Tim Ross joins us to talk classic Aussie car culture...plus how he almost died in the UK

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We've got pretty exciting guests on, Rossa. Yeah, Tim had a book that was probably one of the first books I read outside high school, but it was with, it was with Merrick, and it was literally called Merrick and Rossa the book, and it was very much a picture book, but it was very funny, it was very funny. That one sold all right. Yeah, Merrick and Rossa the book, and then, and then we went from Triple J to Nova,

and the bugger's at ABC, books cracked it, and they stopped, they wouldn't reprint it, so it was out of print. It's collector's item. You can get them on eBay for about $4.

Yeah, the ten. The book, yeah, the op shop for about three. Yeah, the worst thing is, I learnt very early on that when someone asked you to write something, you know, so can you sign this to my brother, and then can you say,

I was able to open the house, and then you're all right, all right, dear Graham, why don't you, yeah, so you go, it's so funny, and then my brother, right, he was in an op shop one day, and he saw one of my books, opens it up, and it's like, dear Graham, what are you?

So when people say to me, now can you say, no, I will not do that, because I like to think that people keep my books forever, but they don't.

I cost a living crisis, they just go get rid of it.

I used to have this beautiful, but newton autobiography from the 70s, right? When he had the watermelon on the front, he had a few.

Yeah, it's just his head, and it was called Bert, and I was reading at it, uni, I was obsessed with that sort of late night TV back in the day.

It was such a great era, that channel nine studios, you know, Don Lane, and all this, I loved it all, right?

And so I was a massive Bert newton fan, and I was reading at it, uni, and we were in, oh, Burk Road, Canberwell, I feel like it was George Eos or something.

Anyway, I'm there with a couple of my mates, and who was to walk in, but Bert and Patty Yun?

Yeah, wow.

And I'm like, oh my god, I've got the Bert book in the car, and I'm like, yeah, I went and got it.

And he was great, wasn't he?

He was so great. He wrote in my book, Dear Gordy, thanks for buying the book in brackets, 30 cents, best wishes, Bert newton or something like that.

And I sat with them for a good 15, 20 minutes.

He was pushing it, but that's good 15 seconds.

No, but I sat with him for a while, and she was like...

She is just lovely.

Yeah.

She was doing the apprentice or something like that, and you know, someone, I don't know.

Decal or something rings up and goes, oh, we're trying to get as many people down here.

Can you come down, I have fucked Decal or something.

And she was there, and I had my son who was like a year old or something at the time.

I swear, and you go, oh my god, these old-fashioned showbiz people, the nicest people.

And you're right, you know, of course he's going to say yes, and of course he's going to sit down.

Yeah.

And let you sit down and whatever, yeah.

Well, that's the thing.

Like, I look back on that and go, the audacity of me, he was like in a cafe having some time with his wife,

and I just come up and go, oh, good, I'm just doing it.

And he's like, oh, yeah, come sit down, sit down.

And the whole cafe, I didn't realise, was looking at me and like, Paddy's just gone, oh, you've got a bit of an audience.

I'm like, oh, thanks here.

And like, the whole crowd was like, and they were just so lovely.

Like, they were just genuinely nice people.

I never forget that moment.

I saw Johnny Young, young talentite.

That's cool.

I had an island in Fiji.

Smoking a dart and having a Fiji bit of it.

Yes, that's the only way I would want to meet Johnny Young.

Did he have a Hawaiian shirt?

No, he literally just said he's Speedo's on.

He's got hanging out the front.

That he was like at the beach bar in the sand.

That is so good.

And I was like, oh, my God.

What are you doing?

Oh, he's like, he was eating that dart.

You know, some people are like, oh, they smoke like a Frenchman.

He's like all smokers.

He's like sucking and he's like 14 in the dunnings

and he thinks the geography teacher's gonna come in.

He's sucking that back like 70 showbiz should.

That's what he's doing.

That is so good.

He would put that between two bits of bread

and eat it like a sandwich.

Which would be good.

I loved it.

It's so good.

It's on Johnny Farnham once too.

Did you share with me last time?

I got back with that.

I got into it.

No, so I was like grade one wearing a school excursion

to Captain Cook's cottage in Melbourne.

Yeah.

Right.

And like this guy Simon, who went to the primary school

with he had a spew.

He did a yoga spew down the steps of Captain Cook's cottage.

So we had to evacuate everyone on the front.

I went out the back, bumped into John Farnham

and I said, oh, can I Johnny?

And he said, get any waived at me.

And to this day, no one went to primary school with remembered.

None of them believed that I'd sorry.

Did you just like it was the hugest thing?

Was he actually there though?

No, he was there.

Like he was like, because he was filming.

He was actually in Captain Cook's cottage.

Yeah.

That's where he lived.

Yeah.

And now of course they don't call it Captain Cook's cottage.

No, it's not allowed to.

No, so it's not allowed to.

Oh, don't know.

I didn't know this.

So it's like, it's called Cook's cottage.

So you go, I wonder if fucking Maggie Bears in there.

She's coming.

Maggie Bearing's so annoying.

He's just doing a TV show for the early 2000s.

Oh, yeah.

What are you cooking today?

You just, well, all these like 12-year-old kids go in there

and they just see like, what are you cooking today, Maggie?

Because I'm cooking a nice smoked trout

with a bit of fat and orange glaze.

How many episodes do you reckon they would punch you

out on a day like show?

I don't know.

But I like to think she was like Johnny Young

somewhere in Fiji with a tid out sack and back a dart.

Just one tip.

Yeah.

I don't know.

That was a great show though.

It was exceptional show.

It was a great show.

Poor teams walked into it.

Not a great show.

Yeah, I was going to say this is the exact opposite of that.

We wanted to get you in basically

because obviously you're a massive current enthusiast.

A massive car podcast as well.

And obviously the book, Chuck E.U.E.

You've got a whole heap of stuff.

And congrats on that new pod you're doing

with Kevin McLeod as well.

So that's easy.

He's more of a car nut than I am.

Easy.

Mad.

He's got like never would have picked that.

Oh, he's got quite the collection.

He's got this singer, Miranda's like 1920s thing, right?

It's quite an obscure 1920s.

Maybe it's English.

You'll find out in a second.

And we were going through the French countryside one day.

How'd you do?

And he had this...

I wish I could remember him all.

I'll get a photo up and you can go see.

Yeah, Lee and Alfory had a 70s jag.

Bunch of different cars.

Was he leaning towards any particular type?

Like was he a real UK guy?

Like a real UK car?

I thought he had a dark skin.

People had types.

But he...

I think he was just interested in what he called bangers.

Yeah.

Yeah, because when I tried looking for it,

it keeps coming up with cars with the Menendez brothers car.

No, I'm an Indian.

I'm an Indian.

I remember.

I can't buy a...

Don't.

Don't let me look at the guy.

I'll show you the photo.

And then you can...

I never remember.

I'm...

You just with this stuff.

It's like I'm not as...

That much of a car enthusiast to some people.

