The History of the Chariot |
as told by Croz |
| Originally the Chariot was owned by my sister's Ford mad italian boyfriend, and went by the name of "Peggy". In its guise as "Peggy" the charoit had a cracked and faded metallic blue paint job. | |||
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| My father bought it in 1994 and it followed my sister to Brisbane. Yet fate had me linked to the car which I received from my parents when I headed off to University in Wollongong. Once I had gained control of the car it took on the more masculine personality as the chariot. | |||
| The next major change that was to happen was in 1995, when we had it painted up the notorious bubble gum ice-cream blue, which in time was to fade a little, and then become a little powdery allowing people to scribe messages of good will (and occassionally less than good will) to me. |  |
| But alas all good things must come to an end, and on my way home from work that fateful Wednesday afternoon 30th of January 2002, a girl driving her boyfriend's (of 2 weeks) relatively new emerald green falcon ute failed to give way. It all ended in a pool of green radiator fluid as the Chariot T-boned the ute and its owner sitting in the passenger seat, thinking unloving thoughts about his girlfriend. | |||
| I was driving the Chariot for about 7
years, over that time it did countless number of trips
inbetween Moree and Wollongong, often by Newcastle and
Tamworth with Yeoy, regular trips to footy training and
games, road trips, and for one session at Campus East, it
did very little except for sit there with flat tyres (and
rude messages written in the dusty paint job). It also
blew a head gasket at the start of 1998 in Muswellbrook,
had an alternator failure on the way to Moree 54
kilometres after leaving, blew a seal in the water pump
in 2000. More minor problems included a blown tyre 50kms
out of Orange, a selector that jumped out of place, a
blown air-conditioning pipe and radiator pipe (both X 2).
However the funniest mis-adventure that I ever had in the
Chariot was when I was stationary waiting for a cow to
leave the road out of my uncle's property one night, when
it was startled by its own shadow and bolted straight
into the bonnet of the car. But as a friend of mine once said "there is no goodbyes, only love" so I choose to remember the good times. Loading the chariot up to the hilt with beers for a Campus East or Kooloobong party, road trips with friends, footy trips, TK yelling out the window at Mormons, people broken down on the side of the road, girls or anyone who he thought may deserve a spray, driving 5-8 people home from Champions in 1997 (invariably with someone in the boot), TK spewing in my car on the way home from Champions, and the infamous drive to the Beach Bar by Cassie Cameron in 1995 to watch the last half of Australia's 1995 Rugby World Cup quarter final after the power in all of Fairy Meadow went out (no hard feelings Cassie). Anyway enough of crying in my beer. I hope you enjoy the photos of the wreckage. Cheers Croz |
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