New car smell

[JimO]

3.3, 3.6 or the big-block 4.1??

it started out as a 3.6 but now has a high consumption low performance 302 with a c4 tacked on the end

[Hitcher]

Do you remember the differences between XW and XY Hitch?Every time i see a pic of either i still myself for selling a very well optioned XYGS.

I do. Tail lights on the XY were flush, with a solid bar through the middle where the XW had the turn indicator. Different grille and bonnet pattern. Slightly smaller front turn indicators. Restyled dash inside. The biggest change was to the engine. The XW was a 221 cube or 3.3 litre six. The XY was the first Falcon to wear the 250 cube 4.1 litre donk, one that lasted largely unchanged for the next 40 years.

[Virago]

I've never actually owned a new car, but I've had a few as company cars over the years. The last was a Hyundai, and the new car smell experience was ruined by a knob of a dealer who "groomed" it with CRC and Armor-all.

That particular smell of new plastic, glues, and sealants is hardly the most pleasant. But their combination is evocative of the feeling of opulence which goes with a new car. Much like the smell which comes from wafting a large wad of cash under your nose. These days I seem to to smell neither - sigh...

[Edbear]

My first "car" was a 1950 Bradford and it definitely did not smell like a new car! Heater? Yeah the engine got hot enough to threaten to set the wooden floorboards on fire... I did have a '67 Falcon back in the day, 200ci, (3.3lt), Super Pursuit with three on the tree, no heater either which made for crossing the Desert Road in mid-Winter an interesting experience... But I could get 37mpg out of it on a trip and 26mpg around town!

Had two new cars, the '99 Nissan Pulsar SLX and of course the Kizashi now. Had one new bike, the C50T which was intended as a keeper forever, , alas time and unforseen occurrences intervened.

[ellipsis]

...my older bro had an old Bradford van...it had two big stacks of very old playboys in the back to hold its body down on the suspension...

[Edbear]

...my older bro had an old Bradford van...it had two big stacks of very old playboys in the back to hold its body down on the suspension...

LOL! Mine was in reasonable nick, but the motor being so light, if you put too much weight in the rear the front wheels would leave the road at speeds over 30mph.

Didn't stop me picking up those four Aussie girls hitchiking with their packs, though. Just went slow and enjoyed the trip...

[Daffyd]

My first new vehicle was a '70 HB Viva wagon. As it was a demonstrator, it had every conceivable extra available at the time... Alloy wheel trims, heater and carpet. Was pretty sluggish until I started thrashing it on a weekly commute, Invercargill - Queenstown. Loosened it up very nicely and increased its top speed by about 10 mph so it could achieve an indicated speed of just short of 80. I took part in a timed car trial organised by the Q'town car club, and discovered halfway through we'd missed a turn-off, so we went back and started again. We were the closest to the allotted time and WON! The day after the 1yr warranty expired I broke the main shaft in the gearbox and the miserable bastards made no allowance for its replacement, despite a highly respected engineer's report that in his opinion it had been damaged before assembly. I never bought another car from those bastards again!

Only other brand new car was the first model of Honda Civic 2speed Hondamatic... great wee car, but prone to rust. They both had that "delicious" but toxic new car smell. The Viva cost me $2700 and the Civic $3062 on the road.

[Paul in NZ]

Hmm - apparently I'm not allowed to give MrH any more rep at the moment.. Anyway, another worthy Hitcher thread – the cars of our parents….

My Dad was an old fashioned A Grade mechanic with his own business. He did very well for himself for a while but he could never really bring himself to buy a ‘new’ car as to his mind this was a shocking extravagance… Still he always had a ‘nice’ car for family duty and an old Austin A40 ute or van for the garage.

