$100K and seven years on, Stragglers back for more

17 November, 2014

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“ Stragglers Cambridge Charity Car Show
Sunday, November 23, 2014
10am–3pm
Lake Karapiro Domain, Cambridge

”

The annual Stragglers Cambridge Charity Car Show always delivers, fronting up with hundreds of superbly presented vehicles, picturesque surroundings, and an awesome atmosphere. Best of all, over the last seven years, the Stragglers have raised well over $100K for their selected Waikato charities (charities which must be Waikato-based and benefit children in need).

Last year the event almost didn’t happen due to trees falling at the show’s previous site of Lake Te Koutu, creating an unsafe environment for the public. The council was left with no choice but to close the area and the show had to find a new home. But the organizers were adamant that the show must go on, and on it went to the new site of Lake Karapiro. Beating the old site hands down, the show returns to the same spot this year and the Stragglers can continue to raise money for kids in need in the Waikato vicinity.

It’s hard to come by an event of this scale that delivers all that the Cambridge Charity Car Show does, as well as the charity underlying the whole event. This year’s show will be held at Cambridge’s Lake Karapiro Domain on Saturday, November 22 from 10am–3pm, and looks set to deliver everything we’ve come to expect from the event. If you’re around, or are keen for something different, set this Saturday aside and head along. Entry’s only a gold coin donation as well — a cheap Saturday outing.

Check out some of the photos from last year’s stunning event captured by Kevin Shaw:

Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”

$100K and seven years on, Stragglers back for more

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