easy to drive because it was small and light.
[30:05] SPEAKER_00: Um to the point that I got it bogged once, and two of us picked up the back the back of the car and moved it out of the bog so that we could drive it out.
[30:15] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, gotcha.
[30:18] SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to remember I'd like being in the VN wagon.
[30:20] SPEAKER_02: I think it had set up.
[30:22] SPEAKER_02: No, that would have been two tons.
[30:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it had like a woolen seat cover over it, and I remember the um just the feel of holding the gear stick, yeah, you know, as well as the steering wheel, yeah, and just yeah, going.
[30:32] SPEAKER_02: And I think it got to the point where it was getting harder and harder to get into third gear, yeah.
[30:37] SPEAKER_02: So you would have to like I didn't there was a crunch or something wrong with the transmission, and you would just have to go one, two, and then and then four double declutch.
[30:46] SPEAKER_00: Well, you could double de-clutch probably to get into it, but you wouldn't have learned how to do that.
[30:50] SPEAKER_02: No, probably not, not that I remember.
[30:52] SPEAKER_00: No, because I taught you to drive in an automatic.
[30:54] SPEAKER_02: No, I I learnt to drive in the Hyundai, the Hyundai XL.
[30:57] SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, but before I learned the manual.
[30:59] SPEAKER_00: We did lots of driving in the in the Land Cruiser, but did we?
[31:02] SPEAKER_00: You but your mum had the Hyundai manual.
[31:04] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I didn't.
[31:05] SPEAKER_00: My test was manual.
[31:06] SPEAKER_00: Test, yeah.
[31:07] SPEAKER_02: I wanted to, I had to.
[31:08] SPEAKER_02: It was like I'm a man.
[31:10] SPEAKER_02: Boy, I want to learn everywhere.
[31:11] SPEAKER_02: All my other mates that love cars are learning manuals.
[31:14] SPEAKER_00: What?
[31:15] SPEAKER_00: The manual driver's license.
[31:16] SPEAKER_00: Is it just license?
[31:18] SPEAKER_02: Really?
[31:19] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, God, back in my day.
[31:21] SPEAKER_02: I know.
[31:22] SPEAKER_02: Like I think it was how did it work?
[31:24] SPEAKER_02: I think it was more that you got a manual license, probationary license, and then once you got a full license, you could drive whatever.
[31:30] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[31:30] SPEAKER_02: But the probationary one was either an auto or manual as in everything.
[31:35] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[31:36] SPEAKER_02: So what car do you picture when you think of us as a family?
[31:41] SPEAKER_00: Um, probably that horrible yellow Mitsubishi van.
[31:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[31:49] SPEAKER_02: So you should go through the order of the cars that you've had.
[31:52] SPEAKER_02: Cover that first.
[31:53] SPEAKER_02: So you had this the earliest one I can remember is a white, was it a Ford Falcon.
[31:57] SPEAKER_00: Falcon station wagon.
[31:58] SPEAKER_00: Falcon station wagon.
[32:00] SPEAKER_00: Which I really liked, but your mother hated it because it didn't have power steering.
[32:03] SPEAKER_00: It was like a boat.
[32:05] SPEAKER_00: It was like driving a tank.
[32:07] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[32:08] SPEAKER_02: Um so it required a lot of strength.
[32:10] SPEAKER_02: It did.
[32:10] SPEAKER_02: And then what so you that that died, didn't it?
[32:12] SPEAKER_02: That died.
[32:13] SPEAKER_02: I remember you sold the number plates or the regio to the neighbor or something.
[32:16] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sold the things to the neighbor and he came and towed it up the hill.
[32:20] SPEAKER_00: Um and uh yeah, then we had the Mitsubishi van.
[32:24] SPEAKER_02: Okay, so the Mitsubishi van was there.
[32:26] SPEAKER_00: No, we had before that, before you came along, that probably my favourite car that I've ever had.
[32:31] SPEAKER_00: You know, I I said originally the um the Land Cruiser, but the first car, your mum and I bought one, much to your grandmother's disc disgust.
[32:39] SPEAKER_00: Um when we Which grandmother?
[32:42] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, the one who's still alive.
[32:44] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
[32:47] SPEAKER_00: When we got engaged, Jo decided she didn't want an engagement ring.
[32:51] SPEAKER_00: She doesn't wear jewellery anyway.
[32:52] SPEAKER_00: Um she wears a wedding ring and occasionally another ring with it, but she doesn't she didn't want an engagement ring, and instead of buying an engagement ring, we bought a car.
[33:00] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[33:01] SPEAKER_00: And because I didn't have a car at the time.
[33:03] SPEAKER_00: Um my old valiant died, and I had I was driving my sister's car for a while when she was overseas, and then she came back in great and um and so yeah, we bought a car.
[33:14] SPEAKER_00: It was uh Mazda um nine to nine two nine.
[33:20] SPEAKER_00: It was a great car.
[33:21] SPEAKER_00: It was a station wagon, great car.
[33:24] SPEAKER_00: Um and why?
[33:26] SPEAKER_00: What made it a great car?
[33:27] SPEAKER_00: Well, it was it was ours.
[33:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was really good to drive, lovely car, and Mazda's a great, there always have been, um lovely car to drive.
[33:36] SPEAKER_00: Um and again, simple four on the floor, manual, um and yeah, we went all sorts of places in that.
[33:45] SPEAKER_00: We do we had a our honeymoon was a a driving honeymoon.
[33:48] SPEAKER_00: We went to Kangaroo Island, um you know, camping out the back of the thing.
[33:53] SPEAKER_00: By then we had camping gear.
[33:55] SPEAKER_00: But if it was peeing down with rain, um we could you know sleep in the back of the car as well.
[34:01] SPEAKER_00: It was big enough to have a you know mattress and sleep in the back of it, even though we were in a tent most of the time.
[34:06] SPEAKER_00: But um no, it was fun.
