Day 1 - Tuesday, August 22nd
9:30am - Julian picks me up from my place in the muffler-less EXA. Sure, it also has the wastegate hose disconnected, but I pray to God we're not going to drive the nine hours from Adelaide to Melbourne in this thing! I'm relieved to find out he just had to drive the cruddy Nissan while he went to register his Audi S4, after realising it'd not been registered for the last two days... oops!
10:00am - We set off (thankfully in the Audi) on our epic journey. Julian rests the speedo needle at 110 and the rain that's splattering on the windscreen disperses in pretty patterns thanks to an exterior film of Rain-X. I stretch back in the leather seat, electric controls adjusted just so.
11:00am - First stop: Tailem Bend's Shell servo/diner - the perfect opportunity to stock up on essential beverages for the journey. Julian buys a Farmer's Union Iced Coffee - "The last time I'll see a decent iced coffee," he grumbles, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the severely lacking Victoria. I grab a 600ml Fruita, a pasty (which, unfortunately, turns out to be a bit too spicy) and a sandwich to stash 'till later. Further down the road, I happily tell the story about what once happened to a packaged ex-servo sandwich after I'd left it in the glovebox for too long. Dammit - I should have saved that particular anecdote until after I'd eaten this bloody one...
3:30pm - We pull up at Horsham's chicken central - the local KFC. A horse-faced counter girl (gal?) serves me a large chips, and Julian checks out the tastes of a Colonel's Choice burger meal. Obviously very stressed by their demanding jobs, the shop managers keep themselves looking busy by serving each other coffee. Perhaps it's the stress of MC'ing the dance floor. What dance floor? - the one that could be placed in the middle of the huge, empty dining room... Shortly after leaving the premises, we receive a call from Boss Brendan - who sounds surprised we aren't closer to Melbourne. We're heading for a Grand Business Meeting at the New AutoSpeed Office that very night...oh well, we've got some time to make up.
7:00pm - We're somewhere on Melbourne's intricate highway network - me a little lost and flustered. Julian? He's equally lost but still relaxed and a bit vague - no point in getting excited when we're gonna be here for a week, he says. I've got the Melways out while blue flashes - appearing from overhead gantries - occasionally bathe the cabin in eerie short-lived glows....Bah, who really needs an E-Tag? We're visitors.
8:00pm - After considerable backtracking, and what yachties would refer to as 'tacking', we arrive at the new AutoSpeed office. Woo-hoo, I can stretch my legs at last! We have a chat with Boss Brendan, Idiosyncratic Ian and Naughty Nathan, and then we go on a tour of the newly-rented office building. Soon the Boss declares that it must be time for tea - and there's no argument from us! Chinese from around the corner is the go. Since this is the only free meal that we'll be getting in the next week, it's time to make major inroads. Boss Brendan realises the big ask and orders the banquet.
9:00pm - Julian shows his lack of class by refusing the chopsticks and asking for a fork, while I try to keep pace with an endless stream of Chinese food that's delivered to our table. Bowl after bowl appear - when will it ever end?! My face grows redder as I try to retain my sang froid in the face of this gastronomic overload... gotta appear cool in front of the other guys..... Everyone chats about business while I try merely to swallow the food that's pinched between my chopsticks.
Walking back to the office, we ask what kind of bill we should be expecting after driving through all those E-Tag beams... There's a group laugh - but we still don't get any real answers. Oh well, we'll have to wait for that one - and then send the bill directly to Boss Brendan. Once we're back at the office, Naughty Nathan hands over a new AC22 accelerometer for us to test. At first glance, it doesn't look too bad either. We realise what a treat the Chinese was for the guys - normally their diet consists of John West canned Tuna and Nescafe Blend 43...
10:00pm - At long last we arrive at the Ferntree Gully Motel and dump our bags on the floor. About half an hour later the Chinese food really starts to kick in.... and we've gotta share a room. Bloody barking ants. Time for sleep.
