Fourteen voices. Fourteen relationships with four wheels
In some cases, a deliberate lack thereof. The Boys, the Dame, and the Dowager explain their choices. Some drive museum pieces that require weekly therapy appointments with mechanics. Others have surrendered to Chinese practicality and the siren call of home charging. One hasn’t driven in years but still keeps a Bristol in the garage because it outlasted a man named Rex. And two refuse to drive at all, because that is what staff are for. This is what we drive, and why.
Ethan
Now, the thing is, people always want to know why I’ve got two old British cars when I could have something reliable. The Defender’s obvious — she goes where nothing else will, doesn’t complain, and if something breaks I can fix it with fencing wire and determination. Took her through the Pilbara last winter with a mate from Broome. Three weeks, no phone signal, just red dirt and stars. She didn’t miss a beat.
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The Stag’s different. That’s Dad’s car, really — he bought it the year I was born and I grew up learning to work on it. The V8’s temperamental, runs hot if you’re not watching, but when she’s sorted there’s nothing like cruising back roads on a summer evening with the top down. The bloke I’ve been seeing reckons I should sell it, get something that starts every time. Fair dinkum, though, where’s the fun in that?
Casper
I sold the RS6, which felt rather like admitting defeat. For years I maintained that EVs were for people who’d given up on driving as an experience — tedious Silicon Valley efficiency over Teutonic soul. My father’s diplomatic postings meant I grew up in cars with heritage: the embassy Mercedes in Bonn, the borrowed Jaguars in London. One develops expectations, and daddy fixations.
The Model Y was supposed to be a stopgap. That was eight months ago. Look, I know how this sounds, but it’s just easier. The Supercharger network means I’ve never once planned around charging, which is more than I could say for the supposedly premium alternatives. And, i can use generic stations as well, so a win/win. The interior is spartan, the panel gaps are exactly as suspect as reported, and Elon’s various public episodes make ownership feel faintly embarrassing. But I’ve done fifteen thousand kilometres, and it’s been… fine. Which, from me, is something close to enthusiasm.
ABOVE: Ethan’s Stag, Nico’s Monaro, David’s Bristol, the Dame’s Bentley, Alan’s Z1000, Nico’s Z1000 — and more
Max
My father drove a Vogue for fifteen years. I’ve got it now, keeping her running mostly for sentiment — the practicality went out of it around 2019 when the electronics started their slow rebellion. You learn quickly that old Range Rovers need someone who understands them. Fortunately, old Mick in town has been working on these since before I was born.
The new D350 is a different animal entirely. The diesel still makes sense out here — when you’re doing five hundred kilometres between proper towns and towing two tonnes of wine to Sydney, you need range that doesn’t require planning. I’ve had it through three vintages now. The access road after rain is brutal, and she handles it better than the Ranger. My youngest brother wanted to borrow it last Easter. He’s still asking when he can drive it again. The cottages are full most weekends now, and guests always comment on the cars. The property needs vehicles that work. These work.
Nico
I bought the Monaro in Wollongong, from a man who didn’t understand what he had. She’d been in a shed for eight years, covered in that particular dust that settles on forgotten beautiful things. The 308 needed work — compression issues, tired seals — but the body was honest. Straight lines. No rust where it matters. Now she lives with me in Coalcliff, and I take her out on mornings when the light comes off the water in that silver way that makes everything look like a film.
The sound is everything. That V8, with the original exhaust, makes a noise that vibrates in your chest. The Kawasaki is different — she screams rather than rumbles — but both of them demand your attention. Alan has the same one believe it or not. You cannot drive either of these machines while thinking about something else. Raffy never understood this. He wanted quiet, comfort, predictability. I wanted to feel alive. Bello, that Monaro. Nothing has ever let me down the way she hasn’t.
Raffy
I’d been looking at the EX90, but standing next to it in the showroom I realised I was buying a car for someone I thought I should be, not someone I actually am. The Polestar 4 is enough. It’s smooth in a way that makes you forget you’re driving electric — no weirdness in the power delivery, no lurching when you’re just trying to get through traffic.
