Ode to my Telstar (and previous cars)

**Be warned this is a long post about a car! lol*

So on the 26th April 2013, my beautiful little car died a rather violent death.

My car is pretty important to me, to our system (so parts and alters) because it has long been a safe place for us to hide out for awhile, to yell and scream and rant and rave in, to turn up the music loud and sing and dance not caring in the slightest who is making judgements of my sanity in the car next to me. It's kept me warm and dry and its kept me safe from people outside that didn't look too friendly. But let me go back further to the hunt for my beautiful Telstar.

From about age 10 ish (maybe earlier but I think around about age 10) when newspapers were still delivered to your door...you PAID a subscription and each day you'd go find where the newspaper had been thrown and you'd try to unwrap it from its cling wrap type enclosing until you reached the paper inside. We subscribed to The Age. (I know who'd subscribe now right?!?! Such a novel concept! The internet didn't really exist for the average person when I was 10 years old.) Each Saturday the cars guide would come out and I would take it to my room in the evening (I usually had either gymnastics or trampolining training on a Saturday afternoon so I didn't get to the paper until I got home) and out I would lay the cars guide. In the cars guide were mostly second hand cars that both individuals and dealers alike were trying to sell. Yep there were some new cars and I looked at that too but I would spend around about 4 hours each Saturday early evening/night going through every single tiny advert of every single car starting at the letter A and finishing at the letter Z ....every...single...week.

I can't really tell you what I was looking for when I started this obsession, basically it was just dreaming of a way out. A way out of home, a way out of the life I was stuck in, to be grown up enough to drive a car, to be able to go wherever I wanted....I also dreamed about having a house and these houses over the years stayed similar and totally different at the same time. I got sick with me/cfs when I was 11 years old, well no, I got sick with a very bad bout of glandular fever when I was 11 years old, I just never recovered properly, I never even returned to school for full days that year, the following two years I only attended school 2-3 times a week...on good weeks. So over time I had plenty of time to think about getting out and free of what I was living through. You know early on, I don't even think I was mad! I think I was just scared and afraid and I knew I had to have a backup plan, a way to run away if things ever got too bad....on the times I did run away, I always came back of my own choosing. But as I was unwell (and for the first 8 years of being so unwell, I had periods where I could almost function normally if I didn't over do it and periods where I was relegated to my bed) I spent a lot of time laying on bed or Mum would make the couch into a bed for me and I'd talk with her while I did nothing...what would I do if I won $1,000,000 (one million dollars).

Even though I'd fallen in love with Aldi coupe's often a final or jackpot prize on Sale of the Century (a trivia game show on the nine network for many years and definitely as I was growing up), the idea of buying a brand new car with that money wasn't really an option. "What a waste of money" I would hear in regards to people who bought brand new cars, "They lose so much money as soon as they leave the parking lot!"....so I understood that, if I bought a brand new car then that would be a bad investment. So back to continually looking for the perfect cars and the perfect car for ME in The Age Car Guide. (Note: These days I have NOTHING against buying a brand new car, if I had that options I'd do it! I was just picking up on the judgements of my family.)

Even though I'd been taught how to budget for a house, I'd been taught how mortgages worked and how the system was not really working in our favour....no one really taught me how to determine what car would be best for me. I don't think anyone would even think a 10 year old, then an 11 year old and so on and so forth would even be interested. If I was doing my research these days, naturally I'd use the internet a lot more but again back then, the internet wasn't the same as it is now....but somehow I managed to figure out that Ford Telstar's were a popular car (I noticed a lot of them on the road being driven by others) but that there were not as many being sold in the paper...that, to me, meant that people liked their Telstar's and instead of upgrading their car every 2-3 years like many people do (?) (at the very least I know a lot of people USED to do that), they were keeping their cars. Then I also noticed over time (remembering that I did this for years, not just a few weeks or a few months), that they were NOT dropping in sale value very quickly....this, to me, meant that they were a good investment. If I could buy a good one, then it would maintain its value for longer and that would be a good thing if I got in a car accident and needed to replace it or for some reason if I needed to sell it.