[34:08] SPEAKER_00: But eventually that died and we got the um the falcon.
[34:13] SPEAKER_00: And then that died, and we got the um the Mitsubishi van.
[34:16] SPEAKER_02: What made you choose the van?
[34:17] SPEAKER_02: Because I remember it, it had like um brown seats on the inside of this bright yellow colour.
[34:22] SPEAKER_02: I remember the sound of sliding the door open.
[34:24] SPEAKER_02: It's funny how that stays in my head, that sound, and there being these two steps to get up into the van, yeah, and there just being loads of space in there to like kind of put all your stuff, yeah, and just sit with it.
[34:34] SPEAKER_00: Well, funnily enough, it's the um the precursor to the um Delica that I have now.
[34:40] SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
[34:40] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[34:41] SPEAKER_00: Um which wasn't four-wheel drive, yeah.
[34:43] SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh it's the L300, they're now L400s.
[34:46] SPEAKER_00: In fact, they'd die, they're now D5s, but um, yeah, so that you know small four-cylinder engine, now they've got a V6 in them, but it's a van and you're sitting over the front wheels, so it's driving a truck.
[35:00] SPEAKER_00: Um but it was fun to drive, and again, all the seats lay down.
[35:04] SPEAKER_00: Go to the beach, you know where the fishing chips were.
[35:07] SPEAKER_00: When we went camping, you kids would sleep in the car a coup a few times.
[35:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[35:10] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[35:11] SPEAKER_00: And it had the the um the sunroof in it.
[35:15] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
[35:16] SPEAKER_00: I remember that was a novelty.
[35:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like whoa.
[35:19] SPEAKER_00: Sunroof in a van, really useful.
[35:22] SPEAKER_02: Well, I let the light in.
[35:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[35:24] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then what you got the um Subaru, the red Subaru after that.
[35:27] SPEAKER_02: Well, you had that at the same time, right?
[35:28] SPEAKER_02: I think you had both.
[35:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when we moved down to um to Washington Grove, and I was working in the city, so uh then it was well, I need a car, and your mum needed a car, and so I bought the little red Subaru, which I like too.
[35:42] SPEAKER_02: Yep, and then the Hyundai XL, the red one.
[35:45] SPEAKER_02: And that was the first ever brand new car you've had.
[35:47] SPEAKER_02: I think it was like$13,000,$14,000 or something.
[35:50] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[35:51] SPEAKER_02: Yep, and then pretty much Hyundai's ever since you've had a trailer of those different um hatchback, Hyundai's a blue one, yeah, i30, and then an i another i30.
[36:00] SPEAKER_02: Which you have, which I have now.
[36:01] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
[36:02] SPEAKER_02: And then you've had four-wheel drives as well, the white cruiser API.
[36:09] SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
[36:10] SPEAKER_00: Oh the 307 was their rally car.
[36:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
[36:15] SPEAKER_00: And so it obviously it wasn't kitted out to be the rally car, but it was a wagon, sort of thing.
[36:20] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wagon, but but the the chassis was the rally chassis.
[36:24] SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
[36:25] SPEAKER_00: And with the suspension and stuff in it, so it cornered like you were on rails.
[36:30] SPEAKER_00: Uh it was ridiculous how good it was.
[36:33] SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, I was that was when I was um I'd uh left um Deacon and I was working for myself for a while and then I went to um to uh D2L, the Canadian company.
[36:47] SPEAKER_00: Um but that way I could lease a car.
[36:50] SPEAKER_00: Um so I'd leased it, but I never would have bought it.
[36:52] SPEAKER_00: It'd been way too expensive to buy.
[36:54] SPEAKER_00: But leasing it was fine because all the lease payments were tax deductions.
[36:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[37:00] SPEAKER_00: Um but then after when the lease was up after four years, I um traded that in and I didn't replace it.
[37:06] SPEAKER_00: I bought the land cruiser.
[37:10] SPEAKER_00: Why?
[37:10] SPEAKER_00: What made you switch to the land cruiser?
[37:12] SPEAKER_00: I wanted a four-wheel drive.
[37:13] SPEAKER_00: Four off-road.
[37:15] SPEAKER_00: Yep.
[37:16] SPEAKER_00: And a bigger car for camping, going away camping in.
[37:18] SPEAKER_02: We used to do that a lot of that with our family, right?
[37:20] SPEAKER_02: Nano Grandpa, Uncle Paul, us, we used to go to different places around Australia.
[37:24] SPEAKER_02: I remember South Australia and South Australia and Fraser Island.
[37:27] SPEAKER_00: Fraser Island, and we went round the hotways.
[37:30] SPEAKER_00: We spent a few days driving around there camping and stuff.
[37:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[37:33] SPEAKER_00: Do you miss doing that?
[37:34] SPEAKER_00: I do, yeah.
[37:34] SPEAKER_00: Well, well, you know, it's family's now ten people, not four people.
[37:38] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[37:39] SPEAKER_00: So get a big four-wheel drive and get Annika and my sister to get one.
[37:43] SPEAKER_02: Four wheel drive bus.
[37:44] SPEAKER_02: And we can all go away.
[37:45] SPEAKER_02: You can be the delicate at the front.
[37:47] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[37:47] SPEAKER_02: You've also got a Toyota Lancrist Prado now.
[37:51] SPEAKER_00: Which is 15 years old, but it's still going fine.
[37:55] SPEAKER_00: They just go like the clappers, don't they?
[37:57] SPEAKER_00: It's you know, 300,000 kilometres and they're expected to get over 600,000 or something else.
[38:02] SPEAKER_00: Providing you service them, yeah.
[38:04] SPEAKER_00: Go forever.
[38:05] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's not so so which car did Mum like the most?
[38:08] SPEAKER_02: And which one she had?
[38:09] SPEAKER_00: Probably her first Yundai, I reckon.
[38:11] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[38:11] SPEAKER_02: Because again, it was a new car, it was hers.
