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Who’s running the numbers? New Zealand’s quickest street and drag cars

12 November, 2015

 

In every issue of NZV8 magazine we feature a list titled New Zealand’s Quickest Drag Racers (as seen below). The list isn’t so much one to celebrate historical achievements, but to give those who are currently competing the credit they deserve. As such, it’s updated on a monthly basis to not only include new entrants, but also to show which drivers have improved their PBs.

Included on the list is any V8-powered vehicle that runs 8.99 seconds or quicker, regardless of which class they race in. The only exception being streetcars, which fall into our separate Quickest Streetcars List, that we also run, assuming they meet the legal criteria. For the streetcar list, the time cut-off is 9.99 seconds or quicker, since nine seconds seems to be the new benchmark for what quantifies a quick streeter these days. You can see who’s currently on that list here.

As a general rule, we’ve always asked for drivers themselves to keep us informed of their times and progress, but we’ve also made an effort to hunt out the information as much as possible. However, that’s where we now need your help.

With so many new cars running into the eight- or nine-second zones, it’s now more important than ever to remove those no longer competing, to give those that are the room they require.

If you’re on the list, but have parked the car up for a few seasons, or sold it, we’d love to hear from you. Likewise, if you’re not on either list and should be, then please do let us know. The easiest way is by emailing [email protected]. Even if you’re not on the list, but have it on good authority that someone should/shouldn’t be, we’ll take your word for it. 

So get emailing!

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

21 March, 2025

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.