New Zealand can’t get enough of the new Mustang!

29 May, 2015

With the impending arrival of Ford New Zealand’s 2015 Mustangs later on in the year, hype is clearly building here in little old New Zealand — more than 300 orders have already been placed for the new Mustang. The most popular choice so far seems to be the Mustang GT Fastback, equipped with five-litre V8 and six-speed automatic, which makes up around 60 per cent of overall orders.  

“Just like in America, we are seeing great early demand for the V8 GT models,” said Corey Holter, Managing Director of Ford New Zealand, “But, we anticipate the EcoBoost model will be a bigger seller longer term … as people see its great combination of performance and fuel economy.” Prices for the new Mustang start at $56,990 for a Fastback with 2.3-litre EcoBoost and six-speed automatic, climbing to $76,990 for the range-topping Mustang GT Convertible with five-litre V8 and six-speed automatic.

Design accord

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

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.