What's the hot rod world in Australia like?

Must be good .... My 32 is on a boat right now going to Cookstown

 

Have a holiday here first. Visit all the capital cities. They're all very different and all good in their own way. I'm near Melbourne. It's probably the best as far as food and coffee...big cafe scene. Also probably the best for music. It has a big roots music scene and a good hot rod scene which extends across the state of Victoria.

However, we do have weather. Unlike Brisbane which is warm most of the time we have a very distinct summer and winter (it only snows in the mountains though). Summer is hot and dry. I hear Perth is very nice. Pretty city, good weather, but you are a long way from the rest of the country. Most of the population lives on the east coast.

Sydney is good to visit. Lived there for six months around 1990. I enjoyed it but wouldn't want to stay.

Adelaide is more like a big country town. Only visited a couple of times. Probably quite liveable except for the shitty water (strangely the beer is still OK).

Darwin. Don't know. Hot, wet, isolated.

Come and have a look around. It's a big place.

Pete

 

I would like to go to oz maybe we can work out a exchange program on the HAMB.

 

One of the big players in Hot Rodding is Rod Hadfield, he lives in Castlemain which some consider the Hot Rod capital of Australia.

Rod goes to the US a lot, not sure if you have heard of him but he sure does know how to put together a Hot Rod.
Do a google search for his name.

I agreed with the others when saying I would take a holiday here first and then see how you go.

When it comes to parts supply we have plenty of options when it comes to the new stuff (paints, parts etc)

 

26trackt perth is a beautiful city, with a strong hot rod scene. as far as the semi rural but close to the city thing we have that too. I live in the swan valley and i'm only about 30 minutes from perth city. Good luck with your decision, keep us posted.

 

We lived in Melbourne three years and had a chance to travel a bit - enjoyed so many good times. The small towns were also great, and the environment is very unique, at least compared to most places in the US. It is a bit of a hike if you have family here that you want to visit very often. Hope we can visit again at some point.
I didn't see many hot rods, but the car park had a variety of cars that were still maintained after many years of use - perhaps like the south west US in the 50's - 60's, or even now. Strongly recommend a visit, and spring is under way there, as we go into winter.

 

...for some reason there's an Aussie accent when I read some of these posts to myself

 

I read about a snag in one of the posts about an age restriction. Carla & I are all over that 45 year old limit. One of us is south of 45 & the other is north of it. I'll have to check into that. That could screw up the whole thing.

A visit is a sure thing sooner or later. There is just too much to check out in a visit. That's kind of ironic. There is so much right here that we have never gotten around to checking out. Humans are fickle. We had better get our Texas photos & stories tightened up to bring along.

Looks like Ill need to get out a Map & start pinpointing all these places ya'll are describing. (I hate the word ya'll in print. seems so "fake texan".) I like the sound of Austin's sister city. Austin is one of my favorite cities. I do love me some Austin. Lots of freaks there though.

I'm really getting excited about the prospect. Carla's luke warm about it. She can't see how we could possibly pull it off. The odds are against us for sure. I see no reason to give up yet.

 

You might like to check out this website for immigration info
http://www.immi.gov.au/

 

You could also check out http://www.ozrodders.com/ which is an Australian hot rod forum. It may give you an idea of events etc

 

I'm from Queensland and I've been to Texas. I get it.

I'm moving back to Brisbane after 20 years in Sydney.

Person for person, the car thing is as big here. S.E. Queensland is strong on cars. Drag racing and speedway are both very strong.

Not all car stuff is HAMB friendly. But then, the rest of U.S. is not like SoCal either.
(And even So Cal has it's share of street rod abortions!)

 

26trackt ive lived in most(not all) aussie cities so if you have any city specific questions shoot me a message will be glad to share my experiences.

 

I am also under the impression we have a chronic shortage of people with trades.

A GM dealer guy was telling me they we're desparatly trying to get mechanics from Fiji and Sri Lanka - anywhere! eek!

