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Kicking off the 2015 season with Targa NZ Rally Sprint

5 March, 2015

The 2015 Metalman Targa NZ Rally Sprint is fast approaching, taking place on Sunday, March 8 at Ardmore Airport. The season-opening, one-day sprint event in the South Auckland/Franklin area is now a key part of the Targa calendar, and provides a good warm up for May’s three-day Targa Bambina, held in the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty. The Targa Bambina is the second of the Targa calendar’s three events, the third of which is the six-day Targa New Zealand — this year running from Auckland to the lower North Island, in late October.

The opening Targa NZ Rally Sprint is a popular part of the Targa schedule, not only because it’s a great warm up for Targa regulars, but also provides the ideal opportunity for interested racers to try the Targa experience for themselves, and see what it’s all about.

“The roads are typical Targa roads, nice and twisty and not too fast or slow, and competitors have the option of competing against the clock to see who is the quickest, or using it as either a test-and-tuning day to dial in their cars and driver/co-driver combinations,” says Peter Martin, Targa NZ event director. For spectators, good viewing opportunities of the cars can be found at the event’s home base of Ardmore Airport, or off Creightons Road, Ardmore. The road closures on Monument Road and Ardmore Quarry Road take place from 9.30am with roads remaining closed until the end of the event at 3pm.
 

NZ Classic Car magazine, March/April 2025 issue 398, on sale now

23 February, 2025

An HQ to die for
Mention the acronym HQ and most people in the northern hemisphere will assume this is an abbreviation for Head Quarters. However, for those born before the mid-’80s in Australia and New Zealand, the same two letters only mean one thing – HQ Holden!
Christchurch enthusiast Ed Beattie has a beautiful collection of Holden and Chevrolet cars. He loves the bowtie and its Aussie cousin and has a stable of beautiful, powerful cars. His collection includes everything from a modern GTSR W507 HSV through the decades to a 1960s Camaro muscle car and much in between.
In the last two Holden Nationals (run biennially in 2021 and 2023), Ed won trophies for the Best Monaro and Best Decade with his amazing 1972 Holden Monaro GTS 350 with manual transmission.
Ed is a perfectionist and loves his cars to reflect precisely how they were on ‘Day 1,’ meaning when the dealer released them to the first customer, including any extras the dealer may have added or changed.

You’re the one that I want – 1973 Datsun 240K GT

21 February, 2025

In the early 1970s, Clark Caldow was a young sales rep travelling the North Island and doing big miles annually. He loved driving. In 1975 the firm he worked for asked Clark what he wanted for his new car, and Clark chose a brand-new Datsun 240K GT. The two-door car arrived, and Clark was smitten, or in his own words, he was “pole vaulting.”
Clark drove it all over the country, racking up thousands of miles. “It had quite a bit of pep with its SOHC 128 hp (96kW) of power mated to a four-speed manual gearbox,” he says. Weighing in at 1240kg meant the power to weight ratio was good for the time and its length at almost 4.5 metres meant it had good street presence.
Clark has been a car enthusiast all his life, and decided around nine years ago to look for one of these coupes. By sheer luck he very quickly found a mint example refurbished by an aircraft engineer, but it was in Perth.