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Possum-killers: Narva Platinum Plus 130

10 August, 2017

 


 

With hundreds of different products thrust under your nose on a daily basis, we don’t blame you if you feel a little dubious when a new product hits the market, especially when you’re supposed to trust it for use on your pride and joy.

Luckily, we’re here to put these products through a rigorous ‘brofessional’ test, so that you can make a more informed choice when you’re staring at the shelf in your local. 

This month’s product is Narva’s latest offering in high-performance headlight bulbs, its Platinum Plus 130. The vehicle we fitted with the bulbs was an older E53 BMW X5 pre facelift, as the old yellow H7s bulbs it ran really dated the tow car’s looks at night. Fitting a new set of bulbs to any vehicle is a pretty straightforward process and can usually be done without tools. But X5s are a little different, and we needed to remove the entire headlight unit, whereas on most cars you can gain access to the rear of the assembly and simply click the bulb in place. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, it truly is a five-minute job. 

Your headlight will take either the H4 or H7 type, but be warned, when installing your new bulbs, do not touch the glass piece of the bulb. Wear gloves, as the oils and salts on your fingers will damage the quartz glass and shorten the bulb’s lifespan. If you do touch the glass, though, all is not lost. Simply wipe the bulb clean with rubbing alcohol or a solvent and remove all the excess with a dry cloth or paper towel. 

Narva advertises the Platinum Plus 130 as emitting 130 per cent more light than your traditional H4 or H7 bulb. While we had no real means of measuring the light output in a scientific manner, as you can see in our brofessional before-and-after wall test, there is considerably more light for the same power input. We were impressed. The other big change was the colour of the light itself, which switched from a yellow to a bright white, to instantly bring the truck into this century. The pack also included the park-light bulbs to match. 

A set of Narva Platinum Plus 130 bulbs retail for around $100, and they’re also available in singles from all leading automotive retailers nationwide. 

 

Lunch with … Cary Taylor

11 September, 2024

Many years ago — in June 1995 to be more precise — I was being wowed with yet another terrific tale from Geoff Manning who had worked spanners on all types of racing cars. We were chatting at Bruce McLaren Intermediate school on the 25th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Kiwi for whom the school was named. Geoff, who had been part of Ford’s Le Mans programme in the ’60s, and also Graham Hill’s chief mechanic — clearly realising that he had me in the palm of his hand — offered a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten: “If you want the really good stories, talk to the mechanics.”
Without doubt the top mechanics, those involved in the highest echelons of motor racing, have stories galore — after all, they had relationships with their drivers so intimate that, to quote Geoff all those years ago, “Mechanics know what really happened.”

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.”