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Top-shelf metal on display at Big Boys Toys 2015

29 October, 2015

Big Boys Toys is, without a doubt, New Zealand’s biggest mainstream ‘bloke-fest’ — a massive expo dedicated to all the things that make Kiwi blokes feel warm and gooey inside; chiefly, fast cars and power tools. There will be some amazing gear on display, but if the exotic supercars, showroom Euros, CrossFitters, and boats don’t tickle your fancy, we’ve got you covered.

On display we’ll have a range of cars — cars built and restored by regular Kiwi car enthusiasts — covering our three motoring titles, New Zealand Classic Car, NZ Performance Car, and NZV8, as well as a stream of our new TV show NAC Car Culture. 

The NZ Performance Car boys have managed to sort out a pretty wild machine to show off this year — Daynom Templeman’s outrageous, and only just completed, BMW M3. This thing is a real deal, pro-spec drift car, powered by a nitrous-equipped 2JZ-GTE pumping out over 1000hp, and with a dozen Santa sacks full of top-shelf gear — think Wisefab steering and suspension gear, Kevlar body parts; the works. Make no mistake, you’ll want to see this weapon right up close. 

Eight cylinder power is taken care of with Mike Bari’s brutal 1971 Chev Chevelle, as featured on the cover of NZV8 Issue No. 123. No stranger to tough street cars, having built a street-legal nine-second Ford Capri back in the ’90s, Mike’s latest creation is about as tough as they come. Not only has the Chevelle’s ample bodywork been massaged to perfection, it’s also been built 100-per-cent correct to run easy single-digit quarter-mile passes. They should come in due course, courtesy of a mammoth 598ci big block Chev, aided by a progressive port and plate nitrous system. The whole car is a masterpiece in engineering and finish, and one that you should see to believe. 

Last, but not least — except in size — is the diminutive Fiat Abarth 500 on display for New Zealand Classic Car magazine. Roger Bourne purchased this example, a 1963 Fiat Abarth 500 with a full convertible roof, from Trade Me, before getting it completely restored. The boot lid covers a larger Fiat 126 engine, which has been rebuilt and modified by the team at Marsh Motorsport — while it won’t run four-second quarter-miles, it sure is a neat, and very cool, little cruiser. 

In addition to the cars we have on display, you’ll also be able to watch episodes of our new TV show NAC Car Culture, usually broadcast from 2pm every Sunday on TV3, and you can pick up some pretty sweet subscription offers to our motoring titles while you’re at it.

Performance art

4 April, 2025

Shelby’s targets were Superformance — a South African company that wanted to sell its versions of these cars in the US — and the US-based Factory Five. Their defence was that the name and shape of the Cobra car were abandoned when Shelby American ceased production of these particular models back in the 1960s.
Shelby countered with: “We spent millions of dollars creating the name and the car and winning the world championship. These knock-off-car guys don’t deserve the credit or the profit for what my team and Ford accomplished in the ’60s.”
Superformance painted an even bigger target on its back by also producing a version of Shelby’s Daytona coupé. Other cars in its production stable were Mk1 GT40 and 1962 Corvette Grand Sport replicas, but we’ll focus here on the Daytona.

Design accord

28 March, 2025

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.