Cars

So the world has been through a lot this year, which sounds dramatic but it’s also true. I won’t go into details about it, because those who know, know, but it has been tragic for millions of people. I was less affected than those around me and for that I feel extremely fortunate. However, I was impacted by the fact that all driving tests closed across the country for almost eight months. 

Eight months ago I was in a good place and felt ready to book my license. I was about to book only to find out I couldn’t and I haven’t been able to book since… until now. And unfortunately I feel like I’ve gone backwards in these last eight months. I’m now scared of driving again and all the progress I had made at the beginning of the year is gone. 

My mum suggested that I visit the local mechanics. Around Toowoomba, there are plenty of highly skilled mechanics, and she thinks that if I get my car repaired that I’ll feel more comfortable driving. I think, and hope, that she might be right. I’ll try anything at this point because I want to get my license by the end of the year. Sadly, I feel a long way off achieving that goal but maybe I’ll feel a lot better after getting my car serviced. We’ll find out tomorrow, I guess.

Well, I’ve just returned from getting my car serviced. As it turns out, I was due for a tyre fitting and so I’m really relieved that I got my car checked out when I did. I still don’t feel ready to go for my license, but I do feel better about the state of my car.

I think I’m going to have to start practicing driving again. I’m going to have to ease myself in and do some little drives, and then gradually build up to longer, harder drives. I’ll get my license eventually.

I think we all remember our first drive on our P’s. A lot of us were freshly eighteen and feeling invincible, knowing the world was at our feet. You sit in your car for the first time by yourself, put the radio on louder than you were ever allowed to when driving with your parents, and text a friend that you’re five minutes away from picking them up and taking them to the local fast food drive-through. This is exactly how my first drive on my P plates began, unfortunately it didn’t end with me eating a burger and goofing around in the car park with my best friend.

On the way to pick up Harry, my car broke down. I was driving down the highway to get to his house when my engine spluttered and then completely failed me. My car had never broken down before so I was shocked and I’ll admit, a little scared and feeling a little less invincible than I felt when the drive began. Without skipping a beat, I put my hazards on and called the mobile auto mechanic. Brighton is close to a lot of car dealerships and mechanics, so I was lucky that someone came pretty quickly. This whole ordeal was really ruining my dream first drive, something that I had been looking forward to ever since I got my L’s two years before.

Looking back at that iconic moment in my life, I’m simultaneously impressed by how quickly I reacted, and laughing at myself that the reason I acted so quickly was because I wanted to have the perfect first drive. I vividly remember standing on the side of the road whilst the car mechanic did all the necessary repairs. I was just glad I didn’t have to figure out how to move it to a car repair shop. Brighton was so close to Harry’s suburb that I was pretty much jumping up and down in anticipation of being back in my car and on the road. 

We never made it to the drive-through that day. Instead we drove to the beach and listened to music. It was a good first drive.

As of last week, I became the new owner of a second hand BMW and it is a dream come true. Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve dreamed of owning a European car, and by my mid twenties, I have successfully saved up enough money to make that dream a reality. I now feel like I’m a part of an elite club, the club that I have aspired to be a part of since I first learnt what a car was. 

I aim to own this BMW for about ten years, and in the meantime I am going to save up to buy a brand new BMW, which is my next goal. As this car is quite old, I know I’ll regularly need to visit a European car mechanic, which may be quite expensive but will definitely be worth it. It’s pretty imperative that I stay on top of all my servicing and get the car checked for minor niggles regularly, or it won’t last me the next ten years and I won’t have saved up enough money to buy my next BMW. 

As cars have been such a passion of mine for so long, I’m fully aware of the special TLC a European car needs in comparison to a Japanese or USA brand. I’ll also need to find an experienced auto electrician. Around Seaford, where I live, mechanics generally have some experience in both auto electrics and European cars, but I want someone who’s a specialist in both. I’m definitely going to shop around before my first service to make sure I’ve chosen the right person for the job.

Becoming the owner of this car is the most responsibility I’ve ever put on myself. It’s like I’ve just become the father of my first child and I have to take care of it every single day. Just like I would do if I actually had a child, I have vowed to look after this beautiful second hand BMW as best I can for the years to come.

After six months of being unable to travel outside of Victoria, I am finally able to cross state borders again! Now let me preface this blog post by saying my travel restrictions weren’t based on any legal issues, I am an upstanding citizen. The reason I couldn’t travel interstate is because I have a habit of running away instead of facing my problems, so my family had an intervention to say that I needed to stay in the state until I had all my problems sorted out. Well, six months later, my affairs are in order and I’m allowed to go travelling again. I’m going to drive around Australia.

