Bay display: 25 years of the Marineland Hot Rod & Classic Car Festival

12 May, 2017

For those who don’t count duck shooting among their list of hobbies, the Sunday of May 7 may still have held a reason to load the boys into the car and go for a drive. Marineland Street Rod & Kustom Klub hold their Marineland Hot Rod & Classic Car Festival annually at the Meeanee Speedway just out of Napier, and it’s a show that is well worth your time.

Marking 25 years since the first ever Marineland show, this year’s show was a bit of a special one, which also paid tribute to the Ford Model T with a dedicated display to the original people’s car and hot rod base.

As soon as the gates opened at 7am, over 100 cars were ready to pass through the gates, with another 600 soon to join them. In fact, the gates had to be shut at 10am due to the Meeanee Speedway grounds being full to capacity!

In addition to the massive show and shine, the show also hosts its famous swap meet at which bargains abound for the keen treasure hunter, and a number of other entertaining side shows serve to keep everyone entertained. From engine fire-ups through to the spectacular crane-drops, and kids’ entertainment that also kept some of the bigger kids enthralled, the Marineland Hot Rod & Classic Car Festival is always a good time.

Just have a look through the photo gallery below to see what went on, or what you missed out on, and keep your eyes peeled for a full event report in an upcoming issue of NZV8 magazine.

Chrysler’s classy cruiser

22 May, 2026

I first saw our feature car, a 1970 V8-powered Regal 770 hardtop, towing a trailer carrying the tidy Ford Anglia classic racing saloon in Broadspeed racing colours that has featured in these pages. The coupe is comparatively rare here, which means anyone contemplating purchasing one of these big two-doors is sure to see prices continue to climb. The latter Charger has claimed much of the Aussie Chrysler limelight, but the simpler and classier lines of this car, which appeared dated soon after its introduction, now have a more timeless appeal.
Former owner, Balclutha motor engineer, Mike Verdoner, remembers the car well. He believes it came from Dunedin originally.
“I’m not sure about the car’s history, but I bought it off its owner at Kaitangata. Unusually, it was advertised in the local newspaper, the Clutha Leader, which was a surprise as these usually go for a lot more money on the internet. I had it for quite a few years. It needed a little bit of work to tidy it up, so I had to decide whether to spend the money on it to do it up, which could have been twenty grand. Its value at the time was not like it is now, so I sold it to Ewan. It’s probably now worth three or four times what I sold it for.”

The Pininfarina 230 SL

14 May, 2026

It’s October 1964, and imagine you’re an automotive journalist covering that year’s Paris Auto Show (Mondial de l’Automobile). As you approach the Pininfarina booth, you come across a car that looks a bit like the Mercedes-Benz 230 SL introduced the previous year at the Geneva Auto Show, a car then arriving at Mercedes-Benz dealerships around the world.
But looking closely, its styling and proportions seem to be a bit different. And it has a fixed roof, unlike the Pagoda-style greenhouse of the removable hardtop seen on the production 230 SL. While today, the styling of the W113, under the supervision of Head of Styling Friedrich Geiger, with lead designers Paul Bracq and Bela Barenyi, is considered a mid-century modern masterpiece, acceptance in-period was not universal. Some critics called out the concave design of its removable roof, which ultimately gave the car its “Pagoda” nickname.

Bay display: 25 years of the Marineland Hot Rod & Classic Car Festival

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