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Fiat 500 hits a 1.5 million milestone

11 November, 2015

Fiat produced just over 3.4 million of their classic 500 ‘Bambina’ cars between 1957 and 1975, and on November 10, the 1.5 millionth example of their modern 500 rolled off the lines at Fiat’s Tychy plant in Poland.

 

Confirming the popularity of the new 500, that impressive figure has been achieved in just eight years and four months following the car’s initial launch — and, today, the Fiat 500 is now for sale in more than 100 countries around the world, from Japan to North America and, of course, New Zealand. Interestingly, the UK accounts for more than 240,000 of the total number of 500s sold in Europe.

Check out the latest edition of New Zealand Classic Car for a full feature on a fully restored 1963 Fiat 500D.

Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”