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Weekly Motor Fix: the ’74 Ford Fairlane as seen in Westside

15 November, 2016

Those with a keen eye or a good memory may have spotted Chris Patterson’s 1974 Ford Fairlane being driven by Lefty in season one of Westside. 

A friend of Chris’, who supplies cameras to South Pacific Pictures, told Chris that the company was looking for vehicles along the lines of his Fairlane. Being a fan of Outrageous Fortune, Chris was only too happy for the car to be used. With the Fairlane being in such amazing original condition, the only change required for filming was to replace the current registration and warrant stickers with the period-correct items.

Chris’ search for the perfect family-friendly Australian Ford wasn’t an easy one. He hunted for a year, only to purchase one that wasn’t up to his standards. Thankfully, a day before the first purchase was delivered by rail from the deep south, the car you see here came up for sale as part of a deceased estate.

Prior to its coming into Chris’ possession, it was a genuine one-owner car, specially ordered in black — a colour the vehicles were not offered in off the showroom floor, as it was normally reserved for ministerial officials. The owner passed away six years before his widow, and the vehicle sat unused for that time. As such, it’s in remarkable condition, both inside and out — although the fact that it still has fewer than 100,000km on the clock also plays a part in that. With the purchase came all the vehicle’s original paperwork, including the original sales receipt for the sum of $7823.

Wanting to ensure that the car was reliable, Chris has added modern electronic-ignition components to the 302ci engine, as well as an aftermarket carburettor and manifold. The factory exhaust was beyond saving, so an aftermarket system complete with headers has taken its place. Also helping to improve the drivability of the car are the aftermarket wheels, which are along the lines of the wheels a character such as Lefty would have fitted to a car like this back in the ’80s.

Chris has owned the car for three years and has enjoyed driving it regularly, to the point that it sometimes gets driven to work, although, due to its large size — the cars are built on an extended XB Falcon platform — and the tight confines of the office car park, that’s not an everyday occurrence.

Vehicle driven by: Lefty Munroe
Ted’s right-hand man in the gang and husband to Ngaire, Lefty obtained his nickname because he only has one testicle. This obstacle hasn’t held him back, though — he loves the ladies and has had a string of affairs. Lefty is driven by his ego but also by his wife, who scares and enthrals him in equal measure.

This article featured in NZV8 Issue No. 134. You can pick up a print copy or digital copy of the magazine below:



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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.