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Weekly Motor Fix: Daimler Dart and E-Type Jaguar built five days apart

3 February, 2015

 

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“Every week we’ll bring you The Motorhood’s Weekly Motor Fix. This week, the New Zealand Classic Car team bring you a double feature with two cars they’ve discovered during the week that they think are something special”

We recently discovered these two beautifully restored classics that have just arrived in the country. The owner, a long-term kiwi expat (31 years away in the UK and Middle East), has just returned home to New Zealand from Dubai in the UAE. He cleared his 1961 Daimler Dart and 1961 E-Type Jaguar through Customs just in time for Christmas Eve; the same day he arrived back in  Auckland for Christmas. 

The Dart is a New Zealand new car built by Jaguar Cars Radcliffe factory on May 2, 1961 and supplied by Oxton Motors in Grafton. The current owner bought the car in February 1976 at the tender age of 19 because he could not afford an E-Type Jaguar. He fully rebuilt the car on a student budget with the help of a few friends whilst studying architecture at Auckland University. He sold the Dart in December 1979 to buy his first family home in 1979, thinking his ‘darting’ days were over.

However 20 years later — almost to the day — in December 1999, he purchased the very same Dart back from a friend who had owned it for 18 years. After five years of ownership, it was leaking much more oil than it burned and to prevent further deterioration he had it shipped to Dubai in 2004 where he had been working since 1993. After four years the Dart was ready and was entered in Dubai’s annual Classic Car Festival for five years running, with great enjoyment at the rarity value the car attracts in a place like Dubai.


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In 2008, having got the Dart under his belt as it were, his thirst for an early E-Type returned with a vengeance, and after reaching the conclusion that life is not a rehearsal, he decided to really scour the planet for a suitable car, travelling to the USA, Belgium, and finally Scotland where he found a suitable car. The 1961 E-Type was amazingly original but very tired, and as it turned out was built just five days before his Daimler Dart saw the light of day. The car was still in its correct factory cream paint colour but had the wrong black interior. After another four years of restoration work in Dubai, that included soda blasting the amazingly rust-free shell back to the bare metal, and a trip for the car back to the UK to have the correct Jaguar red interior and double-duck soft-top installed, the car is ready for its first competitive outing. 

Keep an eye out for a full magazine feature in New Zealand Classic Car soon, and you’ll be able to see them at Ellerslie Intermarque Concours d’Elegance on February 8 at Ellerslie Racecourse.

Motorman: Blame it on Rio!

22 May, 2025

Following the third polite advisory, I figured there had to be a fair degree of substance to the warning. “If this is your first visit to Rio de Janeiro, please be careful,” came the personal hushed dialogue from the pleasant hostesses on a far from crowded Varig flight from Los Angeles to the famous Brazilian seaside city.
The previous evening I had flown into LA from Auckland en route to the 1985 international launch of the Fiat Uno Turbo. I was prepared for another long haul of just under 12 hours across Mexico, central America, Colombia, and central Brazil to that nation’s third largest city. Surprisingly the 10,500km run from Los Angeles to Rio is actually longer than the 8800km LA-London air route.
With the journey including a brief stopover in Honolulu I expected to travel just under 44,000km for the return journey to sample what was to be a low-volume version of a popular Italian car that would sell in even lower numbers in New Zealand. I like to think this shows nothing more than my deep commitment to my craft. In fact, even though I became lost on the homeward journey my total air miles would be little different.

Pinnacle Porsche

15 May, 2025

We were stopped at the side of the road, setting up the next photograph, when a faded Toyota slowed alongside and stopped. The window was already down to give the driver a good look.
“That’s my dream car,” he said, speaking for more than a few of us.
He drank in the gleaming red paint, shining in the sun, and the car’s purposeful swoops and curves. He exhaled half a lungful of cigarette smoke, gave a hang 10–style thumbs up and drove off.
On the side of the road, against a clear blue background, the Porsche stood out in all its stark red glory. It’s the classic 911 shape on steroids. It has the fat, even pouty, front lip of the G series 911s, added to comply with 5mph bumper restrictions in the US. It also has the oversized haunches to accommodate the wider rear wheels and tyres – a first for Porsche, which also confirmed its supercar credentials – and, most noticeably of all, that enormous whale-tail spoiler. They made it look as if Porsche had abandoned its restraint.