My Dad liked cars. He changed our car every year or two. The earliest car I remember was our Mark four Zephyr. It was a big, square, light green tank. The fuel cap was hidden underneath the back numberplate that flipped on a sprung hinge. If you weren’t careful it could catch your fingers.
There’d been talk of a Studebacker and a hard to reverse VW that took the Dundee place gate off. We brought our tiny kitten Sugar home in a red Hillman Hunter when I was four. She slept, curled on a blanket over the hand brake all the way home on a steamy wet day. There was a red seated, white Morris 1800 and an enormous Ford Fairlane before the oil crisis hit. That was a shame. Dad had driven us up to 85 mph out near my Uncle’s place in the country in the Fairlane. He knew what he was doing. Dad was a Traffic cop. Dad had mostly Holden’s for work . I’d love to sit in his car and sometimes he’d take me for rides. Rapid acceleration in a small culdesac is a thrill for a small boy.
I knew all the makes and models before Japanese imports came in. I knew my Belmonts from my Kingswoods. I knew which cars had electric windows [Holden Statesman, Toyota Crown] and which cars had heaters. I knew about the speedy unreliability and sheer ugliness of the Leyland P76. , the King Curtis denying fallibility of the Skoda and the uniqueness of the Trekka. I listened to Radio Avon’s ‘Cost your Car with Cooper Henderson Motors‘ on Saturday mornings and spent any spare money I had on Matchbox, Dinky and Corgi toys.
My favourite car was a purple Valiant Charger.
Our brown Hillman Avenger was followed by an orange Datsun 120Y . One thirty degree day mum came home in an amazing green Mitsubishi Gallant coupe . The pillar-less windows afforded a cool breeze on the black vinyl interior. This clearly wasn’t a British car. A white Hillman Hunter – also with high back seats – came next. That was followed by a teal Toyota Corona, a fawn Mitsubishi Lancer, a vinyl roofed metallic chocolate Mitsubishi Sigma and a pale orange Honda Accord . I might have missed a couple.
I starting learning to drive with my Dad in the ‘Hondamatic’ Accord . It was good for learning steering, braking and driving on the road . I learnt gears, hill starts and three point turns in the white Datsun Cherry my mum and I went halves in when I was sixteen. I bunny hopped around supermarket carparks in the Cherry for a few months until I was ready to drive around the block with my Dad’s workmate to sit my licence. Soon I was driving to school and to my early morning cleaning job on wet days.
By the time I was 17 I‘d bought a maroon Honda Civic with a vinyl roof from Heathcote. I’d saved most of the $4500 and my parent’s lent me the rest. It was a big investment for a small car, but I could get three amps and a couple of guitars in the back with the rear seat down.
Eighteen months later I started Teacher’s College, left home and sold the Civic to a car dealer from Blenheim for $4000 all in one day. I couldn’t afford a car anymore. I was living on a bursary of $31 a week : $18 for rent, $12 for food and savings for the rest.
I didn’t have a lot to do with cars for the next five or six years. I lived in town and could bike or walk most places I needed to go. Friends, bandmates and partners sometimes had cars or motorbikes. I had a motorbike and a couple of mopeds. Mum lent me her station wagon if I needed it for band things.
By mid 1991 I’d been working as a car groomer at Archibalds for six months . Archibalds sold luxury cars. They were nice people. One morning Steve from sales brought a recent trade-in around to the grooming bay. It seemed familiar – a pristine, 1978 yellow [‘bold as brass’] Austin Maxi formerly driven by a walk-short and walk-sock wearing, moustachioed history teacher at my old high school.
The Maxi was the latest variation of the Morris 1800 we’d had when I was a kid, but with a five speed gearbox and a hatchback. According to the tv ad. featuring Commonwealth Games weight lifter Graeme May, The Maxi would ‘seat five big men’. I’d not wanted or needed a car, but with some encouragement from my workmates, and the confidence of being employed, I bought it. It would be fun and useful, and it was a good deal. It cost me $750 on my wages of $400 week.
I loved it. I groomed it and Simon the mechanic tuned it. My workmate Dave helped me put in a stereo. I got some additional speakers, a steering wheel cover, my choice of car mats and sheepskin seat covers from the trade-ins, and a great deal on servicing and petrol at work. It was a comfortable, usefully sized car in good order. British cars were everywhere in Christchurch in the early 1990s. Triumphs, Vauxhalls, Cortinas, Minis, Rovers, and all sorts of Hillmans were still commonplace. The Maxi was one of many sluggish cars on the road.