However, even though I knew my ideal car was a blue Ford Telstar Ghia (the Ghia being the slightly more advanced version of the car), the first car I drove was almost given to me, I only paid a few hundred dollars for it, my grandfather and father did a little bit of work on it but it was already in quite good condition. Basically we were given this car as a replacement for a car that a cousin of mine had wrapped around a tree. It was a Renault 12, 1978. She was a little blue sedan, comfortable, with supposed airconditioning, manual, drove lightly and nice. I loved my little Renault. She performed many miracles for me (with I believe God's help) like petrol used to be (when I started to drive) about 58c per litre! No joke! By the end of my first year of driving it was up to about 78c per litre. But she would be running on fumes and she would keep going and that was handy because I was paying for my course $3500 and most of the time I had very little money for fuel....but she kept going. The most trouble I had with her was running out of petrol once (oops) and one day I had THREE flat tyres in the space of about 2.5 hours, no joke. But otherwise, she worked well. She played the radio and cassette tapes, but she also would play my cd player with an adapter that I used. She was sturdy....but if you decided to go at 100km/hr....she pretty much flew off the ground, she was quite light. She had the best anti theft/break in system I knew of...you know you have a tight car when even the RACV cannot break in! (One day my door lock had an issue, I don't know why but it would not open, my father would not believe I had NOT locked the keys in the car until I threw them at him. He tried to open the car. We tried every door of the car at least three times and the boot. Anything to get into this car. Nope nothing...so we call the RACV....they try everything....they try all the doors again. Nope no way to get into this car. They were talking about needing to smash one of the windows in order to get into the car! I sat and prayed and prayed hard.....then the back door behind the drivers seat....it opened! Everyone had tried that door with no luck...that was a miracle indeed....)

The Renault was not my perfect car but she suited me perfectly for what I needed and did an amazing job. Then disaster struck. I'd moved out of home and was in teh process of housesitting about then 60 minutes away from my "home". I had a major car accident on a major intersection and the Datsun that ran into me had a bonnet that was approximately 20cm in length now we'd collided THAT hard (and if you know Datsun's you know they don't bend very easily). Everything was flown around my car. I was sad. My car was gone. We kept her and another green automatic Renault of approximately the same age was on the way. They were hoping to put the pieces together. Unfortunately the green Renault consistently broke down. She was the complete opposite of my beautiful blue Renault....I was staying in accomodation not really close to anyone or anything, I was unwell (eating disorder), and I did not have a reliable car. Eventually I was packed up and moved into the spare room of my new living arrangements. As part of this, it was decided that I would get a loan (I was working approximately 6 days a week for about 8 hours per day.....plus uni - but that was stupidity, its just the craziness of starvation really) which would cover the car, the first years comprehensive insurance, buy a desk for my new bedroom and a chest of drawers (my room had no cupboard or drawers etc). The green car was to go to my sister who was about to turn 18.

After some heartbreak and some major mix ups with finances etc, I found my perfect Telstar. The only thing NOT perfect was that she was white not blue. But she had been owned by a friend of mine previously who was a mechanic and I had no reason to doubt anything he told me. All those years of searching and hunting for the perfect car and here I was, getting my perfect car. I haven't had many dreams come true in my life, but this felt like one of them. She felt like a gift and she has all the time since. I always said that I would keep her until she died and I did. She was a Ford Telstar Ghia 1989 4 door sedan with central locking and up until about 5-6 years ago airconditioning. She had electric windows, multivariable speed window wipers, a fuel light that was fairly accurate, amazing milage given the age of the car (something that has only ever reduce a small amount in the time I've had her, approximately 13 years), light steering, light acceleration and brakeing, an amazing turn circle, I had a CD player installed (my first one was sooo cool but got stolen, unfortunately she was VERY easy to break into, so the second CD player I got was more basic), she had mag wheels (not that I cared so much about that), a nice velour trim and she was smooth...she loved to go fast. Even though she didn't have cruise control, she'd cruise at about 80km/hr and 100 km/hr without much effort on my behalf. She was pretty much everything I had thought she would be. Now there are a few extra things I'd get in a car like cruise control, remote central locking and cupholders! But for the time and the price, I was happy.

The hardest bit about having my Telstar was having the loan. I HATE borrowing money, I hate having to pay it back. Things also fell apart health wise and I couldn't maintain the number of shifts I was doing and so my pay reduced. THEN I had a car accident. I'd been stupid with some of my money, thankfully not too badly, but it was enough that I was in a bit of a hole. I was a total statistic, it was about 630pm in like August on a Friday night and it had been raining and I ran into the car in front of me. Doh! LITERALLY a minute before I crashed my passenger said to me, "Your car has airbags doesn't it" and i'm like, "No, no it doesn't" and he says, "Yeah it does." then BANG! Then "Nope your car doesn't have airbags!" Sheesh what a way to prove it to him. Thankfully the car I hit was an older car and I did no damage to it. He didn't even worry about swapping details, said his car was fine and he wasn't worried. That was good. My car however was drivable but I would've been pulled over if the police had seen it.

When I took her to the panel beaters and repair shop for a general quote (we weren't sure if I should repair it outside of insurance or under insurance) they said it would cost about $1600 ish if I did NOT go through insurance. Unfortunately, I didn't even have the $800 excess I required at the time (I was only 19, not yet a rating 1 and still on my P plates so high excess it is....now I'm meant to be a guaranteed rating one but I have no car, so sad) ANYWAY....because the excess was less then the cost to fix it and because even if I dropped the ratings and had to pay a higher premium the next year we figured it all was still less then the $1600 quoted. So 3 months after the accident it went into insurance. It always strikes me how insurance companies just ASSUME you have the excess money available easily. I am quite sure that there are many people out there that DO have a bank account of savings that they could use...that is not me and will not be me. The insurance company wanted to know why it had taken me so long to report the accident and I explained that it had taken me 3 months and for my then boyfriend to help chip in with the costs to save enough for the excess and thus get my car fixed. I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds themselves in that situation. Anyway, my car was fixed for about $3300! Another $100-$200 and it would've been written off and I would've had to start again.

