ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
When the bloke at Shannon’s asked Damien ‘Frogstomp’ Oldman if he was really insuring his forest green 2003 Holden Zafira with them, the 45-year-old could only sigh and say he was.
The local motoring enthusiast said that because of the over-inflated used car prices these days, he can only afford to drive a car like the one he bought the other day.
Damien received his nickname not from his love of Silverchair’s greatest album but from his love of fishing green frogs out of his back toilet and stomping on them.
He spoke briefly to The Advocate today about his new Zafira after only owning it for a week or two.
“Well,” he said.
“It’s got the heart of an Astra. That 2.2L Ecotec thing. Tell you what, it’s no slouch. Well, it actually is. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad as a Captiva but driving it around makes me feel like a bit of a loser. I don’t even have any kids, I’m divorced. So I’m looking through the classifieds in your paper and every car is just insane,”
“They wanted five grand for a VT sedan and a little bit more than that for an AU. I want to buy Australian, you see. I love my cars and I treat them well. But mate, these prices on used cars are taking the piss.”
When asked how the driving experience was, Frogstomp just sighed again.
“It’s done 340000km and I reckon most of them were pretty hard. I bought the car from a French backpacker who looked like he was tough on gear. I changed the oil myself and it looked like a bucket of gollie after you’ve eaten a bag of licorice. Almost felt bad tipping it down the stormwater. Anyway, I jacked up the front tyres to rotate them and noticed the CV joints were fucked and the front wheels wobble like a shopping cart. Explains a lot. Shifting from drive into reverse, it takes about 8 seconds and it almost stalls. Great. It blows black smoke under heavy acceleration and gets 14L/100km so it’s running richer than Clive Palmer’s digestive system,”
“Probably a vacuum leak or something. Timing belt might be stretched to all fuck. I doubt it’s been changed ever. Tell you what, it sounds pretty throaty, despite all this.”
Our reported asked Frogstomp if he’d had a look under the car to see if someone hadn’t just stolen his catalytic converter.
He got down on the ground and looked under the car.
Frogstomp sighed again.
“Yeah, it’s not there. The whole underside of the car is covered in soot.”
More to come.
