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Get your classic car restoration sorted with our restoration guide

27 November, 2015

We all know that there’s always something that needs attending to, whether it’s simply tidying up interior carpets and upholstery, fixing that scratched windscreen, touching up the front guard after a shopping trolley hit it last summer, or something bigger, such as replacing a rusted-out exhaust system. You may even want to push the boat out and seriously contemplate a full restoration.

In any event, you can rest assured in the knowledge that there’s plenty of specialist help out there, with professionals who know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to classic cars — whether they be European, American, or Australian. To help you on your way, we’ve compiled a Restoration Guide that’s sure to send you in the right direction. 

This article was originally published in New Zealand Classic Car Issue No. 298. You can pick up a print copy or a digital copy of the magazine below:




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Buy a digital copy of the magazine for NZ$6.99

Almost mythical pony

25 July, 2024

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

17 July, 2024

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.