The seats fit me properly, which isn’t nothing when you’re built like I’m built. Nico would’ve hated it — no sound, no drama, nothing to photograph at sunrise. But I’m not Nico. The rear window thing, where there’s a camera instead of glass? Took about two days to stop thinking about it. Now I just look at the screen. The range is honest. The charging is painless. I picked mine in grey because I couldn’t think of a reason to pick anything else. It’s not exciting. I don’t need exciting. I need something that works, and this works.
David
They don’t let me drive anymore, darling, which I find rather melodramatic of everyone involved. I drove a Bristol for thirty years without incident — well, without significant incident — and now I’m carted about like a parcel. The indignity of it all. Still, one makes do.
The Bristol, now that was a car. I bought it in 1972 from a man in Hampshire who’d been something at the Foreign Office. Gorgeous thing, hand-built, leather that smelled like money and discretion. I drove it to Stratford for a season, to Edinburgh for the Festival, to rather a lot of places I probably shouldn’t mention. I moved to Australia with a stage director called Rex.
I haven’t got Rex any more but I brought the Bristol with me and still look at it every morning, while I still can. The young man who takes me to appointments cleans the Bristol weekly and takes her out fortnightly to keep everything lubricated — his words, not mine, though I find them perfectly acceptable. He’s installed something called a trickle charger, which I initially assumed was a nickname for myself. Suspiciously blonde, that one, and built like something classical. He now drives something Japanese for the daily work. Entirely serviceable. He has the most extraordinary shoulders — reminds me of a props master I knew in the seventies. But that’s another story entirely.
Travis
Right, so yeah, I drive a Chinese ute now. Already heard it from the boys, thanks. Here’s the thing though — the Shark 6 cost me sixty-two grand driveaway and the Ranger was pushing ninety for less spec. I’m not an idiot. The numbers work.
Range is the question, right? Everyone asks about the range. I did a full week on sites around the Goldie and came home with forty percent still in her. Charging at home costs bugger-all compared to what I was spending on diesel. The tray’s proper size, the payload’s honest, and she’ll tow the trailer no worries. Interior’s nice — nicer than it should be, honestly. Leather seats, big screen, all that. The boys stopped giving me grief after I showed them the fuel savings. Now two of them are asking about the Sealion. Funny how that works. End of the day, a ute’s a ute. This one just happens to plug in.
Luke
The EV5 was a compromise, and I’ll own that. What I wanted was something rear-drive, light, with steering that actually tells you something. What I could afford that was also practical enough to get me to tracks around the country was… more limited. But here’s the thing, right — the Kia’s quick enough for what it is, the weight’s low because batteries, and the instant torque means you’re never waiting for the thing to wake up.
I’ve done Wakefield Park in it. I’ve done Sydney Motorsport Park. Not competitively — that would be absurd — but in open track sessions, learning what the chassis actually does when you push it. Turns out it understeers predictably, which is boring but safe. The regenerative braking takes getting used to for trail braking. But for getting to the track with all my gear, doing a full day, and getting home? It works. I’d rather have a GR86 for Sundays, obviously. I’m not deluded. But the Kia pays its way.
Charlie
The DS isn’t a car you explain in specifications. The numbers don’t capture anything that matters. What matters is the line — that impossible swoop from nose to tail, higher in the front, trailing off like something designed for atmosphere rather than asphalt. Flaminio Bertoni and André Lefèbvre understood something that modern car designers seem to have forgotten: a car is a sculpture that happens to move.
The materials inside have aged exactly as they should — the leather has that depth that only comes from decades, the way wood develops a finish no sandpaper can achieve. I found her in a barn near Bowral, covered in dust and hay. The hydropneumatic suspension needed rebuilding. The engine needed everything. But the body was perfect because the proportions were perfect, and proportions don’t rust. Now she sits in my studio when I’m not driving her. There’s something about a car that makes you look at it even when you should be doing something else. The boyfriend doesn’t understand. He drives a Mazda3. Fine car. Says nothing.
Hunter
I sold the car, like, two years ago and haven’t looked back. Not really. The electric bike is… I don’t know if this makes sense, but it feels like being in a different relationship with space. Moving through the city silent. Not adding to the thing that’s breaking everything. The range anxiety people talk about has never been an issue because I don’t go far. That’s the thing, right? If you build a life that’s local — and I have, kind of deliberately — then you don’t need range. You need presence.
