As an auto writer, it’s easy to get lost in the job. Every day you wake to a blank page and a blog screaming for articles, and you forget that it’s actually supposed to be about the cars. For me, it had been far too long since I’d done anything fun in an automobile. I had to rectify that promptly, so I gave Laurence a call. Stop snickering.
Laurence and I are the two Australian-based members of the broader Autopian fraternity, which might make you think we hang out all the time. However, the tyranny of distance meant that we’d only once met in person. Still, we had kicked around various ideas to achieve car hangs for some time. When I found myself in need of cool cars to shoot a music video, Laurence seemed the perfect person to ask. He was, unsurprisingly, totally onboard, so I started cooking up plans for a 1,000 kilometer roadtrip to do some fun stuff with some cool metal.
This was a grand chance for me to combine my love of music with my love of cars. I’d shot many a music video before, but never with any real automotive action. I figured that between my sick beats and Laurence’s rad fleet, we could whip up something damn cool in the boondocks of New South Wales. All we had to do was execute! If you want to watch the video right away, you can skip ahead … else, dive in to the story below!
Best Laid Plans
My initial plan was a smart one. I’ve spent a lot of time this year performing electronic music under the name Anti Lag. I had a ripping song ready to release, and it really deserved a music video to draw eyes and help get people out to my live shows. The song was called Got My Car—a sugary electronic banger about automotive theft. I’d rounded up my friend Alex to play the lead role of The Thief—a masked villain who stole cars for primarily erotic purposes. His partner, Sabrina, would play one of several innocent individuals who would have their car stolen. The three of us would travel up to Dubbo in my Audi TT and Alex’s Honda Insight. Once there, we’d meet with Laurence, his partner Bek, and their fleet of lovely enthusiast cars. We’d film a narrative story as the Thief stole one car after another, increasingly frustrating our now-carless heroes.
It was a foolproof plan, and a well-developed one at that. I’d loosely scripted everything out, Laurence and I had plotted out which cars we’d use and where we’d shoot, and I’d bought a series of terrible masks for The Thief to wear. I even purchased a lovely new set of UHF walkie-talkies for our little convoy driving up to Dubbo. The stage was set for glory!
Yes, the stage was set … or, it was, until the night before the shoot. As I signed off from writing for the day, Alex gave me a call. I figured he just wanted to firm up plans for breakfast ahead of the 9-hour drive. Sadly, no. “Sabrina’s sick,” he tells me. “She’s not going to be able to make the trip up to Dubbo.” It was a blow, to be sure, but I figured we could work around losing one character from the piece. Two hours later, Alex rang me back. “I’m feeling pretty bad,” he said. He wasn’t going to be able to make it either. I was now down my two main actors and a Honda Insight to boot. Filming the original narrative simply wasn’t going to work anymore. I went back to the drawing board in the dying hours of Thursday night, knowing full well I had to leave at 6 AM on Friday morning.
Musing over my options, I realised I had another song that could work—a track I released earlier in 2025 called Speed Racecar. In some ways, it was ideal. Primarily, it was about cars, and it had lyrics that were nearly complete nonsense. I wouldn’t need actors to play specific roles or any sort of narrative; I could just shoot some stuff with cars in it, and it would probably work. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be as impressive from a story standpoint, and it would be largely useless to promote my upcoming EP, because the song was already released. On the balance of things, though, I figured I should try and shoot a film clip that was actually achievable, rather than trying to hammer something together that I no longer had the resources to achieve.
I laid my frustrated head to rest and contemplated the many things I’d eat on the road trip the coming day.
Tripping Up
I woke on Friday feeling confident. I wasn’t super jazzed about making the 9-hour drive alone, but I’d done similar before without too much brainache. I decided to hit up my old buddy Snorlax for company so I wasn’t completely lonely on the trip. The two of us piloted the Audi TT out of town, and it felt good. This meant a lot given I’d just spent $4,000 on repairs to get it ready for the journey. Once I hit the rural fringe, I downed a greasy McMuffin and a burnt latte, topped the Audi up with 98, and set out north for Dubbo.
