Event guide: Caffeine and Classics

2 July, 2018

 


 

When: 29 July, 10am
Where: Smales Farm, Auckland

Just because it’s officially winter doesn’t mean that you can’t get your fix of cool cars. Brought to us by Protecta Insurance, Caffeine and Classics has easily become New Zealand’s largest monthly vehicle gathering.

And it doesn’t discriminate either, so all cars are welcome, as long as they can fit that all-important description of ‘classic’ — that means whether you’re taking your motorcycle, hot rod, muscle car, vintage, or classic, there’s always a massive and diverse line-up of cars just waiting to be checked out. The coffee’s not half bad, either, and it’s just the ticket for those chilly mornings.

Caffeine and Classics starts at 10am at Smales Farm in Auckland, and you don’t want to miss it!

Picking over the past – 1940 Ford V8 ½-Ton Pickup

Jim and Daphne Ledgerwood have been around Fords most of their lives. They love their Ford coupés and two door hardtops, while also making room for an occasional Chevrolet. Their Wanaka based ‘Originals’ collection, featured in New Zealand Classic Car’s July 2022 issue is headed by an outstanding time-warp black 1940 Ford Coupé, its original factory assembly markings and documents offering something of a nostalgia trip.
Jim’s early days in hotrodding in Dunedin were spent building up a number of early Ford pickups and he became a prolific builder of modified pickups.
“I had lots of early Ford V8s in those days and once I had finished them I often sold them on. I would run out of garage space. I had up to a dozen restored Fords at most times then.”

Motorman – The saga of the Temple Buell Maseratis

Swiss-born Hans Tanner and American Temple Buell were apparently among the many overseas visitors who arrived in New Zealand for the Ardmore Grand Prix and Lady Wigram trophy in January 1959. Unlike Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Ron Flockhart, Harry Schell and Carroll Shelby who lined up for the sixth New Zealand Grand Prix that year, Tanner and Buell were not racing drivers but they were key players in international motor sport.
Neither the rotund and cheery Buell nor the multi-faceted Tanner were keen on being photographed and the word ‘apparently’ is used in the absence of hard evidence that Buell actually arrived in this country 64 years ago.