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Pukekohe Swap Meet approaching

22 February, 2016

The 39th annual Pukekohe Swap Meet is set to take over the Franklin A&P Showgrounds, Station Road, Pukekohe, on March 5 and 6, 2016.

The event, which is hosted by the Auckland branch of the Chevrolet Enthusiasts Car Club always attracts a huge crowd and offers a great variety of stalls, making for one of the last true swap meets still around. Also, this year’s Targa Rally will be using part of the grounds for their service base, and this will be open to the public to see!

Swap sites are just $40 including entry for the driver, or $15 including driver for Sunday only, with $5 entry on the gate for the public. Entry is free for classics or hot rods on both days.

For those intending on making a weekend of it, remember there are no bar facilities, but you are more than welcome to bring your own refreshments.

Call Rob on 0274 955 567, or email [email protected] for more info. There are a limited number of powered sites available, which need to be booked in advance. 

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.