This chapter will be on self-indulgence. If you are not interested in cars and in technological things, this might be the time for you to do something more important or interesting than listening to me talking about cars. You could go and get your haircut perhaps, because that's how long it will take me to finish talking about cars and talking about driving cars.

Now, because you are still here, I will continue with my chapter on cars.
Remember when I was abruptly interrupted by the girl next door who sat beside me whilst I was counting cars outside our house in Kent Street, Richmond? Well, I wasn't just counting cars, I was actually researching which make of car was the best car in Australia. Having counted many batches of cars over several days, I found that Holdens were the best cars because seven out of ten cars that I counted were Holdens. The other cars that I saw were Ford Consuls, Ford Prefects, Vauxhall Victors, a single Standard Ten and Volkswagen Beetles.

I didn't think this was a good sample of cars to draw a valid conclusion on which brand of car was the best. So I started to do a more thorough investigation by looking at cars from the engineering point of view. I will try to make my fascination and involvement with cars interesting by including stories that are related to me wanting to be an Aussie.

I mentioned several times before that I was saving to buy my favourite sports car. Well, by the time of my eighteenth birthday I had saved $2,000.00 to buy a good secondhand 1954 MG TF 1500 for $1,900.00 from City Motors in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. When I mentioned my intention of buying a sports car to my dad, he firmly told me that we need a family car.

"Buy a family car," he said. He instructed me to buy a sedan.
So being an obedient son, I purchased a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle for $700.00 as our first ever family car. Well, with that Beetle I travelled everywhere with Lyn. It was a terrific and reliable car. I even took dad and mum to Sale in Gippsland to visit mum's cousin Mitre several times.
About a year after I purchased the Beetle I damaged its left-hand headlight during a minor accident that I had. Shortly after the minor accident my uncle George, his wife and his two young daughters arrived in Melbourne from Perth, Western Australia to visit us and he also wanted to visit his wife's relatives who lived on a banana farm in Queensland.

"Can you take us to Queensland, Manoli?" (he calls me by my Macedonian name).

It was more of an order than a request and family orders are obeyed. Actually, I wanted to go on this long adventurous trip to Queensland for my own pleasure; it was a major trip in those days. So, three adults and two children in a Volkswagen Beetle, with a broken headlight, a tank full of petrol, with no other preparation done to the car, set off for east Queensland where the banana farm was. I was a little apprehensive about the car's ability to take us all the way to Queensland and back, but my uncle reassured me when he said: "This is a German car; it will take us there."

The Beetle took us there and back without any mechanical mishaps. Fearing my uncle's retribution the Beetle carried a crate of bananas back for a good measure. I didn't drive at night, by the way. What an amazing drive that was by an amazing little car. I have recently recounted that trip to one of my uncle's daughters, who by now is in her early sixties. But she wasn't at all moved by the Beetle's achievement as she hopped into her late model Audi A5 and roared away.

One more thing about that basic but rugged car. It hasn't got a fuel gauge, as most people don't know. To check the petrol level, one has to look into the petrol tank, which is easy to do. One late afternoon I arranged to take Lyn out to the movies, but I didn't know if I had enough petrol in order to get there and back. I looked into the petrol tank, but it was too dark for me to see in it. So I went into the house for a box of matches. I lit a match stick and held it above the open filler pipe.
This is embarrassing for a chemical engineering student to admit - I should have known better. The petrol vapour caught fire and started burning with a gentle candle-like flame around the petrol filler pipe. I put the flame out by covering the filler pipe with my hand. I was extremely lucky not to have been blown to pieces. A slight breeze or a lower petrol temperature would have created a more favourable air to petrol ratio for a devastating explosion. Please don't try this at home.

By now my brother Steve had his Austin Healey Sprite Mark 1, the one he bought from the car wreckers, completed and ready for a test drive at the Kew Boulevard, our "private race track". The reconstruction of the car makes interesting reading in itself, which will be told in another chapter. So, for now let's go back to the first drive of the Sprite.

As we walked towards the Sprite, which was parked outside our house in Bennett Street, I saw two policemen in an unmarked car parked opposite our house. They were not wearing their police hats, so that they wouldn't be noticed by us whilst they were waiting for their revenge. They were the same two policemen who took us to court, remember that day?

Steve was driving the Sprite. I told him to drive slowly and not to cross the double lines at the end of Bennett Street like we always do. We drove to The Boulevard, the police car followed us and the policemen expected us to start speeding once we were on our "private racing track".

The Boulevard was considered a highway without a posted speed limit, but one could still be fined for dangerous driving though, as judged by the police.

At the start of The Boulevard, we did something that was unexpected by the police. Steve parked his Sprite neatly on the side of The Boulevard and then we proceeded to walk safely along the footpath. The policemen sat in their parked car behind the Sprite, scratching their heads for a while, then they decided they couldn't book us for dangerous walking and drove off and never bothered us again.

