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TV3 to broadcast Silver Fern Rally 2014

23 January, 2015

The Silver Fern Rally holds a special place in New Zealand’s motoring scene — it was there as rallying began to take off in New Zealand in the late 1960s, and it has remained an integral part of New Zealand’s rallying scene ever since. In April of 1969 the Wellington Car Club organized the Shell-sponsored Silver Fern Rally — the country’s first true high-speed, special-stage rally.

In those early days, few events other than the Silver Fern Rally and Heatway International Rally were held. That would all change by the mid 1970s, with many car clubs beginning to run rally events.

The popularity of rallying in New Zealand, both at grassroots and top-tier levels, has survived through the decades and still remains strong. The last Silver Fern Rally was held last year, attracting the talents of both local and international rally drivers. Coverage from last year’s successful epay Silver Fern Rally 2014 will be broadcast at midday on Sunday, January 25, on TV3.

There is also a DVD available from Black Magic Media which runs for a further 40 minutes and contains more footage than the abridged version for television airing.

Lunch with … Cary Taylor

11 September, 2024

Many years ago — in June 1995 to be more precise — I was being wowed with yet another terrific tale from Geoff Manning who had worked spanners on all types of racing cars. We were chatting at Bruce McLaren Intermediate school on the 25th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Kiwi for whom the school was named. Geoff, who had been part of Ford’s Le Mans programme in the ’60s, and also Graham Hill’s chief mechanic — clearly realising that he had me in the palm of his hand — offered a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten: “If you want the really good stories, talk to the mechanics.”
Without doubt the top mechanics, those involved in the highest echelons of motor racing, have stories galore — after all, they had relationships with their drivers so intimate that, to quote Geoff all those years ago, “Mechanics know what really happened.”

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.”