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| A much more handsome version than mine |
Now I had no car at all. I didn't mind that too much really although I must say the weekend shopping was a bit of a bitch as it was a 20 minute walk each way, and my fiance was super unimpressed. My car free Utopia wouldn't last, this much was clear, and to be fair, it's hard to pick up without a car let alone get someone to marry you, so I thought it best to get a car before the wedding.
Tricky part now though was was that I was working two jobs to save for the wedding and I sure as hell wasn't going into debt again for a bucket of bolts. Mugs game that one.
I needed a cheap shit box. I now had a mechanic I could really trust who I had met through my second job - a night job in a gourmet pizza shop - and he told me to just buy Corollas. I was speaking to my dad on the phone one day and mentioned I was looking for a car so he could keep an ear to the ground.
"What do you want to spend?" he asked.
"Fuck all" I said, "A thousand max."
He mentioned there was a Corolla that had been sitting out the front of his house for months that had been abandoned by someone, and had a key in the ignition. Next time I was around there it was still there. Sure enough it had a single key sticking out of the ignition. The car seat was a milk crate with a cushion on it, secured by a rope. It was ugly as shit, dented and baby poo yellow, but it had an engine and four wheels - so it met my pre-requisites. After a couple of go's it actually turned over, and I wasted no time taking off in it. I had to stop three times on the 40 minute drive home because it kept overheating, but it made it to my mechanic who replaced the radiator and it was pretty much good to go. We did some checks and the car wasn't reported as stolen, so I took the punt and forged the papers to change the ownership over, then registered it for a year.
Again, I was pretty happy about this arrangement and took to regularly driving to work in it. Due to it's horrible appearance I was sure to park it where no one I worked with was likely to see me get in or out of it. I knew a local houso Aboriginal who let me park it in his driveway and he kept an eye on it for me. Can't beat free parking.
One day after work I was driving home, sitting at a red light in traffic in Ultimo when I flicked a cigarette out the window that bounced back into the car. While I waited for the green light, I copped a whiff of smoke, and noticed the ancient pillow on my milk crate had set fire. I jumped out of the car as the lights turned green and kicked the fire out. Behind me at the lights was a work colleague who witnessed the whole event. I was pretty embarrassed but smiled, waved politely, and jumped back on my stinking crate.
He hit me up about it the next day of course. It was a bit awkward explaining to a guy from Orange whose father owned a car yard and who drove a brand new shiny green ute so I left it at "It's a long story". But I did get a proper chair fitted after that which my back thanked me for.
In some ways this was the best car I ever had when you factored in the purchase price and given I didn't have to worry about what happened to it because it already looked so bad.
One day I was the first car at the lights at Manly where all the ferry commuters from the city cross the road to go to the corso. A pair of young Pacific Island men stopped crossing the road paused momentarily when they saw the car , and my wife and I heard one of them say to the other
"Check it out bro, that's the first really shit car we've seen since we've been here!!" and they both laughed as they walked off.
One friend of mine who was quite amused with this little runabout, was a co-worker Paul. Paul was one of the few people where I worked that lived near me, and I would often give him a lift home. The first time I had him in the car I cleared a median strip on the bridge coming home, giving the bottom of the car a nice scrape. It was fine though. Paul was amazed I would do such a thing to beat traffic, but that was the kind of thing you could do in a car like that. Physical damage just did not factor into any equation.
On one occasion though, I dropped him off in another part of town in some unfamiliar territory. Rounding a bend coming off a little motorway, I came across a bus about 30 metres in front of me stopped at a red light that I didn't know existed (it had just been put in by the council). Hammering the brakes, I slid and skidded to stop so close to the back of the bus that you wouldn't have got a sheet of paper between it and my front end. So judged to perfection then really.
The Corolla was a faithful if hideous servant. I had it for about a year I suppose until my wife was heavily pregnant. While I was happy to fang around in the "Rolla", it wasn't something you would want to drive around with your kid in it. Off it went to where it should have gone long ago - the wreckers.
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