5 things I love about our Hyundai Santa Fe

Not sponsored at all. I just fucking love my car.

We've had our new (to us) 2013 Santa Fe for a year now, and I am still head over heels in love with it. Our old car was cool, but whenever I get in to this one, I feel like I'm living in the future and spontaneously break in to song.

So here are the things I absolutely love about it

Inbuilt sun shades on the rear windows
Duuuuude. DUUUUUDE! These are so freakin' cool the way they stow away in to the door and then pull up whenever you want. Gone are the days of the "wind sock" or the stick on things that meant you couldn't open the window, or the other slightly better stick on things that mean they only sometimes get caught when the window opens. I'd get it on with these things if I was in to the whole Objectum Sexual shebang.

Reversing camera
I've had the sensors before, but never the camera. It is so bloody awesome for reversing in to a space and knowing just how close you can get. On the dashboard it lights up if the object is left/right/centre and the colour it is depends on how close you are to it. Handy. I'm paranoid about kids in driveways, so this has given me so much peace of mind. But I mainly use it to double check I'm parked straight in a car park bay, this is how it goes: pull in, put car in reverse, see the lines, see that I'm smack bang in the middle, give myself a high five.

Sat Nav
I've never had Sat Nav before - I have Map Guy, the human Sat Nav instead. But I use it all the time and map obsessed Tricky loves it if I leave it on. The lovely "Jennifer" (the name of the Australian female voice - there is Aussie and British male and female) tells me where to turn and the little screen shows me the map, which lane I should be in, what the overhead signs are going to look like, even the speed limit or if there are hazards ahead. I usually talk back to her, which is a bit weird, but hey, we all need to talk to someone, right?

Speed warning
I hate speeding. I try my hardest not to do it and I hate it when other people speed near me. When someone hoons around all I think is "Clark! I don't want to spend the holidays dead!". But the afore mentioned Jennifer lets me know if I'm going too fast. "You are over the speed limit" she says in her sultry radio tones. The only issue is that sometimes she gets it wrong because the limit has changed recently, at which point I usually tell her off along the lines of "Eat a dick, Jennifer" or "Fuck off and die, Jennifer". No, I'm not proud of myself.

Third row seating
Seats go up, seats go down, seats go up, seats go down. I'm Homer Simpson on that cloud every time I get to use the third row. It's like magic: it's a boot, no it's a seat! We've used it more times than I thought we would and it's no doubt going to be used heavily when we're ferrying kids and their friends around.

There are heaps more things I love, but those are definitely my top five.

Louboutins, Lamborghinis and the Living Dead

This post is sponsored by Nuffnang

Map Guy gets a subscription to a car magazine every Christmas… well he usually does. Last year he decided, for some unknown reason, that he wanted to branch out and get something different. Which completely sucked because I had to think of a new present for him - I bought him a Hot Lap, forgot about it, bought him something else awesome, then remembered the Hot Lap and died a little inside realizing how much money I’d spent.

But I digress.

When I told Map Guy we were getting the chance to review Top Gear Australia Magazine he went a little crazy. The thought of having a car magazine back in hands after such a long period of automotive abstinence made him foam at the mouth in anticipation. He lost the ability to form sentences and just went around the house making vroom vroom noises and driving an imaginary Ferrari. I rolled my eyes but Tricky thought it was awesome fun and joined in.

After he stopped ran out of petrol, we tried to figure out which article we liked best. I like cars – I like the noise they make, I like some of the shapes, I like being driven fast around a track and I really like that new car smell... yet I still choose my car based on colour, how easily I can fit a massive bloody pram in the boot and whether or not it has a wine bottle holder (mine does!). Therefore if I had to call myself a car nut I’d be a peanut. Map Guy likes everything about them – things that I have no clue about like diffs, cam shafts, injectors, and I’m slightly embarrassed to say, manual gearboxes. He is a giant car nut… a brazil nut. Or a coconut if that’s actually a nut – I was too afraid to Google “big nuts” and check.

So I grabbed the mag and flicked through:

“What about this Range Rover Evogue article, Map Guy? It says the interior could match my Christian Louboutins!”

“What the hell are they? Is that one of those expensive handbags?”