Day 2 - Wednesday, August 23rd
7:45am - Rise and shine (or, at least, rise anyway). We (er, separately) jump in for showers (geez Vic water is s-o much cleaner than the brown syrupy stuff back in Adelaide!) and assemble our necessary gear while catching glimpses of some children's television on the cable.
9:30am - There can be some worse tasks in the world than arriving in the CBD to pick up a yellow, limited edition, just-registered Lexus IS200. A real stunner. We leave the faithful Audi in the dealer's secured parking area and Julian cries surreptitious tears of loss, wiping his cheeks on the lapel of the Lexus salesman who thinks it's symptomatic of the Editor's overflowing joy at the sight of the IS200.
Then, only a short distance out of the city, we find a quiet recreational park to do some photography of the IS. Now's the perfect time - we don't have any other fast-approaching commitments. While taking pics under the bonnet, we are disgusted to see the engine initials '1G'. It turns out the hot looking little Lexus is powered by an updated version of a $195 Jap-wrecker engine! Eeek! Our opinion falls mightily.
1:00pm - Julian and I arrive back at the office for a meeting with the AutoSpeed team (on-route the IS200 is pasted in a straightline drag by a V6 Rodeo!). This is very constructive get together where many strategies are discussed and a few new ideas are bounced around. (Translation: all expound lots of piss and wind.) But - and get this - we have to make our own lunch... (gasp!) Julian is nice enough to show me how a knife is used to apply butter to two pieces of bread, which then are placed together with some meat between them. As if I didn't know how to make a sandwich... But I get the last laugh: the noble Editor applies so much Hot English Mustard to his ham sandwich that he starts to shed tears part way through what has now become a business meeting. Not really how to behave in front of Boss Brendan, I later (gently) point out.
4:00pm - We take up our invitation to go to the RMIT Bundoora East wind tunnel. The bespectacled and engaging Associate Professor Simon Watkins engages us in technical conversation and shows us around for nearly 3 hours - enthralling stuff. Even the IS200 is lucky enough to get a ride in the wind tunnel - and it's interesting to hear from inside the cabin its wind noise, a low frequency thrum that we hadn't picked while driving it on the road. Oh, and Simon is also silly enough to offer us cream biscuits (Arnott's Classic Assortment, I think) which we initially politely turn down - and then help ourselves to whenever the coast is clear...
7:00pm - Hungry Jacks is calling. We burst into the nearest HJ's and consume a tasty serving of beef burger meals - the chips are even hot (although in our considered opinion the onion on the burgers is a bit heavy). I then drive and navigate the Lexus back to the room. Drive and navigate simultaneously? God, I must be brilliant. Julian reclines the left hand seat and tries to digest several packets of Arnotts Cream Biscuits and a Whopper, fries and Sprite (upsized).
8:00pm - We're back at our room (number 6, for anyone who wants to follow in our esteemed footsteps) and are annoyed by the absence of a mini-bar. For travelling journalists it's an essential item, not just a luxury. Boss Brendan (and accommodation organising Angelic Andrea) - take note! Accordingly, we visit the bottle-o next door and grab a Penfolds Club Port. "It's cheap, but it does its job," says Julian. With our tumblers full (they don't provide port glasses in budget motel rooms), we sit down to plan who we'll ring and what we will do tomorrow. After that, Julian makes notes on the IS200 and I decide to run around the room seeing how many lateral g's I can develop on the test accelerometer... My performance improves as the port level diminishes.
With work out of the way, it's time to watch the box. We are especially impressed by an offering from the TVSN shopping channel - an $880 cooker, which can apparently nuke a steak in 30 seconds. Amazing! We have another port each to celebrate this revelatory development in cooking technology, discussing its prowess in increasingly befuddled tones.
Day 3 - Thursday, August 24th
9:30am - We arrive at Crossover Sports and Luxury Cars to be met by the relaxed, debonair and soft-spoken Craig Dean. He quickly makes it clear that there's a free choice of test cars open to us. Mustangs, Soarers, a Harrier (Lexus RX300) 4WD - and what's that ugly duckling sitting in the corner over there? A 1981 Nissan Gloria in perfect condition! We talk to Craig for a while and then decide we'll take off in one of his '94 Mustangs. A bright yellow 5-litre one. With another set of banana coloured wheels added to our stable, we drive in tandem back to the motel.
