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Historical

Britannia rules the roads – Royal Tour Cars – part 2

13 June, 2025

Royal rollers and fancy Fords
Ford Zodiacs had transported the Queen Mother during her tour in 1958 but five years on, their glitz had perhaps faded a bit too much for an actual monarch. As there was no longer a convertible version of Britain’s Zephyr or Zodiac on offer, Ford looked to their American arm for a replacement, finding it in the huge Ford Galaxie. The Public Service Garage purchased the car at around £3000 for royal tour work and VIP transport.

Britannia rules the roads – Royal Tour Cars – part 1

30 May, 2025

Today we take royal tours for granted, but once upon a time, or at any time before the 20th century, it was impossible for our monarchs to visit their downunder dominions because of the distances involved and the unreliable transport.
The advent of steam power for ships and trains, the evolution of the motor car and, finally, the arrival of passenger air travel shrank their world, and ours, considerably, and the royal tour became a feature of the empire and the Commonwealth.
The first British royal visitor to Aotearoa, New Zealand, was Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1920. During his 28-day tour, he travelled mostly by the royal train, which was both safer and more convenient for royal personages. A variety of best-available cars were used locally. Ideally, these would be Daimlers.

Motorman: When the top trio took to the road

9 May, 2025

What sort of cars did Chris Amon, Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme drive when they weren’t on the race track? Motorman knows
Most top racing drivers do care about safety levels of road-going cars for everyday motorists and their all-round abilities behind the wheel. Jackie Stewart for one denied finding everyday driving boring. He took pride in giving his passengers the smoothest possible ride, and encouraged all drivers to actively engage in the task. They also make interesting choices for their transport away from competitive motoring.
Thirty years ago I spent a day with Chris Amon driving on lower North Island roads and I can remember those informative few hours as vividly as if they were yesterday. In 1983 Chris accepted a challenge from Toyota New Zealand to improve its locally assembled cars in a relationship that extended well beyond the end of New Zealand-built Toyota vehicles in 1997.

Time Machine

1 May, 2025

Our featured 1968 Shelby Mustang GT350 is a true survivor with only 53,000 miles (85,800 kms) on the clock. Its colour is called Meadowlark Yellow and was a special order with the paint code WT6066 for 1968 Shelbys only. In total only 109 cars got this colour and only eight were fastbacks. The vehicle was originally assembled at the Ford Metuchen plant in New Jersey in May 1968 before getting the Shelby treatment at the Ionia plant.
The first owner was a serviceman based in Japan with the US Air Force. He sold it in 2005 and the car was imported to New Zealand after being purchased for a museum in Putaruru. The vehicle then ended up in a private collection in October 2006 where it stayed for 15 years and only travelled 2000 miles (3200km approx.) in that time. The current owner has owned it since July 2021.

Lunch with… Jim Palmer

16 April, 2025

In the 1960s, Hamilton’s Jim Palmer won the prestigious ‘Gold Star’ four times and was the first resident New Zealander home in the New Zealand Grand Prix on five consecutive occasions. He shared the podium with Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, and Chris Amon. The extent of his domination of the open-wheeler scene in New Zealand will probably never be matched or exceeded. Yet he’s always been modest about his achievements.

Rural delivery

11 April, 2025

Lew’s initial assessment of the derelict Jeep was that it was pretty rusty but it looked complete and he thought it would make a pretty nifty and fun town car for Ann.
“That was about six years ago. It took me about four or five months to restore it; there’s not much to it. I don’t know a lot about the history of this Jeep, although I do know they made a lot of them. There are only a few in New Zealand and since I got it here, I’ve heard that there are one or two more in the country, but none of them on the road.” He believes one might be near Omarama and another in Christchurch.
Lew and Ann decided to put the Jeep back into its original distinctive US Postal Service livery and the result is impressive. Hours of sanding, grinding, and welding have produced a Jeep looking like it is fresh from the production line. The chassis was media blasted and repainted in a gleaming black, and all components were overhauled.

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.

Two engines instead of one?

13 December, 2024

Popping two motors into a car is not only complicated, it doesn’t always end well. Donn Anderson recalls early attempts, including John Cooper’s ill-fated original Twini Mini built 58 years ago

For a boost in performance, better traction, and perhaps improved handling to some, two motors seems an obvious solution. It would also eliminate the need to develop a larger engine replacement from scratch, but would that outweigh the not inconsiderable technical difficulties?
The idea of using a pair of engines dates back at least 86 years to the Alfa Romeo Bimotor single seater racing car that was officially timed at 335km/h, or 208mph. Taking a lengthened Alfa P3 chassis, the Italians fitted two supercharged straight eight 2.9-litre and 3.2-litre engines, one in front of the cockpit, and the other behind the cockpit.

Lunch with … Rodger Anderson

22 November, 2024

At first, I wondered if I’d driven up the wrong driveway. The car in the garage was an early Mustang resplendent in royal blue with two broad gold stripes, which was not what I was expecting. I knew that Rodger Anderson, who made his name in Minis and a BMW 2002, was a Porsche man these days — the other end of the spectrum from American muscle. I had no idea of his affection for Detroit iron. It didn’t take long to discover just how passionate this former Saloon Car Champion is about cars, as long as they’re interesting.

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.

Lunch with … Cary Taylor

11 September, 2024

Many years ago — in June 1995 to be more precise — I was being wowed with yet another terrific tale from Geoff Manning who had worked spanners on all types of racing cars. We were chatting at Bruce McLaren Intermediate school on the 25th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary Kiwi for whom the school was named. Geoff, who had been part of Ford’s Le Mans programme in the ’60s, and also Graham Hill’s chief mechanic — clearly realising that he had me in the palm of his hand — offered a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten: “If you want the really good stories, talk to the mechanics.”
Without doubt the top mechanics, those involved in the highest echelons of motor racing, have stories galore — after all, they had relationships with their drivers so intimate that, to quote Geoff all those years ago, “Mechanics know what really happened.”

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.”

Motorman: Insight into the future

16 August, 2024

Breaking the magic 100 miles per gallon barrier, or 2.82 litres/100 kilometres, on a seven-day drive around the circumference of mainland Britain was a challenge inspired by Dr Shigeru Miyano, a Japanese medical doctor who enjoyed a special connection with New Zealand. Shigeru had initiated successful fuel economy runs in the past, but his June 2000 attempt came with a significant difference.
While today’s motoring world is now awash with electrically-linked HEV, BEV, and EV vehicles, that seemed an unlikely alternative future 24 years ago. But Shigeru, a true pioneer of electric assisted motoring, pondered on the idea of using an early petrol/electric hybrid car to smash a fuel economy record as a pointer to the future.

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.

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.