[38:14] SPEAKER_02: Do you remember when I was at school and I was doing a graphic design class and they had a machine in there that would allow you to cut out your own stickers?
[38:23] SPEAKER_02: And I cut out Satan's wagon and put it on the back of Mum's car as a bit of a joke.
[38:29] SPEAKER_02: And it lasted about an hour.
[38:34] SPEAKER_02: Just the irony of the Satan's wagon.
[38:37] SPEAKER_02: It's red little red kid around Ocean.
[38:40] SPEAKER_02: Your mum's car.
[38:41] SPEAKER_02: That's it.
[38:41] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, she was, yeah, not Ploppy Jen.
[38:47] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[38:48] SPEAKER_02: And which one did she dislike the most?
[38:50] SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
[38:51] SPEAKER_00: Other than the white Ford.
[38:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[38:53] SPEAKER_00: She hated that thing.
[38:55] SPEAKER_02: So take one ordinary scene, coming home from the shops, uh, being picked up after an activity, or sitting in the driveway while someone got organized, which details make um any of these cars come back to life.
[39:08] SPEAKER_02: Do you remember any of them specifically?
[39:10] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my mum's called Austin, the first car that she had when we were uh kids.
[39:15] SPEAKER_00: Um it's a clunky old car, but um we spent a lot of time in that car um going around wherever we were going.
[39:24] SPEAKER_00: That previously up until then we'd had to walk or catch buses, so we didn't go as far.
[39:28] SPEAKER_00: But um yeah, driving to um Dramana from Beaumoris, which now you can do in about 35 minutes.
[39:36] SPEAKER_00: Um even then it was forty-five minutes, um, but it was along you know country highways, now they're freeways.
[39:42] SPEAKER_00: Um but it felt like an adventure, it felt like you were on the road for half a day and and and this little old car, and there's there's a um a hill out of coming out of Frankston, as you come through Frankston, you drive up this hill, Oliver's Hill, um, that even back then mum would have to be speeding at the bottom of the hill getting a run-up to getting a run-up to be able to get over this hill.
[40:07] SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna make it uh uh uh so and Wheeler's Hill, out in Wheelers Hill, yeah, uh the suburb.
[40:13] SPEAKER_00: Um that was one where there were a couple of times where she did not make it up that hill in this car and had to reverse back down and try again.
[40:23] SPEAKER_02: Why could they not make it?
[40:24] SPEAKER_00: Because they're just tiny little tiny little inefficient engines, yeah.
[40:28] SPEAKER_00: That's they they really were made for you know, particularly English cars, they are made for just driving around the villages and the suburbs of London.
[40:36] SPEAKER_02: They don't really have hills there, do they in England?
[40:37] SPEAKER_00: Well, they can they have hills, but you weren't driving an old Austin around them, that's for sure.
[40:41] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, not that one.
[40:42] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's I think some of my favourite memories from having the Kia Sorrento that we had, as well as your Land Cruiser, was when we had Noah and Joey, they were really young, and Noah was always, can I sit in the car?
[40:54] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he would sit in the driver's seat and beep, beep, beep, beep beep and standing in the driver's seat steering.
[41:00] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I remember we went to Warnerball and he was doing it in your four-wheel drive, the white one.
[41:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in front of the cabin we were staying at, and he was always it was like, Can we just go back in the car?
[41:11] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he's like excited.
[41:12] SPEAKER_02: They called um Takia uh Papacau, Papaka, like dad car in Portuguese, yeah.
[41:18] SPEAKER_02: And even now we like Joey's always like, I miss Papacou, can we get it again?
[41:23] SPEAKER_02: And I'm just like, no, I don't want to deal with the transmission issue every week.
[41:28] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[41:30] SPEAKER_02: Uh so what was broken for ages because you'd learnt to live with it in the car, uh in any of your cars.
[41:39] SPEAKER_00: In the that old Falcon, another reason your mother hated it, that old Falcon wagon, the um tailgate at the back was a wind down window and then a flip-out tailgate.
[41:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pulled down tailgate, and the window winder was dodgy.
[41:56] SPEAKER_00: It would eventually work, yeah, but you had to really work at it and yeah, hold your tongue in the right place.
[42:04] SPEAKER_00: Um but uh yeah, that was you know one of those ones where eventually I pulled the whole thing apart and fixed it.
[42:10] SPEAKER_00: But and it was your your brain goes, why didn't I do this as soon as it had a problem?
[42:14] SPEAKER_00: But I had other stuff to do.
[42:15] SPEAKER_00: Because I had other stuff to do, yeah.
[42:17] SPEAKER_00: So uh but yeah, that was the one that used to drive us all mad where you you know no one's gonna climb over the back.
[42:24] SPEAKER_00: We can't you can't open the tailgate because the window won't open.
[42:28] SPEAKER_02: I feel like I wonder how many kids these days uh were around when we had those roll-up wind-down windows, right?
[42:36] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[42:37] SPEAKER_02: Like that was such a common thing back then.
[42:39] SPEAKER_02: Power windows was almost unheard of besides really super expensive.
[42:42] SPEAKER_02: Besides really super expensive cars.
[42:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I remember I think I'm pretty sure that the um the VN wagon that I had, the Commodore, the first car that I had, had rolled up windows.
[42:52] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all of them.
[42:53] SPEAKER_02: The BMW didn't.
[42:54] SPEAKER_02: No.
[42:56] SPEAKER_02: They had push button everything.
[42:57] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[42:59] SPEAKER_02: Yes, push button.
[43:01] SPEAKER_02: That I never worked out how to actually use.
[43:04] SPEAKER_02: I know, yeah.
[43:05] SPEAKER_02: Ahead of their time.
[43:07] SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm trying to think of what else.
[43:10] SPEAKER_02: We would have had uh maybe a switch for the window.
[43:15] SPEAKER_02: I think one of them busted in the gear, and I just didn't, I couldn't be bothered, so you would just have to sort of leave it up.