Steve, Socrates and I enjoyed driving and racing our cars, especially when I had a Sprite Mark 2. The one I bought from the wreckers, missing a bonnet. I fashioned a lightweight bonnet for it from fiberglass, lightening the car by about 30 kg. After that, even Socrates couldn't keep up with my Sprite in his brand new MGB. Socrates was still mastering the fine points of driving cars.

Here is another interesting driving episode on The Boulevard - between me in my Mark 2 Sprite (lightened), Socrates in the more powerful MGB, and a new guy by the name of Alyster in his even more powerful Sunbeam Alpine Tiger with its 3.5 litre V8 engine.

Socrates and I were trying different tyre pressures in our cars to induce understeer for a better cornering/ steering feel in the cars. I still remember the tyre pressures we pumped the tyres to, 17 psi (pounds per square inch) in the front tyres and 24 psi in the rear tyres. We set off for a test run at The Boulevard. Whilst we were driving along Victoria Street, Richmond, Alyster, the man with the Sunbeam Tiger, who had a position of responsibility (and could take time off at his will) in one of the factories in Victoria Street, saw us driving past. He jumped into his Tiger and drove it briskly to join us for a quick spin around The Boulevard. At the Richmond end of The Boulevard, I could see the Sunbeam was a few metres behind us.

We started our test run with me leading. Socrates, who was still learning the finer points of driving, followed closely behind me. I had instructed Socrates to watch my tails lights and to brake at the same places that I braked before each curve. Initially the Tiger caught up with us and was close behind the MG. But as we drove further, around several curves of The Boulevard, the Tiger started to lag behind. I could see in my rear view mirror that the Tiger was slowed by excessive understeer.

We finished our run and waited for Alyster at the Heidelberg end of The Boulevard. Alyster wasn't too far behind, but remember he had a super car compared to our cars. Alyster rushed up to us and asked: "What have you got in those cars?"

Socrates, who was excited that he learned a new "set-up" procedure for cars answered: "17 in the front and 24 in the rear."

Alyster looked puzzled. He didn't understand what Socrates meant. And I could tell that Alyster didn't know how to drive his Sunbeam Alpine Tiger; Alyster's white-topped shoes told me that he was more a "poser" and not a real car guy.

One more short story about cars. This story is about "Steve's corner".
There was another Richmond Tech teenager by the name of Lorenzo, who lived in Bennett Street and drove a Holden FC, badly. He would often join us for drives around The Boulevard with Steve leading in his Mark 1 Sprite, Lorenzo second in his Holden, and me following in my under-powered Beetle.

I could see that Lorenzo was forcibly steering the Holden from one curve into another curve and causing the Holden to roll badly, to the point of losing control. Lorenzo needed a driving lesson, by none other than the capable and brave driver, Steve. The driving lesson would be in Steve's newly purchased second-hand but "hot" Hillman Imp GT. A great little car; Gordon Murray, the great Formula One designer of the 70s, has one. The Imp had an all-aluminium slant engine placed way behind the rear axle, making the short wheelbase car a horrendous oversteer and therefore difficult to drive. But Steve was up to the task.

The day for Lorenzo's lesson came one Sunday afternoon. Steve in the driver's seat, Lorenzo in the passenger's seat, the Imp GT at the Richmond end of The Boulevard facing a long downhill straight with a 180-degree right hand curve waiting for Steve's professional oversteer corrections.

The Imp jumped into action and sped towards the first curve, where Steve braked hard in a straight line just before entering the curve, as he should have. According to Steve the left-hand wheel locked over a large leaf on the road and the car skidded out of control towards the curb. The left front wheel of the Imp hit the curb, but it couldn't climb over it. So it acted as a pivot point causing the rear of the car to swing like a pendulum and to jump the kerb. Now the car was over the narrow footpath, going backwards and starting to speed-up along the grassy decline. The flimsy passenger door swung open as the Imp rocked and rolled backwards along the tree-lined grassy slope. Steve had full control of the runaway car and yelled at Lorenzo: "Shut the door."

Lorenzo closed the car's door just in time to narrowly avoid hitting the passing trees on the passenger's side of the Hillman Imp GT. Fortunately the hot over-steering Imp was not damaged, Lorenzo was physically OK too. But he didn't come back for a follow up driving lesson, a lesson on how to negotiate "Steve's corner".

I think Lorenzo was traumatised by the unfortunate driving mishap at The Boulevard in Steve's Hillman Imp. From that time on, Lorenzo kept away from us. He went on to Swinburne Institute of Technology, completed a Diploma in Civil Engineering, and was employed by Richmond City Council. And then he started installing speed humps on the streets of Richmond, and I think he was involved in painting double lines and posting a speed limit of 50 kph on the whole length of the Kew Boulevard.

I still can't understand how we were not hurt driving those unsafe cars at dangerously fast speeds. And above all I can't believe how our parents were unaware of our risky activities. Sorry to quote Socrates again, but they were "Tumultuous, dangerous and because of that they were great times." There will be more discussion about cars in the next chapter, but in that chapter I will talk about the engineering and scientific aspect of cars.

It might be time for you to put some meat pies in the oven.

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