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Caffeine and Classics to celebrate fifth anniversary

16 February, 2018

 


 

Caffeine and Classics is a brunch-style event held on the last Sunday of every month, and open to all types of classic vehicles. Motorcycles, hot rods, muscle cars, vintage and classic cars are all welcome to come along for a coffee, and to have a look at the wide variety of vehicles that are present.

The event is held from 10am to 12pm at Smales Farm car park, Northcote Rd, Takapuna, beside the motorway, and just 5km north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. There is plenty of easy parking.

Caffeine and Classics has become New Zealand’s biggest monthly meet. With numbers ranging from 350 to over 1000 vehicles every month, it is a great place for like-minded enthusiasts to get together.

For the fifth anniversary celebrations on February 25 there will be a free gift upon entry of a high visibility, reflective safety triangle (approx. value of $20) for the first 500 vehicles, kindly supplied by Dura Seal. The organizers of Caffeine & Classics support safe motoring, and believe that all cars should carry a safety triangle to alert traffic of an accident or broken down vehicle, and what better way to achieve this than to give one away. Thanks Dura Seal!
So come and join in. All car and bike enthusiasts are welcome.

For more information visit facebook.com/caffeineandclassics.
 

Almost mythical pony

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.