Our less glamorous but more reliable units should be deployed
BUYING a new Lamborghini Aventador SVJ coupe would leave you barely enough change from $980,000 to fill the tanks.
It would get you to 100km/h in 2.9 seconds and, if you were lucky, 16 litres per 100km.
All very nice if you can afford what is, after all, a glorified Volkswagen.
VW started its life as Dr Ferdi Porsche’s World War II Kubelwagen, a German version of the ubiquitous US Willy’s Jeep.
In fact you could get more people into either a Jeep or Kubelwagen than an Aventador and achieve your mission to get from point A to point B return.
While feasible to drive your coupe to the shops to buy a loaf of bread or a handkerchief, you also run the risk a little old lady in a 1996 Echo will scrape down the passenger side dislodging your composite/aluminium panels at $15,000 a pop at a cost of $150 to her.
Nor is there any point taking it for a spin without incurring a $500 traffic infringement for exceeding the speed limit by a significant amount.
While a Lamborghini is a status symbol for a select few, owning a vintage but reliable Jeep or Kubelwagen carries its own cachet.
Many a fine tune is played on an old fiddle, even a LandRover by Jaguar.
Turning an Echo into salvageable scrap is a doddle for these venerable but reliable vehicles.
Australia’s special forces the SAS and 4 Commando Regiment may be the military equivalent of a Lamborghini, its traditional infantry battalions the tried and proven vintage vehicles.
The SAS is designed to get in and out of a hostile situation while commandos more traditionally engage in a little transitory mayhem.
Despite their specialist skills and equipment, the SAS during the Long Peace felt they were being overlooked and at risk of becoming koalas – not to be exported, not to be shot at.
Since Australia’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, multiple deployments appear to have sapped these units while corrupting their moral compasses.
The fault is not just among the lower operatives.
All members including those since elevated to senior responsibilities who have been inducted into the protected rituals and traditions of these units cannot claim if there were transgressions, they either did not know about them, or were powerless to change them. Time is past to give more responsibility where it better resides in the less glamorous but reliable conventional battalions.