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Heimgartner gets behind the wheel of Super Black Racing’s ‘The Dark Horse’

8 February, 2015

Super Black Racing, the only New Zealand-based V8 Supercar (V8SC) team, have had their official launch at the Sydney Garden Island Naval base. Andre Heimgartner is all set to begin the official V8SC test following the big reveal of the Prodrive Racing (PRA)-prepared Triple One Falcon, alongside his PRA teammates.

Super Black Racing team owner Tony Lentino said, “We are so proud to finally be here and to be part of the Prodrive Racing team. We’re really excited about the year, and finally being able to reveal the car that we call ‘The Dark Horse’ is awesome.”

Aged 19, Heimgartner is one of the youngest drivers to ever compete in a V8SC championship, but is up for the challenge. 

“I know it won’t be easy, but I’m lucky to have such an incredible team of people behind me to help me learn, along with all of our awesome New Zealand fans,” Heimgartner said.

Also on board is Paul Radisich, the touring car legend, who joined the team in Sydney with his official role as team principal. This will see him guide and mentor the team with his experience, which spans across more than 20 years in motorsport.  

Super Black Racing is set to campaign the new Prodrive Racing FG X later in the season. The official V8SC Super Test runs for three days near Eastern Creek before the championship has its opening round in Adelaide in little over two weeks’ time.

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.”