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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.            

Lunch with … Cary Taylor

11 September, 2024

Many years ago — in June 1995 to be more precise — I was being wowed with yet another terrific tale from Geoff Manning who had worked spanners on all types of racing cars. We were chatting at Bruce McLaren Intermediate school on the 25th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Kiwi for whom the school was named. Geoff, who had been part of Ford’s Le Mans programme in the ’60s, and also Graham Hill’s chief mechanic — clearly realising that he had me in the palm of his hand — offered a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten: “If you want the really good stories, talk to the mechanics.”
Without doubt the top mechanics, those involved in the highest echelons of motor racing, have stories galore — after all, they had relationships with their drivers so intimate that, to quote Geoff all those years ago, “Mechanics know what really happened.”

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”