That's the Kansan.

Yeah, that's it, Kansan.

Yeah.

Anyway, I had all these cars.

Fantastic.

And this Moran...

They've all the people who are far up about it.

But they'll work it out.

Yeah, exactly.

So we were...

We were having this trip with his family.

We went from Germany back to the UK.

It was amazing, right?

That's cool.

And we're going on the final day.

We're going through these rolling hills in France.

And this 1920s car.

And like literally it was one of those cars...

That...

If someone was 20 metres in front of you...

And they walked out.

Yeah.

You just have to...

Get off the fucking road!

Because like you can't stop the car.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

It's made of wood, right?

Yeah.

He's afraid flinched on it.

It's just to start it.

Yeah.

We're having this amazing day.

We're like...

We're side by side.

It's very tight.

Really beautiful, right?

Friends...

It was picturesque.

I got us a bit lost and he didn't get angry about it.

And can I pause you for a second?

Was that a cool moment that you became friends with that guy?

Because I imagine like there would have been a time before you knew each other.

You kind of like...

Was it a fanboy moment in a way?

Because he's a pretty cool dude.

By that stage you know,

It was close enough to sit next to him in a vintage car.

But probably before that.

No, when I first met him, yeah.

I mean, I really like what he did on the tally.

Still do.

But we just hit it off, I suppose.

It's one of those things shared interests.

So we like the sun setting.

Everyone's already back at the hotel before us because I got us lost.

And we come up around the corner

and this cyclist pulls out of somewhere

and then we swerve a little bit

and there's cars coming straight towards us, right?

And I thought we were going to die.

Like literally because of the cars made of wood.

Yeah.

Somehow long the way, you know,

it's like a small...

This is a really small street.

I don't think the road's there.

It's got cobbled walls on either side.

Somehow, I don't know how.

Kev maneuvers the car.

It goes completely sideways.

Yeah.

And then he gets it back.

The car goes to the side.

Doesn't hit us.

Jeez.

And then we get back to the hotel.

And we don't tell anyone.

That's for the best.

And then like we never mentioned it ever again.

Yeah.

Like I literally thought I was going to die

and I thought,

and I'm going to be the really small buy one here.

Yeah.

This is like getting my cloud killed with...

Something like that.

Australian Yahoo.

So that's for the, you know,

like I admire people who like wooden cars.

Having said that,

that wouldn't be a shit way to die.

I mean, there'd be worse ways to die.

You know, this thing, like I look at,

there's this...

Worth having a look at, right?

There's an extraordinary video

that National Film and Sound archive did

where they put this sort of

all this footage of cars from back in the day together.

Right?

It goes for about nine minutes.

And I saw it at this exhibition in Coffs Harbour.

And there was,

these bloke's coming in that heard about it.

They just come in and watch.

And they watch nine minutes.

Wouldn't look at any of the other exhibition.

And then they would leave.

But you know when you see those

old shots of those cars.

And they were there back in the day

to make it look like

this is the sportiest car in the world.

Yeah.

You look at them and you think that,

yeah, you're going to die.

Like if something just slightly

you'd go to a tree and that would be it.

Yeah.

But you just died all the time.

Yeah.

It's funny because I like,

I'd jump in one of those old cars now.

Like it could be an iconic,

it could be a tester roster or something like that.

And at the time,

you think that is the pinnacle of

automotive,

coolness,

engineering,

design,

the lot.

And then you get in it.

And it can be somewhat,

when you finally drive something like that,

sometimes it can be a little bit underwhelming

because you're like,

no, this just drives like 1991.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And you want it to be something.

Yeah.

You want it to,

like you want to feel like James Bond

a little bit more,

like it just,

ah.

I had a DS.

Right.

And I love that car.

But it wasn't very,

like it was really cheap.

Yep.

And it was in a great condition.

And I sold it to someone

when my kids came along.

Well, the first my kids came along.

And this guy came and took it away

and I think he's,

his daughter was using it to,

you know, bush-bashing

or some sort of rally-driving garden.

Don't know where it's turned up.

It certainly hasn't turned up anyway.

Not that I look on line all the time

for these cars,

but I've gone with it.

But then I looked at more recently

and I took one for a test drive.

And this, my car that I bought

was maybe $2,000 back in the day.

You know, only $2,000,

oh, 2007 or something, right?

2006.

And then I was looking at one

that was 54.

And it didn't drive any differently.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

Like you can't magically make it any bit.

Yeah.

But it doesn't help today,

as well,

because car prices have gone through the roof.

COVID drove up all these classic cars.

And you genuinely will overpay for something today.

Drive it and go.

The hood's backed off a little bit,

but a little bit still is.

There's still some crazy COVID prices.

Yeah.

But I don't know.

There's something about just sitting in a car

that you know back then was, you know, like a GT.

You knew that was the fastest Ford or sedan

on the planet at that time.

And to think some of the speeds

that people were doing,

like that iconic shot of,

it was motoring journalism,

it was driving the GT flat-chat.

Yeah.

I shouldn't know this,

because I put it in my car.

Is that Robo?

No, it was someone else.

But it was off the dial, basically.

And it's like just a slight sidewind,

a crosswind or something like that,

would finish it.

But that was just the thing back then.

And today you've got the Chinese,

the, what's the fucking called,

the Yang Wang U9,

genuinely its name.

It just set a speed record of

500 and something kilometers an hour.

They're, they're derivative of B-I-D.

Yeah, it's a quad electric motor.

And it's like,

shortly in 10 years time,

we're not going to have all 20, 30 years time.

It's going to be a car that's doing a thousand kilometers an hour

and that seems slow and old and dangerous.

There's a point where I don't know,

I'm not an engineer.

Yeah.

And I should say that there's a point

you could only go as fast as

the robots can do whatever we want them to do.

Yeah.

And then we're not getting well.

But there was nostalgia for cars,

I think it's really interesting.

And I had this,

I got this amazing game out from this guy.

I told him this beautiful story about how

he saw Falcon like his dad's

at a motor show.

And sort of went on,

this is like,

it's amazing,

that's like my old family car.

It's exactly the same color,

the same color interior.

And he goes up to the guy

whose car it was and he said,

you know,

my dad used to have one of these,

you know,

would be okay if I sit in the car.

And he said,

yeah, go for it.

And he opened up the driver's door

and he said,

no, no, no, no.

I don't want to sit there.

I want to sit in the back.

Like when he was a kid.

Well, here you go.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

The driver's seat there.

You know,

it's nostalgic about the car.

Yeah.

And that's,

I think that's what drives,

it's said, you know,

the people to go and buy,

buy those cars that you either,

dad always wanted to.

Yeah.

You dad had,

or you yearned for or whatever.

And then, you know,

obviously,

no one's yearning for 1920's cars,

because they went around.

But that's like,

I think when I did the Chucky Uey book.

Yep.

And so I was on there,

I'd be saying,

I was doing all this talk back.