My first stop will be South Australia. I’ve only been to Adelaide a handful of times, and have never had the opportunity to drive around the entirety of the state. I want to go to the vineyards, beaches and explore the state as much as possible before moving on to Western Australia. Given the amount of driving I will be doing not only within the states themselves, but between states, I will make a booking in with a mechanic in Adelaide when I visit. It’s really important that I have my car in working order. I wouldn’t want to be driving the Nullarbor and then all of a sudden my car breaks down. What a nightmare that would be. So yeah, I’m being responsible and going to get my car checked very regularly.

I’ve already booked the mechanic for Adelaide. Seeing as it will be the start of my trip, I’ve just booked in for a regular, run-of-the-mill car service. Adelaide technicians seem very similar to the ones I’m used to in Melbourne, so I have a pretty good expectation of what I’ll be getting from the car service. From my understanding, the service will put me in a good position to drive to Western Australia without fear of a breakdown. 

I am so excited to get in my car and drive away, these next few months are going to be epic.

I am responsible for the largest parade in Queensland, Australia. It is a massive task that takes six months to plan, five months to implement and one month to execute across the entire state. We are in the implementation phase, which is where all our planning is put to work to ensure everything runs smoothly. For the past three weeks, I have been spearheading the maintenance and coordination of the car fleets. This is a vital part of the parade, as the VIP’s and dancers travel across the country by car for the entirety of the parade. Across the next four days, over fifty cars will undergo fleet servicing.

This is something that we need to do quickly in the implementation stage, as our VIP’s and dancers must have adequate time to practice their routines and speeches, whilst travelling on a moving vehicle. It would also be very irresponsible of us to leave our fleet servicing to the last minute, as you never know when an issue is going to arise and derail our entire project. The sooner issues arise the better. No part of me wants one of our cars to break down the day of. 

As our headquarters is in Underwood, we source all our business locally. This led us to our current mechanic. Underwood is a suburb outside of Brisbane, which is the perfect location to design and develop a new parade each year. Our mechanic will travel with us for the entirety of the parade to ensure that if any mechanical problems arise, they will be looked after swiftly and professionally.

In two weeks time we will be releasing the theme of this year’s parade, and we are so excited. It is a little different to parades in the past, mostly because we as Queenslanders have had a very different year than years prior. I cannot wait to update you all very soon… stay tuned!

I wonder what Santa does when he has sleigh troubles. Does he have an on-call sleigh mechanic, ready to magically materialise and dash off repairs at the drop of a hat? Does Santa have a toolbox in the back, and enough nous to have a poke around himself, perhaps with varying degrees of success? Or does he, like the rest of us, simply plop down on the curb with his head in his hands, wishing he’d stayed home with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit?

If only I could summon a magic mechanic, or at least a mechanic shop open near Northcote, on this balmy week-before-Christmas evening. As it stands, I have to make do with waiting for roadside assistance from a designated provider while at the mercy of Thursday night traffic. I’m doing my best to embrace the festive spirit by enjoying a peppermint-gingernut ice cream from the servo while I wait. So far, I can’t say it’s going along way towards anything other than a sugar crash. What can you do, though?

Really, I think the best way to ‘get into the spirit’ is to just go with the flow. There’s only so much you can do to avoid inconvenience, irritation and vast expense at this time of year, so why fight it? If I have to shell out for a transmission service, then so be it. If I have to wait until January before I have a car again, so be that too. If I end up eating a second Christmas-themed novelty ice cream from the servo, that’s the way the news goes. 

It’s all a matter of mindset, and asking yourself what Santa would do in this situation. As I suggested earlier, Santa might not be any wiser than the rest of us when it comes to unexpected vehicle breakdowns. But I’m willing to bet he doesn’t fight the urge to have a second ice cream, even if it is simply to pass the time.

Imagine this. You live in Prahran, and you’ve got a date with your girlfriend in forty minutes. She lives in Hawthorn, and you know there’s going to be trouble if you’re late. She’s a punctual girl. You learned that the hard way when you got to the cinema at 7:00 for a 7:01 movie, and she’d already been there for an hour. Big mistake. So, you’ve got forty minutes to be there. You could take the tram, which would take half an hour, but the catch is, the next tram is in ten minutes. That’s probably cutting it a bit fine. Alternatively, you could drive, and you’d be there to pick her up in fifteen minutes. You’re going to drive, obviously. Your fate is in your own control, for the most part. The fifteen-minute drive leaves another twenty-five minutes for traffic, and maybe you’ll even get there a little early, and she’ll be even happier. It’s the logical choice.

Wrong. You get five minutes through the drive when you start hearing funny noises from the engine. This is something you didn’t expect. You took it to a car service shop near Prahran just the other day! The issue doesn’t seem too bad, but is it worth the risk of a breakdown? Maybe you should take the car back to the shop and get them to check it out. On the other hand, you could risk it, and hope the car holds out. Besides, there’s that car mechanic within Hawthorn that your girlfriend is always talking about. That seems like the better option, so you go to pick her up for the date. Thankfully it makes it all the way, and when she asks about the funny noise, you let her decide if you should keep driving it. That way, if the car breaks down on the way to the restaurant, it’s not entirely your fault.

