Son-Chu

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Son-Chu (aka The Sonichu Mobile) is Chris's 1994 Ford Escort station wagon.

While Chris, to put it mildly, obviously suffers from multiple disconcerting issues which are listed elsewhere in this fine wiki, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles has nevertheless given him full permission to drive a motor vehicle to be used in a plan to commit aggravated assault. DMV has yet to release an apology for this grievous lapse in judgment by their Ruckersford department.

Members of 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 on more important things to spend his money on, despite the fact that sometimes a nice car equals china. Son-Chu is his mother, Barbara's car.

Unsurprisingly, Chris's parents pay for his gas.

Backstory

Much like James Bond, Chris also has a license to kill (though through his ineptitude in operating a 3-ton mobile weapon).

Since Chris jerks off to 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" still remains unknown. The same can be said of all of Chris's other Transformers rip-offs, though.

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 one of only two 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 have 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

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 family plate stems from family. Bob has a vanity plate reading UN4EVER (apparently a support for the UN) and IB MR C (I be Mr. C, as in I be Mr. Chandler) 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.

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 gets his used Britney Spears CDs from.
• 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. How is "Autism" a sentence? Do you think it can be "Cured" rather than treated? What are you doing to "Work For A Cure"? Why is "A" capitalized?
• "Come Play With Me!" - Currently, the most disturbing thing Chris has on his car. It is an advertisement for "The GAMe PLACe". 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. Since this is a first time we've seen Son-Chu in quite a while, it's so far 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' absurdly overdue oil change.

Given the state of the Chandler home and its surrounding yard it's unlikely they take any better care of their vehicles. Possibly the best look we got at the performance was with the DayOut videos. Every time the car was set to idle at a traffic stop or while parked the engine would rattle loudly, more then likely this is caused by bent U-joints (meaning Chris/Barbara probably hit a curb) connecting the drive shaft to the engine and transmission, and since Chris spends all his money on worthless shit the U-joints are much too expensive for him to repair. A Pennzoil sticker on the windshield indicated the next recommended oil change was to take place on the fifth of April 2009, over a year before the video was recorded. We also learn the virgin-mobile has at least 260,000 miles on it. At this point it can only be speculated which will go first: the car or Bob?

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.

See also

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

• Car Pranks
• Hot Wheels