Club Corner: Auckland Veteran and Vintage Car Club

26 August, 2016

 

The Auckland Veteran and Vintage Car Club was established in 1954. The club is affiliated to the New Zealand Vintage Car Club, along with 35 other branches, and enjoys a nationwide membership of approximately 8500, with the Auckland branch having 658 members. The clubrooms are situated at 39 Fairfax Avenue, Penrose, and are open every Thursday from 7pm to 10.30pm, and every Saturday from 4pm to 7pm. The clubrooms are licenced, so a convivial atmosphere generally prevails. The third Thursday of the month is club night, and the club usually has an invited guest speaker. 

The club has a 30-year rule that allows all types of motor vehicles up to 1986 (30 years old) to participate in club events. Within the club, there are motorcycle, commercial, and stationary engine groups. 

Each month, there is a run to a place of interest, and, in addition, there is the option of attending events at other branches. Membership entitles you to six bi-monthly publications of Beaded Wheels magazine, and a monthly Auckland-branch bulletin. The club has an extensive library, with most books being able to be borrowed. 

Recently, the club has experienced an increase in later-model vehicles being introduced and used in club events, and its members sincerely hope this trend continues. 

This article originally appeared in the May 2016 issue of New Zealand Classic Car (Issue No. 305). Grab a print copy or a digital copy of the mag below:


Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”