Son-Chu

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Son-Chu was a 1994 Ford Escort station wagon that Chris drove until 2013, when he replaced it with a white Cadillac Seville, and then put that on Craigslist. It was the former car of and a hand-me-down from his mother Barb. From September 2014, Chris drove a 2010 Ford Focus sedan, until November 2018, when its engine died. The Chandlers currently share one vehicle: Barb's Dodge Grand Caravan, although Chris kept Son-Chu's license plates for later reuse.

While Chris, to put it mildly, obviously suffers from multiple "disconcerting" issues which are listed elsewhere in this very wiki, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles has nevertheless given him full permission to drive a motor vehicle which has been used to accidentally cause personal injury. The DMV has yet to release an apology for this grievous lapse in judgment by their Ruckersville department.

Members of the PVCC believed that the fact that Chris drove a Ford Escort may be a universal symbol of romantic fail. Chris did not save up his tugboat for a vehicle, deciding he had more important things to spend his money on, despite the fact that sometimes a nice car can lead to getting china to screw.

Unsurprisingly, Chris's mother paid for his gas.

Backstory

Much like James Bond, Chris also has a license to kill (though through his ineptitude in operating a one-ton mobile weapon).

Since Chris is a huge fan of Transformers, he pretends that his car is a Transformer named Son-Chu, "Proud Autobot Leader of the Cwcville, Virginia, Autobot Squad; he is also is my Cool Sportin', Escortin' Car." From the CWCipedia:

My Car is the Quick-Footed, well-armored '94 Escort; his name is Son-Chu. Dark Blue as Vehicle; he holds BatteryBlue/Yellow Combination Colors and Strong Personality under his hood. He has his Plasma Pistol/Energon Sword and Roof-Shield, and when Decepti-Clones attack, he is the First to Show up to the Party and leading the Cwcville Autobot Defense Squad. When I'm not in the driver's seat, and he has to make his way to the fight, he projects my image in the Driver's Seat for the sake of his disguise. Transformation Details: His Roof comes off his vehicle mode to make his Shield. His hood pops off to transform into his Plasma Pistol/Energon Sword. Stay Tuned to watch his Transformation in a few days.

The reason why the car is named "Son-Chu" remains unknown; it could be a reference to Full-Tilt and/or Wipe-Out, both Transformers with hyphenated names that turn into cars.

Handicap parking permit

Being a high-functioning autistic male, Chris has also been granted a handicap parking permit, clearly visible in the photographs of the car.

Chris should be thanking his lucky stars that he lives in 1 of only 2 states (the other being New York) in which you can get a disabled permit for being autistic. A quick Google search on the topic reveals that these permits are intended for the benefit of parents whose autistic children bolt into traffic or go mental in the store. In Virginia, a doctor must sign off on the application for the original permit, but not on subsequent renewals. Given this, it's likely that Barb applied for it when Chris was a child, and the family has kept the permit so long because their fat, lazy asses can't be bothered to walk more than a few yards. Obviously, every second Chris leaves Son-Chu parked in a handicapped space so that he can loiter inside a business establishment is a second someone who actually can't walk more than a few yards can't park there to actually conduct business, not that Chris notices or cares.

The biggest question is, of course, this: who needs handicap permits when he's got a giant robot? If he can't find parking space, he could just level the parking lot. Duh.

Dashboard

In 2017, Chris had a Skylanders avatar of himself mounted on the dashboard. The figure, designed in-game by Chris and meant to resemble his Tomgirl persona, was 3D-printed by the Skylanders company and cost him $50.

Homer, awaiting his ill gotten fate.

A Homer Simpson figurine used to reside on Chris's dashboard. There also appeared to be a Sonichu-related item, possibly a paper cutout stuck to an air freshener (to mask the hobo stank), hanging from his rear-view mirror.

Interesting to note is that Virginia law prohibits the suspension of distracting or view-obstructing objects from the rear-view mirror of a car, a fact which most Virginia driver's-ed programs make very clear, but with Chris's high-functioning life, he probably fell asleep during this part of the class.

Vanity plate

“	I’ve had a few license plates stolen from my car over the years, and had to buy new ones.	”
Chris

The vanity plate, IRL (notice the autism and The GAMe PLACe bumper stickers, along with a PVCC license plate frame).