 

That's because it's not a word

 

Plenty of pictures of what hot rodding in Australia is like on my website.

www.the-rumbler.com

I grew up in Perth, lived in Sydney for almost 5 years, have spent a lot of time in Melbourne and visited Brisbane and Adelaide on numerous occassions.

We moved back to Perth when we started a family and haven't regretted it one little bit. Car scene is not as big as the rest of the country, but it's a good scene with lots of nice cars and pretty much everyone is a friend.

Sydney is a BIG city and we absolutely loved living there. Lots of cars guys, but very spread out over a large area.

Melbourne would be my pick, but the weather really does suck sometimes.

Adelaide definitely seems to have a rapidly growing trad movement, and you're not too far away from Melbourne and the Victorian events.

Perth is THE MOST REMOTE city in the world, which means we're not afraid to drive our cars and many guys have driven across the country in hot rods and old cars to attend events. You just don't see much along the way.

It's a great place, but just remember. Western Australia is five times bigger than Texas.

 

I was born and raised in Sydney, and moved my young family to The Gold Coast in Queensland 17 years ago. We now have four grandchildren living nearby, so the family has stayed together in an area we love.

OK, the car scene is a little 'different' over here. The majority of our cars in the 30's-50's were English. Austin, Morris, English Ford etc. The US cars were considered 'big' and were comparatively expensive, so there weren't that many of them. We also tended to drive 'old' cars a lot longer than the US drivers did, my family's car up until the early 60's was a 1929 Chev. My first car in 1966 was a 41 Willys.

The Australian car 'culture' is built around the inline 6 rather than the V8. Ford, Chrysler and Holden (GMH) The 'big 3' manufacturers, all only offered locally built product with 6 cylinder engines as their top of the line option until 1968. As a result there have never been nailheads, hemis, polys, etc lying around in junkyards. The most common early V8 is the sidevalve, followed by the Y block, and a few old polys out of the big Chrysler sedans. A lot of these were snatched by the boat crowd when they became available too, making them even harder to get for a rod builder.

There is also a big restored car culture here, so a lot of the early iron that wasn't either scrapped during WW2 or quite literally driven into the ground for 40 years is in the hands of the restoration blokes. This does mean however, you can occasionally pick up something like an older restored 1935 Dodge sedan for $12,000 or so. (Au $) These big mordors are quite common and popular among the family rodders. There were very few 2 door sedans, coupes etc offered here at the time, the market was just too small. Most 30's and 40's cars are mordors or commercials like utes and vans.

OK, now the lifestyle. We're basically Anglo Saxon, speak our own butchered version of the English language and tend to be housebroken at least! We eat McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Hungry Jacks etc and listen to the same pop music you lot listen to. We wear Levis and Calvins, drive on the wrong side of the road, and are pretty easy to get along with.

Our favourite sports are cricket in the summer and rugby league in the winter, but we also have our own Aussie Rules football, rugby union, soccer and a struggling basketball national league. Sorry, we don't do baseball or gridiron, except possibly at a local level. Personally, i don't watch any of them, I'd rather go surfing.

My local area is The Gold Coast, as someone pointed out in a previous post, if you watched the Indy 300 you got a bird's eye view of my hometown. Our population here is around 550,000. We build hi-rises, but drive 20 minutes out of the CBD and you're in farming land with horses and cattle everywhere. If you go the same distance out of Brisbane city, which is 40 minutes up the road from us, you'll find the same thing, but if you want to own a property on a budget, you'll probably have to go 30-40 minutes drive out of the heart of the city to find it. If you want to look at real estate anywhere in Australia, you can spend hours here...

www.realestate.com.au

If you want some local information on the Gold Coast, go here...

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/

There's also a link in the top left corner of that site for the news.com.au site, which will give you national stuff and us Aussie's often unique view on worldwide events.

Probably one of the nicest things about living in Australia is our complete lack of fear about terrorists. You can walk down the street and not keep looking over your shoulder.

As others have offered, if you want specific information, feel free to PM me.

Cheers, Glen.

