Aussie Motoring

This is what can happen when you lose control of a Porsche 911.

It looks like a nil all draw to me. Porsche 911 a write off, building badly damaged, occupants of the car in hospital and no street cred for a driver who can’t keep control of his car.

by Stuart Livesey

Back in the late 1960s Sydney was hit with a number of strikes by petrol tanker drivers. For long periods of time - often well over a week - the tanker drivers would go out on strike for high pay. The result of course that petrol stations all over the city eventually ran dry.

To try and conserve fuel supplies the Government introduced a range of measures. These included odds and evens based on the last number in your number plate and governed which days you could by petrol and limiting the maximum amount of fuel you could buy at any one time.

At the same time the papers, television stations and radio stations were handing out plenty of tips on how to get the best possible fuel consumption.

Back in those days I had a Mini and one of the things that I did to conserve fuel - and a lot of other Mini drivers would do too - was to start in third with a quick change up to fourth. It wasn’t ideal but it certainly extended my range beyond anything the guys in 6 cylinder cars were achieving.

But no matter what did to conserve fuel we never quite got to the stage that some Americans have reached. Over there the relatively high cost of fuel has brought out a group known as hypermilers - extreme drivers at the other end of the scale we normally associate with the word ‘extreme’.

These guys will shift into neutral, switch the engine off and coast if they see a red light ahead. They’ll avoid streets with traffic lights and they’ll be what’s known as ‘ridge riders’ - drivers who stick as close as possible to the white line so they don’t drive in the slight ruts in the road caused by all the other traffic.

You can read more about them hereand here you will find that they have their very own website.

If they’re that desperate to save on fuel consumption maybe they should just catch a bus?

I don’t even pretend to understand the reasoning here

In Utah you cannot have a number plate with the word MERLOT on it because that refers to alcohol and anyone who reads it might be corrupted.

However you can have a number plate that reads “Happiness is a Dead Child” because that’s a matter of free speech.

You can read the full story here

I could waste some effort typing a comment about strange people … but instead I think I’ll just go and have a glass of merlot instead.

The sweet sound of raw power
by Stuart Livesey

Like most car enthusiasts I can appreciate anything with a Ferrari badge on it. BMWs are interesting, Ford Focus XR5s are pretty cool too (and if my daughter ever buys one she better let her old man have a drive or she’s out of the will for ever) but what really gets my blood pressure up is the sound of raw power that comes from an old Falcon GT.

One turned up in my driveway some weeks back when Mick McCalman was home from Hong Kong. This is Mick’s pride and joy and he kindly interrupted his busy schedule to bring it around so I could photograph it.

Sadly I don’t think my photos do it justice (the lighting was getting worse by the minute as the sun started to go down). This Ford Falcon XW GT is one very serious piece of Aussie muscle and it’s kept in immaculate condition.

This Falcon GT is painted in Reef green with saddle interior and runs on original 5 slot rims.

The motor is a 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) Cleveland V8 matched to a 4 speed toploader.

This Ford Falcon GT is definitely something very special.

by Stuart Livesey

This is what a brand new Ferrari Enzo looks like

Photo courtesy of Dexion

It’s a rare piece of machinery and very very expensive piece of machinery but, like all cars, they tend to bend and break when hit by a bus as one unfortunate bus driver found out. A little nudge sent the one he hit into a VW Golf and caused over 300,000 pounds damage to the Ferrari.

You can read the sad tale and see the damage here

If you’re looking for the best second-hand Nissan X-Trail on the market today then check out this 2002 model.

This Nissan X-Trail is for sale here in Queensland at the moment and you can see more of it by following the link.

by Stuart Livesey

Coke might add life (or in Chinese might bring your ancestors back from the dead) but it seems that Bentleys are built for life.

In an interesting piece entitled What Your Car Says About You author Dan Lienhart reports that Bentley believes that people buy their product because they want to have an heirloom that can be passed down through the generations.

Perhaps that’s so because 80% of all Bentleys ever built are still on the road today.

Four coachbuilt Bentley Amage RL limousines outside Wynn LasVegas

Ford Australia has announced the end of production of the Ford Fairlane with the last expected to roll off the production line early next year.

The Ford Fairlane has been in full production in Australia since 1967 but now the demand for a big Ford has dropped to the point where it’s uneconomic to keep it in production.

Looking for some rugged reliability in a second-hand four wheel drive that’s not going to cost an arm and a leg?

Here’s a 1995 Jeep Cherokee Classic for sale for just $8,500 … and it’s only got 119,000kms on the clock.

You can find out more about it here

Then here are so handy finance tips

Bronwyn was devoted to her old clunker. Her dad had bought it for $5,000 and given it to her so she could get to and from university. She loved that old wreck for the freedom it had given her but it was old when he bought it and now it was behaving like most 20 year old cars behave. Travelling over a 100kms a day on country roads, sentiment had to give way to reality.

Sadly she knew it was time to step up into something better and so last month she went off to the local Toyota dealer and became one of the many thousands of people who bought a new car in April. For her the purchase and finance was easy, a university graduate with a good income and no major debts, there were no impediments to her gaining instant credit. But not everyone is in the position that Bronwyn was in financially. Sometimes we need a new car but we also have a other debts to consider.

If that’s the situation that you find yourself in then Nissan has some handy hints for you when it comes to your credit situation and financing a new car. You can find them here.