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The January 2017 issue of New Zealand Classic Car is out now!

12 December, 2016

By the time you open the pages of the January 2017 issue of New Zealand Classic Car (Issue No. 313), Christmas will quite literally be just around the corner. As always, the lead-up can be a stressful time for everyone. Leaving everything to the last minute seems to be the norm — well, for most of us, anyway — despite our best intentions not to make the same mistake again the following year. As our minds clog up with last-minute work details, what Christmas presents to buy, Christmas and holiday plans, not to mention atrocious traffic build-ups, it’s probably not a bad idea to take a moment or two to take a deep breath, relax, and thumb through the pages of this special Christmas issue.

Finally, I would like to wish all our loyal readers, advertisers, and contributors a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Drive safely over the holiday season, and we hope to see you next year.

Here’s a rundown of what we’ve put together for this issue:

Daniel Armstrong took a liking to the HR station wagon from an early age, and decided that it would be his first car.

The story of our featured Lotus 22 — frame number 22/47 — is both interesting and tangled. Feast your eyes on this beauty!

It has been said that once a Mini is in the family, you never really let go. Just ask Dean Foster!

Grab a copy of the January 2017 issue of New Zealand Classic Car (Issue No. 313) from a store near you, or order your copy below:

Almost mythical pony

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.