It's Kombi season!

[Art Blade]

I find that a little strange, calling those cars Kombis. Here, those cars are commonly called a "VW Bus" or many "VW Busse" while a "Kombi" is something that combines (hence Kombi) a regular four-doors family car with a comparatively large storage space in the back and inside the car, so it has one roof over the whole cabin and storage space. I'll try to find a simple pic and I think I know how to without copyright infringements.. -- going to fire up Forza Horizon 3 and then take a screenie of a typical "Kombi."

Here you go. This is what we call a "Kombi"
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[mandru]

Yep fragger, envy...
My folks had friends who had one, a black and white left hand drive.
He and my dad always compared the chevy to my dad's 1957 Desoto Diplomat
those Desoto's had push button auto boxes

DeSoto?  Now that's a name I've not heard in a very long time. 

This last Sunday we went out for lunch and as we pulled in an old car caught my eye.  Since it was somewhat between where we'd parked and where we were headed I swung over towards it with Mrs. mandru in tow.  I'd commented that I had to get a closer look (at what I thought) was a "62" Ford 2 door Falcon.  But when I got close enough to see the badging on the trunk I was surprised to see that instead of being a Falcon it was the upgraded to mid-level model Mercury Custom Comet.  It was a well tended beauty still in its understated original paint pale bone white.

Needless to say a lot of the conversation during lunch was reminiscing about when cars were cars and how disappointing it was that lockable security providing trunk space (some call them boots) was vanishing.  Now trunk space is being swapped out for what?  Maybe it's a manifestation of the Socialist "Share the Wealth" agenda in the form of these convenient glass surrounded "smash and grab buffets" also known as compact SUV's.

The growing compact SUV market. 

I can't think of any other reason (it's sure not fuel economy) in an age of security heightened awareness for the conditions surrounding the vanishing trunk that the manufacturers are shoving customers into who need to carry something larger than 2-suitcases and a duffle bag.

Now a DeSoto, it would have securely held those 2-suitcases and a duffle bag plus the bodies of two full grow men without breaking a sweat!   

[BinnZ]

Art, that car; is it a Volvo?

[Art Blade]

yes

[fragger]

I hear you, mandru

My old '92 Subaru Liberty had so much trunk space (we are among those who call a trunk a "boot", for some obscure reason) that I could fit two full sets of golf clubs plus their buggies into it and still have space left over for a cooler and some other things.

I'm puttering around in a little Hyundai Getz hatchback these days. Not very macho, but I got it for the fuel economy, which is impressive and is a pretty important consideration in these parts. It sits quite happily at 110 kph on the freeway, which is the max speed limit anywhere in the country anyway. But I do miss that trunk space. If I want to put my golf clubs in the Getz, I have to put the rear seats down to fit them in. The golf bag won't even fit in sideways - I have to put it on an angle.

Art, I don't know how "Kombi" came to be the name for VW vans or buses. Maybe it's just how they were marketed overseas by VW. As some of the other guys have pointed out, they are known as Kombis in other countries too. Maybe it's a similar thing to that old "throw a shrimp on the barbie" catchphrase in tourist ads peddled by Paul Hogan to Americans years ago. Nobody here ever calls them "shrimps". We call them "prawns". And we don't barbecue them either - we peel the heads, tails, legs and shells off them and eat them raw.

[Art Blade]

I'd never heard of anyone eating prawns raw Really?

[fragger]

Oops... I didn't mean raw raw, I meant we don't cook them ourselves, i.e. they're precooked prior to sale and sold still intact, cold or frozen, at seafood outlets. I should have said eaten fresh, without further cooking. My bad

[Art Blade]

phew. So you Aussies are still humans, after all

[fragger]

Just

Prawns are a huge deal during the Christmas holiday season in Australia. Sales of prawns go through the roof then. We regularly consume around 45,000 tonnes of prawns during the Christmas period (about 50,000 Imperial tons). They're eaten all year round, but Christmas is the biggie.

Remember, Christmas comes right at the height of summer in this hemisphere, so salads and cold meats like leg ham and cold roast chicken are the most popular choices, unless there's a barbecue. Most Aussies do lunch for Christmas, not dinner, so a cold meal is favoured due to the heat. My family's typical spread might consist of: Cold roast chicken pieces, cold sliced leg ham and several other types of sausage cuts like salami and cabanossi, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad, garden salad with a choice of several dressings and asparagus, pineapple and beetroot on the side (we put those last three items in separate bowls on the table, so you can add them if you want - I love asparagus, but the family is divided on the issue ) and a dessert of either cheesecake or Pavlova with ice cream (if you haven't heard of Pavlova, there's a link below). Then we follow that up with olives, grapes and cherries to nibble during the afternoon, along with bowls of sweets like M&Ms and chocolate-coated nuts. And of course, a big plate of fresh prawns - once again, as a follow up to the main meal, not with it. If we celebrate at my sister's place, my bro-in-law John (the Ford truck guy) does a wicked barbecue - in which case, we swap the cold roast chicken for hot barbecued steaks and gourmet sausages.

Many Aussies like to have Christmas pudding for dessert, but none of my family are terribly keen on it. Aussies don't do a lot of turkey during festive seasons or holidays. It's easy enough to get it if you want it, but it's not a big thing here.

How did we get here from Kombis?

Here's Wikipedia's rundown on Pavlova:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_(food)

[Art Blade]

first off, the URL gets cut off by the forum software before the last parenthesis and we cannot change that.

Thanks for the link, fragger -- I did not know Pavlova. Looks as if eating it was a pretty mess

Also thanks for giving us an idea of what you guys eat around Christmas

How did we get here from Kombis? Who cares -- as long as it ends in food talk

[fragger]

Oops - I didn't notice that about the link, I didn't test it At least you can still get to the article from where the link does go, form the "Did you mean:" prompt at Wikipedia.

Pavlova, or "pav", is delicious, if you like meringue. We (meaning my family, meaning one of the women) make it with whipped cream, strawberries and kiwifruit on top, and eat it with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream. It should be crisp meringue on the outside and mushy meringue on the inside, with a texture similar to marshmallow. Yumsville

The men of the family are content to let the women make it because it takes some skill, finesse and delicate handling, which they have and we don't I tried to make one once and it ended up in a right royal mess You can also order an unadorned one from a good bakery, then put what you like on top of it. Our local bakery does very good ones. We buy one sometimes when the ladies don't feel like making one. That's entirely their call. I don't really care where it comes from, as long as I get some

Yep, I think we all enjoy food talk here

[mandru]

Something I stumbled across on the subject of kombis as I was browsing this morning.

www.imgur.com/gallery/AHfYh

But I don't think you would have seen this one at the Festival.

[fragger]

Oh crikey  I guess that's one advantage of having the engine in the rear!

Or is it... It looks like there's a radiator grille at the front. I thought all Kombis had rear-mounted engines. Front-wheel drive, maybe? I can't believe a chassis-length drive shaft would still w0#k after that.

[Art Blade]

good pic, mandru

And yes.. all those VW "Kombis" have front-mounted engines while those VW Beatles have them rear-mounted.

[nex]

We also call them "Kombi" here, actually, VW SA officially named them "Kombi"

mandru, I can't seem to find a picture of the DeSote we had. Looking on the internet
I discovered there were a few different versions of the 1957 model.
Some of them have the same front as ours but the taillights are different, some are just the other way around.
The one my dad had, had the straight double front bumper with twin headlights
and the taillights were the long red teardrops with white round reverse lights,
those reverse lights were almost as bright as headlights.

My dad bought it in 1959 from the wife of a doctor, it only had 24,000 miles on the odometer.