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Targaception: Targa announce two-day rally-within-a-rally for 2015 grand final

9 August, 2015

Organizers have revealed that the final event of the 2015 Targa New Zealand season will now include an additional two-day 14-stage meeting to be completed within the main event, titled the Targa NZ Regional Rally. It will start alongside the main 1000km Targa New Zealand event on October 20 — the second-to-last day of the six-day marathon — with both groups of competitors set to finish in Palmerston North on October 31.

The additional two-day meeting helps complement the already arduous 1000km-long Targa New Zealand rally, which The Motorhood profiled in July.

Event organizer Peter Martin has stated that the new two-day event will cater towards more casual drivers, or others wanting to sample Targa New Zealand before committing to the full six-day rally.

“People are busy, and many tell me that while they’d love to do our event, they simply do not have the time to do the full six-days … [the two-day meeting] gives people either new to motorsport, or new to Targa a chance to dip a toe in the water to see if a Targa event is for them,” Martin explains.

With the full six-day Targa event starting in Auckland on October 26, the two-day Regional Rally event will tag onto the main event for leg four and leg five, comprising of 14 stages in total. The two-day event covers off some of the more memorable stages in the Targa line-up, including Te Aute and Gentle Annie road stages.

More than 50 cars have already signed up for the full Targa New Zealand meeting, no doubt with many more to follow suit after this announcement. Make sure to keep tabs on The Motorhood for more coverage of the historic event!

Picking over the past – 1940 Ford V8 ½-Ton Pickup

12 February, 2026

Jim and Daphne Ledgerwood have been around Fords most of their lives. They love their Ford coupés and two door hardtops, while also making room for an occasional Chevrolet. Their Wanaka based ‘Originals’ collection, featured in New Zealand Classic Car’s July 2022 issue is headed by an outstanding time-warp black 1940 Ford Coupé, its original factory assembly markings and documents offering something of a nostalgia trip.
Jim’s early days in hotrodding in Dunedin were spent building up a number of early Ford pickups and he became a prolific builder of modified pickups.
“I had lots of early Ford V8s in those days and once I had finished them I often sold them on. I would run out of garage space. I had up to a dozen restored Fords at most times then.”

Motorman – The saga of the Temple Buell Maseratis

30 January, 2026

Swiss-born Hans Tanner and American Temple Buell were apparently among the many overseas visitors who arrived in New Zealand for the Ardmore Grand Prix and Lady Wigram trophy in January 1959. Unlike Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Ron Flockhart, Harry Schell and Carroll Shelby who lined up for the sixth New Zealand Grand Prix that year, Tanner and Buell were not racing drivers but they were key players in international motor sport.
Neither the rotund and cheery Buell nor the multi-faceted Tanner were keen on being photographed and the word ‘apparently’ is used in the absence of hard evidence that Buell actually arrived in this country 64 years ago.