After years of reading this and the other forum as an outsider, I finally joined the ranks on Tuesday. Flew to Adelaide at 0635 (arrived 0835), had done the deal and left by 1030. Drove to Wagga that day and made excellent time- 950km or so in under 10 hrs including some short stops. Some great mirages out on the Hay planes etc (see below). It's amazing how vast this country is and how much "nothingness" there is...Gorgeous sunset on Tuesday as we got to Wagga. Did the remaining ~400km on Wed, also in great time. 1383km all up, 14.5hrs including breaks (30mins lost crossing the border/time zone)
Car is exceptional- August build 02 XR8, only ~67,000km on it when I picked it up (almost 69,000 now). Paint and panels are close to perfect and it goes like a rocket. Fuel is quite good- first fill up was 12.1 (Adelaide, hills, lots of overtaking), next was 11.1 (High average speed, overtaking) last fill up at Gundagai we turned the AC off and with a DTE of 400km we had 375km on the clock. That works out to be 8.8L/100km!
This car has already exceeded all my expectations- it's now very obvious why people are so attached to the AU.