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Day in the dirt

16 June, 2014

 

Sunday, March 2 saw the running of the City Hire South 4th Annual Vintage Speedway and Hot Rod ‘Day-in-the-Dirt’ out at the Ellesmere Raceway in Leeston, Canterbury.

It was billed as a family fun day and was hosted by the Canterbury Vintage Speedway Enthusiasts Club. It gave a chance for all classes of motor vehicles to enjoy running on a speedway circuit. Open to rat-rods, vintage race cars, vintage speedway classes, and motorbikes, a good number of races took up the challenge.

Scrutineering started around 9am and the dirt started flying at 11am. A good-sized crowd turned out to enjoy the racing, and with the sun out, many took the opportunity to picnic trackside. An area was set aside for dedicated parking of hot rods, classics, and vintage cars. Kids were taken care of with a bouncy castle and Mr Whippy.   Check out the gallery below to see exactly what happened throughout the day.

Almost mythical pony

25 July, 2024

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

17 July, 2024

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.