And there were,

like the amount of people

who would call in,

who rang up,

like the 60s and 20s and 30s cars,

he's quite extraordinary.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah.

Wow.

And then the guy,

yeah, we used to have this car

and he used to crank it up.

And like,

I'd blend out a drive

from 955 in a 20-year-old car,

which makes sense.

Exactly.

It's funny,

the small things that you remember about,

those sorts of cars,

like the old cars,

like the fin steering wheel,

or the way like,

it was so bloody clunky to change gears,

or...

Seatbelt,

like a little bit in the shit out here.

Yeah.

And like,

those seat belts

that were just like clicking

almost like an aeroplane,

just these little tiny bits that I just remember

of old cars and neighbors cars and all that.

I remember going to a car show

in this old dude sitting next to

some sort of Ferrari,

and he was there just in the bloody sun

on a deck chair,

just like...

And he had like a sandwich board

in front of his car,

and he was like,

one owner,

such and such,

put the pieces together,

and I'm like,

oh, you bought that?

He goes, yeah,

there's my first car back in,

you know,

1972 or whatever.

I was like,

your first car was a Ferrari?

He was like, yeah.

And he did the whole,

well, you know,

it was either buy a house

or buy a car

and you can't drive a house.

And he's had that car

ever since.

And he still just

pressed in it.

He's probably...

Yes.

Yeah, it was Trevor Long.

He's just like

washing himself with a cloth

in the boat.

But he was sitting there,

just proudly,

and I thought,

that's awesome.

Like, that's really cool.

And there's something about old cars.

No one sits proudly

next to their Tesla

and goes,

this is my Tesla.

Have a look at it.

I can make it fart

and flash and lights

and stuff.

I just don't think

we're going to,

we just won't have that.

Yeah, there's that idea.

I think we're talking about this,

another time about how you,

you know, and runs out the front of you,

your house,

when you get a new car

or you get more.

Yeah, 100%.

How you knew everyone in the street,

who's...

Yeah, 100%.

100%.

You know what I mean?

It's got a new car.

You know what I mean?

It'd be like an event.

You know what I mean?

It would be like a proper,

even when you saw,

I feel like that now,

when you say like an old car

driving past,

it's like, it's a thing.

It's like,

oh, check it out.

But when you see,

like a modern EV,

it's just like,

yeah.

I mean, the romance

of all of my bills

has changed dramatically.

Yeah.

You know, I wonder

where the prices got something

to do with that as well.

Yeah. You've got a competing priority.

It's like a house today,

especially here in Sydney.

I mean, you can have a house

and be under enormous mortgage pressure

or you can rent

and have a new car.

Like it's talking about this

kind of stuff.

Like you can have both.

And I think that is,

and also kids,

like my cousin,

he's almost 40.

He still lives at home.

But our beer,

he never got a license.

Has no interest in driving.

And I'm like,

this is the new kids

that are growing up now.

They just don't want to drive.

They'll catch ubers places.

They'll get lifts with friends.

They just don't want to get a license.

And I think that is part of it as well.

There's just no want for it.

Yeah, I mean,

freedom's easier now.

Yeah.

So, you know, like,

as a suburban nation

and arguably the world's

first suburban nation,

the reliance of the automobile

is huge.

Yeah.

And so what they represent is freedom.

Yeah.

But freedom comes in all sorts of different ways.

Yeah.

And you don't,

they're not places

to have recreational sex anymore.

Yeah.

That's where we're just sex.

Doesn't have to be recreational.

All the other ones.

Mine's very purposeful.

And to the point.

Yeah.

There's nothing recreational about my sex.

So, they, they, they, of course, you know,

there's always going to be, you know,

car culture in some shape or form.

But it's not as widespread in the same way

because they don't,

the cars aren't as representative of that.

Because you want to go somewhere

and you go, oh,

I'll just get mum to drive.

And you don't care.

So you're not embarrassed.

No, but no.

And they go, oh, Barbara's taking us off.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

There's no thanks for the lift, Mrs. Johnson.

And that shit's gone.

You know, like, it's like, oh, yeah.

You know, tell your mum.

She's probably coming to the nightclub, too.

Yeah.

She'll probably, she'll probably

supply the bag.

Yeah.

But you know where the culture is shifting now.

We spoke about the Melbourne 4 by 4 show.

I went there and I was not expecting much.

But there was shit loads of people there.

And now if you go outside the cities,

you go regional.

People love their forward drives.

And it's almost like manufacturing

and Australia ends.

People then migrate to forward.

They migrate to forward drives to go access a lifestyle

that they didn't previously.

They're modifying them.

They're lifting them.

Regionally, everyone's still driving toyotas.

You know, you go to the, go to Burke or to Broken Hill.

They're all in land cruises and highluxes.

So it's almost like that the Australian culture has evolved

into these dual cabutes and enormous vehicles now.

It isn't that interesting.

Of course, that makes sense.

And when you look at the history of cars

and the one thing that always surprised me on it,

I never realized at the time.

But that window when the Sandman was huge.

Just really small.

Yeah.

Like it's three years or four years tops.

Isn't that crazy?

And in terms of its place.

It's placed in its impact.

Yeah.

The Australian psyche.

Huge.

In pop culture.

But yeah, this is a small window in time.

There's probably cars that went, you know,

that probably talk about the impact of what's happening now.

What you're talking about with forward drives.

We'll go for a much longer period of time.

Yeah.

Sandman.

But, you know, it's funny.

There's on a slightly sort of tangential topic.

They've got at the moment that there's the amount of

Commodore's getting stolen is insane.

And this is late model Commodore's.

They've got a tool basically off the internet that will allow you

to clone keys on the car and they've figured out how to

disable alarms so you don't hear it going off.

So there's now a market for people to take these parts

that they're buying for cheap because thieves are stealing the car,

stripping them down, dumping shells in the middle of nowhere.

And then these cars will go overseas and they'll put LS3s

and LSAs in all these different things.

So it's weird that this, the last little bit of connection

that we have is now getting stolen by a fucking thieves.

It's crazy.

Nothing is safe these days.

It's just a part.

Yeah, it really is disappointing.

And it's these thieves that, ironically, are younger kids

who have no real interesting cars and are doing it for whatever

their reasons are.

But these cars have such sentimental value.

This one dude that emailed me, he had a club sport LSA

that he drove to Chadston.

He knew about all of these thefts happening.

He drove it to Chadston to take his wife out for their,

her birthday lunch.

He was in there for an hour and the car was gone.

No.

And this guy, we're off to taking a chatty here.

Yeah.

So yeah, I was going, I do want to say anything.

I was like, what are you fucking doing?

Taking in a bloody gold class?

You tied us.

There's a pancake part.

Yeah, there's a pancake part.

There is a, my brother, when I was bad in Melbourne recently,

my brother took me to, there's like a new wing of Chadston.

Yeah.

And it's very fancy.

And partial.

My brother was going, oh yeah, you know, when we,

when we finished all the bloody construction on this,

this oyster bar here, me and blah, blah, blah,

we had all, you know, we're here for five, six hours.

