OK. I’ve stalled long enough. The editor is really cranky so here’s the Xmas special with recommended gifts, motorcycles, funny Santa references and our car of the year.
Books are always a good choice to give to people you don’t care about. The giftee (the getter) will always think the gifter (you) must be an intellectual because the giftee doesn’t read books and thinks people who do are university types with serious IQs.
In Search of the Holden Piazza ($12 on Kindle/$28 new at the bookshop/$12 second hand on eBay) is in the genre of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha and Dante’s Inferno. It involves the 2006 spiritual journey of two Tasmanians, Chris Warr and Joe Kremzer, who seek enlightenment by going in search of the Holden Piazza in a Holden Piazza.
To be honest, I should tell you that Warr and Kremzer ignore the first part of Siddharta’s journey where he tries to achieve enlightenment through asceticism, a rejection of the body and physical desire, and go straight to the bit where he decides to embark on a life free from meditation and the spiritual quests he has been pursuing, and to instead learn from the pleasures of the body and the material world.
The Holden Piazza was a pretty ordinary Japanese car covered by a beautiful Italian body. Maker Isuzu couldn’t afford to build a new inside to go with Giorgetto Giugiaro’s outside so they dropped the Piazza body on to a stretched rear-wheel-drive Gemini underbody. Naturally, GMH pretended the car was from Italy because the factory city of Fujisawa-shi doesn’t have quite the same consumer appeal as Milan.
“Holden Piazza. Even its Italian name quickens your pulse”, said the ads.
“Mutton dressed up as lamb”, said the car mags. “An overpriced understatement.” “The most frightening car that we have tested for a long time.” “Holden Piazza: the question nobody asked.”
The Piazza lasted a year. GMH sold 700. They had to refund buyers $5000.
Mark and Chris found 44 and “immense relief that (they) had traversed the entire country without great incident, and with limbs and friendship intact … and it was time to show (his girlfriend) my feet”.
Talking of enlightenment: an honest politician, a kind lawyer and Santa Claus were walking down the street and saw a $20 note. Which one picked it up? Santa! The other two don’t exist!
The Ferrari Book: Passion of Design is an orgasmic ode to an Italian car company based in Maranello, the Fujisawa-shi of Italy. It has more than 400 pages with a lot of photos so you don’t have to pretend to read the words. $170 from pitstop.net.au.
I paid holden.iconseries.co $279 for Holden — The Archive Collection, a 400-page, 5kg collection of rare photographs from Holden’s archives, personal letters from Holden employees and liftout memorabilia including replica car badges, press releases, vehicle brochures and the company’s 1948 annual report.
Thanks to Rod Sims (the car consumers’ friend) and his team, Weekend Australian motoring readers can download for free The New Car Retailing Industry — A Market Study, from the ACCC website.
Not surprisingly, Rod found a “number of problems are harming consumers and are hindering competition”. We will be taking a detailed look at this report next week but Rod says “consumers are having a hard time enforcing their consumer guarantee rights under the Australian Consumer Law”.
Like Mazda dealers all having the same line on a common problem, “I’ve never seen that before”.
He says tests show “real-world fuel consumption of new cars is on average 23 per cent higher than official laboratory test results”.
Moving right along, this week The Australian’s John Lethlean wrote about the $19,000 BMW RNineT Racer. But if you are buying a Xmas present for a loved one (yourself) it has to be the $115,000 BMW HP4 Race. Only 10 of the 750 hand-built in Berlin, the Fujisawa-shi of Germany, are being sold in Australia. With a four-cylinder engine, producing 158KW and all carbon-fibre construction, the 171kg monster is good for over 320km/h at any race track near you or on the new Yokohama road Route 1 to Fujisawa-shi.
If that’s not enough fun, enter your giftee into next December’s Le Jog, one of the most demanding and challenging events in Europe. For $5000 your friend gets five days going from Land’s End to John O’Groats in snow, floods and often at night. Australian Peter Westcott just did it in a Volvo 244. Organisers will rent your friend a BMW1602 for $500 a day or an E-Type for $900.
Staying on the religious theme, our Shannons Adelaide Rally chaplain last week, Dave Vaughan, has a great version of Psalm 23.
- The guide post is my marker, I shall turn in.
- It makes me to left foot brake and rotate.
- It leads me to the apex
- It shows my track out
- It leads me along the racing line
- For the time clock sake.
- Even though I approach the limits of adhesion
- I fear no spin, For it is with me.
- The R-compounds and alloys, they comfort me.
- Surely faster stage times and consistency shall follow me, all the days of my life.
- And I shall dwell in the centre of the podium Forever.
Oh no. Run out of room. Next week more presents and Santa jokes, our car of the year and our reworked car songs available on eight track or cassette. Songs include: What’s it all about, Alfa?, My Corona, Moves like a Jaguar and Sweet Home Fujisawa-shi.