[43:20] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[43:21] SPEAKER_02: Um, and the gear, I remember the gear in that VN Commodore that I was just like, uh I'm not paying for this to be fixed.
[43:26] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's fine, it survived.
[43:28] SPEAKER_02: But besides that, yeah.
[43:30] SPEAKER_02: So was there a a door window seat or air conditioner that was um its own had its own special instructions besides the the back window there for your um well the back window was the real problem one.
[43:40] SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't remember anything else.
[43:43] SPEAKER_02: Who was worse at keeping the car tidy?
[43:48] SPEAKER_02: Hmm Me.
[43:50] SPEAKER_02: Really?
[43:51] SPEAKER_02: Since my wife's academic kill still am I everything has its place.
[43:56] SPEAKER_00: Like no, I'm tidy in that sense.
[43:59] SPEAKER_00: Yep.
[43:59] SPEAKER_00: Um But I eat and drink in the car while I'm driving.
[44:04] SPEAKER_00: Your mother doesn't and she hates it.
[44:07] SPEAKER_00: No food in the car.
[44:08] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[44:09] SPEAKER_00: And it was the same when I used to drive her Hyundai.
[44:11] SPEAKER_00: She'd say, Don't eat in my car.
[44:14] SPEAKER_00: Which car cost the most to keep on the road?
[44:17] SPEAKER_02: More than what it was worth?
[44:18] SPEAKER_02: My mine is definitely the beam up here.
[44:20] SPEAKER_02: Well, yes.
[44:21] SPEAKER_00: Um not more than what it was worth, because the two that died and well three that died, um, if you include the white falcon, um we just went, I'm not doing this anymore, so we didn't even try and keep them on the road.
[44:35] SPEAKER_00: Um the Peugeot was expensive to keep on the road because you know, European cars servicing them.
[44:45] SPEAKER_00: Although when I bought it came with uh the fourth year was the problem because it came with a um a warranty, uh three-year warranty at the time.
[44:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's a lot of time.
[44:54] SPEAKER_00: And the warranty service.
[44:55] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so it was a maximum service, I think it was$450 service, which at the time that which the time was reasonably expensive, um, but it was cheaper than you would have bought, and certainly the the fourth year, suddenly, oh, it's a thousand dollars to service this car now, not four hundred and fifty for exactly the same service.
[45:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[45:14] SPEAKER_00: Um, because you know they want people to turn them over when they uh run out of warranty.
[45:19] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, uh is that so yeah, I guess my next question was like at what point did it'll be right become we actually need a mechanic and order move the car on because it's getting too expensive.
[45:30] SPEAKER_02: But that was it for you with the uh Peugeot, was it?
[45:33] SPEAKER_00: Well, it well it ran out of its lease after four years, it had a four-year lease, three-year warranty, four-year lease, and after the four years, I went I had either had to pay out the the lease and buy the car or trade it in as in hand it back um and and then you know trade it in on something else, and I traded it in on uh the land cruiser.
[45:54] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[45:54] SPEAKER_02: What was it like when you were in these cars back in the day driving around?
[45:57] SPEAKER_02: Did you have radio tapes, CDs, um radio only in the Tirana?
[46:05] SPEAKER_00: Um in the uh Valiant, it was radio only, and I put a cassette player in which cost me$89.
[46:17] SPEAKER_00: Which back then would have been a lot, which was a lot-ish.
[46:20] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[46:20] SPEAKER_00: It was a top of the range one, you know.
[46:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, crappy one, you could buy one for 20 bucks.
[46:25] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[46:26] SPEAKER_00: Um and then after that, they all had um cassette, cassette, and eventually CDs and then multimedia.
[46:36] SPEAKER_02: The weird one with the BMW was the CD uh where you put the CDs was in the back of the car.
[46:41] SPEAKER_02: Oh, the stacker.
[46:42] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there was like the console that you could choose.
[46:46] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was really weird.
[46:47] SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
[46:48] SPEAKER_02: And I remember we had like so for the for the era where we had um the Holden Commodore, so those 80s, 90s, there was obviously that sort of section in the front of the car where a radio thing would just slide in.
[47:01] SPEAKER_02: You could buy one, upgrade them, change them.
[47:03] SPEAKER_02: Everyone used to.
[47:04] SPEAKER_02: And I remember the face of it used to come off and you could put it in a little container and lock it in the glove box so that no one would steal it.
[47:10] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[47:10] SPEAKER_02: It's so funny that just stopped being a thing.
[47:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, because well it stops being a thing when they stop being mechanical.
[47:16] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[47:16] SPEAKER_00: Because now they're all just completely digital.
[47:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
[47:19] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so I remember that.
[47:21] SPEAKER_02: And then also, like when I had the BMW, in order to play, so we had a I guess we had smartphones at that point and also um uh iPods.
[47:31] SPEAKER_02: And we had like you could put in the BMW there was the tape deck at the front that you could slide a tape into, and I had one of these devices that was a tape, but with the line coming out for you to plug into your phone or your iPod.
[47:43] SPEAKER_02: And you could play directly off that.
[47:45] SPEAKER_02: Exactly, yeah.
[47:46] SPEAKER_02: And so that was the way that we could listen to really good music there.
[47:48] SPEAKER_02: Because I think by the time I was a teenager, you weren't really buying tapes, cassette tapes anymore and using them for music.
[47:54] SPEAKER_00: Now I just drive along and say Bluetooth.
[47:57] SPEAKER_00: Hey Siri, hey Siri, play Taylor Swift.
[47:59] SPEAKER_02: Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[48:01] SPEAKER_02: So what music was always on in your car, Dad?
[48:03] SPEAKER_00: Bruce Springsteen.
[48:04] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[48:04] SPEAKER_00: Um Van Morrison, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, um Fleetwood Mac.
[48:11] SPEAKER_00: That sort of thing.
[48:13] SPEAKER_02: I remember when I I got that VN Wagon, it would have been 2005, Carnival, the band that I'm really into, the Australian one, had released their album, The Mata.
