Top 10 activities for car nuts in quarantine (part 2)

Besides keeping yourself occupied reading news and reviews at carsales, here are five (more) things you can do, as a car enthusiast, to keep busy…

When all else fails, there’s always reading to fall back on. In your collection you possibly have books that cover a range of topics: racing, classic cars, captains of industry, future technology and so on. If you don’t have a vast collection of books, but you have some cash in hand, pick up something affordable through an online retailer such as Amazon.

Recommended reads include histories of car companies and the men who established them. Don’t be limited to just cars. The history of Kenworth in Australia is fascinating. Biographies are great too, such as Brock Yates’ warts-and-all book about Enzo Ferrari. So is a light but informative read like Ben Collins’ ‘How to Drive’, which is much more entertaining than its title suggests.

Well done, the original white Stig.

Don’t laugh. Jigsaw puzzles are character building; you learn from them. There are myriad themes available, including impressionist artistic designs, some based around classic Australian cars or American muscle cars or British sports cars. Some are truly beautiful and will take your breath away.

And the really big ones – the 1000-piece puzzles – are large enough to share with someone else in your life at a safe social distance.

Building a diorama is not something for those who are time poor. Find two or three (or more) model cars that share a theme. Larger scale models (1:18, for instance) are probably too big unless you have plenty of space available in the garage or an attic.

You’ll need something like a pallet for the base. And a pallet takes up space. Then use common household materials to build your diorama. You’ll need glue, tape, scissors, paint, thinners and brushes.

Tips include using black sandpaper (‘wet and dry’) which can pass for a bitumen road surface to scale. Different paper stock can reproduce various looks for your model buildings – parchment paper for stucco, for instance.

Use food labels for signs and billboards, boxes for buildings, aluminium foil for corrugated iron roofing et cetera. Online model shops will sell you artificial turf on rolls, plastic trees, farm-animal figurines and scale fencing if you plan on a country setting.

If you’re ambitious, you could even incorporate a slot car track in your diorama.

This is the big one, of course. Restoring a car. A real car. One that has been sitting in your garage for years, but you’ve never quite found the time to finish it – or even start it.

Money may be a problem if you’ve been stood down, but there are numerous things you can likely do to hurry along the restoration process without spending a fortune.

Start with disassembling the vehicle if that’s something that needs doing. It’s amazing how much can be removed from a car with a screwdriver, a set of spanners, a hammer and a cold chisel.

Do make sure, however, that you label parts you’ve removed so you know exactly where they go when it comes time to rebuild your pride and joy.

Until such time as you’re actually diagnosed with coronavirus, there’s nothing to stop you taking a trip out into the country and visiting places that would welcome you and your money. Unless the whole country goes into lock-down, then revert back to suggestions one through four [UPDATED March 30: may as well now refer to the top four -- MikeS].

Just make sure that you’re not living beyond your means doing so.

There are so many great places to see and things to do within an hour or so of any capital city in Australia.

Plan your trip around things that you want to do; focus on the car museums or race tracks dotted around the state, or find a lovely scenic drive to enjoy.

Just stay safe – and check out our tips on how to do so in the car during these challenging times.

Top 10 activities for car nuts in quarantine (part 1)