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Around the tracks: A very 2020 licence plate and an extremely tiny garage

Plus, a cardboard Great Ocean Road and tributes to an Aussie take on American muscle.


When we’re not creating it ourselves, the CarAdvice team spends a lot of time finding and consuming motoring content from all over the world.

Here’s a handful of the photos, articles, videos or social media posts that most caught our eye last week. Some of them are brand new, others have been online for a while.

Enjoy them – just not too much, okay?


1. Americans losing it over this Aussie take on Yankee muscle

Remember the Chrysler Valiant Charger R/T E49? For those who don't, it was a fairly legendary muscle car built in South Australia in 1972 to qualify for that year’s Bathurst motor race.

These days, they're pretty hard to find – especially given only 149 were ever made, with only 21 of those receiving a whopping 160-litre long-range tank, earning it the nickname 'E49 Big Tank'.

Now, one such example of those 'E49 Big Tanks' is up for sale in New South Wales, believed to be one of only three still remaining in original condition.

You can read more about the car itself here, but our favourite thing about is all the comments from enamoured Americans clearly impressed and/of baffled by our homegrown muscle.

On Carscoopscoverage of the car, one commenter declared: "Australian cars are like American cars from some weird alternate universe."

Another wrote: "I've never even heard of this car before but then that probably goes for three quarters of these older gems from down under. So many cool styling cues that kind of look similar to North American Chrysler models of the era and yet completely different at the same time.

"I know that nothing lasts forever but it's a crying shame what happened to their auto industry."

One more dramatic Facebook comment on the listing itself read: "I would probably die driving it in the U.S. Right hand driver's seat going fast on the wrong side of the road. Cool car. Crashing in style. I'd die happy."


2. This clever cardboard recreation of the Great Ocean Road

Can't drive some of our country's most iconic roads because of Victoria's lockdown? This Melbourne photographer devised a clever solution: make your own at home.

Donald Yip couldn't get to the Great Ocean Road in person, so he made it out of Kraft paper, train model figurines, foil, ground coffee, fake plants. cardboard and bedsheets.

Almost as scenic as the real thing... (but we've almost forgotten what the real thing looks like, so.)


3. This tiny mini garage made from real bricks

If you're not that into meditation but could still do with some mindful distraction, we've got a video for you.

If you have a spare 11 minutes, we recommend watching this hypnotising video of someone making a tiny working garage out of tiny bricks.

The brick-laying process is incredibly satisfying and the finished product is honestly better than some real-life garages we've seen.

Check it out...


4. This extremely appropriate licence plate

Some people pay a lot of money for custom plates, while others just get lucky (or unlucky) and score a unique plate for free.

Take this person, who went to register their car in Victoria and ended up with a registration number that essentially sums up all of 2020.

"This says it all for every single person in Melbourne right now," the anonymous Facebook user wrote on a photo of the plates.

The read '1SO 4ME'... which could easily translate to "iso for me". Too real.

Meanwhile, in other states, custom coronavirus-related plates have been banned. You can read more on that here.


5. This throwback pic that's making us want a Mercedes-Benz G-Class convertible

There are cars with niche appeal... and then there's the cabriolet version of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen.

Discontinued in all its forms in 2013, car lovers were divided over whether the design was boxy cool, or comically kitsch.

However, this throwback snap posted to Instagram of a couple of G500 Cabriolets taking the road less travelled during the late 90s or early 2000s is really selling the styling to us.

Perhaps another car to add to the comeback wishlist?

Susannah Guthrie

Susannah Guthrie has been a journalist for over a decade, covering everything from world news to fashion, entertainment, health and now cars. Having previously worked across titles like The New Daily, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, People Magazine and Cosmopolitan, Susannah now relishes testing family cars with the help of her husband and two-year-old son.

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