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New Zealand Classic Car takes on the BMW Alpine X-Drive Event

17 October, 2016

The day with BMW for its Alpine X-Drive Event began with a helicopter transfer over the magnificent Crown Range to the SHPG (Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds). It’s hard not to be excited when arriving to a line-up of well over a million dollars’ worth of gleaming Bavarian metal.

Under the guidance of BMW’s Driver Training team, led by Mike Eady, we were run through the dos and don’ts for the day.

Once into the swing of things, we were fed to the lion, Lars Mysliwietz — a famed German rally driver — who was our tutor for the drifting part of the syllabus.

We’ve put together a gallery for you to get an idea about just how beautiful the conditions were for our drive:

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Check out our full story in the November issue of New Zealand Classic Car (Issue No. 311).




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A second dose of Dash

24 April, 2025

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

16 April, 2025

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.