The vanity plate, as seen from the comic.

Vanity plate on the new Focus.

The plate reads "SONICHU", thus ensuring no back-seat poontang for Chris. Ever. This habit of having a vanity plate stems from family. Bob had a vanity plate reading "UN4EVR" (apparently a statement of support for the United Nations) and "I B MR C" ("I be Mr. C," as in I be Mr. Chandler) and Barb has one named "B WESTON" (as in Barbara Weston). It may be worth noting that Virginia has the highest vanity plate registration rate of any U.S. state, so Chris's family may simply be following a cultural norm.

Chris's plate is fashionably overlaid with a "PIEDMONT VA CC" frame.

Bumper stickers

Chris's car features a number of ancient and faded bumper stickers. Odds are they were applied when he first received the car, and have been rotting on the bumper ever since. Bumper stickers have long been regarded as a means to relay one's ill-informed world views, and prominently display meaningless platitudes for the public view. Chris's choice in stickers is a prime example of typical bumper sticker fare.

From left to right:

• Sonichu window static - A nearly invisible, transparent overlay in the back window of Chris's car. Most of the text is too faded to decipher, but it contains the URL for the old Tripod website, what appears to be a faded drawing of the disembodied heads of both Sonic and Sonichu, and a very faint rendering of the Sonichu title text. They seem similar to the ads in the scrapbook, but the logo is on the other side and the URL is bigger.
• Piedmont Virginia Community College - A round red sticker. The remnants of Chris's ill-fated and ultimately useless attendance of the local community college.
• Plan 9 Music - A bumper sticker for a local record shop where Chris probably buys his Britney Spears CDs.
• An American flag - Incredibly faded and neglected. Text underneath the flag reads "United We Stand". Probably added in 2001, during a frenzy of patriotism.
• "Autism. Work For A Cure." - As always, Chris feels the need to advertise his disability to the world.
• "Come Play With Me!" - Currently, the most disturbing thing Chris has on his car. It is an advertisement for The GAMe PLACe in Comic Sans. We are sure that they appreciate his endorsement.
• ???? - There are the completely faded and torn remnants of a sticker located on the center of Chris's bumper. It is unknown what resided there.

As of 25 October 2010, it appears Chris has rearranged his sticker collection, seen in DayOut. The Plan 9 Music sticker remains in the same place; however, the American flag has been removed and replaced with a Jesus fish, a common symbol for identifying oneself as a Christian. "Come Play With Me!" has been replaced with a "Save McIntire Park" sticker, likely for obvious reasons. Since this was the first time we'd seen Son-Chu for quite a while, it was impossible to determine when either of these changes were made.

Car trouble

Chris has wound up in dangerous situations with his car, usually of his own creation, on a few occasions.

On 22 June 2005, during his encounter with the management of the Charlottesville Wal-Mart, Chris "nearly backed up onto" the store's manager towards the end of their argument. Given the way Chris describes the event (and his general unreliability as a witness), it's hard to say whether the near miss was intentional or accidental.

About a month later, on 25 July 2005, Chris caused a minor fender-bender when he rear-ended a car he was following too closely. He was found to be at fault in the accident and ordered to pay $86 in fines and court costs.

During his famous run-in with Michael Snyder on 4 June 2010, Chris attempted to flee the parking lot of The GAMe PLACe in his car, but wound up boxed-in by Snyder and a couple of nearby police officers. Snyder claimed that Chris had intentionally tried to run him over with his car, an accusation that Chris loudly denied. Also likely is that Chris, due to his poor coordination skills and admitted intoxication, nearly ran him over by accident in a blind panic.

Mechanical issues

Chris's absurdly overdue oil change.

It is unknown what mechanical shape Son-Chu is in. However, given the state of the Chandler home and its surrounding yard, it's unlikely the family takes any better care of their vehicles. Possibly the best look we got at Son-Chu's condition was in the DayOut videos. Every time the car is stopped at a traffic light or parked somewhere, the engine rattles loudly; while a vibration at idle is a known design flaw with that year of Ford Escort, it is very possible that the motor mounts are shot (another common problem on that year of Escort), and since Chris spends all his money on junk, replacing his motor mounts would put him over budget. A Pennzoil sticker on the windshield states that the next recommended oil change was to take place on 5 April 2009, over a year before the video was recorded; we also learn the virgin-mobile has at least 260,000 miles on it.

