Get your trek on: 2017 Trillian Trek, day three

21 March, 2017

Words: Liane Clarke Photos: Liane Clarke, Jacqui Madelin, Black Magic

There’s no doubt that raising money for needy Kiwi kids is what drives the Trillian Trek – but it’s also about some tough old vehicles, great mates and just good driving.

Day three of the 27 yr-old event (formerly Variety Bash) offered up some welcome open road and a nice bit of gravel as the mobile fundraising convoy headed out to Kai Iwi Lakes after a sports morning at Dargaville Primary.

The Lakes stop was a good chance to get up close and personal with perhaps the most important vehicle in the fleet, a purpose-built ‘craft service’ trailer with two state-of- the-art BBQs, a prep bar and the all-important cold storage. The trailer is the baby of long-time ‘Trekker’ Mark Prujean who designed it a couple of years ago to cater perfectly to the needs of the event. A very generous donation from Fisher & Paykel and some good old kiwi ingenuity (beg, borrow and steal!) — repeat Trekkers wonder how they ever managed without it.

The trip out to the lakes had the Trek film crew, Black Magic, breaking out the drone for some beautiful panoramic shots celebrating both the driving and the Kiwi countryside.

As with similar events based around a shared passion, the ‘Trekkers’ really are a family. Some have been doing the annual run for 15 years or more and even when circumstances mean some of the old hands can’t make the whole week. If the route takes the group anywhere near someone’s home or bach, calling in is almost mandatory.

This time there was a chance to catch up with 15 year veteran Stu Chapman who has lived in the area for the past several years and had a little something in his garage that was well worth the detour.

Stu has recently bought a 1950 Ford F100 Bonus. In Poison Ivy green the restomod now sports a Boss 290 5.4-litre V8. Everything about the vehicle has been modified, although it still sports the original chassis. It’s Stu’s pride and joy, and he says the original owner, and his mate who did all the work on the car, cried when it was sold!

For those that don’t know Stu or the new car well, the plate does cause some confusion — it’s actually off his previous Ford Bonus which was a ’49. That had a 351 Windsor in it but Stu says this one is tidier and the modern Falcon GT running gear mean it is a bit of a force to be reckoned with.

It is definitely built for speed, with Stu telling us he gets it off the clock no sweat (on closed private roads of course!) and it stops on a sixpence — which is old fella talk for ‘the car reacts very quickly to the brakes and comes to a stop pretty damn quick’.

Would he take it on a Trek? Absolutely not — although, if there was a tar seal-only route …

Official route of the 2017 Trillian Trek:
19th March Day 1 — Matamata to Orewa
20th March Day 2 — Orewa to Dargaville
21st March Day 3 — Dargaville to Omapere
22nd March Day 4 — Omapere to Taipa/Coopers Beach
23rd March Day 5 — Taipa to Taipa
24th March Day 6 — Taipa to Russell
25th March Day 7 — Russell to Whangarei

For more information about this event, or how you can support Kiwi kids by donating, head to trekevents.co.nz or visit the Trillian Trek Facebook page

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.”

Get your trek on: 2017 Trillian Trek, day three

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