[48:23] SPEAKER_02: And I remember listening to that that album on repeat in the um the the wagon with a subwoofer.
[48:31] SPEAKER_02: Like uh just blaring down the street.
[48:33] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was just so good.
[48:35] SPEAKER_02: And it's I have a distinct memory of driving down the Bellarine Highway past um it'll be The Flying Brick Now, yeah.
[48:42] SPEAKER_02: And what's the water park there?
[48:44] SPEAKER_02: Adventure Park.
[48:45] SPEAKER_02: And listening to the song Coat Um Yeah, just blaring through the speakers.
[48:51] SPEAKER_00: George Benson Breeson, that used to do that album, still I think the biggest selling jazz album of all time, that used to do um on repeat um in my cars for a while.
[49:03] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[49:04] SPEAKER_00: In the late 70s.
[49:06] SPEAKER_02: And were you always like when I had this V and Wagon, it was always driving a Geelong and catch up with everyone, all my mates from high school at the time.
[49:15] SPEAKER_02: So there was like James, Dave, Pete, Tristan, I'm trying to think Sam, Carl, there would have been and Sean, there would have been about eight of us, and so we would always be at each other's houses with just shitloads of cars in front of the house.
[49:29] SPEAKER_02: Did you have that growing up?
[49:31] SPEAKER_00: The same kind of thing?
[49:32] SPEAKER_00: A little bit, but no, because by the time I went to university, I'd sort of not lost contact, but but didn't have as much contact with old high school friends.
[49:42] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[49:42] SPEAKER_00: Um, but the things that I remember about that sort of thing was when I was a teenager at the um the athletics club.
[49:49] SPEAKER_00: We started uh I was an inaugural member of the Bea Morris Athletics Club starting off in 1969.
[49:55] SPEAKER_00: And um so there was a bunch of us that grew up in that club for the first five or six years.
[50:02] SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, started when I was twelve and I'd left it before I was driving, but uh a few of the people who were two or three years older than me were driving, and so it was them picking us up and all turning up, you know, it was one friend um's father had an old Holden Ute.
[50:19] SPEAKER_00: And we'd go off to athletics training and say, Oh, Sean, can you drive us home?
[50:23] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it'd be 10 of us in the back of this bloody ute as he's driving around the streets of Bea Morris.
[50:28] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[50:28] SPEAKER_00: Kids just leaping out there when they got the oh yeah, completely.
[50:33] SPEAKER_00: But it was it was it was not quite legal, but not quite illegal then.
[50:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was just looked down upon, yeah, exactly.
[50:40] SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, old uh the old the old Ute with us leaping in and out of the back of it.
[50:46] SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
[50:47] SPEAKER_02: Was there a car you were genuinely sad to see go?
[50:51] SPEAKER_02: Out of any of these ones we've talked about?
[50:54] SPEAKER_00: Probably the Land Cruiser.
[50:55] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the white one.
[50:56] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[50:57] SPEAKER_02: Why did you get rid of that?
[50:58] SPEAKER_02: Was it just excessive?
[50:59] SPEAKER_00: It was just it was just excessive.
[51:00] SPEAKER_00: We weren't using it off-road as much.
[51:02] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[51:02] SPEAKER_00: Uh just sitting there.
[51:06] SPEAKER_02: I remember the neighbours, right?
[51:08] SPEAKER_02: The neighbors were like, Have you seen our white black and white cat?
[51:11] SPEAKER_02: We've got a black and white cat.
[51:12] SPEAKER_02: Have you seen it?
[51:12] SPEAKER_02: And they were looking for it for months, and then eventually you sold the white Land Cruiser, and when you moved it, you found the carcass of the cat underneath the car, and you're like, Yeah, so we found him.
[51:22] SPEAKER_02: We found your cat.
[51:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[51:24] SPEAKER_00: Because it it hadn't been driven for about six months, I reckon.
[51:27] SPEAKER_00: The cat or the car.
[51:28] SPEAKER_00: Both, yeah, clearly.
[51:30] SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so, yeah, eventually it was just, you know, it was we traded it in, got you know, got rid of it.
[51:37] SPEAKER_00: Because it would have by then it would have cost us a significant amount of money to get it back to Roadworthy.
[51:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[51:44] SPEAKER_02: So pick one memory that would sound unremarkable to a stranger, a quiet drive home, a conversation in the driveway, or the sight of someone arriving.
[51:53] SPEAKER_02: Unremarkable to a stranger.
[51:55] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what's a normal one that you remember that still sticks with you?
[51:59] SPEAKER_00: Um car related.
[52:01] SPEAKER_00: Just I probably being that being dropped off um after events.
[52:09] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[52:09] SPEAKER_00: Um, even to the point when I was older and going to, you know, other athletics events and having people dropping us home, and then when I had a girlfriend who was also an athlete that was always the uh can you drop me home?
[52:21] SPEAKER_00: Uh can you drop her home too?
[52:22] SPEAKER_00: I know.
[52:23] SPEAKER_02: I sort of I miss that point.
[52:25] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you you had a whole bunch of friends that either didn't have cars or didn't have licenses.
[52:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[52:29] SPEAKER_02: And it was just sort of a um I missed that part of my life.
[52:33] SPEAKER_00: It's weird, like you transition from from being a teenager to being a functional adult.
[52:39] SPEAKER_02: Well, then that's it, and having the freedom, but also the social side of it where you're actually you're still gathering with loads of people all the time, and there's a reason for everyone to be in the car with you because now it's like everyone has their own car.
[52:51] SPEAKER_02: No one needs you to give them a lift, no one needs you to drop them off.
[52:54] SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
[52:54] SPEAKER_02: And there's something I kind of miss about going through that.
[52:57] SPEAKER_00: And look, we would do it even when we all had cars.
[52:59] SPEAKER_00: It was always you know going into um yeah, Olympic Park, which doesn't exist anymore.