Issues cropped up sooner than I might have liked. Just a couple hours in, I was passing the Big Strawberry. I figured I’d veer off the highway for a coffee and scones, but as I rounded a roundabout, the Audi voiced its displeasure. It was perfectly happy in a straight line, but the slightest bit of steering lock had the power steering pump wailing. I was familiar with the sound because the Audi had had a slow steering fluid leak for some time. It was weird, though, because I’d topped it up before I left. I shrugged, topped it up again, and headed back out on the road.
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I quickly racked up another two hours behind the wheel on straight roads. Once again, as I took a mild turn off the highway to rest … there was the dreaded whine again. I was sick of it, Snorlax was sick of it, and the Audi was just sick. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be done about it while I was on the side of the road. The Audi’s low ride height and plastic undertray prevented me from easily looking at anything underneath. I estimated I was losing about a shot glass of power steering fluid per hour—much faster than usual, but manageable. I’d been smart enough to grab a liter in preparation for the trip, so I figured I could safely reach Dubbo if I just stopped to top it up regularly. I texted Laurence to let him know of the delay and got back to driving.
The rest of the drive was pretty regular, going through the Aussie countryside. The power steering pump was happy enough on the straights, and save for a hundred cows invading the roadway at one point, I didn’t have too much grief. I kept topping up the fluid every few hours, and fuel economy was a rather unimpressive 8L/100 km. The Audi was feeling a touch sluggish, but it was cruising fine at 110 km/h and not a digit more, officer.
The journey ultimately took longer than expected. Partly due to the necessary top-ups, but also because of the need for rest breaks since I was the only driver. The final run into Dubbo was on some sketchy single-lane road in the pitch dark, but thankfully the kangaroos stayed well away and I was unharmed on the last leg. I pulled into my accommodation at 7PM, power steering pump absolutely screaming its head off as I rolled up. It was a weird place. I was staying at a block of “apartments” that someone had built behind their house on their large block of land. It was well reviewed when I booked it, but it was just a tiny bit sketchy in person. The conversation at reception went something like this.
“When you leave, just put the key on the kitchen counter. I don’t come in the room while you’re there.”
“You, uh…? You don’t come in the room?”
“Yep, I don’t come in the room while you’re there.”
“Oh! You mean you don’t service the room, because it’s an apartment, not a hotel. You should say that instead. Saying you don’t come in the room sounds kinda creepy, cause … you’re not supposed to come in the room.”
“… yep, I don’t come in the room while you’re there. I take privacy very seriously.”
As a bonus, one of the front windows had no curtain, allowing anyone to see in from the carpark. The flimsy $20 door lock didn’t inspire a lot of confidence either. All the more frustrating because I’d spent a decent amount sourcing accommodation for three, and now I was just a party of one. I put Snorlax on guard staring out the front door to ward off any evil interlopers, and dialed Laurence. Ten minutes later, Laurence and his partner Bec whipped around in a shiny blue WRX, and we skated off for a meaty dinner. I nipped past the local Woolworths to grab some supplies after dinner, only for someone to steal the badge off my TT in the 15 minutes I was there. Laurence would later explain I’d made the mistake of going to the “bad Woolworths.” Lesson learned, I suppose.
Repairs
Laurence and I had discussed a vague plan of action over dinner on Friday, laying out what we wanted to shoot for the music video. Before we could start any of that on Saturday, though, we needed to figure out why the Audi was urinating copious amounts of power steering fluid, lest it die completely and leave me stranded in New South Wales. The great joy was that Laurence had a hoist, so we could easily get under the car and figure out what was going on.
Our first point of inspection was the pump itself. The first-gen Audi TT is well known for leaks in this area, due to an o-ring on the power steering pressure sensor that goes bad over time. We saw a little dribble of fluid and noted the sensor was a little loose. Thus, we tightened up the sensor with some spanner gymnastics, gave the pump a wipe, and figured we’d probably nailed it. I started the car while Laurence inspected underneath to see if the leak had stopped. “It looks good …” said Laurence. “wait … WHOA!” He called me around to the front left of the car, where fluid was pouring onto the ground.
Right away, I was pretty pissed off. The culprit was obvious: A rubber hose going onto a metal hardline had been misassembled, causing a significant leak far greater than before. I could only realistically lay the blame in one place. It seemed most likely the mechanic had pulled apart these lines for better access in the course of swapping out the wheel hubs. When putting them back together, they’d failed to seat the rubber line properly over the barb, causing the leak. Whether intentional or by accident, it had done my power steering pump no good and lost me a great deal of expensive fluid.