Having a car gave me musical freedom. I could shift my gear anytime I needed to. Once driving home from a jam with Steve above Oxy prams in Colombo street, I noticed a bit of a breeze on the back of my neck. I’d not shut the hatch back properly. My floor tom and crash cymbal were rolling back down Tuam street twenty metres away.
The Maxi allowed us adventures. Numerous visits to Jonny’s in Barry’s Bay, serious trips with Damian and Lissa in the Waipara Gorge. Picnic’s, day’s out, dates. For a while I lived above City Books in Colombo Street. I had no car park there, so the Maxi stayed with Lissa in Addington for a few months. I lent it to Ian for a week when I went to Wellington to do some Swim Everything gigs. A couple of months later a Green Maxi was traded in at work. Lissa decided it wasn’t for her. Ian bought it. It died a few months later when its gearbox went.
The Maxi made living out at Sumner easy. I enjoyed driving in to town for work in the morning and back out to the beach at night. One morning I had a near miss at a roundabout . My inattention was my own fault . I was lucky – the brakes worked and I stopped in time.
Bert and I took The Maxi down to Dunedin for Creeley’s debut. We’d had to delay the journey for a day due to the snowstorm later known as “the big snow’. Our journey south was through a beautiful grey and white snow-filled, chilled landscape . Sometimes we opened all the windows to take it all in. Bert was co-pilot, operating the stereo, wipers and heater system while cymbals, drums, an amp and a guitar bounced around on the big flat rear expanse behind us. The Maxi wasn’t fast on the hills, but it cruised on the plains.
Amanda and I had our first big trip in The Maxi the week after I finished at Archibalds. We drove to Nelson and experienced the cheerful whistling and throat clearing of older folk at the Tahunanui Campground for most of a week. Each night the the older men carried the days dishes to the cookhouse and did the washing up. Late one night we listened to British newlyweds bicker in the next tent, then slowly and rhythmically inflate their airbed. For ages. I think. The trip was a blast.
I started living in town and got a University Parking permit. It was nice not to have to bike in the rain if I didn’t want to. We worked out a route to University that required no right hand turns. After my first year’s exams we drove south to camp at Peel Forrest. Just before the turnoff near Geraldine, a car waved us over to let us know we were leaking petrol. We sped to Geraldine, filled with panic at the explosive possibilities of this new knowledge.
A kind mechanic at the AA appointed garage rubbed soap on the hole and told us he thought it should hold the leak over night . We drove back to our camp site, parked The Maxi a long way from the tent, and had the tank welded up the next day. We put some soap and some Minties in the glove box in case of future emergencies. Minties, once chewed, might also seal a leaking petrol tank.
– a maxi twin, 1979, unknown photographer
We had other trips and memories : Getting scared on our first overnighter in Arthurs Pass: winding so slowly up Mt Horrible and descending into torrential rain in Bruce Bay on the way down to Okuru; freezing headwinds beating the car and the heater in the Mackenzie Country, and being unable to stop going downhill on the old zig zag towards Otira . Young Simon the apprentice mechanic had put our new brake shoes on backwards.
The Maxi was a workhorse – shifting house, boxes, boxes and boxes of Ian’s magazines, beds or people – it was roomy, comfortable and capable. I kept it clean and serviced. It was particularly useful for shifting musical equipment. I drove to countless gigs and band practices. Unloading heavy expensive equipment in dodgy places in the dark was easy. Gear slid out from the big, flat, back tray with only a minimal lift required over the rear lip.
There were lots of early mornings and late nights. One night after Creeley supported The Muttonbirds at University, my quick jaunt home to drop off my gear was thwarted by log-jammed Classical Sparks traffic between Hagley Park and our place across the river. I was being sucked back in the direction I’d come from, into the maelstrom of Christchurch’s biggest annual free public event .
To ease my tension, I panicked, turned up Sugar on the stereo, opened the windows and performed an emergency traverse of the Bealey Ave traffic island, then zipped across a lane of stalled traffic and into my closed off street, to get the car out of sight before biking back to the gig.