And all the oysters and champagne.

It was like Don Perry on the time.

And I thought, yeah, but you're still getting pissed

in a shopping center.

I'm so chatty.

Yeah, it's still fucking chatty.

What are you doing?

What do you want to do?

But you get pissed and go to times.

What are you doing?

How weird do you like?

But there's a, there's a, there's a posh section to chatty.

There's a hotel there now.

People have to stay there.

I've never seen it.

Oh my.

Was it with your wife or someone else?

Someone's wife.

Yeah.

Across the road was the Oakley Motel.

Yeah.

The first motels in the country.

And so the idea was that because on Danny Long Road,

there was the, where they had the 9 and 56 Olympics marathon.

Really?

So it's there.

Well, the idea was there was going to be on the halfway mark

to the 19 for 56 Olympics.

So people could stay in the motel and then come out the front.

And then watch everyone run past.

But because it's Australia, they didn't get it finished till 9 and 57.

Remember when Chadstone was just like that, the Maya section?

Yeah.

It's just like that square kind of brown.

It's like a giant brown.

Yeah, one of the great, one of the great modernists.

Yeah.

Shopping centers in the country.

Yeah.

Like the motel.

It was like the future had come to the East suburbs.

Yeah.

And now it still has.

Yeah.

The actual sunburned Thompson.

The sunburned Beezer Shopping Center now.

Yeah.

It's wild.

Hey, when Merrick came on the podcast, he told a great story of you guys

would quite often on a Friday get stuck into the beers and just buy random cars.

I don't know where there was in the afternoon.

It was probably about 10,000 miles away.

Yes.

10,000 already.

I mean, neither of us, you know, look, the truth is somewhere between, you know, when it happened,

my version of events and his are quite often different with these stuff.

But the one truth was is that there was always a copy of in our office of unique cars.

Yeah.

Love it.

And so whenever a program director had come in and it was mostly missed, to be honest, he would turn his back.

And he'd have his both notes out and his glasses on.

And then, yeah, we occasionally, we bought a bunch of different things.

But the famous ones we bought was the Layland P76.

Yes.

We bought a 180 B's.

We didn't pay for that as a station car.

That's cool.

Did you buy that car from two hands?

Yeah, and then the two hands car that used to belong to Gregor Jordan.

Yeah.

And we were just at the shop.

It was being that Shopping Center Fox Studios and he drove past trying to sell it for someone.

And then we had like a Ford sort of van like captain's chairs that we had.

Oh, cool.

Like a fancy or something?

Yeah.

It was a really bad shop job and a bad worst conversion.

And we ended up giving it to a producer of ours.

I don't know why.

And she couldn't get it registered.

I don't know what happened to it.

But it was like, it was our version of the 18 van basically.

When we were doing a TV show.

And then I left it out the front of my house.

I just let him and James try to like add that there in the age of the time.

And then I had a citron and then they rang the council on me trying to get rid of it.

But yeah.

But there was, I think it was we would be quite bored and think, you know,

and there were always just cheap bangers.

Nothing was expensive.

Like we bought the Blalens.

I think maybe for two for eight grand or something.

Well, the same guy.

Of the two for eight grand.

Like, no, I'm sorry.

And then some dude in Queensland.

Yeah.

You know, we've taken both.

We've taken Barry.

And there's a lot of guy in there.

You can literally end the blocs just on the other end of the phone games.

It's a prank call.

Are you taking a piss right now?

Yeah.

I'm in the bar toilets.

Hey, you buy these things.

I bought my EH.

I was in Tasmania.

And I was going for a walk and I saw it there.

I wrote down, it's before phones with cameras.

And I wrote down phone number for it.

And I was cheap and I thought, I'm just like, I'm going to buy this.

And then I'd lost the piece of paper.

No.

So I put it in the add in the mercury.

Saying, if you were selling a Calgulli Brown 1963 EH Holden,

I'd like to buy it.

I've lost your details.

Can you give me a good?

It's so good.

And then he emailed me.

I rang me or something.

I bought it.

That is sensational.

And then he wanted to buy it back off me.

He's like, fuck off.

No.

I'm in a salon.

Yeah.

I'm in a salon.

Is it funny?

Like, I know God, you're in radio.

But for me, on the outside looking in, it seems it was a bit of wild west back.

Then you kind of do whatever you wanted.

You guys were kind of stars of the show.

You can get away with murder.

Is there sort of stuff that you were told, no, you can't do that.

I mean, that stuff was, they were, when we bought the 180B,

they paid for the 180B.

They paid for the 180B.

It was more than, I think, that stuff was just like our money.

Just doing what we wanted.

You know, like, just because we like, it was just fun.

I didn't know.

It was in our money.

Yeah.

It's an old man.

I think he got a bit of money for it.

I mean, I don't know.

It's the investments.

But the best thing was, was we said, we had to peel me great purple one.

That's the one the station took.

They put the decals on it.

It looked great.

And we said, well, I will lease it to you.

And then if anything goes wrong, we'll repair it.

No, no, no, no.

We want to buy it.

And like, literally, it's spent all its time in the shop.

Because they were using as a street car driving it out.

I was going to say, they used to do really cool.

Nova used to like, oh man, they used to do really cool things

when they launched in Melbourne.

And I'm not sure if they did do this in Sydney.

I suspect they did, but they had like the Nova Ambo's in Melbourne.

And they're old, retired ambulances.

And they used to just deck them out and use them as the road cars.

Like they had this really fresh, different approach

to making radio.

I loved it.

It was always in the shop as well.

Yeah, really.

I could imagine.

Those Ambo's were great.

And you know, they got these super attractive young guys and girls

and you know, this is how it fits getting around

and people like that as well.

But they don't have station vehicles anymore, do they?

Well, I think some of them, they still have a K-Rock car.

Because I'm from gelomba.

They had a K-Rock caravan when I was there.

And I was in the lead and pro director was probably fucking leaving it.

But what did they have for Nova?

I've just quickly pulled this up while we were talking.

And in the background of one of these pictures down here,

I can actually see a fuel station.

And you can actually just see the price of fuel at 68.5 cents a litre

for unleaded.

And that would have been 2001 maybe.

I don't know when that photo shoot was for me.

2000 maybe 2000.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's not crazy that when you look at stuff like

where these cars have evolved and fuel prices and stuff,

it is funny.

Fuel prices kept going up.

And with the advent here of electric cars,

I feel like fuel prices haven't gone up for like five years.

They're about the same price as they were five years ago

because they're trying to make it sound more attractive than the rising electricity cost.

But it used to be cheap to run a car like that.

Well, yeah, no.

But then you think, one of the strange things about this country

is that no one ever thought fuel was cheap.

And they still don't, which you guys don't like.

Europe or the UK.

They're paying double the price.

Yeah, America's like America's expensive now as well.

Yeah, yeah, like people have always complained.

I mean, the budgets were all around petrol price.

Yeah.

Boos, smokes.

That was it.

