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.^[1] As of September 2014, Chris drives a 2010 Ford Focus sedan.

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 believe that the fact that Chris drives 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 parents pay for his gas.^[1]

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."^[2] 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^[3] and/or Wipe-Out^[4], 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^[5]. 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

Homer, awaiting his ill gotten fate.

A Homer Simpson figurine resides on Chris's dashboard. There also appears 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

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.

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)^[6] and Barb has one named "B WESTON" (as in Barbara Weston)^{[citation needed]}. 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.^[7]

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^[8] - 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 (A common problem on that year of Escort), and since Chris spends all his money on worthless shit, 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.

Current status

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. 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.

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." As of 24 September, Chris has purchased a used Ford Focus, implying that said Cadillac Seville may have been sold.

This begs the question of 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.

Gallery

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.
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.