Scott Dixon to headline Legends of Speed event

18 August, 2016

When you’ve got an event where all of those in attendance could be the headline act, it’s hard to be blown away by just one big name. However, the 2016 event may be the one that changes that, as it is said that Kiwi motorsport icon Scott Dixon is to headline the Giltrap Prestige–backed Legends of Speed event, being held on November 25 at Auckland’s Vector Arena.

Legends of Speed is a Kiwi motorsport superstar haven, with Earl Bamber, Greg Murphy, Brendon Hartley, Hayden Paddon, and now the recently announced Scott Dixon, all to be showcased at the 2016 event, with never-seen-before footage and interviews. Alongside current motorsport icons, the event will showcase the legends of yesteryear and the progression of New Zealand and Kiwi motorsport on a global scale. 

Scott Dixon has had an outstanding career since joining Chip Ganassi Racing at the beginning of his IndyCar career, and has won the IndyCar championship in 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2015. Scott also took out the 92nd Indianapolis 500 in 2008, from pole position. With 38 wins, Scott is the leading driver in the current IndyCar series, so to have him back on home soil to promote New Zealand motorsport and its athletes is a real treat. 

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.