 

Oh yeah, here's another useful site too...

http://ninemsn.seek.com.au/ID_SEEKM...emsn&tracking=sk:int:sk:nine:0:hpTRHMnav:jobs

This is our biggest employment search engine. (I recently found my new job on here) If you've got specific abilities, you can always approach a potential employer to sponser you to move to Australia. You've got the immigration website in an earlier post, but you can also apply to become a resident rather than an immigrant, I think the rules are considerably different.

Cheers, Glen.

 

Well...after reading this thread, my mind has changed from it's original hankering for Israel.

I believe I'll look into this as well.

 

I gotta agree with Losoto- Adelaide is a top spot. And the best way I can describe Australia is Half-way between the U.K. and the U.S., not distance wise, but culturally.
And there are a lot of freaks in Adelaide, but we all hang out at the same places, and we're not dangerous as long as we get to goof around with our cars.

 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned- the rates in Australia are insane. Taxes, that is. It's part of the deal so you should factor that into your decision. Australia still definitely subscribes to the Nanny State theory, both in how you are allowed to modify your vehicle as well as all other things in your life- that doesn't sit well with some folks and if you are really Texan, it might not sit well with you either Then again, America sure seems receptive to the Nanny State theory as well, so that's not really a big difference any more.
Stating the obvious- DEFINITELY go there first. But, go there more than one time as your first trip will enamor you to the experience rather than the reality especially if you have never been overseas. Trust me, there is a difference. Go twice, and go during different times of the year. That will also allow you to visit more parts of the country, which you will need because it is a fucking huge country. The folks there are friendly to 'Murkins for the most part, being justifiably jaded and insular in the larger cities and known tourist spots but still relatively nice in those areas.
You should also investigate New Zealand and you should definitely swing by there if you are going to head down for a look. NZ folks are incredibly friendly and their mindset definitely reminds me in of Alaskans and of Texans, though that can be said of Australians as well, it is to a lesser extent. Also, a while back NZ seperated herself somewhat from the Nanny State mentality of the rest of the Commonwealth- their tax rates are WAY less, and I believe they are somewhat more receptive to immigrants, relative to Australia. Not much, but a little.
Both countries are very receptive of degreed immigrants and of those with technical/vocational experience especially if it is accompanied by a degree. The reason the sponsored folks go to the front of the line is neither country wants more folks on the dole- they've got enough of those already.

Be forewarned, though- you can't find a decent bowl of chili or a single bottle of hot sauce in either country.

 

Hey, I can make chili!

And there is the Australia/America Association as well. They even publish cookbooks.

 

I beg to differ. I think most Aussies speak very good English, what the POMS do to their own language concerns me at times!

What the Yanks do to the spelling of words also irks me, so if any of you lot are going to move here, you'll have to replace all those 'zees' with 'esses'.

 

any where north of the equator goes one way,anywhere south goes the other

 

Actually, they don't swirl round here, don't know where that one came from. It all just shoots down.

 

Google 'Castlemaine', as that's where I think you'd love to be.... most of the above refferences are realistic, and it really is a personal prefference thing.

If rodding is your oxygen, especially with a 'traditional flavour', then Vic wins, and for a family location (albeit alot cooler than you're familiar with) then Castlemaine would be your spot (Tex Smith mooved there, so that should be a good refference to consider).

If you can't stand the cool climate, then moove to qld, Maryborough, From what I'm told by alot of friends who have recently mooved from the Brisbane area, seems a great place to live, certainly not a city of sorts, but alot of rodding and opportunity in the town.

Cheers,

Drewfus

 

All right guys. Thanks & keep the info & suggestions comming. You have laid out a lot to go over already. I need to burn through the links you've supplied, explore your ideas, & we will be hitting you up on thos PM offers.

Carla is very interested in Checking out New Zealand. I had it kinda lumped it in with the rest of Australia in my mind. Looks like there is a bigger distinction than just landscape.