The only things we ever cared about.

Yeah.

I was like, six up.

Boos up, petrol up.

This country's fucked.

Yeah.

I like it.

That was the criteria.

One of the most amazing archive footage in this country is people

when they brought in random bread testing.

And how people responded to that.

How outraged they were.

Really?

I think this is just raw shit.

You can't do that.

What's next?

Why can't I drive home pissed?

Incredible, because like it was a national sport.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

But you know, we need to be more like the South Africans.

We need to be rolling booths so you have to go give money.

They rolled out electronic toll gantries.

And started sending notices to people who didn't pay.

No one paid.

And now there's all these gantries that are switched off

because they just stopped the system because no one paid.

I know.

They all just got together and said,

no, no, fuck that.

We're not doing that.

If you want me to pay,

you're going to come and accept my money.

And it's that friggin' for you.

We need more like that.

I've got a few finds like that.

I just have not paid.

Because I can't tell if they're like a scam or like LinkedIn.

Who's that?

That's real.

Yeah.

There's a warrant out for my arrest with that.

But it could still be a scam.

Yeah, I'd do something about that.

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite?

Like do you have a favorite car that you've owned

or that you are yet to own?

That you would love?

It's an interesting thing because I look at cars all the time

and then but I don't.

Someone asked me that.

I quite like the slightly idea of looking at something

and going like that and then I don't need to own

anything anymore because I don't need the drama.

I like my last car.

Older car.

I bought a Range Rover.

1992.

Yeah.

Good to you.

It was a really good car.

And then it got done in the floods and then all the rivers.

And I was, that sort of broke my heart.

Yeah.

It was good.

It was good car.

And it's like, it had a few fumes.

So you know, I think I was going to say.

Didn't take long for the kids to fall asleep in the back.

That's a plus.

And there you go.

Oh, the kid.

Oh, the mate's gone.

I love you, car.

Can we go on your dad's car?

Yeah.

Yeah, no worries.

And then the bit back.

Yeah.

Jesus, I love you.

Of course.

That's sort of both.

And then I sort of, after that,

I thought, oh, you know,

not, not maybe, maybe.

It's hard when you get kids because you need something

that is reliable.

The last thing you need is a car.

Fucking breaking down somewhere with kids.

You just don't want another household.

And it's hard to find it.

I'm constantly searching for a family car that I enjoy.

And I just don't think there's any family cars really.

And I'm yet to have an old rangey.

So maybe that could be one.

But I'm just yet to find it.

But even though I imagine in the middle of summer,

you go for a drive somewhere,

and the thing overheats at the lights.

Yeah.

Your wife cracks the shits at you, the kids.

Well, she do that regularly.

That's good.

Then you'll get it going.

But it is for me.

It's actually that's the old ones in the fumes that I can't.

Yeah.

Like it.

It's just, it's too much for me.

Obviously didn't mind back in the day.

Yeah.

I don't know how we didn't notice it back then.

And then you think, oh, maybe something.

Maybe late 90s.

Yeah.

And then they're not.

It kind of just tails off of you.

Yeah.

And there's just, there's a commitment to it.

Yeah.

You know, and I see people and go, oh God, I wouldn't mind.

One of those old little three series wagon.

Yeah.

Like, you know, I'd like that.

And then I just go, no, I don't care.

Yeah.

Which is really disappointing for anyone selling a car.

I mean, I'm buying it.

And I think people always, and people who like cars always try

and talk you into it.

You should get it.

Yeah.

Make sure you don't.

Well, what are you driving as a family car now?

We've got a Land Rover Discovery.

That's brave.

And that goes all right.

It's been a good car.

What year's that?

It's a disco four.

It's five.

It's 2020 something around us.

Yeah.

And then I've got, I've had a McCarn for five years

and that's been the best car.

Yeah.

The car is just so good.

That the new one, if you don't know,

is fully electric.

And it is like whoever made that decision needs

to get a bonk on the head.

Because it is.

Well, they rushed the, a petrol one back.

I think I saw that.

Well, they're not going to call it a McCarn.

So basically, they said McCarn is dead.

It is EV only now forever.

And we're going to bring back an internal combustion one,

but it won't be called a McCarn.

So it'll no doubt be this, it'll be a botched platform share

because they're rushing it in.

That last McCarn was the best car they ever made

because you had great variety of engines.

The tech inside was modern enough for its time

and it drove like a Porsche.

Like, it just wasn't.

It didn't drive like an Audi.

Yeah.

And it's the reason why they're so popular.

Because they hold their value.

Yeah.

Because people just want them.

And they also, you can buy a five or six year old one

and it looks like the one that was last.

Yeah.

Last year, you know, it didn't change much.

But I just, I think it might,

probably in the last good car

and then I'll just start buying silly things

like just to put shit in the back and whatever.

And then I've also got, Michelle,

didn't get random selling our old X5

and we've still got that line around.

Yep.

And that's the one I'm really nostalgic about.

Yep.

And it's done 350,000 kilometers.

I love it all these times.

And it's a cracker.

And it's like it is.

But anyway, it's been getting over the pits most years.

And so, and I sort of, you know,

it's one of those things going to sell it

and so much.

Yeah.

It's got a scratch down the side.

I just, you know, use it for holidays

and put gear back in the hood.

Yeah.

Because I don't know.

I just feel, feel super connected to it.

Yeah.

They just don't make them like.

The new X5 is nice,

but BMW went through phases with their cars,

where they don't make any sense to me.

No.

BMW today.

It's just, it's confusing.

If you, I always, I had a three series touring wagon

on 2008 or something.

Yeah, it wasn't a bad car.

Yeah.

The South African, it wasn't like how to,

anyway, they had a few issues.

But like anyway, I got, I got,

I got to wear a native with it.

I had it for quite some time.

But after that, I would just, like,

they just don't look like BMWs.

They don't.

I feel like BMWs, they look like they're

for cars for Americans.

Yeah.

And so they have no appeal.

Yeah.

Whereas for me, my uncle had a three series

when I was a kid.

And I just loved it.

Yeah.

His green, beautiful.

Yeah.

And I just, and I think I'd always wanted one.

Yeah.

We wait, we wait to get my wife a car.

Ha!

You're going to sell it.

I was like, what's my car?

And then she had that guitar,

I think she was driving a golf,

which was, that was a good car as well.

And I was a Volkswagen ambassador for a few years.

And so we had, I had all of them.

No, I liked those cars as well.

And then she was looking for you on.

And she couldn't make up her mind.

I just look at you're fusing out

Yeah, what about that one? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, that's a clever one. And then she went and then she just without

She just went out and bought that X5 without asking me because she knew my truth

She's got no, no, that's good. Oh, but what about this fun?