It seems like the family is hardly ever all here anymore. A handful have drifted away to start their own lives, but for those of us who are still left? It’s been ‘all cylinders firing’, as they say. Assignments from every single state, with rich folks wanting all manner of services and willing to pay fancy airfares to get us there.

I say ‘us’…I do admin, so I’m almost always here. My main job is to file all the equipment and keep it in good condition. It’s an important job, I’ll have you know; if I mislabel these summoning scrolls, they could unleash a fire when you actually just want a rain.

I went on one mission last month…quite thrilling, actually. We were in Hobart on quite a sensitive mission- can’t reveal the details, obviously- and to gather some intel we needed to speak with some people who did tyre repair. Hobart is a small settlement in the grand scheme of things, but we needed information on specific car tyres and how they can be repaired. The team said they brought me along because I’m unassuming and pathetic, but they also know that I’m the expert when it comes to cars and mechanical subjects. I do my research on our current Australian society, unlike some people who spend all their time hacking up straw training dummies with swords. 

Anyway, we looked into tire repairs and all kinds of car servicing to make sure we had the right information. I was included in the planning meeting…and then when it came time for the actual mission, they left me in the car. Not as the getaway driver; I was told to stay in the back seat. I guess it went well, because they came back an hour or so later in high spirits, swapping in-jokes that you have to be a proper mechanic to get. 

Whatever. Had a bit of fun, got included for once, got to talk to some auto electricians in Hobart. All in all, a nice trip. Good to finally get out of the storage room for a while. 

-Akashi

I know it’s rather crass and beneath my station, but I’m terribly curious as to what it’s like to drive a car. I’ve had a driver ever since I was born, and I’ve been periodically firing them since I was old enough to understand that I had the power to do that.

Sometimes they take turns too quickly when I’m applying makeup. Sometimes they refuse to go at double the speed limit so that I can make it to my social engagement. And sometimes I just get bored and feel like I need to use the firing muscle, lest I lose the firing muscle. 

Driving, though. So fascinating. Daddy used to do it for fun, so surely I could as well. Daddy was chums with some of the most prestigious car mechanics open in Ringwood– products of that prestigious driving academy run by that foreign woman who always snubs me at parties- which led to him trying to buy out the entire industry in one of the most prestigious and unexpected business deals in Melbourne’s history. Unfortunately he lost that contract to the Clancey family, our mortal enemies, and went to pursue other interests. I’m sure I could probably buy a few small mechanic garages here and there, just keeping things under the radar of our business rivals. Few auto services here, brake pad repair there, you know how it is.

Of course, I’m not at all inclined to use the services of a mechanic I don’t personally own, since they may not be up to my standards.

Oh, but…what a thrill it would be regardless! Sometimes in life, you must step outside your comfort zone, put on some low-class shoes, select one of your 400 or so vehicles and drive to an ordinary mechanic, then let fate decide what services you have done.

I certainly hope there’s actually something wrong with the vehicle…perhaps I’ll fire my personal mechanic, Timothy, in preparation. Let them sit for a while. Then I’ll find a garage for car inspections near Croydon and have something done, just like an appointment with a manicurist, or a personal orchestral composer.

Can you get vanity services done to a car? The wing mirrors could get a nice gilding with gold dust, for example. 

Drills, drills all day, every single day. They’re totally necessary, and I’m kept going by the heat of my inner flame, but wow, SO many drills.

Madame Broom doesn’t let just anyone into her prestigious academy, you know. You have to possess incredible innate talent, and the ability to work so hard your arms and legs feel like they’re about to fall off. I don’t know if I have what it takes, but that’s why I’m in training. If I make it, then I have a career as a Hawthorn car mechanic for the rest of my life. I’ll earn the respect of all my mechanic peers. 

Of course, you have to first get into the academy, and then get through the course, which only a tiny handful of people do. Hence why I’m doing as much training as possible. Madame Broom isn’t going to let anyone into her academy if they have a speck of rust on them, and fair enough. That’s what’s going to give me the edge over all the other people applying, so it may be enough to get me a callback, where I can really show Madame Broom what I can do. I can already replace a tire twice as fast as your average member of a pit crew, I can diagnose a car’s need of an oil change just by smelling the air, and the vehicle inspections…well, they’re a speciality of mine. My grandfather used to say I had ‘the sight’, whenever I made my way through his farm equipment and diagnosed what was wrong with them in short order. 

But then, I’m expecting to show up at the audition and everyone can do the same thing. It’ll just be a heap of people with the sight, and Madame Broom will have to pick who has the best sight, and is thus worthy to join the ranks of the Prahran car servicing professionals who have completed her intense course. How am I supposed to know how good my unusual skills are, with a bunch of other unusually skilled people? I’m not.

-Pavlova