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Contesting Bonneville Speed Week in a Mini

17 November, 2016

Kiwis and the salt flats in Utah, USA have a love affair that stretches back to the 1960s with Burt Munroe and his 1920 Indian. Ever since, hot rodders have travelled to the salt flats to battle the extreme elements and push their home-made machines far beyond what any manufacturer ever thought possible. It’s one of those bucket-list challenges that many dream of and few Kiwis actually achieve. 

In NZ Performance Car Issue No. 241 we sit down with the guys behind the Mini known as project 64; a group of Kiwis who have made their dream a reality not once, but twice. In 2016 they set two records, one of which was a reset of a record that they had previously claimed back in 2012. Built by a bunch of mad Kiwis based in Nelson, and with help from the Hartleys in the Manawatu, this little Mini Cooper has received worldwide press for its achievements, including a feature on Jay Leno’s Garage. Check it out here: 

The engine remains the factory 970cc capacity, but surprisingly makes 275kW on methanol, thanks to a BMW K1200GT twin-cam motorcycle head conversion and custom engine internals. The best speed Nelson has squeezed from it is 251.067kph. Grab your copy of NZ Performance Car Issue No. 241 to see what it’s like to run Speed Week, building motors on the salt, shaving your tyres, and pushing both man and machine, just like Burt did back in the ’60s. 

Take an on-board ride with Nelson during their 2012 salt adventures. 

NZ Performance Car Issue No. 241 will be in stores from Monday, November 20, but you can order your print copy now:




Grab a print copy of the mag now!

The butterfly effect

18 June, 2026

The man on the mountain bike pedalled over, taking it all in. Gazing in wonderment at this small Japanese coupe with butterfly doors, he said, “Wow, I have never seen one of these before. What is it?” When I told him it was a Toyota, he nearly fell off his bike.
The Toyota Sera is unique amongst ’90s Japanese coupes. The Sera, which is Italian for ‘evening’, can trace its roots back to Toyota’s AXV-II concept car. Launched as part of a trio of Toyota concept cars at the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show, it shared its underpinnings with the P70 Toyota Starlet. The similarities ended there, thanks to the AXV-II’s low-slung and rounded coupe styling with butterfly doors. These doors were held upright by gas struts when fully open. Glass covered the upper section of the doors and the rear hatchback.
These features, much to everyone’s surprise, were carried over to the production Sera in 1990. Toyota marketed the Sera, which means ‘will be’ in Spanish and ‘princess’ in Hebrew, as a funky alternative to the much-loved MR2.

Racing Mazdas

12 June, 2026

Both Rod Millen and Ron Kendall were rotary racing kings, emanating from the North Shore of Auckland, where I grew up. And the ultimate rotary techno guru was Bill Shiells, who developed the engine into a rocket ship while working out of Gulf Mazda in Takapuna from 1969, and later in his own business, Rotorsport. He began to extract some phenomenal horsepower from the enigmatic rotary engine. Bill was one of the first to race the Mazda RX-2 Coupe in 1971 and achieved immediate success, causing others to sit up and take notice, particularly the North Shore’s racing elite. They included Robbie Francevic, Rod Millen, Ron Kendall, John Woolf, John Le Feuvre, and Rex Findlay.