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The twists and turns of crowdfunding

3 July, 2017

It seems every second article you read has a crowdfunding appeal attached. Of course, some are to help cure disease or help out those in need — and we tip our hats to those noble causes — but this one seems so pure and ridiculous in its simplicity, we can’t help but applaud the team behind it.

In 2011, Dominik Farnbacher drove a 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR around the main 12.9-mile circuit at Nurburg in just 7:12.13, breaking the road car track record in the process.

But a lot of water and horsepower has flowed under the bridge since then with the Lamborghini Huracán LP 640-4 Performante, the Porsche 918 Spyder, the Lamborghini Aventador SV, the Nissan GT-R Nismo and the Mercedes-AMG GT R having walloped the Viper’s time. But since the 5th generation Viper was introduced, staunch Viper fans have been desperate to get the newest generation ACR back to The Ring for another crack at the title.

With no appetite from the factory to break the record again, a few hardy souls led by Russ Oasis took a truly 2017 approach, started a GoFundMe account and threw their hat on the pavement. They had managed to convince Viper Exchange (a Viper dealer in Texas) to stump up a couple of 2016 ACRs should they raise enough money.

The fund was to cover the costs of getting the cars to Germany as well as a whole lot of gear and a couple of reputable drivers capable of taking the Viper back to number one (Farnbacher is back alongside Luca Stolz). The US$156,000 target was hit last month, and now an extra few grand sits in the account which should keep the Vipers on track for an extra half a lap or so.

Given that the Lamborghini Huracan Performante managed to knock around 20 seconds off the 2010 Viper’s lap time, we wish the newer Vipers godspeed and look forward to hearing the result later this month.

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”

Tradie’s Choice

30 August, 2024

Clint Wheeler purchased this 1962 Holden FJ Panelvan as an unfinished project, or as he says “a complete basket case”. Collected as nothing more than a bare shell, the rotisserie-mounted and primed shell travelled the length of the country from the Rangiora garage where it had sat dormant for six years to Clint’s Ruakaka workshop. “Mike, the previous owner, was awesome. He stacked the van and parts nicely. I was pretty excited to get the van up north. We cut the locks and got her out to enjoy the northland sun,” says Clint. “The panelvan also came with boxes of assorted parts, some good, some not so good, but they all helped.”