11:00am - Back at our room, we have coffee (x 2) and perform some serious organising and diary filling. Things go pretty smoothly - we've already spoken to most of these people prior to leaving Adelaide. It'd be impossible otherwise: "We're from AutoSpeed. We'd like to drive your car. Timeframe? Oh, we'll be over in half an hour..."
1:00pm - We roll up at the workshop of the quick-speaking Vin Macaro - aka BGT. Vin enthusiastically pours over some web shots of the new model WRX before leading us off to reveal a collection of nice aftermarket gear - photography and note taking follows. We grab a 4-LED shiftlight for a 'product review' (Julian wants a shiftlight for his weird 5-cylinder Audi that nothing else suits) and then with some relevant news items now out of the way, we shoot a couple of BGT's hottest Rexies - Vin's own wagon (a new one) and a customer's stroked wagon. All of this is done in front of a nearby vacant office building, with some moving shots taken on a road around the corner. Oh, and after aiming his camera at another passing car, Julian has a bit of a run-in with a distraught woman moonlighting as an illegal drug courier and most unhappy about being photographed (she thinks) as Julian was setting the lens focus. But we won't go into all that...
3:00pm - Now very hungry - we've not eaten all day - we track down the nearest KFC and order something greasy that makes out taste buds dance. While we're there, we observe the staff's wild excitement after someone takes all of their red drinking straws and dumps them in the car park. We leave, wondering if the soiled straws will be returned to their dispensers once we're out of view... After our lipid and sodium levels have been revitalised, Julian decides to visit a nearby servo to clean IS200's wheels of brake dust (it wasn't to be thrashed) before we return it to Melbourne City Lexus.
4:45pm - We say our not-so-sad goodbyes to the IS and pick up a new Toyota Avalon Grande - you know, the one our Aussie Dame dribbles in. A shocking ad campaign that one... But the Avalon's no slouch - get that straight. Too good an opportunity to pass up, Julian tosses down the gauntlet for a green light drag race between the Avalon (Julian) and the V8 Mustang (me). The result? A dead heat up to 120 km/h! That makes the Mustang look like a bit of a tired old donkey, doesn't it?! Or just mebbe the Avalon's not as slow as you'd think.
8:00pm - Julian and I make a special return trip to our motel room to grab the, "Nah we won't need that today," photographic tripod, and then head all the way back into the city.
9:30pm - We find an adequate photo location at the back of the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre - but then we have to argue with a Neanderthal security man about being able to take our pics. Give someone a bit of authority and look what they become... got some photography done anyway.
We move on (under pressure) and come across a city bridge that's got some nice looking building lights in the background. Julian gets me to drive the 'Stang up and down the bridge (with a U-turn at each end) while he stands waiting in the middle of the bridge with the camera, dodging trams and out-going city traffic. There's only a modicum of passing traffic - though the cars that are present slow abruptly when they see Julian standing there with the camera and flash. No drug couriers this time though.... About half way through this process, I receive a puzzled phone call from my girlfriend back in Adelaide, "You're doing what, where?" Sometimes it's hard to explain a night photo shoot...
10:45pm - We pull in for dine-in Subway rolls just before the shop closes. These are of an exceptionally high standard and go down very smoothly indeed. Nine outa ten in fact. However, we do feel a bit unwanted when we have to unlock the doors to let ourselves out!
11:45pm - At last, we arrive back at the motel room and head straight for bed - so much for having an early one, as was originally planned...
Next week: Toyota Harrier, Alfa GTV, 300ZX TT, Gemini Turbo, 4.6 Mustang, 200SXR, VL Turbo - and Yalumba Shiraz.
Coffee, Cars & Cardboard Food - Part 2
Coffee, Cars & Cardboard Food - Part 3
|