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Remember Captain Nemo’s six-wheeler?

23 June, 2015

Even the presence of Sean Connery couldn’t lift the 2003 flick The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen out of the doldrums. Critically pasted at the time — it scored a woeful 17 per cent on international movie site, Rotten Tomatoes — most critics feeling that the film’s creators had strayed too far from the source material: Alan Moore’s series of graphic novels. However, one of the movie’s saving graces was Captain Nemo’s amazing six-wheeler car.

Deigned by production designer and art director Carol Spier, Nemo’s steampunk-inspired car actually started life as a humdrum Land Rover fire tender. The Landie’s chassis was then draped with a fibreglass body embellished with antique gold-looking decorations that took their design cues from the Hindu god Ganesha.  The car’s wheels each measure 72cm and, hidden within the arches, are hydraulics enabling the car’s ride height to be adjusted.

Powered by a Rover V8, Nemo’s car was a totally functional bit of movie kit — and featured a fully trimmed interior complete with a complete set of Land Rover gauges. After several years in storage, the car is now showing some signs of wear as well as evidence of running repairs undertaken during filming.

However, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus car remains in full running condition and will go under the hammer at Coys Blenheim Palace auction on July 11. The car’s sale price is estimated to be in the range of £18,000–25,000 (NZ$41,500–57,600).

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.”