drove it and drove it and drove it.
all day.
finally the weather was on my side after 4 solid months of meteorological bunk!.
if it wasn't raining like the bible warned, the sun was shining like a nuclear blow torch.
but not today.
also the city was deserted. relatively. everyone had buggered off for their typical aussie 4 day weekend in celebration of invasion day.
got the chick on board who helped clay bar the car 3 years ago and she got her promised driving "lessons". she is incredibly nervous. we did many laps of my "racetrack" down at the ports, ripped down to altona beach behind the ruins of the old oil refinery, chewed up a good 1/4 of the tank + and i found her a nice quiet carpark and gave her the keys.
she won't let likenesses of her image be posted on the net. but she had a ball even though she did not get out of second gear. i couldn't get her out of the car. she just kept doing laps of the little carpark and short acceleration runs up the side road.
Click to view attachment bit of australiana. gum trees. burnt brown grass.
Click to view attachment i enjoyed myself. sat back. lit up a contraband vietnamese cigarette.
and watched her go around.
i believe its the first time in 30 odd years i have actually heard my car from outside driving down the road.
i was a bit disappointed. it didn't sound like a beetle and had a bit of porsche fan whirr to it.
anyway. i spotted during one of her hard braking u turn thrashes that the brake light was out on the left hand side.
so back home, cracked an asahi and went after the bulb.
Click to view attachment by this point co-driver for the day was real excited about the car.
while i was head down in the back pulling the tail-light out she looks up and says whats this - pointing at an obscure region of the rear trunk lid underside.
(she works in cultural materials preservation professionally).
Click to view attachment my reply was f$%k.
i have had this car for 30 + years and never spotted it.
factory inspection sticker and stamp.
i said to her, i did find one under the trunk carpet years ago and showed that one to her.
"how do you open the front boot" (boot = aussie for trunk) was the next command from the now curious female.
lo and behold another one.
Click to view attachment forgive out of focus. must have been the asahi.
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i must be blind. never spotted these things in all the years i have had this car.
its pretty original and sat around for a long time while i manouvered through a not so great period of existence.
anyway a fun day. got the motor seriously warm. its been a frustrating summer climate wise down here.