“No, they’re shoes”

“Do you own a pair?”

“Nah, I’d have to sell a kidney to afford them… OK how about the James May Pub Guide to Technology?”

“I’m not sure that would be appropriate Glow, considering even after the cartoon explanation, you’ve still have no idea what it was about…”

“Yes I do! It’s about giant pints of beer… isn’t it?”

“Errr no. Hand over the Top Gear Magazine and no one gets hurt. Here, what about this one? We can talk about the Lamborghini.”

“Ewwww it looks like someone beat it with the ugly stick. Plus it’s white, I hate white cars. What about the article I saw with the man posing naked in front of his car in the middle of nowhere?”

“What’s it about?”

“I don’t know, I only looked at the naked man pictures.”

“Wow, you’d make an excellent TT reporter. WAIT! I’ve found it! Zombie cars!”

“Zombie cars? SHOW ME! OMG I WANT ONE!”

So having managed to avoid the Ford vs Holden carnage that usually ensues when we watch motorsport together, we have survived the tandem reading of Car Magazines and managed to zone in on the undead. I love that man, take that, seven year itch!

After seeing him so happy I’ll definitely be heading back to the tried and true present of a magazine subscription. Plus this year I might win a tropical escape to Hawaii with Magshop’s Christmas competition. Treat your family and friends to a magazine subscription today so they’re reminded how awesome you are every month! Gals, if you can manage to time its arrival every month with your PMS, even the throwing of knives and dinner plates will be forgiven. Maybe.

100 Round the Bends: My V8 Hot Lap Experience

There's a Missy Higgins song (don't hate me) that says "we'll go 100 round the bends" and every time I hear her sing it I think "What? 100? Are you in a race car or just extremely irresponsible? Your car is going to get impounded young missy Missy and you're not doing a thing to bust the young stupid driver stereotype" at which point I realize it's just a song, no one cares and people are starting to look at the crazy lady having an animated conversation with herself at the traffic lights.

On the weekend I actually did go 100 round the bends (and it happened to be entirely legal) and I could not get that bloody song out of my head. I jumped in a V8 Supercar and did four hot laps, oooh yeah. My inner bogan rev head felt the need for speed and a sudden urge to smoke Winnie Blues and wear flannelette and thongs.

I bought Map Guy a double pass from one of those online voucher places and actually got around to using it before it lapsed like the last one I bought. He chose to take me and I was actually pretty surprised... I assumed (yes, ass:you:me, I know) that he'd take a mate or one of his car club buddies he's been around the track with before. But he chose me and I spent the morning saying "You choo choo choose me" because even though I was mixing up my modes of transportation I can't miss an opportunity to be annoying.

We rocked up at Barbagallo Raceway and suited up - in case you're wondering, it's really hard to pull on a firesuit when your back is so sunburned that you can't put your arms back. And so we're clear, firesuits are unattractive unless you're an actual V8 Supercar driver.

Needed a firesuit because I'm so hot

A non-action shot of Map Guy the scarecrow

Bogan couple in matching outfits

Last time I had a back seat bonus I didn't need a lanyard

There was a bit of waiting around for "photo's" because bogans can't spell

Then posing for "photo's" that they wanted to charge us $50 for when I could just take my own...

Then a bit more waiting at Stig School

Go for launch with my massive head in a tiny helmet

Jumping in for Step 8 "drive" - hard to see, but the brakes were on fire

We did four laps and reached over 220km/h down the back straight and did indeed do 100 round the bends. The heady smell of petrol and being subjected to massive G Forces (now called Glow Forces) meant that at the three and a half lap mark I was thinking less of Australian singer songwriters and more of the trajectory of my spew under Glow Forces.

Climbing out of the car all I wanted to do was get as far away from the fumes as possible, but I'd promised my shoes to some chick who had rocked up wearing thongs *coughbogancough* and wasn't allowed in the cars unless she found some closed in shoes. So we waited; me going slightly green and Map Guy thinking all his Christmases had come at once being in pitt lane for such a long time.

I felt sick for the remainder of the day but it was definitely worth it. Four hot laps for me, eight for my shoes. An awesome experience.

Are you a rev head? Would you do a hot lap? Would you lend your shoes to a bogan?