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Cruisin’ for Canteen

11 October, 2016

You’ve really gotta admire the folks that go out of their way for charities, and especially the large organizations that can make big things happen, changing the lives of an unquantifiable number of deserving people. Saturday, October 29 will be one of those days, with the Meguiar’s Car Crazy Charity Cruise supported by Big Boys Toys and Smits Group in support of Canteen. 

The cruise will host a wide range of vehicles, and will attendees will be provided gift packs and a unique told-on-the-day cruise route, finally ending up at Big Boys Toys. 

Upon arrival, those involved in the cruise will take part in a VIP lap through the live-action arena, right before parking up in a VIP area created just for the cruise. For those interested in taking part in the charity cruise, your car must be presented at a very high level, including customs, classics, hot rods, imports, and street machines — as this is a show after al!

What’s also a really cool aspect of the cruise is that Meguiar’s is donating 50 cents for every vote submitted in the People’s Choice Award competition, as well as donating the entry fees to Canteen. 

If you’re interested in entering your car into the charity cruise and supporting an amazing cause, click here. Entries cost $45 per car. 

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.”