[53:04] SPEAKER_00: It's now where the um Collingwood Football Club have their training ground.
[53:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[53:08] SPEAKER_00: That used to be the athletics track in Melbourne, um, in the centre of Melbourne.
[53:13] SPEAKER_00: Um, and we'd compete there every second Saturday.
[53:16] SPEAKER_00: Um and um there was who's gonna drive today?
[53:21] SPEAKER_00: It wasn't you know Who's dead either?
[53:23] SPEAKER_00: There might be two people driving for about six people, you know, and you're throwing all your gear in the back and javelins on the roof and all that sort of hoo-ha.
[53:30] SPEAKER_00: Uh it wasn't everybody drive themselves.
[53:32] SPEAKER_00: It was always, well, you know, because we're we're all students, poor.
[53:37] SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, yes, we could have all driven, but then you had to pay parking and and so it was no who's driving and then the driving home, and we all stop at the one thing, the memory of driving around at that time is no matter what time you were coming home, you stopped at Lexus Hamburgers in Black Rock.
[53:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is that place still there?
[53:56] SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, um, it's now a cafe, but it's uh it was just a hamburger takeaway place, but it was open till three in the morning.
[54:03] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so it and it had the best takeaway food ever.
[54:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so um we used to, yeah, it was always either we'll stop at Lexus or I'll meet you at Lexus if you were driving in separate cars.
[54:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we're all coming from the same two suburbs when we're we're getting home.
[54:21] SPEAKER_00: So uh meet you at Lexus in Black Rock.
[54:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that as well I miss just playing the pinball.
[54:26] SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
[54:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[54:28] SPEAKER_02: I miss just having that being able to just message your mates and knowing they're probably available.
[54:32] SPEAKER_02: We didn't have messaging mates.
[54:33] SPEAKER_02: I know, but you mean contacting them, right?
[54:35] SPEAKER_02: Calling them up, but having those people around.
[54:37] SPEAKER_02: Whereas now it's kind of like, oh, I'll check with my wife, kids have got this, I can't, I've got this tomorrow, and you're like ah for fucks.
[54:44] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's all right when you get to my age, you've got the freedom, but you still don't.
[54:48] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[54:48] SPEAKER_00: You want to get together?
[54:49] SPEAKER_00: Nah, it can't be fucked.
[54:50] SPEAKER_02: I well, yeah, I guess that's it.
[54:52] SPEAKER_02: Too hard.
[54:53] SPEAKER_02: No, I've got a cold.
[54:56] SPEAKER_02: Excuse for us all the time.
[54:58] SPEAKER_02: Where's Dad?
[54:59] SPEAKER_02: He's sick.
[55:00] SPEAKER_02: Says he's sick.
[55:00] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[55:01] SPEAKER_02: What mattered most when you were buying your first car?
[55:04] SPEAKER_02: What were the things that you were sort of looking for?
[55:06] SPEAKER_02: Getting a car.
[55:06] SPEAKER_02: There was just nothing specific.
[55:08] SPEAKER_00: Ducks, getting a car.
[55:09] SPEAKER_00: It had to be, you know.
[55:10] SPEAKER_00: I I really had about a thousand dollars to spend, so it was fairly limited things, and yeah, I wanted something cheap, semi-reliable, but also and I was never a mechanic, but something that I could tinker with some of the stuff myself.
[55:24] SPEAKER_00: I was never going to be tinkering as in making it do other things, but yeah, something like that.
[55:29] SPEAKER_00: No, checking out.
[55:30] SPEAKER_00: I could pull the c I could pull the carburetor out and clean it and put it back again.
[55:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[55:35] SPEAKER_00: Don't even think about doing that in modern cars.
[55:38] SPEAKER_00: Man, the amount of sensors and everything.
[55:39] SPEAKER_02: Um that was the problem too with the BMW being so expensive to fix.
[55:42] SPEAKER_02: You had to take it there.
[55:43] SPEAKER_02: And I remember the guy, I was asking him, like, what are you plugging in?
[55:47] SPEAKER_02: Have you got like an iPad or something?
[55:49] SPEAKER_02: And he's like, No, we have to pay$35,000 a year to use this stupid fucking device from BMW that then we plug into the cars to then diagnose what the issue is based on and I'm like, is that the same for all the different cars, like all of the different brands?
[56:03] SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Everyone has a different system, and you're just like, good guy.
[56:07] SPEAKER_02: So he's like, Every time you service it, 50 bucks is just for us to use this stupid iPad.
[56:12] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[56:13] SPEAKER_02: Like, oh my god, it's ridiculous, right?
[56:16] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I think for me it was just having a wagon because I needed space at the back.
[56:20] SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be able to sleep in the car if I wanted.
[56:22] SPEAKER_02: You had the bloody subwoofer in the back of it.
[56:24] SPEAKER_02: Oh, that was that.
[56:24] SPEAKER_02: You couldn't sleep in it, but I could put a surfboard in either.
[56:27] SPEAKER_02: The surfboard went in.
[56:28] SPEAKER_02: Whereas if it was a sedan, it was a lot harder to kind of fit that.
[56:31] SPEAKER_02: You'd have to shove it out the window.
[56:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or have roof racks.
[56:34] SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
[56:35] SPEAKER_02: How did you find out whether a used car was any good?
[56:37] SPEAKER_02: What was the sort of test back then?
[56:39] SPEAKER_00: Um used to the RACV and VACC, so two you know car organizations, would have tests that they would do.
[56:49] SPEAKER_00: So you could pay uh a dealer, or if you were buying it privately, you could do it yourself, to go and have a uh an RACV test or a VACC test.
[56:58] SPEAKER_00: So they would do test all of the standard sort of things and then come back with a report and you then look at it and go, Well, I need to if I'm gonna buy it, I'm gonna need to fix this and this, or there's nothing wrong, I'm fine.
[57:10] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[57:12] SPEAKER_02: Did you feel pressure, like social peer pressure, to get certain types of cars?
