Runnin' With the Devil

Hola, my name is Ramonito, your friendly, slightly Mexican car reviewer. What's that? You smell sulfur? RED DEVIL COMIN' FOR YOU. Today I will be reviewing my beloved whip, the Red Devil. There may or may not be pictures depending on whether or not she lets me close to her today. She's camera shy, you see.

The Red Devil is actually a 1994 Toyota Corolla (I know right? FRIGGIN' BEAST). She was bestowed upon me by my parents who hustled her off of a mate in game of mahjong. She's got low kms for her age, as she was only used during full moons for ritualistic purposes, and for picking up kids from school 5 minutes away. Just walk, far out. Anyway, she packs a whopping 0.8L engine, because clearly 1L engines wouldn't make sense at all. She's got no window tint 'cause she ain't scared of a little melanoma. She has no cup holders because don't drink and drive obviously. Only the front speakers work consistently because if you're sitting in the back, I don't want you to hear what kind of music I'm playing. She's dark red just like Satan. She's got these sick, black plastic hub caps which were given to me by Santa Claus for Christmas 2010 (YEAH, I STILL BELIEVE, WHAT?). Overall, I would say that she looks like a red Batmobile, if Batman was a poor Filipino boy.

OH, BUT HOW SHE RUNS. Don't let her 0.8L fool you, this baby packs a poke. How much of a poke? Try 0-100 in about 2 minutes on the M4. Holla. I've never gone to 110 though because my car started shaking. She takes hills like a cyclist of average fitness, unless you turn on the air conditioning, in which case you have about as much horsepower as a pram with fat twins in it. CHILDHOOD OBESITY. NOT FUNNY. She seems to run faster when I play Van Halen on my iPod. She handles like a Mario Kart ever since I got the left drive shaft replaced. Not sure what that means, but my mechanic didn't speak English very well so he must be good. I can now successfully evade police* and have done so on several occasions.

*if they are parked 

Now please excuse me while I attempt to take some pictures of this elusive creatures. I may or may not return, so here is a video to watch while I'm away. Wish me luck.

WHEW. WELL. THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE. I had to Steve Irwin my way around her in order to get some good shots but I managed to get them. Here's a few pictures of the Red Devil in her natural habitat, my driveway.

The Red Devil

Them Rims

Interior. Those brown stains are chocolate, I promise.

Back seat. aka my dining room.

Poor Filipino Batman in a poor Filipino Batmobile

So that's my ride. Respect her or she will eat you. Posting this a day early, I'm going on a road trip tomorrow. RED DEVIL RIDIN'. Laters

-Ramonito

Once you're soaked it doesn't matter if it's raining.

Yo, I am anxzibitinyoxzibit and I review cars man.

I don't know anything about cars really, but I promise to try.

I know stuff about chainsaws and tractors, they're like cars right?

Anyway, about my own car.

When my truly awful Magna finally died for good early last year I decided to see how I would fare going carless. It was nice. I live close to University and a good train station so getting where I need to go was not too problematic. I am firmly in the minority that believes, all things considered, Sydney public transport is good enough (the other members of this minority consist of Gladys Berejiklian and this one guy who lives and works near Town Hall station). I enjoyed not having a car, that feeling of dependence on others, the way people roll their eyes when you tell them you choose not to own a car. It's heaps good man. Alas, the time came when I needed to return to my job on a farm out west and with that came the realisation that I needed a car to get to work to earn $$$$ to pay for the car that I needed to get the $$$$$ to justify owning a car again. Awesome.

My vehicular standards were low; all I was looking for was something that ticked these boxes:

• Less that $2000.
• More than 6 months rego.
• More than one functioning speaker.
• Front wheel drive so I can actually get off the farm after it rains and turns all driveways into muddy trails of mud.
• Barbie themed seat belt pad things 'cause seat belts are wicked uncomfortable.
• A smell of burning oil.
• A cracked radiator.
• I could fit inside it (being 6' 6” is awesome).

After hours of trolling through Gumtree, I found it. My car. A 1994 Camry. It had everything I wanted and nothing more. The roof lining sagged onto my head, the Barbie seat belt covers were bright pink, the CD player ate, rather than played, CD's. FUCK YES I WANT THIS CAR.

I totally found $2 in the seat the day after purchase too. Almost payed for itself this car.

Nearing one year on and I am still overjoyed at my purchase. The burning oil smell lingers strong in the nostrils long after even the shortest voyage. The massively cracked windshield makes me fear for every time I forget to brake for a speed bump. The standard Camry bonnet paint deterioration is coming along nicely. I eventually worked out how the fuck to jack the CD player and put in a new one and the speakers distort all the bass when I play my Trap banGers or Thug Life Vol. 1 at 1/3 volume like a bro. 

Pac keeps things fresh

Probably should repair this. Maybe.

 

It even has a fucking car alarm because, obviously, everyone wants to steal a '94 Camry. Once, the door closed in the wind with my keys on the front seat, locking me out. Luckily I had access to the long thin piece of metal required to break into the car. There is a dead battery and piles of work clothes in the boot and random bottles of beer show up from time to time. Off-road trips in the Blue Mountains have been an overwhelming success.

Totally passed rego too.

-anxzibitinyoxzibit

Welcome! Here is the beginning of my car journey....

