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New Zealand Classic Car 379, July 2022 is out now!

28 June, 2022

The new(ish) time trial category in the Targa New Zealand rally has been a boon to classic car owners who no longer want to hammer their precious cars at ten tenths, but who still relish competition and keen driving on closed tarmac roads. This year, managing editor Ian Parkes went along as navigator in John Corbett’s magnificent Series 1 E-type to see why the event brought so many previous entrants back and nearly doubled the entry overall. He is enchanted by Emma, the Jag, and his experience of the event is also an education.

Read the full story in New Zealand Classic Car 379


 

 

Also in this issue: a mint Datsun 240K, New Zealand’s own version of Bruce McLaren’s road car project, and a look at the magnificence on offer at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. 


What to expect in the July 2022 issue of NZCC


American muscle, Japan style


Better than ever — Jaguar’s GT

Plus lots more in New Zealand Classic Car 379!

Almost mythical pony

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

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.