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Annual Holden Car Show exceeds last year’s funds for charity

16 June, 2014

 

Back in March, the Holden Special Vehicles Club Inc, in association with Ebbett Hamilton, held the fourth annual Hamilton Holden Car Show as a fundraising event for the club’s nominated charity — the Bruce Tronell Motorsport for Life Trust.

The event saw 114 pre-registered entries, however because of the bad wether (Cyclone Lusi time) about 20 of the pre-registrations didn’t attend. There were still enough enthusiastic Holden owners keen to make up the numbers which, in the end, reach 125 nicely-presented Holden cars on display. This exceeded last year’s entries. There were 15 category awards up for grabs, plus the coveted People’s Choice Award which was won this year by Steve Fabish’s customized 1989 HZ Holden Kingswood ute.

Hosted by Ebbett Hamilton in its Anglesea Street service yard, the show provided the chance for Holden fans to get close to a vast range of cars dating from a 1948 FX Holden to a 2012 VE Walkinshaw. The workshop held a selection of race and muscle cars, including both Greg Murphy’s ex-Tasman Motorsport V8 Supercar and Scott McLaughlin’s BNT V8 SuperTourer, and a Holden Caprice  drag car. Static memorial displays of memorabilia were on show for the late Jason Richards, including the first Team Kiwi race car he ever drove as  a professional race car driver, and the late Mark Porter, who was tragically killed in a race accident on Mount Panarama in October 2006.

Even though the weather caused an impact on the number of people through the gates the gold coin donation for public viewing raised more money than the previous year’s show. Last year the show raised $2500 and this year $2900 was raised for the charity. Local businesses were very supportive and donated goods and merchandise towards the event which contributed to its success. Local ban Red Rock ‘n Blue played throughout the event, free of charge, to help with fundraising as well.

The Bruce Tronell Motorsport for Life Trust supports special needs children, with funds raised from previous Hamilton Holden Car Shows going towards helping young cancer sufferers to enjoy the trip of a lifetime to Disneyland with the Koru Care Trust.

The 2014 weekend event was extra special this year with the Holden Special Vehicles Club organizing a second fundraiser the following day to raise money towards the Education Fund set up for the two children of Jason Richards, Sienna and Olivia, after he succumbed to cancer on December 15, 2011, aged 35 years. The Club had designed and printed commemorative T-shirts and window stickers for a Jason Richards Memorial Cruise from Hamilton to Drury which, together with a raffle, blind auction and donations, raised a further $1800-plus for this second charity. Between 45 and 50 cars took part in this charity drive to the Murphy’s Law bar for lunch.

Club President Jim Cooper acknowledged the hard work of the show’s organizing committee and the support and generosity of all the businesses, individuals, and members of the public who contributed to the sucess of the event, in spite of the  bad weather.

“When Cyclone Lusi threatened to gatecrash our party the organizing committee decided we weren’t going to let an itty-bitty storm wash us away; these things often don’t turn out to be as bad as they are predicted and we crossed our fingers that Lusi was going to be just a breeze with a bad attitude, nothing more. The Chiefs had turned it on for us on the Friday night and we knew that a lot of people were looking forward to the car show. [Next year] will be our fifth anniversary show and we are hopeful that funds raised from next year’s event will exceed a combined total of $10,000 for Bruce’s Trust over the five years,” he said.

Bronze treasure unearthed

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The car was put away in favour of something more practical, and when his father was unable to drive any more, Matt’s friend asked him to come and take a look at his dad’s old Holden. It turned out this was one of those phone calls that leads to that feeling of pure joy in the classic car world — the ‘barn find’ that turns out to be even better than expected. The HT Monaro had been put to bed some years before and had not seen the light of day since. Layers of dust and boxes of junk littered her undercarriage and bodywork and access points all around.

NZ Classic Car magazine, September/October 2026 issue 407, on sale now

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