I have a look at that. Oh, you should have a look at that one. Fade Panda. That's what I've that is that yes

Okay, so that so that is the only car

That I want and I'm this if I've been thinking that I might get one in the UK

I'd leave it it kept to lock up and then I can drive it when I'm in the UK

That's a good idea. There's a fucking stupid. It's a great idea. It'll fit in in the UK. Yeah, like I don't need one here

Yeah

But that then like I'll drive it once a year. Yeah, when I'm there will for work

But you know, that's that's a weird obsession of mine

Yeah, it's good though. It's good that fear especially the older ones made a mate the same with the Citroën as well made such

quirky really cool interiors quirky engines as well

I'm just gonna look here that they offered that car with a point nine

Later two cylinder engine and amongst others, but yeah, it's it's the quirky type of

To run your cappuccino machine. Yes, right. I'll get one of those. Yeah

That's none of them here. You can't find them here

I'll look if I did the panda for a little bit, but they weren't very popular and I just

Shutter at the thought of owning a fiat in Australia because it would be expensive to repair and

Random shit like that where they don't have any parts. It's just not worth it

I was in the UK there would be dime it doesn't that killer are used to live

We used to live share a house with play in a band with our mate killer and he had a one-two-faller

And um, he had to do all the work

Self and then people used to take parts off and stuff out the front of the house

Yeah, but he I just the best thing he went out went out and bought it off this guy and Ringwood is retired and

Benny just the killies and these nicknames, but Benny used to he he liked to think that he could get a good deal

And so he goes out there this guy's like retiring

Swanson get rid of it. He's wife wants him to move on this car

So they he beat beat beat some down on the price and

Then he asked him to go and fill it up with fuel

And then makes him throw in the driving gloves. Oh my god

He had killer has huge hands, so they didn't even fit him

And he's like up up up up up and the little round ten of barley sugar's two and I'll take those collection of

Turn it out

That thing but I actually by the same I remember God the one after the DS the CX and I went out to

Subbibes and I was just beautiful car like I wouldn't let me drive it

Oh, is he that wedded to it? Yeah, and I saw like I'm not yeah, I'm not buying a car that you want to drive around

I don't get to drive it like that stupid. I just turned up. I had my I was in mobility stage at that space

That stage I think it turned up in a pair of thong as he went. I'll not let this go. I drive a car

Yeah, you go into like a really good classic car dealership now like you go into like I've never been a throttle

I mean you walk around that place one the cars are

phenomenally overpriced but yeah, shout out to you guys you do a great job

But it is it is like walking in in an art gallery. Yeah, and you just stand there

That's that's an issue for me because if I you know must it up enough money to buy one of those

I'd never drive it because I'd be concerned about hurting the thing or having someone run into it

I just want something. It's a little bit weathered. It's still yeah, you know, I can just don't feel bad right?

Someone's up, you know puts a shopping trolley into it or whatever. Yeah, their ability to

To sell something that's not really that collectible is pretty amazing

You got some of the shit in there. I'm just like you what he was gonna buy that but then it just moves. Yeah

Yeah, yeah, strange. Yeah, yeah

They had a they had a Cayman R in there, and which is a great great little

Rated. Yeah, but they wanted a hundred and ten

Don't do that like don't do that. Well, what others are there in the market

I had a look and there was like a fluoropurple

Looking rap and it was around about the state they've priced them both at the same price

Okay, whatever some some of their cars though like you look at them and you go these are

Pristine and there's a lot of a lot of them dutton do it. Yeah, they all sort of do it around the country

But I just find when I walk in there you just kind of take a quiet moment and you're like

Someone's really brought this car back to something special and it's you don't really need to say anything

You just like a little respect. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean

So many type because literally in that going into that place, but it always feels to me that that's that's where

When people get rich and they think they need to buy a car. They go and buy one there because it feels safe and yeah

It feels like a proper car show room, you know, they're nice guys and and

And they could sales people and you know, they've got always got quality cars there

And then they take it home and then they had them for five years

Yeah, and they never drive and then they sell them. Yeah, when they get divorced

It's back

Oh, again, keep them in a secret warehouse. Yeah, I've seen that by the way

There's there's there's warehouses stacked with the red GT3 RSS and

They're like the special edition ones that you know go up soon as you drive them out and they're like no

No, these are this is our divorce money right here because they can't trace it. They don't know where it is

Crazy it's future planning

Yes

Glad some of us can do it. Yeah

Let's talk about chuck a you eat hmm you

We were sort of talking a little off air regarding the book and and how it all came about

Run us through the history and has it been a success? Yeah, so I've done a book on motels with images

Of Australians on holidays and that went really well and I'd sort of I've done the I've done the series one of the cars that made Australia

Yeah, and so that all these images around and I've been talking to the national archives

And I thought oh, maybe I'll just punch out a book for Christmas

As you do and so I got a hundred images or something and they're pretty

most a lot of them in Canberra and you know, there was there was

Some like didn't know what they were

I was like, oh, what's this one? And then so I there's a few random people on Instagram. What's this this one here?

One of them was like the

God, it's a French car that's made by general motors that was

assembled here by nissen. I'd the le no anyway. It doesn't really matter

I can't remember off the top of me

But it was one of those really obscure ones

And so yeah, like I said popped it out at christmas time and and people really liked us a good gift and made it sort of look retro

With the sort of cover that was like it was yeah, I love it

And just people bought it for their cousins and their dads and um

And it's just sort of kept selling ever since and I

It's not my highest selling book, but it's pretty close and like it's self-published

I've reprinted it like five times. Yeah, I'm ready. And it's

Not just for car nuts. It's just because you can open it up and go. Yeah, so I'm in a part of it

Nothing there's there's a whole bunch of Volkswagen's on the back of a truck from 1978 or something like that

They take us back in time and they take us to those plays and memories

And I suppose over the years I've been interested in the exploration of cars and connection plus

Yep in terms of what manufacturing meant to us

What it meant to capture that idea of

That excitement of when you came home and mum or dad had a new car and you know that when that happened to us

It was huge or the neighbors as we spoke about before um and

What does it mean to us when we don't make cars and and and I think

Obviously, there's the the part of the story that we look at and go okay, we liked

Holden's and forwards and that was important

But really that ultimately the thing that saddens me the most was that all these clever clever people that were working on putting these cars together

There's some of them then using all those skills now to make shopping trolleys

It's it's inside 100% agree and yeah, and how we lost all those people and lots of them went to America particularly the designers

And obviously they're working on other things, but our ability

You know the story of Australian made cars

To be competitive with it to have cars that in the end particularly the Commodore

So so well

I have a season was a great car and it was really the only the Australian dollar going up that really made a mess of it

We should be incredibly proud of that. Yeah, um, and it and it goes beyond just because we could do it here in the tavers made it

possible for us

So I think there's something deeply sad that we couldn't

We can't think that that's possible for us again

Well, we could we like yeah, I would imagine you know

I don't know what you guys think about this idea that imagine if we had some sort of incentive

Where you could take your car and get it turned into an electric car and there's all these places around. Yeah, they could do this. Yeah

And then there's a tax advantage for that or there's a rebate to do it

And then you'd have all this extraordinary

You know, there'd be people doing and backyards and wherever it was and long as it's safe

