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Taking a look at the new Land Rover Discovery

22 April, 2015

We’ve just finished featuring the classic ‘Landy’ Land Rover on the front page of New Zealand Classic Car Issue No. 293, and funnily enough we were invited to check out the new Land Rover Discovery. However, this was set to be a bit of a spectacular event with the invite mentioning breakfast and a test. On arrival, we noticed a big trailer with a weird form of ramp mounted to the base. 

With three new Discoverys, a kitchen, and a rock-climbing wall, there was a decent spot of entertainment for everyone. 

The ramp allows the driver to drive up to the top on the left-hand side, and then it adjusts to put the car on a near 45-degree angle. The car, with its new terrain-response setting, allows the car to automatically drive down the hill by itself, leaving the driver in safe hands. 

Utilizing the mud-ruts feature allows the car to lock up the diff and manage the power between the front and rear wheels to support the car as it travels down steep hills.

The car is then able to manage those tricky situations when out off-roading.

The car features a large amount of boot space with up to seven seats available, depending on which model you’re looking at. 

It also comes fully furnished in leather with a clean-cut, modern dash.

The car is set to be on the New Zealand market within the next few months. 
 

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

21 March, 2025

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.