Search
Close this search box.

Add the latest issue of New Zealand Classic Car to your collection now

1 November, 2015

This month’s special Targa edition (New Zealand Classic Car Issue No. 299) is packed full of great cars, and includes the comprehensive Official Targa New Zealand Programme complete with maps, full driver profiles, and car directory.

Read all about a freshly prepared Porsche 911. When the owner of this Porsche decided upon a fresh new look for the 2015 Targa New Zealand event, he drew inspiration from the International Race of Champions (IROC) Porsche 911 raced by Denny Hulme in 1973.

We also take a look at three modern day GTs taking part in this year’s Targa Tour event — a BMW M3, Nissan GT-R, and a Mercedes-Benz C63 coupé.

If Targa competition isn’t your cup of tea, then flick through and read all about a very special, beautifully restored Citroën H van. This van is a popular sight on Auckland’s waterfront as it serves up the best organic coffee in town by the roadside.

As always, there’s lots of current news items, as well as our usual Trade Professionals, Motorsport Flashback, and Behind the Garage Door projects to read about, plus much more.   

You don’t even need to venture to your local supermarket or bookshop to pick up a copy — just grab a print copy or a digital copy of Issue No. 299 below.


ROTARY CHIC

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

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.”