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Land Rover’s amazing Valentine’s Day gift

23 February, 2015

Valentine’s Day 2015 presented four good friends with a slightly better gift than a box of Cadbury Favourites. As students of Otago University 15 years ago, Will Radford, Jeremy Wells, Anthony Dawson, and James Shatwell chipped in for a 1957 Series I Land Rover. ‘The Landy’ was a staple in their many adventures and trips throughout the country. Of course, time moves on, and after 15 years of ownership, The Landy was listed for sale on Trade Me, with a story of the friends’ many adventures, and their sadness at parting with it.

Land Rover New Zealand had come across the auction, and with the help of Will’s wife Claire, began a secret operation to restore The Landy from the ground up. Tony Katterns and the Custom Metal Shapers team were enlisted for the restoration. Broken parts were replaced with genuine Land Rover parts, while some of the characteristics that made it theirs — such as some of the dings and bumper stickers — were retained.

James McKee, Land Rover New Zealand’s marketing manager, says, “A heart-warming tale accompanied the listing, documenting the many journeys and stories this Land Rover has been part of and showing just how much the vehicle meant to the four guys. We decided it was an amazing opportunity to help them continue their relationship with this classic vehicle, so we bought it and restored it back to its former glory.”

The Landy was taken for a tour of the South Island following the restoration, to recreate some of the adventure shots Will included in the Trade Me auction, before it was returned to Auckland in time for Claire to hide it in the shed for the four mates’ ultimate Valentine’s Day present.

We will have a full feature on The Landy in New Zealand Classic Car Issue No. 293, on sale April 20 — be sure to keep an eye out for it, to read all about The Landy’s history, and the adventures of four good mates. Check out the video of the story and the work that went into the vehicle below:

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.