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Fords and more – November 2020 issue on sale now

19 October, 2020

 


NZCC 359

 

From their exotic curved sideglass to their curved everything else the late-50s Alfa Romeo Guilia and Giulietta Sprint Speciales proved automotive exotica weren’t just for the super-rich. Owner of this gorgeous 1962 example, Michael Wyatt, says the lower-powered 1300cc Giulietta is even more special as it really makes the most of this super aerodynamic shape. This month we also feature  one of Ford’s best, the the Mk 11 Capri 2.8i, and we celebrate one of the greatest auto engines of all time, the 6¾-litre V8 in the limited edition 2020 Bentley Mulsanne 6.75, a swansong for 60 years of pace and grace. We also look at a sort of K.I.T.T. car, the Pontiac TransAm, and a car that looks better with each passing year, the Isuzu Piazza.         

Get yours in store now or delivered to your door from magstore.nz – New Zealand Classic Car – Issue 359.

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.

Range Rover CSK — the original SUV

5 June, 2026

The Range Rover, thanks to Charles Spencer King, went into production in 1970 boasting an iconic shape that would last until 1996. The vehicle that would create the SUV moniker came about because Rover decided it was time to add a bigger four-wheel-drive vehicle, one with a 100-inch wheelbase, to the model range. Land Rover made a 109-inch wheelbase model but the standard vehicle had a 88-inch wheelbase.
The new model would be more suitable for road use than the existing Land Rover, which was considered to be predominantly for rural use. To make sure it could cope on any road it came standard with the Rover 3.5-litre V8 engine. The body design was originally sketched by King and went into production with only a few minor touch-ups by the Rover styling team.
According to King, “The idea was to combine the comfort and on-road ability of a Rover saloon with the off-road ability of a Land Rover. Nobody was doing it.”