I was reminded of this the other morning, driving to work.
Now, in the North Island, the morning would be described as freezing.
In Christchurch, we’d call it “crisp” and in Southland, they’d describe it as “balmy” and change into a singlet. But the issue wasn’t the temperature. The issue was my car.
More specifically, the rear side window on my soon-to-be-classic Volkswagen Golf, which, like a teenager on a Sunday morning, has no interest in getting up.
Now technically, I could take it to a mechanic and get it fixed properly. Or I could attempt fixing it myself.
But precision German engineering and Glenn-guesswork have historically not worked well together.
German cars are designed by people with mathematics degrees and tiny screwdrivers.
I, on the other hand, require a calculator for the simplest mathematical equations, and my screwdriver set is missing some pretty key players.
So instead, in true Kiwi “she’ll be right” fashion, I came up with a solution.
I bought a door stop.
Not an automotive part. Not a temporary window brace, if that is even a thing. An actual door stop, jammed into the frame to stop the window from sliding down.
And for a while, it worked beautifully. Unfortunately, that was summer.
You see, the engineering flaw in this almost-Nasa-level solution is that there’s now a small gap at the top of the window, which winter takes advantage of.
Because on really cold mornings, the slight gap allows just enough freezing South Island air to sneak in and collide with the warmer air trapped inside the car.
And when cold air meets moisture and a windscreen, it creates condensation, which then freezes onto the inside of the glass, forming what I call “inside ice”.
And this inside ice turns my Volkswagen Golf into a blue, underperforming freezer.
Despite all of this, in winter I get in, scrape the inside of the windscreen like an Antarctic explorer, and think to myself, “She’ll be right”.
Which got me thinking that this phrase might actually be one of the most Kiwi things about us.
Because “she’ll be right” isn’t just a saying. It’s a philosophy. And to be fair, sometimes it’s brilliant. Sometimes, it works.
Half the country was probably built by someone standing back from a problem, squinting slightly, and saying, “She’ll be right”.
Even some of our greatest achievements have a bit of “she’ll be right” in them.
Sir Edmund Hillary literally took modified Ferguson farm tractors to Antarctica and drove them to the South Pole.
While the British expedition had custom-built snow vehicles and specialised machinery designed specifically for polar exploration, Hillary essentially looked at a Massey Ferguson tractor, slapped some tracks on it, pointed it towards Antarctica, and thought, “Yeah … she’ll be right”.
And somehow, against all logic, it absolutely was.
Burt Munro looked at an old Indian motorbike, added a collection of homemade parts that would’ve had most engineers saying, “That won’t work”.
But Burt said, “She’ll be right”, took that bike to Bonneville, and set a land speed record of more than 180m/h (290km/h) on a machine that was already nearly 50 years old – a record in its class that still stands today.
And every farmer in New Zealand has, at some point, repaired machinery using fencing wire, some old baling twine, and what some might call blind optimism. And somehow, a lot of the time, it works.
And there’s something admirable in that kind of thinking.
A willingness to have a crack, back yourself, and solve problems without overcomplicating them.
It’s part of the reason Kiwis have built such a reputation for ingenuity.
Give us a problem, half a toolbox, and an unreasonable amount of confidence, and there’s a good chance we’ll at least attempt to solve it.
But if we’re being honest, the “she’ll be right” attitude doesn’t always end in world records or legendary pole-crossing stories.
Sometimes it ends with someone standing ankle-deep in laundry floodwater at 7am, staring at a washing machine hose that’s been held together for the last six months with a clothes peg, a snap-lock bag, and that “she’ll be right” attitude.
Sometimes it’s watching a mattress slide down the windscreen from the roof rack after Dad brakes suddenly for “some idiot who has no bloody idea how to drive”.
Which is ironic coming from the same man who tied that mattress on with a bungy cord, some old baling twine, half a roll of gaffa tape, and the confident declaration of, “That’s not going anywhere … she’ll be right”.
I reckon every Kiwi has at least one memory involving a “she’ll be right” moment that wasn’t.
A chair that can only be sat on “carefully”.
A ranch slider that only opens if you throw your hip into it like you’re trying to break into your own house.
A passenger door that requires “a bit of technique”.
And yes, even a car window that is technically up, just not all the way.
And honestly, there’s something kind of beautiful about that, too.
Because underneath all the dodgy fixes and questionable engineering, “she’ll be right” usually comes from a good place.
The belief that problems can be handled. That things will work out. That even if it’s not perfect, we’ll find a way through it.
Sometimes it’s held this country together.
Sometimes it’s held my car window up (note sometimes).
And maybe that’s why the phrase has lasted so long. Because deep down, being Kiwi has never really been about perfection. We’re not polished. We’re not always organised. We occasionally use household items for automotive repairs. We occasionally use automotive items for household repairs.
But we back ourselves.
Even when the solution is a door stop that has somehow become a window-upperer – I may have invented that term.
So yes, maybe one day I’ll get the Golf fixed properly. Maybe I’ll finally take it to someone who understands German engineering and doesn’t think “that looks about right”.
But until then, I’ll keep scraping ice off the inside of the windscreen and pretending this is all part of the ownership experience.