restorations Archives | New Zealand Classic Car

A second dose of Dash

24 April, 2025

When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018 it was duly taken along for entry certification. Vehicle Inspection NZ (VINZ) found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways.
We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington and I pored over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work.

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.

Back from the brink – 1968 MGB GT

15 November, 2024

Auckland classic car enthusiast Kerry Bowman soon realised he had a massive job on his hands in restoring his classic 1968 MGB GT. When Kerry and his MGB first appeared in New Zealand Classic Car in March 2021, in “Behind The Garage Door”, the stripped-out shell had revealed some nasty surprises. Once the true extent of the hidden damage was discovered, the work would normally have been handed over to a professional fabricator. However, with the assistance of experts such as MG specialist restorer, Paul Walbran, Kerry has completed an impressive restoration and saved this car from the scrapheap.

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.

Saltwater Creek Garage

13 June, 2024

After passing by this building for many years, I decided to call in and ask the owner about his garage and the car that had been parked there. It was a 1982 Hyundai Pony 1200 TLS that he’d inherited from his mother who had bought it when it was nearly new. I was fortunate enough to buy it from him — many had approached him over the years but were turned away. After sitting out there for that long you could not imagine how dirty it was. At least it had never been wet in all that time. The interior is a mid-blue and almost like new — in fact his mother, Irene, had still retained the original factory-fitted thick clear-plastic cover over the mid-blue vinyl door panels.

The name’s Aston, Aston Martin

27 March, 2024

Martyn Jagusch didn’t intend to carry out a ground-up restoration on his 1971 Aston Martin DBS V8. Yet one glance at the car’s pristine condition shows he definitely changed his mind — or had it changed for him, which is nearer the truth.
The Aston Martin DBS V8 is a handsome car that only looks better with age. Enthusiasm for Aston’s earlier cars, especially the James Bond-era DB5 and the earlier super-sexy Zagato models, has been skyrocketing for years but appreciation for these larger and less iconic GT cars languished for a time. The V8 is less well recognized as a Bond car even though George Lazenby drove one in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969 as did Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights (1987).

Travelling companion

16 November, 2023

It’s easy to see why the Morris Minor Traveller was one of the best-loved variants of the Morris Minor. Introduced in 1953, it was equipped with the same independent torsion bar front suspension, drum brakes, and rack and pinion steering as its saloon sibling but, with their foldable rear seat increasing versatility, many Travellers were used as trade vehicles, says Derek Goddard. Derek and Gail Goddard, the owners of this superbly restored example, have run Morris Minors since before they were married in 1974.
“Our honeymoon vehicle was a blue Morris Minor van — it was a rust bucket,” says Derek.

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