We reassembled the hose properly and the leak was greatly reduced, down to a small weep where the mechanic had overtightened the clamp and damaged the rubber line slightly. Still, once refilled and given time to bleed off air bubbles, the power steering pump was once again silent as a friendly, respectful mouse. We could shoot!
Time To Shoot
We were now making a video for Speed Racecar, which was an upbeat dance track with a ridiculous British rap verse up front. I decided we’d start grabbing shots in the Audi TT. Laurence would drive, while I’d stand up in the passenger seat with the roof down, rapping for the camera. To capture this, I used a suction-cup mount to stick my Insta360 X5 on the hood, while blasting the song over the stereo to make sure I stayed in sync with the music. We kept speeds low because I didn’t want to fall out of the car and die. Overall, these initial shots went well, and we managed to capture a few good takes without injury or other disaster.
Next on the docket was shooting something with Bec’s glorious Mighty Boy, a fine machine indeed. I decided I wanted to chill in the tray, delivering hot lines while Bec cruised around deserted wasteland roads. I experimented with a little trick I learned from Tom Scott for these shots, too. While recording myself rapping at the camera, I was playing back the song at 70% speed. Then, later, in the editing phase, I’d speed up the video to match the song’s usual tempo. I hoped this would give a jerky, rapid-paced feel to the action and make it look like the cars were moving faster. It worked—and ultimately made me wish I’d done this for all the shots in the shoot.
The car best befitting the Speed Racear ethos, though, was Laurence’s Subaru WRX—what with its striking blue paint, a massive hood scoop, and rally-bred good looks. I tried to capture it from some creative angles, mounting the 360 camera to the front fender in order to get the wheels and brakes in shot with me dancing around on the tarmac.
I was beginning to feel, though, that the shoot was lacking something. As much as I admire my own appearance, I was aware that three minutes of just my antics would be a little dry. Laurence then had the bright idea that we shoot a “drag race” between the TT and Mighty Boy to create some drama for the clip. I was on board and figured that with some basic camera trickery, we could have fun with it. We didn’t actually race, and instead shot each car separately. Laurence drove the TT while I gesticulated from the passenger seat, and we repeated this with me in the back of the Mighty Boy. The result is a drag race with two copies of me arguing with each other as they fly down the road.
A music video always benefits from a good cultural reference, too. I decided to have Laurence be the starter for our race, with a nod to the brilliant performance of Craig Lieberman in the original Fast & Furious.
Throughout the shooting, we’d noticed the TT didn’t feel quite right. I’d been having trouble with it for some time; it simply lacked the nice torquey shove when the turbo kicked in around 2,500 rpm. This didn’t come up for me much in city driving, but was plainly apparent when we compared it with Laurence’s WRX, which had similar power on paper. The car definitely felt slower than when I first bought it, more so than I might expect from the natural recalibration of my internal butt dyno.
After grabbing shots for a few hours, we decided to do some light work to investigate. Laurence suggested taking a look at the MAF and air filter since they were the easiest to get to. We found the washable pod filter was absolutely filthy. “You’ve got half of Adelaide in here,” Laurence quipped. We put everything back together and the TT promptly choked, since we hadn’t let the filter dry enough. We decided we’d leave it to dry while we took Laurence’s gorgeous Charger out for a spin, before retiring for the day with a hearty pub meal for dinner. Just a note: If you find yourself in Dubbo, and Laurence offers you the chance to drive the Charger, you say “YES PLEASE.”
“Car feels a bit down on power.”
“Cleaned the air filter lately?”
“Hm…”— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault.bsky.social) November 11, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Sunday was our last day to shoot. I grabbed a bunch of interior shots of me blasting around in the Audi, and we got some fun close-ups in the WRX and Charger. I particularly enjoyed the little gag we shot, where Laurence suddenly finds his vehicle vanishes around him, and he winds up sitting on a lawn chair holding nothing but a steering wheel. That’s just good old-fashioned comedy.
