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Beach Hop 2014: Castrol Edge Thunder Cruise to Onemana

16 June, 2014

 

With the much-needed rest from the previous day not as long as it could have been, we were woken up for day three by what sounded like a series of long burnouts.

Thankfully it wasn’t, it was actually the Woodstock Thunder Club hunting out the noisiest cars, and the drivers in the line up for the Castrol Edge Thunder Cruise to Onemana were doing their best to give them what they were after.

Entrants were already lining up from 5.05am due to the cruise being so popular and parking spots at the Onemana Beach Reserve so sought after. Considering the cruise didn’t leave until 11am, that was pretty dedicated.

The trip to Onemana from Williamson Park is only 10km, but the parade loops weaves its way around town first to make sure all bystanders get more space to check it out. The extended loop was much appreciated by drivers at the team from Tip Top were giving out Strawberry Toppas at ‘Toppa Corner’ along the way. With the sun doing its best to melt the tarmac, the ice cream went down a treat.

The beachfront reserve went from peaceful and calm one minute and action-packed the next as the cars flowed in. It was great to see the local food vendors making the most of the huge crowds but it would have been nicer to see a few more mobile vendors present to ease the load and shorten the queues. But there was plenty to look at during the wait, and plenty of people to talk to, trade stands to check out, and bands to sit down and relax in front of.

Look out for coverage in our next issue, on sale Monday April 7, and our full 122-page coverage in our 2014 Beach Hop Annual, on sale late April.

 

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

21 March, 2025

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.