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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!

The actual Formula One

18 September, 2026

Seeing, in a shed in Hamilton, New Zealand, the Darracq 120 racer that Louis Wagner, also a pioneer aviator, drove to victory in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup race felt a little like finding a Rembrandt at a garage sale.
For historical significance, I’d say this car ranks with Ray Harroun’s Marmon Wasp, the first Indianapolis 500 winner. Unlike Harroun’s Wasp, which has been lovingly cared for at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum over the years, this historically pivotal machine wound up half a world away from its home in France and, to most of the motoring world, largely forgotten. Sadly, so is the story of how the car got to Aotearoa in the first place.
More often than not, a racing car that is a few years old is regarded as obsolete and relegated to a shed somewhere. As far as racing drivers and team owners at the cutting edge of the sport are concerned, the cars are virtually worthless at that point. They can’t be driven on the street; at best they can be reconfigured for lower levels of the sport, so few people care about them until their historical significance becomes more apparent.

Dad will love this!

29 August, 2026

Subscribe or gift a subscription to NZ Classic Car magazine for one year this Father’s Day, and go into the draw to win one of two luxury car care packages worth $570 from Lovecars.
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A seriously good prize for anyone who loves keeping their car looking its best.