Rally squeezes out the lemons
HOW'S this for a serious road test? Three years, 300 cars, more than 10,000km on Australia's worst roads.
HOW'S this for a serious road test? Three years, 300 cars, more than 10,000km on Australia's worst roads.
Now, to be fair, the cars in this particular test have to be worth $1000 or less, but supervising mechanic Alex Hallowell reckons it says a lot about makes of cars.
In his volunteer life Alex is the top tinkerer for the annual Shitbox Rally. In real life he looks after big Cats for Kerry Stokes's Westrac, so he knows about machinery.
After seeing every brand of car sold in Australia try to make it from Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide through to places such as Darwin, Alice Springs and Cairns, Alex has listed his top five cars to be avoided at all costs and his top five potential finishers. His cars to avoid:
1. Anything with an Alfa Romeo badge. Glorious engines, charismatic styling, everyone will want to stop and have a look at your car as you sit at the side of the road, forlornly waiting for a tow truck.
2. Daewoo 1.5i/Cielo. "Not a bad little car," I hear you say. "Cheap, well maintained, yada yada yada." Oh, I'm sorry, I stopped listening at Daewoo. You just bought a time bomb.
3. Anything from a defunct British car-maker. Austin, Morris, Triumph, Rover, Wolseley, Humber. Too old, parts will be a nightmare and so will reliability.
4. Anything with a Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, or Saab badge. If you live more than two doors away from a dealer or specialist, or intend to take one any farther than three doors away, they start to make less sense.
5. Jaguars. No. Just no.
Alex's top five
1. Toyota Corolla/SECA/T-18/Tercel. Nothing ever seems to go wrong with these things and, when it does, they're (usually) problems of a minor nature and (usually) cheap to repair. The boring, predictable, safe choice, but the sensible one. Good for you.
2. VK-VN Holden Commodore. Another safe bet, every scrapyard has at least four million of these things, good, reliable, thrashy, primitive family transport.
3. EB Ford Falcon. The EA Ford Falcon has a special place in Australia's car history as, quite possibly, the worst car built here. By the time the EA was replaced by the EB, quality was sort of back.
4. Ford Laser/Meteor/Mazda 323. As with the Corolla, a bulletproof little car, the only thing is a tendency to burn a lot of oil. Keep the oil up and they'll go forever.
5. Toyota Camry SV21 (unless there are river crossings). Camrys are tough as old boots, mechanically very hardy and can cover astronomical mileages on minimal maintenance.
This year's rally is from Adelaide to Fremantle via Coober Pedy, Uluru, Laverton and Kalgoorlie, stopping every now and then at our grand historic chateaus, such as the Warakurna and Tjukayirla roadhouses.
The whole adventure is best summed up by Cable Tie Racing's Peter Shepherd, whose team ran a 1986 Ford Falcon limousine that hadn't been driven since 1998 in the rally to Darwin. The Ford cost $20 and, as Pete told the NT News, "The roadworthy guy said he didn't want to see it and never to bring it back."
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