Be sure to grab an edition of New Zealand Classic Car Issue No. 296

18 August, 2015

The August issue of New Zealand Classic Car (Issue No. 296) is now on sale!

We take a close look at a the final iteration of the original Monaro — Holden’s HZ Monaro GTS. This iconic Aussie muscle car marked the end of an era, after which Holden put the Monaro nameplate into hibernation for two decades.

Cars don’t come more British than the iconic Daimler 2.5-litre V8. The winning recipe of shapely Jaguar Mk2 bodyshell and Edward Turner’s refined V8 engine proved to be a real winner.

Japanese classics are becoming more and more collectable amongst enthusiasts every year, and none more so than cars like our featured rotary-powered Mazda RX-3 Coupe. This pristine example has managed to survive more than four decades without becoming heavily modified. It is a truly outstanding car.  

Read all about a discovered, almost-forgotten barn find. This Bugatti Type 57 was part of the much-publicized Baillon collection, and is now in New Zealand. The owners have rather ambitious plans to bring this historic vehicle back to its former glory.

Additionally, there are eight pages full of nationwide news, and don’t forget to take advantage of this month’s subscription offer.            

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup