1968 Leyland Moke Reviews

The new complex, due to open in 2009, will be located at Victoria Park in Rosebery and will stand eight-storeys high. As well as becoming Audi's national headquarters, it will also feature a flagship retail showroom and customer facilities, after-sales centre and commercial space.Audi also plans to use the new facility for future events and new product launches.And the location of the new Audi development already possesses some motoring history, having been the site of the BMC plant from the 1950s through to the 1970s. It was here the ill-fated Leyland P76 was built until the plant closed down in 1974.It's one of the most significant overseas investments made by Audi's parent company, Audi AG. Audi Australia managing director Joerg Hofmann says it shows the parent company's commitment to the local market.He says: “A key part of Audi's growth strategy in the medium term requires investment by the dealer network in facility upgrades, preparing the brand to reach 15,000 unit sales in the year 2015 and to deliver best-in-class customer satisfaction."“Not only will the new retail business significantly raise the profile of Audi and benefit the Sydney dealer network in terms of a much stronger brand presence, but it will also fast-track an increase of the brand's awareness nationally to a (new) level ..."The Audi Centre Sydney will be the first of its type in the world and, says Hofmann, is one of a very small number of factory-funded headquarters outside Europe.“It is probably one of five or so. There is China, Japan and Singapore,” he adds.It took more than 18 months to develop the plan and sell it to Audi management in Germany, but Hofmann says the job was made easier by recent sales successes in Australia.The company has registered between 20 and 30 per cent year-on-year growth since it became a factory operation, growing from less than 4000 sales to a projected 7000-plus this year. The 2007 total has already passed the 2006 result, hitting 6295 by the end of October for a 36 per cent improvement.  

"Jac had two owners before me," she says. "Betty is an adopted child; we don't know anything about her ... she's been abandoned. Betty's my favourite but Jac is not allowed to know." In case you can't tell, Yongsiri has an obsession with her Minis. Betty, is a purple 1977 Leyland Clubman LS that she bought about two years ago for $5000. A friend took the honours in naming Yongsiri's pride and joy when she couldn't come up with the right name to suit her new baby. And with this very close connection to her motor vehicle, you can understand her distress when returning to her car after work and discovering Betty had been tipped over. "I saw it on the surveillance camera — five blokes rolled her," she says. "I was in tears, devastated. I thought my life was over." The upsetting event occurred last November, making Betty a complete write off, although Yongsiri says it's now in the shop being repaired and she will restore it. Yongsiri couldn't bear the thought of living without a Mini, so invested in Jac the Turtle, another 1977 Leyland Clubman, the S Version, this time in green and costing $4500. "Jac was named because the number plates are original, JAC278, that's what it was sold out of the factory as. And Turtle because it was green and slow," she says laughing. The industrial design student thinks her obsession for the classic cars from the 1960s and '70s was with her when she was born. But the first evidence of her interest was about the age of eight. "When I saw them when I was younger, I said I was going to get one when I could drive and I did," she says. "There used to be Minis that would park near my house and I always admired them." And she finds there are still youngsters out there who get a bit of a kick out of her dream car. "I get a lot of looks," she says. "Primary school kids love it, jumping up and down and pointing and smiling." And Yongsiri says it also attracts attention from the older generation. "They stop for a chat and say `When I was your age, I had a Mini'," she says. When Yongsiri first bought her Mini, she decided to become fully involved with her passion and joined the Mini Car Club of NSW. And while she initially received a welcome reception, the Mini fan from Parramatta says some people doubted her commitment. "There are very few girls," she says. "When I joined the Mini community, everyone was really happy to help. Then some of the guys were kind of like `it's a girl, she's not going to last'. "I was thinking maybe the Mini wasn't right for me but I wanted to prove them wrong and stuck with it. Now it's like a passion." Yongsiri can now change the oil, air filters, spark plugs and her boyfriend will soon teach her how to change the wheel bearings. She can perform what she calls "basic things", which is enough to impress a lot of other male and female car owners. "There's no power steering in any sort of old Mini," she says. "You can put air con in it yourself but it costs a bit and the uni budget doesn't afford that sort of thing." She's even got her mum interested in Minis and is currently trying to convert her sister, who's of the opinion "they just break down". And having already achieved teaching her sister to drive a manual transmission in a Mini, she's not far off her goal. When it comes to her friends, they've learned to respect her undeniable passion. "My girlfriends just laugh and say I'm always a different, special child. I can't see myself driving anything else but a Mini. There's nothing else that I would be proud of driving."