The Mini’s still in the church hall, technically mine but mostly a project that’ll happen someday. Classic shape, honest machine, something from before cars became computers with wheels. When I ride the bike I feel the road, feel the weather, feel like I’m actually going somewhere rather than being transported. The Mini would give me something different — noise, smell, mechanical connection. Both matter. Both are real in ways that whatever everyone else is driving isn’t. Or maybe that’s just me.
Kristian
People always ask why a student drives a fifty-year-old French-Italian car that breaks constantly. The answer is: have you seen it? The SM is, I think, the most beautiful car ever made. This is not a controversial opinion. The way the headlights hide behind glass that moves when you turn the steering wheel — crazy. In Sweden we have Volvos. Very good cars, very practical, very boring.
I bought the SM from an old man in Melbourne who was crying when I drove it away. Now I understand why. It needs something every month. The brakes are from a different dimension — they stop the car before you even think about stopping. The steering has maybe two centimetres of movement total. The Maserati engine sounds like nothing else, this mechanical symphony that makes people turn around on the street. When it works, driving this car is like nothing I have ever felt. When it doesn’t work, I call my mechanic and we cry together. I met a guy last month who wanted to see it. We went for a drive. He’s still around.
Luca
Everyone asks about the Mini. The questions are always the same: is it reliable (no), is it fast (sort of), isn’t it dangerous (probably). I bought it from a guy in Paddington who’d owned it since the eighties. He wanted someone who’d actually drive it, not stick it in a climate-controlled garage. So I drive it. To the beach, to uni, to wherever.
The heater doesn’t really work. The wipers are optimistic at best. The driving position is almost vertical, knees up near my chest, gear lever doing its own thing somewhere to the left. But here’s the thing — when you’re in it, driving through Bondi at seven in the morning when no one’s awake yet, it’s sort of perfect. The sound, the rawness, the way people look at you. Not everyone gets it. That’s kind of the point. My boyfriend keeps suggesting I get a real car. I keep not doing that. Whatever.
Dame Tuesday Knight
Dearest Gentle Reader,
One does not drive. One is conveyed. This is a distinction that appears to elude the modern world, which seems determined to place every person behind a wheel regardless of their suitability for the task. I have Simmons, who has attended to my transportation needs these past two decades with patience, discretion, and an admirable refusal to comment upon my occasional navigational suggestions.
The Bentley, my current conveyance, has developed what can only be described as a temperament. The check engine lamp illuminates with the frequency of a débutante’s blush at her first assembly. The infotainment apparatus freezes mid-aria. And last Tuesday — an inauspicious day that shares my name — the wretched thing declined to start altogether at the Langham. One is considering alternatives. The House of Rolls-Royce has produced an electric conveyance, silent as a properly trained footman. It is under consideration, though the waiting list is eighteen months, and one does not wait. One is waited upon.
Yours in perpetual judgement,
Dame Tuesday Knight
The Dowager Countess
One has been informed that an opinion is required on the matter of motor vehicles. Very well. One shall provide it, though one suspects it will be neither sought nor heeded by those who require it most.
In my youth — and yes, I had one, though the current generation seems to doubt it — a carriage was a statement of one’s position. One knew, upon seeing a particular equipage approach, precisely where its occupant stood in the order of things. Now we have democratised vulgarity to such an extent that a person of no consequence whatsoever may acquire something German and believe themselves arrived. They have not arrived. They have merely purchased.
I am conveyed, when necessary, in something the household selected. It is acceptable. The leather appears genuine. The silence is a mercy. Simmons — not the Dame’s Simmons, a different man entirely, though they do seem to proliferate — manages the mechanical aspects. I do not enquire. One engages staff precisely so that one need not think about such matters. The young speak endlessly of electricity and charging and range, as though they have discovered something novel. The future, I suspect, will be tedious. As was the past. As is the present. Indeed.
The Boys. The Dame. The Dowager. Fourteen voices. Fourteen relationships with four wheels — or fewer. All of them GCB.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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