Coromandel is full of old car wrecks, often located in the most amazing places. They get front row while providing an ‘eysore’ experience for everyone else. At the same time these rusty cars have grown to become a fixed item in the visual vernacular of our landcape, just like everything else from bush to hills to sheep to old sheds and the coast.

These are automobiles from before the digital age – very simple, analog machines. Our mind is still capable of understanding their functionality. It's possible to relate to what we see. An air of slowness and friendliness surrounds them.

Kirsch's first car was a gold-coloured 1972 Opel Rekord C, and while he won't comment on the type of car he owns now he says he finds it real gratifying to know his friend and project welder Paul Baylis drives around in one of the coolest cars by far, a black modified 1979 Chrysler S.E. (V8). It isn't often that people turn up in such appropriate vehicles for a job like this, says Kirsch.

And while these big old cars are completely mad, they offer something satisfying and in a way balancing to our increasingly efficient and ever so sensible world of high-tech delusion. read on