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The ultimate North vs South enduro-battle

7 February, 2017

 

New Zealand’s largest automotive distributor, Nichibo, is set to continue its support of the North Island Endurance Series into the 2017/2018 season. Nichibo currently holds the naming rights sponsor with their Mahindra brand, and it will now switch to Eneos — Japan’s top oil brand, with a strong heritage in Super GT and World Superbike racing in the motherland — for the new season. 

The Mahindra North Island Endurance series has been a massive success since its inception in 2013, and in conjunction with the Carters Tyres South Island Endurance Series and MotorSport New Zealand, the top 20 cars from both series will go head to head for winner-take-all New Zealand Championship titles at Christchurch’s Mike Pero Motorsport Park on March 18, 2017.

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The joint agreement will see the event run annually, alternating islands — it was hosted by the north at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park in March 2016.

It features a unique format, a one-off race for the Championship titles — to qualify you must finish within the top 20 in each series, and to eliminate trophy hunters, there are no allowances for wildcard entries. 

With some of the fastest cars in the country expected each year, and absolutely no championship strategy in play, it will make for an even more interesting new season of the North Island Endurance Series as the drivers no doubt fight their way into a qualifying place to try claim the title on home soil again in 2018. 

The 2017–’18 Eneos North Island Endurance Series will kick off at Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park Taupo, on May 20, 2017

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.”