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Missed an episode of Carpool? Watch it here!

8 April, 2019

  

 

Appreciate all the finer things in life? We’ve served up your Sunday afternoon viewing on a gold platter. The newest addition to Three’s line up, Carpool showcases the best of the New Zealand’s luxury car market and gives you an exclusive up-close and personal look at the latest vehicles from Ferrari, BMW, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Bentley, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, and Honda. A detailed offering unlike anything you’ve seen locally, Carpool is fronted by esteemed motoring writer, Cameron Officer, and will be broadcast straight to your living room each Sunday from 7 April until 28 April as part of CRC Motorsport on Three.

Featuring the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, Porsche 718, and Bentley Continental GT

 

 

Featuring the Aston Martin Vantage, BMW X5 M50D, and Lamborghini Urus

 

 

Featuring the Ferrari Portofino, Mercedes-Benz GLC 63S, and BMW M850i

 

 

Featuring the Honda Civic Type R, Aston Martin Superleggera, and Bentley Bentayga V8

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.