Like a lot of independent businessmen / tradesmen who were doing OK in the late 50’s my father was a very industrious person that hardly ever sat still. He purchased a plot of land in Wainui (Akaroa Harbour) and with the help of ‘Uncle Jeff’ who was a fine builder set about building a bach. This meant a lot of trips over the ‘hill’ towing a trailer and there was a lot of unsealed roads back then. One of the oft remembered family rituals of these building trips to Wainui was go past the turn off at the bottom of the hill and proceed to Barry’s Bay cheese factory to purchase an enormous block of cheddar cheese to be nibbled at and brought home for school lunches for the next fortnight or so. We seemed to eat a lot of cheese but it was the 1950's and cheese was healthy..

At the time we had moved up in the world from a very 'beige' 1954 (ish) Vauxhall Velox to an aqua 1956 Plymouth Belvedere. A less than 10 years old American car was pretty epic back then and it was the only American car I can ever remember him owning. He must have really liked it because he hung onto it for quite a while. It was however not without its faults.

A few years back Dad and I were discussing family cars and we got talking about the Plymouth. He reckoned it a pretty decent car but one he could never get the brakes working adequately. I was a little surprised about that remembering the trips over the hill towing a trailer of concrete piles, cement, the boat etc and Dad told me that often by the bottom of the hill we had virtually zero brakes left so we could never make the turn off. We just kept going until we lost enough speed to turn back which was usually about Barrys Bay factory so we would turn in and Mum would pop in and get some cheese while the brakes cooled down and Dad changed his trousers…

Finally Dad decided he wanted a new car – one slightly more modern and less likely to soil the trousers. The EJ/EH Holdens of the time were really very very good cars so when the HD was announced with a host of improvements including disk brakes dad decided it must be a hell of a good thing and purchased one brand new. It was the WORST car he ever owned. You could literally see the road going past through the gaps in the doors and watch the trim falling off as it went down the road. It spent more time back with the dealer than it did at our place and eventually Dad gave up and repaired it himself. After sorting it out as best he could he traded that on a VC Valiant Regal which really was a decent car and we did endless miles in that. (Silver, black roof, red interior). It had a factory radio and a heater that worked and I remember listening to the Goon show, The Navy Lark etc on the way back from Wainui on Sunday evenings as it was the only station you could get. (Dad wasn’t a big goons fan) and getting fed up when the punch line to a gag would fade out as you went around a corner and fade back into the laughter… grr… I learnt to drive in that car…

We had the Valant for a long time really until one day one of Dads customers, a very wealthy Merivale spinster wanted to sell her Mk2 Jag. Dad just couldn’t help himself. 3.4l auto with power steer, plum metallic, chrome wheel bands and cream leather plus various other options ordered directly from the factory and only 11,000 miles on it. I don’t think it had ever been out of town as the enamel on the headers was still intact. It took a few weeks to soften up the leather seats as the passenger/rear seats had probably never been sat in and it always smelled of leather, wood and cloth headling. The factory tools were untouched, there was a can of factory touch up paint in the boot (I painted a Norton with it) and it was still on the factory tyres. The Dunlop rep sold Dad a set of the first SP Radials at a good price and we were off… It was a fabulous car – virtually a brand new Mk2.

I still remember when my sister had a baby and Mum got me to drive her ChCh to Dunedin and back in a day. She fell asleep on the way back and my brother and I let the jag have its head a little. It was a magnificent car and light years ahead of anything else of the era. It could sit effortlessly at great speed and was actually pretty reliable with fabulous build quality. XJ’s aside it was probably the last great jag saloon.

We kept it for a long while and suddenly Mk2's started to become ‘valuable’. One day some bloke offered him twice what he had paid at the same time the rental car business he was contracted to service was wound up and he was offered a near new Aussie assembled Statesman at book value…

Sigh…..

[Big Dave]

Grandfather was a senior engineer at the Port Kembla Steel works.
Dad was a Dentist with a healthy practice in the South of Sydney.
Uncle Keith was a Senior Engineer at the GMH Pagewood plant.
All self made men who liked nice cars.

