cars

My good woman and I are unfolding the beach mat on Jimmy’s Beach, Hawks Nest, NSW, when my mobile phone rings in my bag. By a miracle I extract it, fumble the cover open and swipe the screen in time to take the call. It’s Georgia. She would like to see the Jazz. She likes the colour, can drive a manual.

Georgia is my first serious prospective buyer of my now second car, three months after it went on the market. I tell her I’m on a beach in New South Wales, but will be home in two days on Friday. We arrange that I will call her Friday morning to arrange a viewing time.

I always intend the Jazz to be my last car, until the chance to purchase a Caddy presents itself in the form of a much larger salary. I think back to my first car, my mother’s rather sedate Morris Major Elite, HOC 509, bequeathed to me at the start of 1971 when she moves up to an Isuzu Bellett.

A couple of years later I buy something more appropriate for a wild-haired young man—a minivan, KYF 175, beige, barn doors at the back the leak carbon monoxide into the cabin, push-button ignition on the floor, failing engine mounts. Doped-up Rock and I paint Harry Suckill van on the side in orange paint. Neither of us has a clue who Mr Suckill is.

Next comes a white Kombi, KWB 270, that sleeps me around during my first teaching career in my mid-twenties. I kill it moving pregnant Marilyn and me to South Australia in 42-degree heat. Back in Victoria with a baby, Marilyn and I buy a Holden HT Kingswood. Her father is a mechanic, a Kingswood man.

The vehicles of life with Marilyn and Carol bringing up young kids are utilitarian, characterless, the identifying number-plates lost to me. The Mitsubishi van Carol and I buy to transport four kids is BKZ something.

A second Kombi, split-window, has oodles of character—JPX 414. I’m a fool to let it go. An ancient orange Nissan Patrol, a grey Kingswood, the Valiant Barge, and a couple of Subarus come and go during the sixteen years I bring up my kids on my own. The first Suby is a gem, the second a lemon, bought only because it’s a school vehicle offered to me at a ridiculously good price.

Which brings me to the Jazz, the first and only new car I buy, and plan to be the last, until it isn’t. Five years to the day after buying it I put it on the market. But nobody wants to buy a manual. Lots of Asian girls call, but all want an automatic. Then, finally, Georgia.

Hang on, Georgia. I’ll be home soon.   

Rock on.