I reckon there would be an amazing people who could do that

Absolutely, well, you know, there's something called jaunt

And they basically do classic Land Rover's you take him an old ship box

They will take all the old crap out of it turn it into an electric one and

Their thing is that you can have a patina

Land crew as Land Rover that that just looks like it's an old shitter that's driving down the road

But it is fully electric. It's not going to overheat it at the lights like

And you know the other thing as well at manufacturing. I mean

We do a little bit of manufacturing now with a lot of the big pickup trucks that are converted left hand drive to right hand drives

The big industry around that

But gone is the innovation that came from designing a car from the ground out like the

The Commodore at its finale was basically a car that was done all in Australia

And it was such a good car that that we we wasted so much talent on and that to me is a great disappointment

Also a great disappointment is that there was just like in Holden's case no materials left GM just said now

Fuck it. We're closing that. It was just doing all that shit. Yep

We do all of our filming at the at the proving ground and the guys there don't have anything left

GM just took it all away

No one knows where any of the photos and and all of that

Nostalgic material went. It's insane. It's it's really

They didn't throw they don't know no one knows and and I've tried finding whether they have archives of

This stuff just nothing around do they still have the Ford

Thing in in gelong there. Well, they had the Ford Discovery Center

And I literally found pictures from when I was a kid. I went in there and took all these photos and stuff

And that's all gone like forward thankfully has a much richer history and they've they've got a decent archive of stuff

But you know for Ford as well. I mean they do still a lot of engineering work at the u-angs for for Australia and other markets

But you read the tea leaves all that stuff's going to change eventually

And on the topic of Aussies that made it to the to the big time

Mike Simcoe was Holden's lead designer he ended up retiring

Earlier this year, but it was the chief designer for GM

He made it as top as he could to that tree

So there's a lot to be proud of Jim Michael Simcoe also designed you know the blue eski brick

Yes, that you put in he designed that as a young industrial design

It's cool because I mean all those guys came out through RMIT

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, and they were all like extraordinary and the out if you if you really into this particularly the the drawings

In RMIT design in museum is extraordinary and they're all online. You can just check it and like those renders

Yep of all those cars. Yep are extraordinary. They're so beautiful

Absolutely beautiful. I'm like luckily though. They survive and they they're a minus of when we exactly

We do strive to do something but we're pretty good at it. You have a look at the the government and how fuck parts of it are we have

um, you know the world's one of the world's biggest supplies of lithium

So what we do is we let companies mind lithium. They send it over to China

They turn it into batteries. They send it back to us in electric cars

Would you not think let's take this resource that we have create the batteries ourselves ship them all over the world wherever it needs to go

There are so many industries that we could tap into google maps

Famously google bought an Australian company that basically created Google maps in Sydney

I mean, how do we not have this how do we not nurture this?

I think we need to do so much better with this is easier just to dig it up. Just offloaders and that's it. Yeah

I mean all that's how all our wealth has been made

No, no

Yeah, but ultimately you got to stand for something and we can't just stand for sure digging shit out of the ground

Yeah, and making a few you know only a very few

Companies rich that's that's all that happens. What about those military vehicles that we make here

So they're making how yeah, they do some of those um, so they're they they tend to do well and now actually

Military spending and investment in militaries gone through the roof. So there is a big industry there and and

I can't talk about that people there there's other military stuff that's that's coming soon

In Victoria as well

My friend shifty

In some army secrets, but it's it is disappointing and and to me my my dad worked at Ford for like almost 30 years

So I have a real connection with Australian manufacturing and one of my mates lost their jobs because I grew up with

You know, I went to uni with a lot of the engineers that got jobs there and now are literally like you said designing garbage trucks on shopping trolley

so

Yeah, it's just it's a sad thing. I know I know it couldn't necessarily last forever, but the fact we couldn't say

We're not going to do that but you guys should do this or we did keep one part of it the luxury car taxes still there

That's still that to me that's bullshit makes no no sense

It's it's a hole that they don't need to have in a budget which is like

If I was to import a luxury car from say New Zealand where like say a Porsche is really bloody cheap

I've still got the amount of digging around and

Tax I've got to pay on that when it's a short trip, you know over there

Philip Adams told me this great story about Malcolm Fraser back in the day

And they wanted that's when Philip Adams was had his advertising agency. Yeah, and he said look

You know Philip, we want you to do a campaign because we really want to tell Australians that

You know buying a States and it's just as good as getting a Mercedes. You know, I can you do that

Philip said and says well, they're not you can fucking tell

It didn't take on the campaign which is

I'm curious to know if you've been to um like I just I love that you have this love and

Of just nostalgia or things nostalgia and especially like that

Australia and I kind of feel about it

But um there's a really good pub here in Sydney and it's called Hawkes Brewery. I don't know if you've been there

But um, it's it's a cool place because it's these guys who back in the days started a beer and I guess named it after

I don't know if they yeah, like yeah, no, they had no with with Bob Hawke

Yeah, he has a always the state has an involvement in it. Yeah

Yeah, and um and so that this brewery is kind of like a shrine to him. Oh, that's cool

And it's a fantastic place like it's like a museum, but they've got like a really old-style very fake

But like a an old-style Chinese takeaway kind of thing like you would have had in the 70s and 80s

The fried rice there is amazing as it's a bronchose

But they've got like Hawkes like Australia

Like jacket you go and take a piercing stuff, and they've got um you like what what's that sound

And they've got Richie commentating the cricket in it

Like it's really cool. It's just um and apparently his house you would have obviously seen it

But apparently it's just like this beautiful shrine to the to the 80s like from the color scheme to just everything

Oh Hawke's house. Yeah, yeah, you mean they auctioned everything off. Oh

And um, yeah, people were buying all sorts of stuff from him. All those old couches and stuff. Yeah, it's nice couches

But I mean what's interesting with those guys is that you know, they felt like

What they were tapping into is their their personal feelings the optimers optimism of the 1980s

Yeah, and so yeah, which is really important to think about that time

It comes off the back of the 1970s. So you see this increase in national pride. So we're

Cars, films, music. Yeah, you got the rise of World Series cricket

You know this whole sort of that sort of superpowers into the 1980s and then you got the supercharged economy

And then as can don't put it right first generation of Australians men who haven't gone to war

So they're like they haven't lost five years of their life. They've got no trauma. They're boomers. They've got like

mega mega mega

positivity and they feel like they can take on the world

Absolutely extraordinary and then you add isolation so you can do anything here

You can manufacture here like people were manufacturing a lot here in the 1980s

They often think about the 1960s and 70s being a golden year of manufacturing was actually the 1980s

We were making everything here still making tellies and they're making VCR players, you know, dishwashers

Everything was being made and there was lots of money around

And then those guys, you know, whether it's hogs or kendone or greg norman like we can take this to the world

Ordinary so the America's cup. Yeah, great example of that

So there's this feeling that they're tapping into is like anything is possible

You know, we go back to 1984 83

85 like there is absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind

That you know this idea of a strabing flavor of the month or whatever it is we're rolling around in colors of the bush

