Cars Archives | New Zealand Classic Car

Westside story

25 October, 2024

For the young Dave Blyth, the Sandman was always the coolest car and he finally got one when he was 50. “I have always had a rule. When you turn 50, you buy or can afford to buy the car you lusted after when you were 20. I was 20 in 1979 and the HZ Sandman came out in 1978. It was the coolest of the cool — I just wanted one,” he says. “Back then a Sandman cost $4500 new and a house was worth about $20,000. I made about $30 a week so it was an impossible dream then.”
Dave was heavily influenced by the panel van culture of the time. “I started with an Escort panel van and upgraded to a Holden HD panel van with a 186ci six cylinder. I started a van club, Avon City Vans.

Put a ring around that

18 October, 2024

Provenance is a valuable part of a classic car and DKW/Auto Union collectors Brendan and Bobbette Odell have a detailed documented history of a special car in their growing collection of these little two-stroke wonders.
Brendan’s hometown of Pretoria enjoyed more than its fair share of the marque, where their reliability and performance made them popular..
“There used to be a joke going round in South Africa that there were more DKWs in Pretoria per square mile than anywhere else in the world,” Says Brendan.
The Odells redressed that balance a little when they shifted to New Zealand as they brought some of the cars with them.
One of their DKWs also accompanied them to Tonga. Brendan’s green 1959 Auto Union 1000 two-door went with them from South Africa to Tonga from 2010 to 2013 where he worked for the local airline. It then travelled on with them to New Zealand. It is one of just 10 right-hand drive cars of the two-door basic model remaining worldwide.

Stag roars again

11 October, 2024

The Triumph Stag pictured here has been lovingly restored from what was once, in the owner’s words, “a horrible, terrible job”. Owners Glynn and Alison Gaston hail from Dunedin and along with their grandchildren now enjoy cruising in the Stag after a three-and-a-half-year restoration.
In 2011, Glynn was looking for a classic car to restore. After 21 years with Air New Zealand he was working as a Super Shuttle driver, with four days on and four days off, which gave him the time to take on such a project — something he had always wanted to do.
“I’d looked at quite a few cars over the years. The idea was to restore a car as something to keep me going. I had looked at different MGs and I would have quite liked an Austin Healey or something similar but they were really expensive.
“Then I saw a Stag and I thought, Ah, this is nice. This is what I would like.

Our cover car is winning prizes

10 October, 2024

The stunning 1958 Buick cover car from our September/October 2024 issue 395 magazine, is winning awards at car shows. Congratulations to Dave and Catherine Parker on taking out Presidents choice at the Tararua Rodders Crome & Custom show. The Buick had to beat some fierce competition to achieve first place with plenty of top quality vehicles on show.
Photographs Dan Strawbridge and Kevin Walsh.

The ultimate journey – 1959 Cadillac Commercial

2 October, 2024

An indication of where some of the money went is in the skilled, painstaking workmanship of David Wilkens, who told me he spent a considerable number of the total of 800 hours in removing all the small dents from the chrome work. About 60 per cent of the body eventually required rust removal or replacement, A new 6.2-litre Chevrolet LS3 crate motor with 317kW (431hp) has replaced the Chev 350, which replaced the original Cadillac 390ci V8. Suspension, brakes, wheels, and tyres were all upgraded, adding to the cost.
David says working on the Cadillac was a labour of love for him and his crew. It took three men to manoeuvre the grille, proving what Simon says about everything on Colin being big.

Escort services – 1968 Escort 1100 Restomod

19 September, 2024

The Escort started off as a 1968 1100 cc two-door sold-new in Britain. At some point it was retired from daily duty and set aside as a pet project for someone. When that project began is unclear, but much of the work was completed in 2014 including a complete rotisserie restoration.
By the end of 2014, it was finished but not completed. Its Wellingtonian owner bought it sight unseen from the UK and it landed here in early 2020. It was soon dispatched to Macbilt in Grenada North, Wellington for them to work their magic.
Macbilt had two instructions: to get the car through compliance for use on the road; and to improve the vehicle and finish the project so it drove as well as it looked. Looking at the car now, it has an amazing presence and stance. It can’t help but attract attention and a bevy of admirers.

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.”

A real Italian espresso – Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato 1600

9 August, 2024

Photos don’t do it justice; they tend to flatten the curves. Rather than being made of the flat pieces of metal the pictures suggest, this car is in fact a collection of subtle and shaped curved lines that somehow look almost straight — sort of like Twiggy was in exactly the same era. The final result is just as pretty and doesn’t weigh much more than she did.
Milan, in the top left-hand corner of Italy, is a long-established home for Italian fashion houses, a place where craftspeople drape the finest materials over the finest forms to create some of the world’s finest fashion clothing. It is also home to another Italian design and create industry; it is the region that headquarters the Stellantis group, which used to be called Fiat, and Alfa Romeo is a part of that.

The Bronze Blowtorch — Chrysler’s ill-fated turbine car programme

2 August, 2024

Chrysler’s Ghia-bodied Turbine Car, in its distinctive Turbine Bronze paint and black vinyl top, was a head-turner even before it fired up. To many, its exterior design language echoed that of Ford’s Thunderbird. This should come as no surprise given that both were guided by Elwood P Engel, who had moved from Dearborn to Highland Park in 1961 after having designed the 1961–1963 third-generation T-bird. It’s engine, however, was something else altogether.
On 15 May 1962, Chrysler announced the limited production build of 55 gas turbine-powered cars. The cars would be lent to 203 drivers for three-month test drives over a period spanning more than two years. Only 46 cars actually went to the general public. Five were prototypes, two were held by Chrysler for marketing and dealer programmes while two were stars of the Chrysler pavilion at the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair.

Porsche New Zealand Celebrates Certification of New Porsche Classic Technicians

2 August, 2024

Porsche New Zealand proudly announces that three of their talented technicians have successfully completed the prestigious Porsche Classic Technician training program and are now officially Certified Porsche Classic Technicians.
Ricky Urry and Kai Newstead of Giltrap Porsche, along with Savannah Mountney-Needham from Continental Cars Porsche, have demonstrated exceptional skill and dedication throughout the rigorous training process. This accomplishment is a testament to their unwavering commitment to preserving and servicing classic Porsche vehicles to the highest standards.

Almost mythical pony

25 July, 2024

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

17 July, 2024

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.

Fear and loathing the blue oval – part one

5 July, 2024

The slogan went something like ‘There’s a Ford in your future’. ‘Bugger off!’ were always the words that sprung to my mind. Ford and I have never really got on in the manner of many of my friends, so I’d say my relationship to the brand was distant. The accelerating blur of passing time has helpfully blanketed memories of a few Ford encounters which I probably wanted to forget but I have to admit, now I look at them, they are re-appearing through the mists of time. What comes to mind more readily, to quote some uncharitable wit, is that the letters Ford could stand for ‘fix or repair daily’. Still, I have to ’fess up, there were several Fords in my past.

Class struggle

25 June, 2024

For a British car, it is huge; for those sitting inside, the bonnet seems to extend past the horizon. The front seats are very comfortable rather than body hugging. The dashboard and centre console cluster are beautifully laid out, reminiscent of a fighter plane cockpit, with acres of red leather all around. Its V8 burble is on show. It is not a car to sneak about in, and it gets attention wherever it goes.
The large back window, possibly the best-known feature of the Interceptor and one that sets it apart, has very good functionality, allowing greater access to the boot. It would not be an easy job to replace it, so Interceptor owners are careful about reversing and not hitting anything.

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