Welcome to our blog on the average blokes car! I thought I would kick things off with a little about my car history to give you context of where we are going with this…

So as I’m sure most of the Aussie audience will know you are restricted in terms of power in the cars you can drive up until you obtain your full license at 20. As such many first cars will not be turbo or higher than a V6. This bugged me when it came to the day that I had finally saved enough to go out and buy my first car. I was 17 and as such was restricted under the P’s license. I pondered and after looking at various cars I managed to pick up a cheap 2002 BMW 325ci at an auction. The car had been in an accident and was in need of some TLC. I repaired the front end and had just enough to cover a re-spray, I also had to put a new radiator and engine mounts in as these had been damaged in the accident. After doing all this I felt quite chuffed as the car started to look good! Being a straight six it had more than enough power for me to learn how to drive on and have some fun. In terms of features, for an 11-year-old car these BMW’s are packed with racing leather seats, sunroofs, electric everything and I installed an Alpine sound system with Fusion sub- yes fusion! I kept this car for 2 years and managed to sell it at a profit after fixing it up! If you have never been to a car auction I encourage you to! They are one hell of an experience and you can pick up some amazing deals. 

Following the BMW I decided to purchase a 2010 Holden SV6 Ute, with a staggering 210kw out of a 3.6Litre V6 I was impressed with how far General motors has come along. Being a Ute I was expecting major handling compromises but the Holden surprised me. I did a 4 day drive with a couple of people from the Ferrari club and the Ute put up a fair fight through the winds and turns of thunderbolt way. Of course I wasn’t expecting to keep up the Ferrari’s backside and had some close calls with the rear kicking out but overall bang for buck the SV6 did well.  I kept it pretty stock in terms of mods and only had a X-force exhaust system fitted, pace makers, lowered it on King springs and a migraine trying to install a sound system! Anyone who has tried to install speakers whilst keeping a stock head unit will know what I mean! The VE aftermarket head units are over the 1k mark and it didn’t make sense to replace it as the AC and functions are built into it. Overall the Ute came in handy with moving stock and weekend runs to the dirt bike track, the SIDI motor was extremely fuel efficient on the highway and these Holden’s have come along way!

After the SV6 I got caught in a Japanese craze and was JDM struck! My mate had a DC5 and the VTEC BURRR just made me smile! I got my hands on my first turbo car a 2006 Subaru WRX club spec 9, or affectionately known as Scooby. The sound of that blow off valve and famous rexy purr sold me on the car. It had leather racing seats and all the other fancy bits that these limited edition CS9’s came with. This is when I got ‘the bug’ and started to delve into mods. The first thing I did to Scooby was install Pedders sports ryder extreme XA coil overs and 18 inch Rota Grid Drift rims for that crazy JDM look and stance. Next I got stuck into the engine starting with a 3-inch stainless steel exhaust with cannon muffler. I upgraded the turbo and later added a Fibre
vortex generator, carbon muffler guard, JVC in-dash DVD player with
iPod/iPhone integration with 8-speaker sound + 12' Kenwood Subwoofer
and a few other bits n pieces. Scooby handles like he’s on rails, the AWD boxer really does attest as to why these Subaru’s have become so popular. Of course with owning a WRX comes the EVO rivalry with both teams being equally as passionate and certain that their car is better, one thing is for sure these die-hard fans can get seriously competitive!

-Boost

Welcome to the car review site for the everyday man!

Hey all,

Welcome to the Average Guy's Car Review! A page where know-it-alls to no-clues can read on what the average man thinks of a car, where you need not be an automobile-philiac to appreciate cars in all their glory.

What you can expect from us, and this page, are posts from regular guys often talking about regular cars, each week we'll provide you with a themed topic for the blogs to tie in all our entries. That being said, after this week, beginning Monday the 15th of April, the topics you can expect are

Week 1: Reviews of our cars (each contributor will give you the lowdown on their current rides so you can see just how average we really are)

Week 2: Reviews of our dream cars (even the most average of men will have a dream car that they aspire to own one day. This is where we'll share these dream cars with you)

Week 3: Ugliest/Worst car known to man (Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but its safe to assume that the cars we post here, pretty much could do with a crushing).

And below you'll find a draft image of our webpage layout.

Looking forward to providing you the averagest of car reviews.

-VTECpony

Future Blog Layout

Title
Our group has decided to call our blog "Average Guy's Car Reviews". Our blog will be doing humourous car reviews and car stories. We want to add a stylised logo of our title as a banner at the top of the page.
Background
We want to have a simple, single-colour background, possibly just black or white, as this is easy on the eyes. We were thinking of possibly adding an image of a car into the background as well.
Menu
Our group wants to have a menu on the right side with access to an archive of posts, as well as tags for easy navigation.

We have posted a draft image of our blog layout on our twitter: @isys100_15_Cars

WELCOME MUCHACHOS

Good evening ladies. You can call us the average guys. We are going to be reviewing cars - everything from Corollas to Ferraris, from beep beep Barinas to broom broom Bugattis. I'll be honest with you, since it's only us two here - we really don't know all that much about cars. HOWEVER: we do have quite strong opinions about cup holders, colour to speed ratios and seat fabric. So buckle your seat belt, jungle is massive, get ready for the ride. VRRRREEEEOOOOOOOOM.

- Ramonito