[57:16] SPEAKER_02: Because like today you'll see with young people that men are usually getting some kind of boys, fast like uh large car, you know, sports car or four-wheel drive, something like that, you know.
[57:30] SPEAKER_02: I mean, associated with I guess the stereotypical male activities.
[57:34] SPEAKER_02: And girls, on the other hand, you will see them usually in like a hatchback or a sedan where they they want the transport, but they're not they're not fanging around like idiots or for me, a car was just a um yeah, it was a transport vehicle.
[57:46] SPEAKER_00: So you won't really judge symbols, other people.
[57:48] SPEAKER_00: No, and uh all the friends that I had, I don't know there wasn't a cult for cars.
[57:54] SPEAKER_00: There are there are a couple who were in that Holden versus Ford.
[57:57] SPEAKER_00: Revhead.
[57:58] SPEAKER_00: Um the Rev Heads.
[57:59] SPEAKER_00: Um and they still are, funnily enough.
[58:01] SPEAKER_00: One of them still goes to all the auto shows.
[58:04] SPEAKER_00: Bathurst and everything.
[58:05] SPEAKER_00: He's got a Mustang now because it's the only Ford you can have because they don't have the newer ones.
[58:10] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, gotcha.
[58:11] SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so um, yeah, there were other than that, there really wasn't much.
[58:16] SPEAKER_00: Uh there was a little click of a few of my friends who drove minis.
[58:21] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
[58:21] SPEAKER_00: The you know Morris Mini.
[58:23] SPEAKER_00: They're still around.
[58:24] SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I know pretty expensive too, I think, to get the ones that are still.
[58:27] SPEAKER_00: Oh, the old originals, yeah.
[58:29] SPEAKER_00: And then if you were really cool, you had a moak.
[58:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
[58:32] SPEAKER_00: Um, which was just a tin can, basically.
[58:37] SPEAKER_01: Death trap.
[58:38] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pretty much.
[58:40] SPEAKER_00: There's still a few of them around.
[58:41] SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a guy who was selling one in um in Wallington um about six months ago.
[58:47] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[58:47] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[58:48] SPEAKER_02: Is that the one that's like uh beach going type car that's yeah, yeah, it's like a little tiny little jeep.
[58:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a mini.
[58:55] SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a mini chassis with a little jeep.
[58:58] SPEAKER_00: It just kind of has a cage with a frame over the edge of the colour.
[59:00] SPEAKER_00: A cage with a frame and then a like a canvas cover on it.
[59:03] SPEAKER_00: That's right.
[59:03] SPEAKER_00: I've seen them around.
[59:04] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the guy is$30,000.
[59:06] SPEAKER_00: I guess they're just not common anymore.
[59:08] SPEAKER_02: And if it's still going, yeah, it's been maintained well.
[59:12] SPEAKER_02: What felt like a luxury feature uh back then in the car?
[59:15] SPEAKER_02: The leather seats?
[59:17] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, was that just the standard?
[59:18] SPEAKER_00: That was just well, it wasn't standard, but it was in that car.
[59:21] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[59:21] SPEAKER_00: Um, a luxury was having a cassette player.
[59:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[59:25] SPEAKER_00: Um, because cars didn't come with them until the late 70s, really, mid to late 70s.
[59:30] SPEAKER_00: Up until then, it was just you've got a radio.
[59:32] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[59:33] SPEAKER_00: That's and it was an AM radio.
[59:35] SPEAKER_00: Then they came with an FM radio.
[59:36] SPEAKER_00: Well, that was cool.
[59:38] SPEAKER_02: That's I think for me.
[59:39] SPEAKER_00: Mind you, the FM radio, you drive 20 kilometers, you've run out of, you've got to put it on a new station.
[59:43] SPEAKER_00: Oh, is that what's happening?
[59:44] SPEAKER_00: It's switching between those.
[59:46] SPEAKER_02: I think for me it was the BMW power windows, leather seats, and a phone all at once.
[59:51] SPEAKER_02: The phone was muted.
[59:52] SPEAKER_02: But it was just like, fuck, there's a phone in the middle of the you can see it, you can pick it up and be like, hello.
[59:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the size of an old phone.
[59:59] SPEAKER_02: It was very weird.
[1:00:00] SPEAKER_02: Just being like, what the hell is that?
[1:00:02] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was always such a novelty.
[1:00:03] SPEAKER_02: Everyone who I gave lifts to would always be like, Can I go with my phone?
[1:00:06] SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't work.
[1:00:07] SPEAKER_02: You need a sim card to put in there.
[1:00:09] SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
[1:00:10] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, far out.
[1:00:11] SPEAKER_02: All right.
[1:00:12] SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe we should finish up then with some rapid fire questions.
[1:00:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:00:15] SPEAKER_02: Best looking family car.
[1:00:18] SPEAKER_00: Well, that I've had or anybody's had.
[1:00:21] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[1:00:22] SPEAKER_00: Best looking family car.
[1:00:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, what which of your family cars that you've had do you reckon was the hottest?
[1:00:27] SPEAKER_02: If you had to go out on a date with the car, which one was the hottest one?
[1:00:31] SPEAKER_02: None of them I was a rental car.
[1:00:35] SPEAKER_02: Feel like it'd have to be some European sports car, right?
[1:00:37] SPEAKER_02: Like well, yeah, exactly.
[1:00:39] SPEAKER_02: I'm not going on a date with a land cruiser.
[1:00:41] SPEAKER_00: Or an old Tirana.
[1:00:42] SPEAKER_00: Hey, it worked.
[1:00:43] SPEAKER_00: That was the car I took your mother on our first date in.
[1:00:46] SPEAKER_02: So what happened next?
[1:00:49] SPEAKER_00: Um she told me she wasn't interested.
[1:00:52] SPEAKER_02: Uh no, I meant like, did it so did it work out?
[1:00:56] SPEAKER_02: Well, you're here.
