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The Bruce McLaren story: check out the McLaren trailer now!

26 February, 2017

The inspirational documentary account of Bruce McLaren’s pioneering spirit, unswerving tenacity, and endless passion, McLaren is set to grace the big screen.

Directed by Roger Donaldson (The World’s Fastest Indian), McLaren is set to appear in cinemas in June 2017.

Roger Donaldson says, “I was delighted to be involved in the telling of such an incredible New Zealand story — bringing it to life on the big screen has been a huge effort from all involved in Bruce’s legacy. Ever since seeing Bruce McLaren and Jack Brabham race each other in the Tasman series years ago, I’ve been a McLaren fan. Few people know just how extraordinary his journey was and how much he accomplished in his short life.”
 
Produced by Matthew Metcalfe (Beyond The Edge), and Fraser Brown (Orphans & Kingdoms), the film features contributions from renowned drivers Emerson Fittipaldi, Alastair Caldwell, Dan Gurney, Lothar Motschenbacher, Chris Amon, Howden Ganley, Mario Andretti, and Sir Jackie Stewart, and offers unprecedented access to the McLaren family and archives.
 
McLaren will be released in New Zealand cinemas by Transmission in June 2017. It is to be distributed to the rest of the world by Universal Pictures.

The butterfly effect

18 June, 2026

The man on the mountain bike pedalled over, taking it all in. Gazing in wonderment at this small Japanese coupe with butterfly doors, he said, “Wow, I have never seen one of these before. What is it?” When I told him it was a Toyota, he nearly fell off his bike.
The Toyota Sera is unique amongst ’90s Japanese coupes. The Sera, which is Italian for ‘evening’, can trace its roots back to Toyota’s AXV-II concept car. Launched as part of a trio of Toyota concept cars at the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show, it shared its underpinnings with the P70 Toyota Starlet. The similarities ended there, thanks to the AXV-II’s low-slung and rounded coupe styling with butterfly doors. These doors were held upright by gas struts when fully open. Glass covered the upper section of the doors and the rear hatchback.
These features, much to everyone’s surprise, were carried over to the production Sera in 1990. Toyota marketed the Sera, which means ‘will be’ in Spanish and ‘princess’ in Hebrew, as a funky alternative to the much-loved MR2.

Racing Mazdas

12 June, 2026

Both Rod Millen and Ron Kendall were rotary racing kings, emanating from the North Shore of Auckland, where I grew up. And the ultimate rotary techno guru was Bill Shiells, who developed the engine into a rocket ship while working out of Gulf Mazda in Takapuna from 1969, and later in his own business, Rotorsport. He began to extract some phenomenal horsepower from the enigmatic rotary engine. Bill was one of the first to race the Mazda RX-2 Coupe in 1971 and achieved immediate success, causing others to sit up and take notice, particularly the North Shore’s racing elite. They included Robbie Francevic, Rod Millen, Ron Kendall, John Woolf, John Le Feuvre, and Rex Findlay.