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The magic carpet did not escape; we were told to swap the bald rear tire for the spare. Not swapped in Formula 1 time but we were on the road again within 10 minutes and dodging wobbly road trains for the next three hours….
An inauspicious start: the rally chief mechanic pulls to the side to do work under the bonnet before we even get to the first set of traffic lights. Then Team Stinkeroos, the guys with the multiple redundant GPS systems, lead us deep into the suburbs before we switch to Google Maps.
Well, for better or worse, we are now underway. What could possibly go wrong?
Having looked on the map at the distance in front of us it’s a bit daunting. The rally itself plus the drive up from Sydney to the start is Brisbane is about 5000km, or the equivalent of driving from London to Baghdad, but without crossing a national border. All we have to do is remember to take off the handbrake when we set off….
One one side, a two year old Honda CRV sporting computer controlled fuel injection with more processing power than NASA used to put a man on the Moon, all wheel drive, dynamic stability assist, traction control and a fuzzy logic algorithm that actually learns your driving style and adjusts the automatic gear change accordingly. On the other side is a 25 year old Toyota Camry with an odometer reading like a phone number that has just been put through its paces on a full throttle two hour run up the coast. Improbably this is a picture of the Camry jump starting a very poorly CRV, rather than the other way around…!
The first big run for the shitbox didn’t have the most auspicious start. I popped into Spotlight for a length of fabric, as you do, to find a bright green pool of radiator fluid under the car. Oops. I bunged in the bottle of leak stopper, checked the levels, cursed my idleness in not having joined NRMA, and then recklessly pulled onto the F3 for the two hour run up to Port Stephens. Twenty minutes in, I got my first surprise: a tiny button marked ‘cruise’. Being a button-presser by nature, I gave it a go and settled in to an absolutely unexpected smooth 100km/h cruise all the way up the coast. The revs stayed steady, temperature didn’t budge and best of all, the cruise button must have engaged some form of infinite improbability drive because the 200km trip only took a single litre of petrol according to the fuel gauge.
In a fit of unwarranted bravado, I decided to take a spin on the unsealed road into the Stockton sand dunes at Anna Bay, intending to only go a couple of hundred metres. I now know that a light dusting of sand across a dirt road is one of the best ways of bringing a Camry to a gentle halt, it’s just a pity that these sorts of conditions are likely on the rally itself. So, a bit of a worry that the shitbox turns wombat and digs to victory at the first sign of sand on the road surface – though we did have some luck with a passing 4WD who towed us out the 20m or so back to hard surface.
So the car succeeded beyond all expectations on the tarmac, and gave me a good lesson on the sand. But finally, it was still able to roll into Artarmon and give its younger brother the kick up the bum it needed to get going again. I’m getting more and more optimistic about this shitbox after all.
I just had a bit of a shock looking at the calendar… this time next week we will be honking the horn and pulling away from the curb to start the long drive to Darwin. Thanks to many generous supporters we have leapt up to $2,300 collected so far, and there’s still some more to come!
A big thanks to the guys at Jobsons motor mechanics in Artarmon for giving the car the once over. They were able to give me a long list of the things that were wrong with the car that I didn’t have the money to fix, so I now have a set of ACTUAL problems to worry about rather than general vague uneasiness. Forewarned is not so much forearmed as just not able to sleep quite so well on a night. Front suspension may turn out to be one of those overrated nice-to-haves, better get used to the car handling like a magic carpet.
Still, at least my boy is impressed with the sports car, but then, he’s four years old. The big test will be the drive up to Port Stephens at the weekend. It’s a good 2 hour run, followed by the 8 hour stint up to Byron Bay this time next week. Fingers crossed….
White 1987 Toyota Camry sedan. Rides like a Magic Carpet... must get those shocks looked at.
Ok, so now I understand a *lot* more about the second-hand car market. And I’ve been to suburbs of Sydney I never knew existed. And I finally realise just how far it is to drive from Chatswood to Campbelltown to check out a Holden Commodore with severe mechanical problems. I have embraced the spirit of the thing and driven some *real shitboxes* as well as some really nice rides and it’s amazing what going up $500 in your pricepoint actually gets you. It is also amazing, after (say) driving around the block in a mid-80’s Magna with a massive steering wobble and white smoke coming out of the back just how good it feels to get back in the late 00’s CRV. Realistically, if the wife wanted to collect the life insurance she wouldn’t have to cut the brake lines on some of these bangers, the line would do the job all by itself….
