Break out the vegemite and bog in, mate. Hear that didgeridoo? It’s time for a pair of posts from the land down under. First up, a couple of weekends ago, the Gold Coast held its annual WinterSun Festival (the southern hemisphere is on winter time right now), which includes a car cruise and drag race. Of course, jet-setting proprietor of Mooneyes, Shige Suganuma, was there to witness the madness and has it all covered on his blog.
In addition to some truly bonzer drag cars like this bitumen-walloping Mitsubishi Arrow (Lancer Celeste), he also visited a Toyota Australia “Toyota Day” held at a dealer training center where heaps of Coronas and Crowns, including this roo-bar wearing kujira, came to celebrate.
They don’t call it the Lucky Country for nothing. Will our raging jealousy over their well-preserved crop of RHD nostalgics ever subside? Not bloody loikley.
Check out Suganuma-san’s blog for more pictures of Wintersun drag cars and Aussie Toyotas. Stay tuned for part two of our news from Oz, but until then we’re off like a bucket of prawns in the sun.
Crikey! We don’t all talk like Steve Irwin, mate! 😉
We never knew the Lancer as a Celeste, they’re just Mitsubishi Lancer coupe’s here. Really early ones are badged Chrysler only later received their three diamonds badge.
Yeah man, I’ve seen a Mitsubishi Celeste here in Adelaide; had completely different tail lights to the Chrysler (later Mitsubishi) Lancer, as well as some other details differences.
There were some sketches of the Celeste in Wheels Magazine in the late 70’s when the car was mooted to come here; these sketches showed the tail lights of the Celeste version, rather than the Aussie-delivered version.
With Chrysler Australia originally based in Adelaide and now Mitsubishi Australia based here also, it’s possible the car was originally imported as an evaluation vehicle by the factory. Just as easily, it could have been a private import. When I saw the car, it was about 10 years ago, just before grey imports became prevalent on Aussie roads and further to that, it’s not a likely candidate to be imported by the grey importers anyway!
I wonder where it is now….
Man, looks like Australia had just as many variations as we did. Did the Aussie Chryslers have wild 70s decals?