[1:00:57] SPEAKER_01: Apparently.
[1:00:59] SPEAKER_01: It was a few steps down the trail.
[1:01:00] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so which one do you like the most?
[1:01:02] SPEAKER_02: Look-wise.
[1:01:02] SPEAKER_02: Look-wise, the delicate.
[1:01:05] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the delicate's just cool.
[1:01:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:01:07] SPEAKER_02: Most embarrassing car to be dropped off in.
[1:01:10] SPEAKER_02: Um, none.
[1:01:15] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm trying to think.
[1:01:16] SPEAKER_02: I'm racking my brain.
[1:01:17] SPEAKER_02: I don't really give a shit now.
[1:01:18] SPEAKER_02: But when I was a kid, maybe it would have been like a small pink hatchback or something.
[1:01:22] SPEAKER_02: Your old your mum's old red hyundai.
[1:01:24] SPEAKER_02: But even now, I just yeah, I think I'm the same as you.
[1:01:26] SPEAKER_02: I didn't really care.
[1:01:26] SPEAKER_02: It was just sort of like whatever.
[1:01:28] SPEAKER_02: Um, car that lasted the longest.
[1:01:30] SPEAKER_00: Um the Toyota Prado that we currently have.
[1:01:35] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[1:01:35] SPEAKER_00: 15 years old, still going strong.
[1:01:37] SPEAKER_00: But we bought it now.
[1:01:38] SPEAKER_02: What's the red Hyundai that I've got?
[1:01:40] SPEAKER_02: That must be is that 2012?
[1:01:42] SPEAKER_02: So it's 14 years ago.
[1:01:42] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 14 years, 14, 13, something like that.
[1:01:44] SPEAKER_02: It's still doing pretty well.
[1:01:46] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:01:46] SPEAKER_02: Um best car nickname?
[1:01:48] SPEAKER_02: Did you give any of the cars nicknames?
[1:01:50] SPEAKER_02: No.
[1:01:52] SPEAKER_02: Deli.
[1:01:52] SPEAKER_02: Satan's whack.
[1:01:53] SPEAKER_02: Satan's whack.
[1:01:56] SPEAKER_02: You idiot.
[1:01:58] SPEAKER_02: Do you have to tell mum to listen to this episode?
[1:02:00] SPEAKER_02: She'll be like, you pest.
[1:02:03] SPEAKER_02: I've forgotten that.
[1:02:04] SPEAKER_02: Who kept the car cleanest?
[1:02:06] SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, who kept the cleanest car, rather?
[1:02:08] SPEAKER_02: Me.
[1:02:08] SPEAKER_00: You did, yeah.
[1:02:09] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm the only one who's ever washed a car in our family.
[1:02:11] SPEAKER_02: Manual or automatic?
[1:02:13] SPEAKER_00: Uh automatic now.
[1:02:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but well, it depends on the car, right?
[1:02:16] SPEAKER_00: If you had a yeah, if I was driving a Ferrari, I wouldn't want a fucking automatic.
[1:02:21] SPEAKER_00: Why pay half a million dollars and have it change gears for you?
[1:02:24] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[1:02:25] SPEAKER_02: Well, isn't that the yeah?
[1:02:26] SPEAKER_02: A full tank or a working air conditioner?
[1:02:31] SPEAKER_02: Um, depending on where I live.
[1:02:34] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
[1:02:35] SPEAKER_01: Tasmania?
[1:02:35] SPEAKER_01: Ah, full tank.
[1:02:36] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[1:02:37] SPEAKER_02: I'd take the aircon, I think.
[1:02:39] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:02:39] SPEAKER_02: Um, one car you would never buy again.
[1:02:42] SPEAKER_02: BMW.
[1:02:43] SPEAKER_02: BMW, yeah.
[1:02:45] SPEAKER_02: Um an old Ford station wagon.
[1:02:49] SPEAKER_02: Uh, one car you would happily drive again tomorrow.
[1:02:53] SPEAKER_00: Uh the Mazda 929.
[1:02:57] SPEAKER_00: Although they don't exist in the world.
[1:02:58] SPEAKER_00: So that was the van?
[1:02:59] SPEAKER_00: That was the van.
[1:02:59] SPEAKER_00: The first the one that mum, no, the one that mum and I bought.
[1:03:02] SPEAKER_00: The yeah, the station wagon that we bought.
[1:03:04] SPEAKER_00: Mitsubishi was the van.
[1:03:05] SPEAKER_00: Mitsubishi was the van.
[1:03:07] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you'll have to do a search, see if there are any around.
[1:03:10] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely not.
[1:03:12] SPEAKER_02: I'm always amazed, just to finish up, I'm always amazed watching some of those old TV shows.
[1:03:15] SPEAKER_02: Well, TV shows that are set.
[1:03:17] SPEAKER_02: They're modern, but they've been set in the 80s, 70s, 60s.
[1:03:21] SPEAKER_02: And the number of period correct cars that are around and of all different types.
[1:03:29] SPEAKER_02: You're like, who what kind of fucking weirdo buys a Mazda from the 60s and maintains it for 70 years, you know, 60 years.
[1:03:39] SPEAKER_02: Like that's a very niche.
[1:03:41] SPEAKER_02: It is.
[1:03:41] SPEAKER_02: Like, just in case the movies need a higher.
[1:03:44] SPEAKER_02: They need a Mazda from the 90s.
[1:03:46] SPEAKER_02: Do you guys need this really unpopular car from the 60s?
[1:03:49] SPEAKER_02: Alright.
[1:03:50] SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, thanks for joining us, guys.
[1:03:52] SPEAKER_02: Hope you enjoyed this one.
[1:03:52] SPEAKER_02: Hope it's made you think about your memories with your cars growing up.
[1:03:56] SPEAKER_02: And um, we'll see you in the next one.
[1:03:57] SPEAKER_02: Bye.
[1:03:58] SPEAKER_02: See ya.

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