So, after nearly three weeks of juggling Carsales, EBay and Gumtree, it came down to an ’87 Toyota Camry sedan with questionable suspension bought for cash and a handshake from an Egyptian bloke down a back alley behind the airport at dusk. What could possibly go wrong?
Last week the dream finally died. Mike, my old neighbour had offered his ’68 Austin 1800 for the rally and had got it to the point that we were ready to take it for a spin around the neighbourhood to see how it performed.
On the face of it, there’s something to be said for taking the world famous Mini’s big brother for a 5000km trip from Sydney to Darwin, a sense of doing the rally in the style befitting such an enterprise. Add to this Mike’s desire to give the old girl one last hurrah, and no doubt his wife’s desire to have some garage space back, and you would be forgiven for thinking there is some element of destiny at play.
We took it for a first spin around the block, choke out all the way to prevent bunny-hopping. Mike muttered something about muck in the fuel line and to give credit where it’s due, the old girl settled down pretty well after the first 500m. Now your old 1800 is not the same kind of drive as your modern car. There are certain niceties to be observed when attempting a gear change. The idea of power steering in the era of the 1800 is still a future dream, like something out of the Jetsons, so you feel the weight of the car. The same for braking too… you know you have well over a ton of welded steel moving at 40kph when you try to halt it.
All that said, I was getting a feel for the beast, recalling the Austin Princess I learned to drive in. I moved into 3rd gear up a slight hill and opened up the throttle.. and for one moment it looked like a goer. Then the universal joint disintegrated on the left wheel side and we ignominiously came to a halt by the kerb. Mike nursed it back home and we stood at the front of it, silent for a little while before I said “that’s buggered it” and let it go: the 1800’s destiny lies elsewhere.
So now I’m looking at early 90’s Toyota Corollas on eBay. It’s not the same, granted, but an outback mechanic is a lot more likely to have parts for a Toyota. Sometimes it’s not how you play the game but whether you win or lose that counts.
We’re in full swing now with the Shitbox Rally team fundraising. The big event for the team is a charity trivia night – we got the good folks at the Wooloomooloo Bay Hotel, down by the finger wharf, to give us a room for nothing and access to all their TV screens for a night of trivia and sh*t.
Test your knowledge over drinks at the Wooloomooloo Bay Hotel, from 6.30pm. There will be some laughs and also some truly sh*t prizes to be won. $20 entry fee, all proceeds to the Cancer Council. It’s guaranteed to be the best Tuesday night out you’ll have all week!
There is also a Facebook event invite here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138250809579921
See you there!
One of the big requirements for entering the Shitbox Rally is that you have a shitbox. These are not as easy to acquire as I’d first assumed: for a start, the vehicle has to cost less than a grand. Now you can get a car for a few hundred dollars (go onto your favourite car sales website and search for the keywords ‘scrap’, ‘good for parts’, ‘massive accident’), but you have to start rolling in the extra costs like rego, blue slip, and occasionally arc welding and you hit the $1000 limit pretty quickly.
So, there are two approaches. The first is to see what the dealers have at the back of their car lots. I spent the weekend in the rain out on Parramatta Road in the car yards looking for that absolute gem of a runner miraculously overlooked by the rest of the crowds. The nearest I got was a Ford Telstar for $900 that had probably last seen rego under a Bob Hawke government. I’m beginning to suspect that seam of bargains is pretty much tapped out.
The other option is through the private sales, which is much more promising. A friend of mine has a 1968 Austin 1800 that he could give away, but rates it as a 50/50 chance of not even making it to the start line in its current state of repair. On the other hand, there are private sales for $800 and up that have rego and are on the road now. But is it better the devil you know? Phrases in the private sale ads like “I suspect it may have blown a head gasket maybe” could translate to “I patched up the engine block with duct tape”.
So the big decision, and with the clock ticking down to 5 weeks before start, is whether it’s better the devil you know. Maybe a ’68 Austin is what the rally is about, and maybe potentially grinding to a halt in the middle of the Outback is a fitting end to a great machine. Maybe.