Automotive industry helps raise $200,000 for Camp Quality

15 June, 2015

The sixth annual Camp Quality Dinner and Auction held on Wednesday, June 10, was hosted by John Andrew Ford and Mazda, and saw the more than 260 guests in attendance raising a total of $200,000 for Camp Quality New Zealand.

In attendance on the night — and vigorously bidding on the range of 25 major auction, and 45 silent auction, items — were a cross section of the motoring industry, including motoring personalities, vehicle distributors and suppliers, publishers, and enthusiasts. Alongside Parkside Media’s donation of New Zealand Classic Car and NZV8 books, and ten one-year subscriptions to a magazine of the winner’s choice, the range of major auction items included a Hampton Downs track experience, Highlands Motorsport Park track experience, which also included flights and accommodation, dinner at Botswana Butchery with Greg Murphy, a KTM motorcycle, a trip for two to Tahiti, including flights and accommodation, Bledisloe Cup tickets, and guitars signed by BB King and Eric Clapton.

Executive Director of AHG Motor Group Bronte Howson summed up the success of the night. “It is amazing what we can achieve when we aim to do some good each day, look what happens when we do it together.”

Camp Quality is a non-profit, volunteer organization providing a support programme for children living with cancer that is all about hope for the future.

Image: Camp Quality volunteer Neerali Parbhu

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

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

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.