What's Bill Shorten trying to do to we dyed-in-the-wool motoring die hards? With his wishful thinking that most of us will have to drive battery-powered things within 10 years' time.
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Doesn't he realise our family-friendly cars are an important part of our everyday lives, just as they've always been since Karl Benz built the first petrol-powered automobile in 1885?
People learn to drive in them, they go shopping in them, they carry sheep and calves in them, they go camping in them, they sleep in them, they conceive babies in them, they race each other in them, and they go mustering in them.
What more could you ask for from a car? And you don't have to plug them into a powerpoint for nine hours.
Our love of four wheels received a huge boost with the 48/25 Holden, dubbed the FX, that hit the roads in 1953.
Can you imagine a TV series called something like Powerpoint?
The six-cylinder 'people's car' was aimed at post-war middle-class families, sold for 733 pounds, 10 shillings ($1,467), and was an instant hit.
One of the shining symbols of Australian lifestyle, the FX, regarded as Australia's Own Car, was as 'ocker' as kangaroos and meat pies.
It had its share of rough edges, though - it leaked water and the doors and bonnet often flew open when driving.
The vacuum-operated windscreen wipers were about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. Put your foot on the pedal and the wipers stopped.
The tyres were skinny, there were no blinkers or windscreen washers and no heater so you had to rug-up or freeze. To stay cool in summer, you simply wound down the windows.
But these problems were eventually sorted out and the FX dominated the family car market until Ford retaliated with its Falcon in 1960.
Holden fired back with a new model called the Kingswood that became a symbol of suburban life and the name for a TV series starring that old ocker Ted Bullpitt, whose love in life was a Holden Kingswood.
Can you imagine a TV series called something like 'Powerpoint'?
It's interesting to note the Easter 1954 race meeting on Gnoo Blas in Orange marked the first appearance of a Holden in what they then called a closed-car event. Driver Leo Geoghegan thrilled spectators with the way he threw the car into the corners using up all the road.
Wouldn't be the same with an electric car.
REPLACEMENT XPT FLEET CAN'T COME SOON ENOUGH
THE new Spanish regional trains we're progressively getting from 2023 as replacements for our clapped-out XPTs that are breaking down about every 200,000 kilometres can't come quick enough.
The government admits the fleet of 19 locos and 60 carriages have recurring problems with brakes, wheels fatigue and corrosion of electric ducting in the diesel-electric engines.
The rail cars, some going into service in 1982, have travelled an average of 9.945 million kilometres, the equivalent of nearly 13 times to the moon and back.
They were designed to travel 7.5 million kilometres before being retired.
The XPT broke down last week and the return Sydney trip was scrapped with FOOD Week passengers taken by buses to Lithgow.
But the future is positive: the new fleet's features will include more comfortable, reversible seating, window blinds, charging points for electronic devices and overhead luggage storage similar to what's available on airlines.
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