Auto Extras: Servo sunnies road test

When faced with this all-too-familiar predicament – you don’t want to spend the rest of your day with the sun-glare squints – what should you do? Hit up everyone’s fave repository of road-related convenience – the servo.

We set out to road-test the best and best-worst examples of servo sunnies we could find. We chose four distinct categories of servo sunglasses – speed dealer shades, wayfarer knockoffs, festival frames and glam fashion fakes – and evaluated them according to strict-ish criteria of price point, glare reduction, fashion cred, and most importantly, durability. How well do these cheap frames hold up when subjected to the weight of our butts? We performed a sunglass sit-test to find out.

This sporty, wrap-around style of sunglasses (reputedly popular among drug dealers) has long been a favourite of ironic hipsters. "Suss sunnies" were thrust into the national consciousness when former PM Tony Abbott sported a pair during a photo op in February 2015, just a month before the (first) onion incident, spawning a flood of memes. What’s been seen can’t be unseen.

Fluro

Price: $15.95
Brand: Solar Polar
Specs: Category 3 lenses with good UV protection
Glare reduction: High glare reduction
Fashion cred: Depends on the kind of crew you run with, tbh.
Durability: A slight lens-pop in the car seat sit test, full lens pop on a hard chair.

Red

Price: $20.95
Brand: Aerial
Specs: Category 3 lenses with good UV protection
Glare reduction: High glare reduction
Durability: One lens popped a corner and warped after one soft-seated sit, and the hard sit miraculously popped the lens back in but sadly broke off an arm.
Fashion cred: These are so hectic, onlookers will be too intimidated to call your taste into question.

Designed in 1952, Ray–Ban’s OG Wayfarer is an iconic style that experiences a resurgence in popularity every couple of decades, and has inspired innumerable knock-offs – designer, cheapo and everything in between.

Price: $15.95
Brand: Solar Polar
Specs: Category 3 lenses with UV 400 protection
Glare reduction: High glare reduction
Durability: The cockroach of servo sunnies, this pair survived several sit tests on both soft and hard surfaces.
Fashion cred: The coffee-coloured frames and reflective lenses deviate from the Wayfarer’s classic black styling, but we’ll forgive that as these sit on the face surprisingly well.

Could the ‘Cheetah Lolita’ be the ultimate festival frame? We think so. Thanks to celebs like Lana Del Ray, heart-shaped sunglasses have become popular once again among festival-going free spirits on both sides of the Pacific, but only when worn with a healthy dose of millennial irony.

Price: $2.50
Brand: A random find. No tags or discernible brand.
Specs: UV 400 protection
Glare reduction: Good.
Durability: Audible crunching sounds during both tests, but this was just the arms crossing over one another. They were easily popped back into the right position, making these our runner up in the durability stakes.
Fashion cred: A little bit Coachella 2015. The trend may be waning but you’ll still see it around.

It seems some servos never quite let go of 90s fashion trends … or is it because they’ve come back again? Either way, servos are a goldmine of glam fashion fakes, from Gucci wannabes embellished with diamantés or gold insignia to oversized Armanis like this fine example.

Price: $15.95
Brand: Solar Polar
Specs: Category 2 lenses with medium sun glare protection
Glare reduction: Good UV protection
Durability: Epic fail. The frame cracked on the first (soft) sit and we experienced a full lens pop and frame break in the hard sit test.
Fashion cred: These Emporio Armani knock-offs aren’t really convincing anyone, but would have got you through in a pinch during the late 90s/early 2000s.

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