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Looking back to 1969 – The Ford Capri launch in UK Autocar January 1969

10 November, 2020

 

 

NZ Classic Car magazine readers often donate boxes of car magazines from the 50s, 60s and 70s from their garages for our own archives.
Here’s an occasional look inside a magazine chosen at random from our collection. Let’s look at what treasures the weekly UK Autocar issue from January 23rd, 1969 has for us – cover price, 2s/6p.

The big, big news this issue is the brand new Ford Capri, launched on this day in the UK. This issue of the magazine took the bold step of going on sale a day late this week so their cover strap could coincide with the launch “Out today, new Ford Capri”.
There’s 10 pages of coverage including a road test in Cyprus and an in depth look at the new 4-valve per cylinder, Ford Cosworth BDA engine. This exciting new engine was going to find its way into 100 of the new Capris before committing to volume production in the Autumn of 1970.
There is also a visit to the 1969 Brussels Car show where there were “Few novelties but plenty to see”.
Our own Eion Young’s Straight from the grid column had a small paragraph on how “New Zealanders have been making their presence felt on Grand Prix race tracks for a while” and even a report from Eion on the Lady Wigram trophy that year where Lotus finished first and second. Jochen Rindt won by a “handsome 2.6 seconds”.
There’s a good fun article about enjoying some off road thrills in a Saab 96 V4, and the Autotest this issue is the basic 1599cc Vauxhall Victor. Quite an in depth test and spec report. 

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Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”