Everything but we do whatever we

So when you fast forward today, and if you grew up through that time

That sits there like a baggage going. Oh, what in that happened, you know, it's like why why why everything was possible

Don't you find it interesting how national pride

Means and feels so much different now than it did back then that idea of innovation went out in fashion

And so really once we get into the 1990s into the 2000s

In the Howard years like it's pretty much just sport and the answer

Yeah, yeah, so the idea of things that we can create even the arts and even music goes down

Peg and those those two tenets of two things that Howard taps into

And those things are really important to us, but they're not everything

So a more rounded view of things that we should be proud of which is sport

Innovation technology what we manufacture what we create the arts makes up a much broader

Idea and so I think people forget that yeah or

Standing up for Australian made can also be seen as something that's sort of a new nationalism. That's not particularly healthy

Which disappoints me because as as an immigrant we came to Australia with nothing and to me Australia is

Is everything and I'm very proud to be Australian because of the opportunities that gave me and my family

So that's why I get so disappointed when people are sort of

Not anti-Australian, but anti-celebrating Australia

Like I understand there's a lot of shit things going on at the moment

But to me it's it's that history of innovation and creating opportunity that is what Australia is to me and

When I can't celebrate that I find that disappointing. Yeah

Like 1986 yeah, you put it out in a magazine

And it worked

And you could go and if you wanted to someone to buy you had a brochure you put an ad in a magazine like in the bulletin magazine or pen house or playboy

Something like that and you go if you want a brochure for whatever I'm making

Send a stamp

Self-stamp

Dressed envelope with a check for five dollars to cover for the postage

Yeah, and then to get the thing so you could buy something off them

It was much easier world to actually marketing was a lot easier

It was more expensive, but it was a lot easier. The internet really has fuck things hasn't it?

It's yeah, the internet's been amazing, but it's also causing problems

But you know that but we also right this is

Incredibly important to think about this in terms of how it's changed and what how we see the world as a nation

We were also start for choice. Yeah, things are expensive

So it tariffs to protect

Our local manufacturing meant that if you wanted a paranoia, it's like I should twice as much

So people would go when I was a kid that go to someone who goes to America. Yes, and you go. Can you get me a pair of

Yeah, yeah America. Yeah, I save half the money

So that's yeah, so when the when the tariffs disappeared our manufacturing base disappeared when I was talking about

Shoes and all sorts of things right and really particularly hit Victoria

Voice and Emory because Victoria was always the sort of cradle of manufacturing in this country

So then suddenly we can get stuff

Things were really expensive suddenly everything's cheaper

So globalization kicks in tariffs disappear

So suddenly we can get stuff

That we could never get before and so we go from a nation of people who fix things

Yeah, a nation of people who buy shit off the internet

Yeah, in a very very famous society. Yeah, yeah, and where people will go

I don't know where the screwdriver is yeah, it's fucking easier to get one off Amazon than five. Yeah

That's the end of civilization. And by the way, I can get it. I can get it by lunchtime

Drives in my house and gives it to me. Yeah, instead of me getting off my house and looking for it in the laundry. Yeah, it's fucked

Yeah, but that's oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, we've done a number of

And that is why Australia's

In a nutshell, as you've just joined us. Yeah, the grind your gear segment with Pavley

Yeah, yeah, look, it's an interesting one

but um

You know, it's thanks to your books like the waterripper book with the waterripper

With a really cool the I remember just looking at even the front cover where you've got the what's it called the fridge the fridge

Yeah, the cam booker and I think it's on the front

It's just it's just brilliant dolphin torch. Yes. Yeah, that's it

And it's just this brilliant appreciation of the big great stars of uh of Australia

These are a strange design icons. Yeah, you know, they're every day like they're I did this book's got 60 every day

items and

It's very similar to what we've been talking about things that were designed or manufactured here that

Somehow like our cars just sort of found a way into the hearts to tell a story about who we are like

Guide designed the dolphin torch, you know, not far from where we are here in in North Sydney in the early 1970s

That torch was the high-selling torch not just here in Australia but across the world for 14 years

That's cool like and but when you know when the dolphin torch, you know, I click click the sound of it

Yeah, what it feels like. Yeah, here it comes. Yeah, yeah

So all the in and so it's in terms of a cultural touchstone in terms of no one you know

Planed spotlight with your brothers and sisters when you're a kid of being in the caravan park

They tell a great story about our lifestyle and and because we have more choices now

Those cultural touchstones are fuel and far between

I talk about the stack hat is another classic

Like no one know my kids couldn't tell you what brand their bicycle helmet is

And I know I'd won for my whole life and the kids will lose more than we just can either one from Amazon

Yeah, it's like bang let's go to the museum doesn't bother about the helmet

Hey, I just don't know that one anymore dad. Yeah, what are you doing?

Can get a screwdriver for that too

Well, I think these books are important and highly recommend getting

All get them all get some if you're just having a look at the illustrations

That has so I've got them all lined up here the illustrations are fantastic

They're just all so unique in their own way. Yeah, even like the

God, I keep forgetting what a ripper book

It's so weird that when you look at some of these items

It automatically takes you like just to a quick flash in somewhere in in my childhood like I go

That that bloody fridge. I remember unekei had one when we were in

Paul Macquarie or you know

Port Arlington and that that thing over there God that was sitting in our shoebox outside for years and gathering gathering

Like just this weird little they're important. I mean the other thing is is that we don't realize is that we we're quite happily say

You know most of us are watching Netflix this week

Yeah, and it's great, but it doesn't reflect our lives. It doesn't tell us there are no stories about who we are

exactly and

People are

Craving it without realising. Yeah, which is really interesting. Look at us. I very I'm pretty stupid a great series years and years ago called flashbacks

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really good

Yeah, like you'd be fantastic with with carrying that on or something because he just told the story the story each episode was like

Australia in the 60s Australia in the 70s 80s 90s and 2000s

But it was just his brilliant take and just a really good reminder of what Australia was where it went

And and where it is now and why as well or why we became the way we are because it's the

The idea of looking back right and there are there will always be people

You know, and we can look through it for road-sculler glasses and

We did this and we did that and did that

And so you don't want to go back what you look

What were the ideas there? What was this spirit of that that's important and how is that how can that spirit be rekindled

For a modern Australia

And that's that's what we need it's a shame they don't manufacture machetes in Victoria because that would be a booming business at the moment like it's

We're

Way to end on a positive no-no this

These episodes being bought to you by bunnings

Where machetes are now on sale

We're going to give away a few copies of Chucky you it yeah

So yeah contact at the drivers show.com.au

Well, we'll run something on insta as well. We'll put all the dates up there

Yeah, yeah, because I think it's definitely something that you've got to have have at home and

Why don't you let's give them away

I'll sign them send them to your house. You do a special note. Yeah

Go fuck yourself

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Tim Ross joins us to talk classic Aussie car culture...plus how he almost died in the UK

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