Nostalgic charm: The Very Vintage Day Out

1 October, 2018

 

It can sometimes be difficult to reconcile your hobbies with those of your partner, but the Very Vintage Day Out neatly straddles the divide with an awesome vehicle display featuring classic cars, muscle cars, and hot rods from the ’30s to the ’60s, as well as the Miss Pinup New Zealand beauty pageant, a bake-off, dressmaking competition, and the ‘Photo Safari’ — united by the appreciation of all things vintage, pinup, and rockabilly.

The event will display vehicles from a multitude of car clubs, including the American Muscle Car Club, Manukau Rod and Custom Club, Hibiscus Rodders, Trouble Bound Hot Rod Club, South Pacific Packards, and Auckland Hot Rod Club. They’re also opening the floor for other enthusiasts to display their period vehicles. If you’re keen to display yours, head to their registration page to register your vehicle for either day — each driver will receive a complimentary pass to the day’s event.

Now in its seventh year, the Very Vintage Day Out continues to cater to those passionate about pin up, tattoo art, retro fashion, and the cars that go along with it. Whether you’re just curious, or a diehard vintage aficionado — or your partner is — it promises to be a fantastic day out, with live music, a fully licenced bar, and great cars.

The Very Vintage Day Out takes place 3 and 4 November at ASB Showgrounds in Auckland. Head to veryvintage.co.nz for more info and to grab your tickets.

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.