My car grooming experience led to songs about cars and the car sales business. It was a side of life with many new experiences. Slang, methods and attitudes were peculiar to the industry, or at least new to me. Creeley played American Cars and Casebac Cars . ‘Grunty Falcon’ mentions The Maxi . There’s been loads of car songs since since.
The Maxi was still occasionally handy for getting to work. It was a long bike ride from New Brighton on a wet day . I started work early and could usually get a car park nearby when I needed one. I loved the luxury of driving home after a day in the airless library.
I didn’t do much mechanical work on The Maxi beyond fluid top-ups, tyres and cleaning. On one occasion I topped up the suspension fluids, meaning The Maxi sat a few inches higher than it should have.
– not me or my maxi
I stopped getting The Maxi serviced at Archibalds . It was beyond my budget. Amanda’s boss Alan put us on to his mechanic Bob. Bob was an old school guy in Linwood, about my parents’ age who fixed things if he could, and replaced them if he couldn’t. After a while the only driving Maxi and I were doing was to get my WOF every six months, or to Bob’s to get the necessary repairs. Band practices were at home in the shed behind the garage. Parking wasn’t an option at my new job, and on wet days I could get a ride into town with Amanda.
In 2004 I parked the Maxi in the garage and put the registration on hold. With one exception, The Maxi led a quiet life until the timber stack in the garage fell during the earthquakes of 2010 /11. Maxi was going nowhere, doing nothing, getting dusty and slightly dented.
We grew apart, living side by side and barely talking, except for the time when a piece of the side trim somehow came loose and wedged in my thigh as I walked through from the shed. The trim stayed in my leg as it peeled off the car. I was too scared to look and pulled it straight out. My trousers had fared worse than my thigh.
Our earthquake repairs came through in September 2013. We’d done a lot of sorting and thinking prior to shifting out. I’d decided it was time for the Maxi to move on. An asset had become a liability. Ian helped me push The Maxi out of the garage and to push the Citroen BX in. The Bx had been stuck in the red zone for six months and then been poorly repaired after being run into. Suze organised a Nissan Bluebird SSS for us from out of town to get us around or out if we needed it. It was white with a spoiler and old school mag wheels, automatic and fun to drive. The Citroen took Maxi’s place in the garage.
The Maxi sat in front of the garage for the next five and a half years. The kid helping to sand our floors told me he was ‘the most honest man I’d ever meet’ and would be around the next day to buy The Maxi with cash. He wasn’t honest and didn’t come around. Another kid came off the street and asked if it was for sale. I said it was, and he said he’d be back. He didn’t come back. A few years later we sent a whole bunch of photos to a Maxi club hoping an enthusiast would be enthused. None were.
The Nissan started to need repairs, so Amanda traded it in on a blue Honda Stream. It’s a versatile car. It’s small, but seats seven, as long as some of the people are quite small. It’s done long trips and some very long days getting around cyclones. It works well with kids and is narrow enough to fit through gaps other vehicles can’t.
Outdoor living by the sea wasn’t kind to The Maxi. My lack of care led to decay. Lichen grew on the trim, chrome fell off and the rust got worse, leaving pretty orange trails where it ran over the yellow paint. It was sadly beautiful.
I spent a morning cleaning. After three sessions, The Maxi was clean and lichen free – it didn’t look so bad. I could see some of the old charm in the generous, gentle comforting curves. The sunny yellowness enfolding acres of glass windows seemed friendly, and the two headlights almost smiled in the morning sun. Its five speed gear box and chequered front badge suggested an ambitiously sporty self-image. It had been a practical,useful, slow, squat, low-slung solid car.
A few days later Ian’s next door neighbour turned up on time in his wreckers truck, winched up The Maxi, and drove away. After fifteen years of indecision and inaction, my car was gone in ten minutes. It felt ok. Pushing it down the driveway, the old vinyl smell made me almost retch. It was impossibly heavy and clunky, rusty and stained. The carpets were growing mould. I knew it was the right thing to do. Owning that car wasn’t me anymore. I wasn’t the guy with the money, want or skills to fix or own a car like that. I wouldn’t pass it on to our son. Fifteen years ago I thought I might be that guy. I’m not.
You might expect a forty year old car to have had multiple owners, but The Maxi only had two – me and the history teacher. 13 years with him, and 27 with me.
It was a long, long enough time.
– the maxi left its mark
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