The Commodore
First up we have a 1979 GM Holden Commodore SLE. Referred to variously by my friends as 'The Crumbledoor' or 'The Bombadore', and by none other than my mother as 'The Yellow Peril', this baby was my first car, and despite the fact that the engine was the smallest of the Holden V8s on offer at the time (253 cubic inches or 4.2 litres), I had a few modifications done to the engine to get a little more 'go' out of it.

You can also see this car featured on my Creative Vehicle Alterations page.

The Thunderbird
The next vehicle to come along was this beautiful 1968 Ford Thunderbird Landau. As with the Commodore, it earned its own set of nicknames, such as 'The Thunderchicken' and 'The Turd Bird'. After being destructively tested by my girlfriend of the time in 1990, it underwent a major rebuild from which it never recovered, but that's another story. Suffice to say that with a 429CJ spec motor making, according to the factory manual, 360 brake horsepower, she went along pretty well, and used a fair amount of fuel doing it!

The Datsun
This is the first of two Datsun 1600s that I have owned. For those of you not familiar with the naming conventions used here in Australia, you might know this car better as a B510. The beast had twin 45mm Weber carburettors, a locked diff, five speed gearbox, a full roll cage, no rear seat, no insulation or trim, a 2 litre L20 engine with a hot cam and ignition system, some mysterious brakes and race suspension. A friend and I tried just about every kind of motor sport in this car, including circuit racing, drag racing and rallying. I nearly cry when I think that I sold it for $1500!

The LTD
After the Datsun came the 1977 Ford LTD. This car was originally owned by the Victorian Premier, and was his personal transport for about three years. After that, someone spent a small fortune installing a monster stereo system (twin 15" subs etc etc) in it, and it passed through a number of hands until I came by it in 1994. It was a great cruising machine, and even went pretty quickly too, being powered by a slightly modified Ford 351. Eventually I sold it to buy my first motorbike, and because I was sick of paying $100 to fill the damn tank!

The Baby Fizzer
My first bike was a 1991 FZR250. This bike is a 'grey' import in Australia, so-called because the bikes were not imported into the country by the factory, but rather by private dealers who then convert them to be Australian Design Rules (ADR) compliant. The engine in this bike was amazing; a 250cc four cylinder with four valves per cylinder! I never saw inside the engine, but imagine how small the pistons and valves must have been! The highest speed I saw on this bike was about 185 km/hr. It met its end at the hands of ... you guessed it ... a Volvo driver. You can also see this bike featured on my Creative Vehicle Alterations page.

The Big Fizzer
After a short stint on crutches as a result of the aforementioned accident, I decided that it was time to get another bike ... a bigger bike. I had recently been impressed by a friend's FZR1000, and in my book anything with upside-down forks, five valves per cylinder and making 130 horsepower had to be good. The beast had a top speed somewhere near 275km/hr (not on public roads of course). I truly loved this bike, however it turned out that it didn't handle too well on icy roads. See my Creative Vehicle Alterations page for more details.

The Thunderace
And now we get to my last bike. This was a 1996 Yamaha YZF1000, known overseas as 'The Thunderace'. My friend Richard used to refer to this bike as either 'The Thunderarse' or just plain 'The Arse'. It was also an absolute rocketship, with a similar engine to the FZR1000. Unfortunately, I don't have this bike anymore .. but not because I crashed it; rather I sold it because I wasn't getting enough time in the saddle to justify the insurance or the interest on the loan.

The RVF400
Here's my current ride, a 1995 Honda RVF400, also known by its official factory designation as the NC35. Basically it is similar to an RC45 except for the engine capacity (400cc instead of 750) and the lack of fuel injection. For a small capacity bike, it really gets along well! You may well ask "Why a small bike after the big bores?" I figured that I really should learn to ride properly and rely on skill rather than the power of the engine to get me around a race circuit fast. As far as small-medium size bikes go, this one has all the trick bits ... upside-down forks, single sided swingarm, race muffler, jet kit etc etc. As you can probably guess, I'm pretty happy with it! To see what may be my next bike, have a look at my Yamaha YZF-R1 page.