If there’s one thing I missed, it was high-speed exterior shots. However, these are kind of hard to get safely with a minimal crew. You can either have someone standing on the side of the road as cars come by, which is sketchy, or you can use a tripod, which is safer, but hard to frame and not very dynamic. Instead, we made do with interior shots and the lower-speed stuff we felt comfortable doing.
We rounded out our shoot with a nice luncheon, once again at a pub, which rural New South Wales has in abundance. I then helped Laurence out with some personal video work before I retired to my creepy Dubbo apartment to rest ahead of the drive home.
The journey back was far less dramatic than the drive up. Snorlax handled more of the driving on the way home, and our efforts to stem the power steering leak had proven successful. I also happened to trip over an amusing cafe in Coolamon, which was a tribute to Central Perk in Friends. Moreso in vibe than in actual appearance; the prime notes being the printing on the coffee cups and the fact it featured a sofa, which is rare for Australian cafes. I’d say they could have chosen to tribute a less transphobic sitcom than Friends, but I’m not sure what that would be.
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Things did get a little sketchy at the mid-way point. I’d let Google plan my route, and it was taking me down random backroads rather than major highways. I eventually got to a point where I only had around 100 kilometers of fuel left and no idea when I’d see fresh gasoline again. Thankfully, I was able to stand on the Audi to get enough mobile signal to find the nearest petrol station, a good 50 kilometers away. I drove like a hypermiler on modafinil, just deftly stroking the throttle to make sure I didn’t end up stranded next to an unexceptional wheat field.
Arriving in the single-pump town, I found they only had regular, but it was enough to keep the Audi going until I could find some premium to make the final leg home. I made the mistake of stopping to use the bathroom at that last petrol stop, where I walked in on an employee who was hovering over the can, mid-dump, with the door unlocked. At that point, I figured I’d hold it until I made it home. The last few hundred clicks passed without further incident, petroleum or nudity related, and I finally got to rest my weary head at 11 PM.
Results
It took a great deal longer than I might have hoped, but eventually I wrangled our two-day shoot into a fun and buoyant music video. You can watch it here!
What I wanted was an energetic, silly music video that matched the vibe of the song. I think I got that pretty well down pat, wild colors and all. Plus, we had a great time doing silly things in excellent cars. It’s hard not to have fun when you’re larking about in a Mighty Boy, after all!
I also learned a great many things in this shoot that I’d like to improve for the future. For one, if I were shooting a song called Speed Racecar again, I’d get some actual racecars. Furthermore, shooting with cars is hard. These are big, heavy, metal moving objects, and you ideally want them moving very fast to make them look cool. However, for a DIY shoot, it’s pretty hard to find anything that’s both fast and safe. Thus, we used some camera tricks and mostly shot at low speed. This was workable, albeit perhaps not quite what we might have dreamed of for a song about speed. I also had a lot of issues with color control. Since I was down on crew and had to shoot the whole thing myself, I chose a run-and-gun style with the 360 camera and my smartphone. It was workable, but created a lot of issues around lighting and color control, which I ultimately glossed over with the lurid surreal color cast seen in the final cut. It’s fun, and it suits the vibe of the music, but I think with more control over car, costume, and set colors, and better camera gear, I wouldn’t have to overcompensate so much with the alien color scheme.
Ultimately, this was simply a great weekend in Dubbo that has me inspired to make ever-greater automotive music videos in the future. It might be some time before I’m out on the road again, but my mind is already ticking over the possibilities, like the lifters of a Mazda B6 with low oil pressure …
Image credits: Author
Awesome video Lewin! Now its time for a collab with Donny Benét.
This was a great read and a great introduction to your music!
Thanks to you, I’ll be certain to keep my footwear donned during my next coital entanglement
Not even my music preference but well done! The BTS story definitely made it more worthy.
(So the little car is a Charger?)
The tiny ute seems to be the Suzuki Mighty Boy. So I only count three awesome cars (with the WRX and TT). How am I missing the Charger–if that’s the green thing in the second photo, are there no exterior shots of it in the video?
Okay, that’s a fun silly song and the video was great. I had to go back and reread to figure out how a blue Subaru turned red, but that color treatment was all part of the fun. The part where the seats look like they’re splattered in neon green goo- I was grossed out then laughed. Great story! If you get around to more videos, I hope they get posted here.