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A monster track car and an incredibly rare road car

16 September, 2016

This Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato was the second car to be born from the wedding of the two brands, the first being the simply stunning DB4 GT Zagato — with just 19 race versions built, they now reach well in excess of $15 million apiece — and more recently there’s been the DB7 Vantage Zagato, the 2011 V12 Vantage Zagato, and the freshly released Vanquish Zagato. In the early 1980s, Aston Martin engaged Zagato to take a look at the Vantage shell with a view of making it a sleeker, faster beast by improving aerodynamics and shortening the chassis. The result was a modern if somewhat demure take on what a road-going race car should be.

It was pretty well acknowledged by enthusiasts and Aston Martin that this particular car was the best road car it had ever built. No electronics, and a ZF five-speed mated with a fire-breathing V8. “As a road car, the formula was perfect,” the owner said.

Check out our full story in the October issue of New Zealand Classic Car — grab your copy now:




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Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

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

25 September, 2026

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.”