Other iterations of SonChu

Cadillac Seville

According to a Facebook status from February 2012, Chris no longer owns, or at least no longer drives Son-Chu. Why Chris bought another car and Son-Chu's fate are currently unclear. However, said Facebook status suggests that he may have bought another car to avoid detection by jerkops. Chris likely got rid of Son-Chu sometime before fall 2011, as according to a leaked email, Chris was driving Barb's Ford Aerostar during the infamous GaMe PLaCe incident in October of that year. The car was photographed by Google Maps in June 2011, at which time was still owned by Chris, being its last public sighting. In September 2013, it was discovered that Son-Chu's "Sonichu" vanity plates had been transferred to a white Cadillac Seville, which Chris posted several pictures of himself driving since 2012. At the same time, Son-Chu was not spotted in the yard of 14 Branchland Court, confirming that it is no longer in the Chandlers' possession. The rear bumper and trunk of the Seville had two hastily-pasted on stickers, with the first being another Christian Fish, and the second being an unreadable bumper sticker partially hidden by the closed trunk door.

In September 2014, Chris listed the Cadillac Seville on Craigslist, also noting that he and his family "invested thousands of dollars in not only a new CD Player/Radio, but Multiple repairs at a Cadillac dealership. But while it did run very well for a long time, a mechanic messed up on repairing it. Now it has a cracked engine block and requires a new battery and fresh gasoline."

Ford Focus

As of 24 September 2014, Chris had purchased a used Ford Focus, implying that said Cadillac Seville may have been sold. Chris paid $9,000 for the Focus, paying over $100 a month.

This leads one to wonder how Chris was ever able to afford any new cars at all, let alone two of them; when he has now subjected to begging for donations and/or Legos on Facebook, let alone Barb's dental operation.

In July 2018, Chris recorded My Car is Heating Up Worse; PLEASE BUY from my eBay and HELP!

The most recently taken image of Son-Chu, showing its current bumper stickers. Note that Chris is indeed parked in a handicap space.

In 2016, an accidental field agent took the first known picture of Chris's Focus, showing that it had indeed been fitted with the "Sonichu" vanity plates, and a set of new bumper stickers. A later image from June 2017, taken in a Wal-Mart parking lot, shows that Chris subsequently added several more stickers, largely centered on asserting his current gender identity. Besides these, the new Son-Chu is notably heavy on promotions for businesses and charities. From left to right, the current set of bumper stickers is:

• Atlas Comics - A barebones text advertisement for a local comic book store which Chris presumably patronizes (he mentioned the store in the DayOut videos, but has never talked about it otherwise).
• Brown - The logo of the Brown Auto Group, where either Chris or Barb bought the car. The sticker was almost certainly applied at the dealership, rather than by Chris.
• Pride Flag - A oval-shaped sticker of a transgender pride flag.
• SPCA - Evidently, Chris is a devoted supporter of the SPCA, as seen by the sticker with the paw mark inside of the blue hand print. This is surprising as Chris is unable to take care of himself, let alone another living being.
• Pinup Girl - A red outline of a reclining pinup girl
• State Farm - The logo of the State Farm insurance company, suggesting that the car was at least at some point covered by insurance.
• Girls Kick Ass - The text "GIRLS KICK ASS", with rainbow-patterned stripes above and below.
• HRC - The logo of the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT political advocacy group.
• WTJU - The logo of a variety music station operated from the University of Virginia, where Bob once hosted a jazz marathon.

In November 2018, The Captain reported that the car's engine had died:

“

The day before Patches died the engine in the Focus crapped out. Something in the range of 4k to fix so he's sending it to auction hoping his fame will bring about more money than what it's worth (scrap) to pay off the rest is the loan.

”

The car only had about 110,000 miles on it or so when it was scrapped. When you take Chris' history of automotive maintenance into account (in particular his year-overdue oil change for Son-Chu The First) it's more than likely that the car's engine was destroyed as a result of simple neglect.