I am trying real hard not to make this a political thing. I can't say I'm thrilled with our political forecast & I know nothing about Australian politics. We are all about freedom & personal responsability. We will need to learn some of the Australian politics & I'll try to stay away from US politics

I've poked around the Aussie real estate. Most Aussie homes may be fairly close to US stuff in general price but it is way higher than Waco, Texas. What's a loaf of bread & a gallon of gas cost? What's minimum wage & what does the typical pencile pusher make at a dealership or supply store? I can do a lot with my car in my drive way but the days of me making a living working on your car are long gone (for now anyway).

So much will also depend on our in country status. Will we be immagarants looking for citezenship or foreigners with permanant residence? What's the differance & restrictions? What about taxes & benifits? Will we need to continue paying our US taxes, pay only Australian taxes, or pay both? I'm all about makiing my own way but what benifits can I expect from my Austrailian taxes.

This has become a casual once or twice a day conversation for Carla & I. The more we talk about it the more reality gets in the way. There is so much for us here & we have a big part of our lives invested here. Life is good here. We have to watch what we are doing with our money & our savings are meager but we are doing better than a lot of folks claim to be doing.

An actual move to australia will likely evolve from a visit that turns into another visit that lasts a little longer & eventually gets to the point that we just stay. I mentioned earlier that adventure was a big draw to Australia for us. We have certainly become acustomed to indoor plumbing & air conditioning. It would simply be nice to ride down the road in a roadster, not pass another car for a while, & look out over the landscape & not see a row of telephone poles. Throw in a more casual lifestyle with friendly poeple & that is quite an adventure. That can be found here but it's getting harder & harder to find. What I'm hoping is that Australia is rugged enough to be fun, modern enough to be pleasent, & free enough prosper.

Let me dig through what you guys have laid down. Don't forget about us & we'll check in tomarrow or so.

 

I would suggest you contact the Aussie embassy in Washington and get all the required immigration forms, and see what sort of restrictions or hurdles (if any) there may be first up. Like anything to do with government, it will be a long slow frustrating business, so start early. You can always change your mind later and decide not to come. And as others here have already suggested, come over first for a holiday and check the joint out. Australia is 60% the size of North America, and the Cities are all very different in character and climate. We are a relatively small country in population, only 20 million to your 300 million, but although we obviously have less total gasoline heads than there are in the US, we have a considerably higher proportion of car nuts here than in the US. The hot rod construction rules are more strict here than in the US, and cars are built to a much higher technical standard in Australia. I believe you will like Australia, I have heard Americans say it is both very like the US but also different at the same time. We also have Mc Donalds and Starbucks in Australia, so you won't feel too home sick.

 

'We are all about freedom & personal responsability'.

Then you dont want to come here.


Our fuel is $1.35 a litre to your $2.40 a gal (4 litres).
There is a rudeness of drivers here that drives you nuts, they dont give a shit, as long as they are doing the speed limit, thats the only rule they know.......oh, and to stop on red.
Personal responsibility is out the window here, you just wait for the next gov BAN on something, b/c some moron f#$k's up with something and then cries about it.

There are so many taxes here, its a joke.
Here are a few prices of things, relevant or not, its something ot measure against.
Cigarette's: $12 to 14
Milk: $2.50 1 litre
Can of soda: $2 to 2.50
McDonalds meal: small $8
Beer: 24 cans of crap $38, Corona 24 bottles $50
Wild turkey: $38
Levi jeans: $90 to 120
Rodder Journal: $25
Firestone WWW: $300 and up

I think the NZ trad hot rod scene is a little more 'hardcore' to use that term, they seem like more go-getters, rather than waiting...........

I think you would be crazy to move here, come for a holiday and enjoy our BBQ's, beer and talking shit.

Just remember, if you go to Qld, you have to talk in half speed, they are tired from bending banana's

Ahhhhhhh its Monday, and I am just in a bad mood and what the hell do I know.

 

Hahahahaha...

Hey X38, have you kept your banana bending skills honed?

Castlemaine is great, but the surf is a lot better in Queensland.

 

Its a cool place indeed...but then again, so is the states...Ill swap ya for a year or too.....change identities perhaps? what do you look like? I have a beard....my kids are great and my girls a good cook..lol.......JUST COME OVER and enjoy......we only live once. ........Bert