SUBSCRIBE TO THE
MAGAZINE NOW
Facebook-f Instagram

Win an AUTOart 1:18 Toyota 2000G

18 February, 2015

The Toyota 2000GT was Japan’s first high-speed two-seater fastback coupé (one convertible version being produced for use in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice) to break numerous international speed and endurance records during the late ’70s and even drawing the attention of Carroll Shelby, who prepared a team of cars for use in the 1968 SCCA production car race series in the US.

Only 351 examples of the swoopy-looking 2000GT were built between 1967 and 1970 (some sources quote a lower figure of 337) but the car was hardly a sales success. However, today, surviving examples are worth serious money — especially in their homeland.

This gorgeous 1:18 die-cast model comes from AUTOart’s Millennium collection and, as we’ve come to expect from AUTOart, detailing is exemplary. The Yamaha-developed 112kW twin-cam six looks totally authentic with its battery of Solex carburettors. The model also includes gearbox pop-up headlamps, opening access panels located on either side of the car and, of course, a fully detailed interior.

Thanks to the good guys at Toymod, the NZ AUTOart distributor, we have one example of this stunning Toyota 2000GT to give away to a lucky reader — just answer the following question:

Q:    Yamaha developed the 2000GT’s high-spec overhead cam cylinder head — but from which humdrum Toyota saloon did the engine’s bottom-end originate?

 

This competition is now closed

Mararn – New Zealand’s only production McLaren

15 August, 2025

I met Andrew Farrow in the little South Island town of Rangiora, where he introduced me to the then current version of his constantly changing car collection. He owns the Eyrewell Forest Motor Company. Not having a forecourt, his sales generally occur online where he buys and sells cars to add to his fluid collection. An example of what I mean by fluid is the F-Type Jaguar which he purchased recently and enjoys driving. It is advertised on his website and will eventually sell, at which point it will be replaced by another exotic he would like to own such as a Ferrari 599. Consequently, his collection is always in a state of flux, and he never has time to get bored with a particular car as another car will always be somewhere on the horizon.
I had gone to see one of the more permanent cars in his collection and one of his favourites, a McLaren M6GT replica. “It’s not the fastest or most expensive car here,” says Andrew, “but it does get the most attention.”
Anybody who knows about cars will instantly recognise this car as being a replica of the McLaren M6GT, conceived by Bruce McLaren as having the potential to be the first McLaren road-legal supercar, conceived decades before the McLaren F1.

The essence of fun

5 August, 2025

The dak-dak-dak of the beach buggy’s air-cooled engine spreads head-turning smiles wherever it goes. It has a timeless appeal but it also comes laden with more than a hint of nostalgia for the golden summers of youth, before ice creams — and suntans for that matter — became a guilty pleasure.
The boom time for the beach buggy was the 1960s. They were invented then but volume manufacture screeched to a halt in the 1970s. New car legislation in the US outlawed things like open wheels and exposed engines, but the owner of this classic example, Rob Schrickel, says small-scale manufacture has bubbled along happily ever since.
“They never really went away,” he says.