My first car: Mel Tracina’s 1989 Ford Telstar
Big Brother Australia host Mel Tracina’s first car – a 1989 Ford Telstar – came from the scrap yard, but she loved it all the same.
New host of Big Brother Australia Mel Tracina remembers getting her first car – a 1989 Ford Telstar – from a second-hand wrecker all thanks to some intel from her father, Robert, who is mad about cars.
“Dad’s friend worked at the wreckers and saw the Ford Telstar, which was simply too good to wreck. He suggested Dad give it to me. I had just turned 18 and got my licence straight away. It was an automatic with velour seats and I was mad about the car. I didn’t have any expectations of what I wanted my first car to be, I was happy to have wheels and freedom,” Tracina says.
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The car got her around Melbourne with ease – from a casual job at Target to studying at La Trobe University. Tucked in the glovebox was a foghorn, which her friend would pull out for fun while they’d be driving to go nightclubbing at Alumbra or Boutique nightclub in Greville Street, Prahran.
“We’d use my Ford Telstar when we went clubbing and I was the designated driver,” she says.
“If we wanted to go to cafes at 10pm we’d get in my car, or if a trip to McDonald’s was required when I was at uni, I’d take five people and we’d all have a few laughs along the way.”
The number plate letters – TUV – saw Tracina name the car ‘TUV of LUV’. She would use an external CD to hook into the car; songs by One Republic, T Pain and Akon were on high rotation.
She recalls a time she drove the ‘TUV of LUV’ from her home in the inner west to La Trobe University, and other drivers were trying to get her attention on the freeway.
“I was a P-plater and often we’d get unwarranted attention, so I was ignoring those driving past me giving me this strange look,” she recalls.
“The car did feel different right on the freeway, but I was self-obsessed and just kept driving.
“By the time I stepped out of the car at uni, my tyre was literally smoking. It was as flat as you could get it. I called my mum and said ‘Should I put air in it?’. To which she replied, ‘Mel you need to completely change your tyre!’.
“That’s when I called my husband – who was a love interest at the time; we weren’t even dating. He went to the same uni as me and I asked if he could come and have a look. He put the emergency tyre on until I got home. Dad looked at me and said ‘How did you not know the tyre was flat? Like you would have felt that it wasn’t right’. It was my first car and my first time I was in that situation. It’s funny to look back now.”
The death of the Telstar happened at a roundabout intersection not far from her home.
“It was so annoying because the accident happened right near my house in a new estate that was being built. I was following a car into the roundabout when they stopped in the middle of it. I went straight into the back of them. The two ladies in the car were trying to figure where their block was as it was all new, but yeah, I ran into them so it was on me. That was the end of the Ford Telstar,” she says.
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