Keen to get involved in October’s Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise?

24 September, 2015

The Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise is back for the second time in 2016 on October 31, with organizers teaming up with Big Boys Toys in support of the wonderful work undertaken by CanTeen around cancer awareness and support. The cruise will be held on the Saturday of the Big Boys Toys event, starting off with a 9am sign in at Smits Group / Meguiar’s headquarters at 59 Greenmount Drive, East Tamaki, where entrants will receive their gift packs, their cruise route, and their official cruise sticker.

The cars will be under way at 10am sharp, following a scenic route to Big Boys Toys (held at Auckland’s ASB Showgrounds, Greenlane), where entrants will perform a lap of the live action arena before parking their machines in the VIP car park for show goers to admire.

Registration for the Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise costs $45 per car, with the Meguiar’s VIP entry pack including a selection of products, a further discount voucher for use at the Meguiar’s / Smits Group stand at Big Boys Toys, and, of course, entry to the show for everyone in your car. The Big Boys Toys team have come to the party here, and best of all your entire entry fee will be donated to CanTeen.

The Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise is limited to well-presented vehicles only — including customs, classics, hot rods, imports, and street machines. Those who do enter will go in the draw to win a People’s Choice Award, worth $700 in cash, as well as many other prizes, so get your registration in quick to avoid missing out.

Organizers want to raise as much as they can for CanTeen, so in addition to the 100-per-cent donation of the entry fee, Smits Group / Meguiar’s will donate 50 cents for every legitimate vote in the Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise Peoples’ Choice Award. Voting forms will be provided to every person entering the showgrounds via the event guide, plus spare copies will be available at the gate and at the Meguiar’s stand. The better your car is presented, the more votes placed, and the more dollars raised!

To join the charity cruise, get your car ‘show and shine’ ready and register for the Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise at the Meguiar’s website. Good luck, and we’ll see you there!

Chrysler’s classy cruiser

22 May, 2026

I first saw our feature car, a 1970 V8-powered Regal 770 hardtop, towing a trailer carrying the tidy Ford Anglia classic racing saloon in Broadspeed racing colours that has featured in these pages. The coupe is comparatively rare here, which means anyone contemplating purchasing one of these big two-doors is sure to see prices continue to climb. The latter Charger has claimed much of the Aussie Chrysler limelight, but the simpler and classier lines of this car, which appeared dated soon after its introduction, now have a more timeless appeal.
Former owner, Balclutha motor engineer, Mike Verdoner, remembers the car well. He believes it came from Dunedin originally.
“I’m not sure about the car’s history, but I bought it off its owner at Kaitangata. Unusually, it was advertised in the local newspaper, the Clutha Leader, which was a surprise as these usually go for a lot more money on the internet. I had it for quite a few years. It needed a little bit of work to tidy it up, so I had to decide whether to spend the money on it to do it up, which could have been twenty grand. Its value at the time was not like it is now, so I sold it to Ewan. It’s probably now worth three or four times what I sold it for.”

The Pininfarina 230 SL

14 May, 2026

It’s October 1964, and imagine you’re an automotive journalist covering that year’s Paris Auto Show (Mondial de l’Automobile). As you approach the Pininfarina booth, you come across a car that looks a bit like the Mercedes-Benz 230 SL introduced the previous year at the Geneva Auto Show, a car then arriving at Mercedes-Benz dealerships around the world.
But looking closely, its styling and proportions seem to be a bit different. And it has a fixed roof, unlike the Pagoda-style greenhouse of the removable hardtop seen on the production 230 SL. While today, the styling of the W113, under the supervision of Head of Styling Friedrich Geiger, with lead designers Paul Bracq and Bela Barenyi, is considered a mid-century modern masterpiece, acceptance in-period was not universal. Some critics called out the concave design of its removable roof, which ultimately gave the car its “Pagoda” nickname.

Keen to get involved in October’s Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise?

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