Unfortunately my boyfriend tried to put a "kill switch" in my car. This would make it harder for any would be thieves to steal my car. Except the switches he used overloaded the electrics in my car and for the next 6 or so years I had so many electrical problems or problems with things that the electrical components were meant to assist like fans and head gaskets! Expensive but somehow I new this was still a gift of a car that this wasn't the car's fault. It was a very rainy busy friday night when I rang my dad and asked him to come and rip the kill switch out on the side of the road. It had gotten so very hot that the switch had actually fused! After that I did not have so many problems, just my airconditioning core (which I never fixed) and an alternator (which happened last year). Otherwise its only been bits and pieces here and there....although a few years ago my grandfather I THINK spent a lot of money trying to get her into good condition again...but he never did tell me how much and so I never could repay him.

My car has been on 4wd tracks (some intentionally, some by accident), she has driven on the beach at Robe, she has driven on a salt pan, she has done a very very slow donot on a salt pan...she has run over barbed wire (not my fault i was screaming it at the driver that there was barbed wire...he saw it as we drive straight over it) and didnt' allow the punctures to go down for another 3 days, she has attended many late night, very early morning emergency distress calls from friends houses, hospitals, car accidents, whatever...she has driven people home, driven around a quarter of Australia, she has kept me safe from the elements, so many things this little car has faithfully done for me.

Then two weeks ago, I had a serious problem while driving which resulted in me crashing into a parked SUV and then managing with a bright white light, managing to turn out from hitting a second car and pulling to a safe stop on the road. I won't go into what this accident did to me but it was such a horrible violent end for my beautiful little car. I always figured something would stop working, like the head would die and it just wouldn't be worth the cost of replacing it or something more gentle like that, something that showed her age. Instead her last act was protecting me really.

The Police officer who attended the scene was perfectly lovely to me and he didn't want me trying to move my broken car so he moved it for me. She was so broken. My grandfather came and had a look at the car and I knew she'd be written off....mum agreed, Pa agreed.... at least a few thousand dollars to fix the panelling and then we knew there were problems under the bonnet (the smell, the oil, the grinding sound, let alone the fact that the water supply, the power steering and braking fluids and one half of the radiator were no longer in their proper place and that was just what we could see. It was hard to sad goodbye. She really wasn't fixable, it really wasn't worth it given that it would probably be cheaper to buy a new second hand car then fix her anyway. It was also difficult because the cost of the surf camp I wanted to save for was $625 and the cost of my excess was $625 - it feels like the surf camp got taken away from me twice over. As it is, I had to borrow the money for the EXCESS just to allow the OTHER car to get fixed....my car ended up being sold for scrap metal for $100 plus $30 for registration :(. (In saying this, I'm immensely thankful to those people that have lent me money to either fix my car in the past or in this case pay the excess - I couldn't have done it without your generosity and help.)

I really needed my little car now....It's not long until I leave my housing accomodation and things get a bit mixed up and tricky. Plus physically I'm pretty unwell and so all the walking and the dragging stuff and trying to manage everything on public transport is a bit of a nightmare, it takes me so very long to recover from even just going out for one appointment....then there is the being mentally unwell...not having my super safe place is not something good for the psyche...the inability to get to appropriate surfing beaches feels like a major hope of mine was ripped out from underneath me (at least for the time being)....the safety of absolutely having somewhere safe to go if needed is now gone (especially on a housing front), I'm more limited then I was....I dissociate on trains and some tram routes and even some buses quite a lot and that scares me...So many things make me sad. I hate car accidents, I've been involved in some bad ones and I'm incredibly thankful there was no one in that car, I'm incredibly thankful that school hadn't quite been released yet so there were no kids about to have been knocked down by MY mistake, I'm thankful it wasn't worse, I'm very thankful I wasn't significantly injured because it would've sucked to have been charged for injuring myself! (As it was there is no paperwork on the accident whatsoever as no one was injured and the highway cop was really lovely and gentle with me as was the owner of the other car.) But I'm sad too because I'm concerned about the long term. However, I try to just put that aside right now because I have two assignments to do and then I must figure out how to move out from where I live and move all my stuff....step by step I guess, its just that those are literal steps now, not driven ones.

I miss my car, I miss the music, I miss the feel....I miss feeling safe, because I don't feel safe at all anymore, in anyway, not with myself, not with anyone else. I'm a scared of now and of the future... But I'm thankful I had my little car for approximately 13 years and that she served me well, very well.