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Impressive line-up of F5000s at New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing

12 January, 2015

We’ve been looking forward to it for ages, and now it’s just around the corner. The highly anticipated New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing (NZFMR) is being held over the weekends of January 16–18 and January 23–25 at Hampton Downs.

Our excitement is in response to the amazing features that the festival is to play host to in its celebration of renowned Kiwi racer Howden Ganley. These features include Formula One cars, Formula 5000 racers. More than six Formula One cars will be in attendance, but it is the F5000s that are the main talking point. With over 50 confirmed, the NZFMR will host the world’s first Formula 5000 World Series, the winner of which will be crowned after the final race on the festival’s second weekend.

Other features we don’t want to miss include Can-Am cars, the ex-Denny Hulme 1973 McLaren M23, a show and shine, 12 race classes with over 350 racers, eight Australian Trans Am racers competing with the Historic Muscle Cars, parade laps of significant cars, and (weather permitting) a Spitfire and RNZAF display. 

Chrysler’s classy cruiser

22 May, 2026

I first saw our feature car, a 1970 V8-powered Regal 770 hardtop, towing a trailer carrying the tidy Ford Anglia classic racing saloon in Broadspeed racing colours that has featured in these pages. The coupe is comparatively rare here, which means anyone contemplating purchasing one of these big two-doors is sure to see prices continue to climb. The latter Charger has claimed much of the Aussie Chrysler limelight, but the simpler and classier lines of this car, which appeared dated soon after its introduction, now have a more timeless appeal.
Former owner, Balclutha motor engineer, Mike Verdoner, remembers the car well. He believes it came from Dunedin originally.
“I’m not sure about the car’s history, but I bought it off its owner at Kaitangata. Unusually, it was advertised in the local newspaper, the Clutha Leader, which was a surprise as these usually go for a lot more money on the internet. I had it for quite a few years. It needed a little bit of work to tidy it up, so I had to decide whether to spend the money on it to do it up, which could have been twenty grand. Its value at the time was not like it is now, so I sold it to Ewan. It’s probably now worth three or four times what I sold it for.”

The Pininfarina 230 SL

14 May, 2026

It’s October 1964, and imagine you’re an automotive journalist covering that year’s Paris Auto Show (Mondial de l’Automobile). As you approach the Pininfarina booth, you come across a car that looks a bit like the Mercedes-Benz 230 SL introduced the previous year at the Geneva Auto Show, a car then arriving at Mercedes-Benz dealerships around the world.
But looking closely, its styling and proportions seem to be a bit different. And it has a fixed roof, unlike the Pagoda-style greenhouse of the removable hardtop seen on the production 230 SL. While today, the styling of the W113, under the supervision of Head of Styling Friedrich Geiger, with lead designers Paul Bracq and Bela Barenyi, is considered a mid-century modern masterpiece, acceptance in-period was not universal. Some critics called out the concave design of its removable roof, which ultimately gave the car its “Pagoda” nickname.