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Focus on Howden Ganley for NZFMR 2015

16 December, 2014

There is nowhere else in the world where you will be able to see such a fine collection of Formula 5000 cars running and on display

The New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing (NZFMR) is set to play host to an unprecedented turnout of Formula 5000 cars during the weekends of January 16–18, 2015 and January 23–25, 2015 — fitting given the 2015 Festival’s focus is on Howden Ganley.

With a F5000 and Formula One racing exhibition planned at the location of Hampton Downs, event organizers expect over 50 of the V8-, V10-, and V12-powered machines, covering all years of the F5000’s life.

At least one full grid of the F5000 racers will race during the festival, as well as demonstration laps and static displays throughout both weekends. Headlining the racing action is celebrated racer Kenny Smith in his immaculately presented Interscope Racing Lola T332. Greg Thornton will also be present in his iconic Chevron B24, but the entire field will be crammed full of notable cars and drivers.

NZFMR 2015 is a celebration of F5000 racing and legendary driver Howden Ganley. It also marks the first Formula 5000 World Series, the champion of which will be crowned after the event’s final race. Along with the F5000 content, as many as six Formula One cars will hit the track, as well as a huge Historic Muscle Car entry with eight Australian TransAm racers present. A packed programme for the two weekends will also include a drivers parade of many of the New Zealand, Australian, and UK F5000 stars from the past, and a spectacular NZ Warbirds display on Sunday, January 25, 2015 featuring WW2 fighter aircraft.

A single-day general admission pass will cost $30, a single-day weekend general admission pass will be $40, and both weekends will come to a total of $80. 

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”

Tradie’s Choice

30 August, 2024

Clint Wheeler purchased this 1962 Holden FJ Panelvan as an unfinished project, or as he says “a complete basket case”. Collected as nothing more than a bare shell, the rotisserie-mounted and primed shell travelled the length of the country from the Rangiora garage where it had sat dormant for six years to Clint’s Ruakaka workshop. “Mike, the previous owner, was awesome. He stacked the van and parts nicely. I was pretty excited to get the van up north. We cut the locks and got her out to enjoy the northland sun,” says Clint. “The panelvan also came with boxes of assorted parts, some good, some not so good, but they all helped.”