X2 Holden. The First Premier. The first Torana 4 cyl commuter car. Several XU1 Toranas. Even an L34.
All were in my old's garage before the dealers thanks to the Unc.

Unfortunately cancer claimed my old man when he was 12 years younger than I am now.
If he stayed true to form it would have lead to a HSV Senator I reckon.
Cousin Jeffrey picked up the baton - even had a Pink XU1 with matching speedboat.

I always just liked motorbikes.

[DangerMice]

I read this in Homer Simpson's voice, I think it added to the experience....

[Big Dave]

Everything works better as Homer.

[Paul in NZ]

The only new cars I’ve ever had were cars for work and for a while there, there were a LOT of them. One surprisingly notable one was the Mazda 323 Astina. I had a gun metal grey one the day before the launch and boy did it turn heads as it was just so different looking. Also the new Ford Sierra wagons that replaced our old Falcons – shit they were fast but gawd what a pile of crap. I lost count the number of door trims that fell of and once the whole dashboard fell into my lap. We drove a lot of gravel roads and we all loved the handling but they rattled to bits.

There was a long string of Mazda 626 wagons as well. These all went very well but none of them seemed as fast as the very early one with the old engine. It didn’t have power steering though which was a bugger parking.

Unfortunately the last one I had was the Ford Telstar version. I was out when the dealer called and asked what color I wanted – Vicki told them blue was my fave color which is true but not the vile light blue metallic the Ford came in… Anyway – it’s a free new car so whatever… It really was shit compared to the Mazda and somehow they screwed up the gear rations as well which made it feel gutless to boot.

1st job was a 4 hour trip from home and the 1st time it had ever been on the open road so given its newness I took it pretty easy. After about 200km I hit a passing lane and it crept over 100kph for the 1st time. There was a very odd whistle/moan/shriek/alarm noise at 105kph that got louder as you went faster… I thought it had an overspeed alarm and nothing more of it.

I dropped it into the dealer in the job city for its 1st service and asked the tech if he could disable it… Apparently it didn’t have an overspeed alarm but he promised to road test it… I pick it up and, nope – cars perfect… hmmm That night I took it out and the noise was there and MUCH MUCH louder except it happened at 85kph now. I was fucked if I was putting up with that on the trip home so I went back to the dealership. They told me I was imagining it until I took the sales guy for a spin up the motorway… By now it was an ear splitting howl at 80…

Turned out the windscreen was just held in by gravity, the assemblers never sealed it in. How it sat there is beyond me. They sealed it but it was never a good car really and we were all glad to see it gone.

[Big Dave]

In a previous career I used to get the MD's hand-me-down vehicles. When he got a new interest, one of the managers (Sales or Construction) would get new wheels.
One such was a Van den Plas Jaguar that 'larned me' that dear old Mr Lucas had nuffink in the electrical failure stakes.
The Jag had as many motors as the Old Girl's current Merc, but they were 80's and English. It made getting to meetings interesting. Actually, it occasionally made getting out of the vehicle interesting.

I had a Classic Mustang for a few weeks too, till it became obvious that a 1967 vehicle needs a Motu for day to day use.

Karma broke even of course when he replaced the 'stang with his wife's 4cyl SAAB 900.
It had an Alpine Stereo that could make your ears bleed and no other endearing features at all.

[imdying]

Old man had a Mk1 Cortina... it had that 'old car' smell... the head lining was rotting and turning to dust

[Kickaha]

The EJ/EH Holdens of the time were really very very good cars so when the HD was announced with a host of improvements including disk brakes dad decided it must be a hell of a good thing and purchased one brand new. It was the WORST car he ever owned.

HD = Hastily designed

After sorting it out as best he could he traded that on a VC Valiant Regal which really was a decent car and we did endless miles in that.

A VC was my first car for $600 a year after I left school, they vibrate like a bastard when a fan blades flys off at 80mph