Other Chandler cars

Son-Chu and Barb's Dodge Caravan in a photo from June 2017.

Barb owns a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan, with licence plate "B WESTON". She was seen behind the wheel in WE NEED MONEY FOR MORTGAGE NOW, PLEASE!. Chris apparently borrows the car on occasion, possibly for grocery runs.

Chris borrowed the car to drive to BronyCon due to Son-Chu being under repair. While on his way home from the con (held in Baltimore, Maryland), the car broke down at a Sheetz gas station in Bealeton, VA, prompting Chris to beg online for donations to cover a tow bill and record Waiting for the tow truck.

After the death of Chris's Focus in November 2018, the van became the primary vehicle of both Chris and Barb, most likely as a result of both Barb driving less as she enters the geriatric stage and Chris opting to spend his cash on more pressing matters as opposed to getting himself a new car.

In the comic

Son-Chu appears as a minor character in the Sonichu comics as yet another companion for Chris, and another plagiarized element shoved into his fictional universe. He initially appears simply as Chris's mode of transport, first appearing at the end of Sonichu #0, but in Sonichu #9 transforms into an Autobot and helps fight against the PVCC invasion of CWCville. Then, in Sonichu #10, he appears once more to ludicrously transform into a stage for Chris's band to perform "Revive Zordon" and massacre the workers at the 4-Cent Garbage building. Aesthetically, Son-Chu appears to resemble two characters from Transformers canon, Hotrod and Jazz.

Chris quotes the CWCki

Chris read this article in March 2017 and explained how he had designed Son-Chu.

I've read what y'all thought were the inspiration Autobots behind Son-Chu: Jazz and Hot Rod? That is funny. Actually, when originally conceived in my noggin Years ago, I was binging on Transformers Animated during the time, and the only Autobot in mind that inspired the design was T.A. Bumblebee, in reference of how to make the breast part look like the hood while still having the original car hood in vehicle mode (albeit differing color). The remainder of the design actually came from Two past color Custom Autobot pages I designed and printed before then on Transformers.com. Jazz and Hot Rod were FAR away from my mind at the time.

Toy Son-Chu

Chris created a Son-Chu figure in March 2017. It appeared in Son-Chu Review, a 48-minute-long video of him playing with toys.

Son-Chu's bio reads:

The city of Cwcville, VA; defended greatly, between the team of Sonichus and Rosechus, the creator, Chrstine W. Chandler, and a group of five brave Autobots, led by Son-Chu; locally known as the Samurai Pizza Bots, as they work delivering pizzas (and Son-Chu driving Miss Chandler around) while in hiding until when needed. Not only the Decepticons, but transforming robots created by the team of Count Graduon as well, attack the city to try to take it over and break up all loving relationships worldwide. When the offensives are too big for the Sonichus and Rosechus to handle, Son-Chu and his group are there to blast the villains off!

It is made from pieces of three different Transformers - Breakaway, Sawback and Hot Rod - and was repainted, costing him over $40 to produce.

He offered to make two copies as a raffle prize to promote his stamps business.

Gallery

• 

  A drawing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, March 2017. Chris did not explain what an Autobot has to do with an Irish-themed celebration.

• 

  Side profile of the car. "Honor roll" my ass.

• 

  The car in Transformer mode. Note how the mild-mannered Escort somehow grows the front end of a Dodge Viper.

• 

  Prototype design from a Transformers.com game. Chris kept these for over 10 years.

• 

  Chris parks his car outside of his version of Mecca.

• 

  Son-Chu in ModNation Racers.

• 

  Post-Beta

• 

  Transformed version.

• 

  Flawless.

• 

  2012 ModNation Racers edition.

• 

  Google Street View from June 2011. Features Barb reading comix and lots of clutter.

• 

  Chris's second Son-Chu, a Cadillac Seville, seen outside the still fire-ravaged 14 Branchland Court.

• 

  The Focus at the Mal-Wart Region, June 2017. Taking up a handicapped spot, of course.

• 

  Son-Chu at Too Many Games, 22 June 2018. Note the extremely poor bay parking, which would be marked down as a fault on a practical driving test.

See also

For Truth and Honesty, see the archived CWCipedia page on Son-Chu

• Car Pranks
• Hot Wheels