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Legendary: The 4Guys Autobarn Legends of Bathurst Festival

22 March, 2018

 

 

Any true Kiwi car lover will have fond memories of their hero cars and drivers lapping Bathurst, but never did any ever imagine that Bathurst would come to New Zealand

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Maybe it’s not quite true that no one would ever have expected the legends of Bathurst to come to New Zealand, as, with Tony Quinn in charge of Hampton Downs, we’ve become to expect the unexpected. 

The 4Guys Autobarn Legends of Bathurst event took place over the weekend of January 13–14, and saw not just some of the hero cars from days gone by assemble at Hampton Downs but also many of the legendary drivers — names such as ‘Gentleman Jim’ Richards, Allan Moffat, Fred Gibson, John Goss, Steve Richards, and Paul Radisich.

In case you missed out, here’s a video recap for your viewing pleasure.

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.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

21 March, 2025

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.