Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i NZ Hot Rod

THE annual VCC Daffodil Day is one of those events that is well-supported throughout Aotearoa. This year, Nelson’s display was no exception. Well over 300 cars lined up in the paddock at the Club grounds on Lansdowne Road, giving everyone lots to look at and talk about. The team who run the annual Moutere Hop organised a cruise from Motueka through to Richmond to attend the show. Close to 100 cars took part in this event alone, making for a very impressive travelling road show as they all arrived on mass. Raffles, live music and plenty of food stalls kept the car fans and public well-fed and entertained. This is one of those annual events not to be missed no matter where it is being held throughout the country.…

LAST month, we published Part 2 of our expose of our early Kiwi hot rod history in Wellington and the surrounding areas. Special thanks to all readers who contacted us with leads about the first hot rod club in Wellington: “The Charioteers” and others. This month, we present Part 3 - the final in the mini-series featuring Wellington’s scene in the mid-fifties and very early 1960s. After the publication of parts 1 & 2 of this series, a few gems were discovered. Read on.…

IN the UK in the ‘60s, it was Beatlemania. The UK bought us the Mods & Rockers but not a car culture like that in the USA. The ‘60s California scene of surfing and hot rodding was taking off and backed with the music of The Beach Boys, The Surfaris, Jan & Dean, The Byrds, The Mamas and Papas, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. They all contributed to the California teenage life of the era. The Beach Boys hit single -’’Little Deuce Coupe”, released in 1963, encapsulated surfing and hot rod culture, a youthful innocence that transformed a local lifestyle into American mythology. Many years later, like 50 years on, Ewen was nearing retirement, and his love of early Fords and the pop culture of the Beach Boys saw him…

STEVE Wedlake joined East Coast Rodders in the late seventies with a ’38 Chevy coupe, a ’36 Chevy pickup and a ’34 Chevy sedan. He still has the ’34, which he purchased in January 1977. If marriage and raising a family (two sons, one daughter) slowed down his hot-rodding activity, well, you wouldn’t have noticed. Around the turn of the century, Steve also built a ’54 Ford Pop with a Capri V6 and a narrowed 9” Ford rear end, with the intention of involving his teenage sons, Jamie and Raymond. In 2007, Steve and 16-year-old Jamie bought a project ’29 Chevy Four-door sedan, which Jamie had specific plans for. He wanted it to be matte black with a ‘rat rod’ flavour but with a few modern luxuries such as electric…

WITH the list of names growing longer and longer every year, it’s now becoming more important than ever to honour and remember those who have gone before us. This year, Golden Bay Rodders in Motueka played host to the members of NZHRA’s Zone 8. Forty cars had pre-registered, and several more turned up on the day, gathering at 10.30 am at the Jack Inglis Car Park for a cruise and mystery run around the Moutere Valley - taking in the magnificent scenery while answering questions along the way. The cruise ended at the Lower Moutere School where lunch was provided by the staff and families of the school. The Teachers then picked their favourite car. The day wound up with a buffet meal at the Waimea Club in Richmond. The…

REMEMBER those young years when you were still in high school, and cars would pass you by, and the sounds on your Walkman would be drowned out by a rumbling Ford side valve V8 motor in possibly a ’37, ’38 or older Ford? It made you look up, unlike when your school maths teacher would get you to turn to page 27 and work out the Mathematica of 3.141592653. The Morry Minors, Vauxhalls, and Zephyrs just didn’t quite rock your boat in the same way as a Ford V8, and when they passed by, you could quite clearly hear the Rolling Stones belting out Get Off My Cloud on your Walkman clear as a bell. In 1966, 16-year-old Tom Clouston stood on the side of the road each morning in…

THERE is a saying, “No matter how much things change, they remain the same”. There was a time when, as young school kids, we had one or two “pen pals” Now we are on Facebook, and some of us have over a thousand so-called FB Friends. On Sundays, most fathers like mine would do the family thing and drive around local car yards to check out what cars were for sale. The industry called them “tyre kickers”. Nowadays, everyone goes on websites looking at what’s for sale. The most popular locally is Trade Me, and offshore it’s eBay. Rarely are we seen kicking tyres like our fathers. They actually didn’t kick them just to clear that matter up. Now, a “buyer” on Trade Me or eBay will have someone view…

THE West Coast Nationals is held annually in late August in Pleasanton, a quaint town 40 miles East of San Francisco. Good Guys host the event with the assistance of volunteers from the local P-Town Pushrods club and refer to it as the ‘Crown Jewel’ in their annual calendar. The three-day event is preceded by Hot Rod Week with runs to local shops and collections, and over the weekend, attracts over 2000 participant vehicles to the local fairgrounds, where cars are displayed amidst other activities, including a swap meet and car sales corral, trade displays (noticeably down this year), an autocross and this year even remote control car drag racing. Consequently, it has always been a popular destination for visitors from New Zealand, and this year was no exception.…

IN the summer of 1976, the 1933 Ford Pickup pictured here was advertised for sale in the Christchurch Press newspaper for $1400. At the time, Tom Clouston didn’t have that sort of money. Being 26 years old and married with a young family, as much as he would have liked the ‘33, his finances just didn’t allow the purchase. The pickup was sold almost straight away, and it ended up in the ownership of Graham Robinson, who lived in Foxton, a 45-minute drive south of Tom’s hometown, Turakina. Tom made contact with Graham, who really wanted a Ford 4-door sedan and was happy to swap with Tom if he had one. At the time, Tom had a ’34 Ford 4-door Sedan that he’d paid $450 for from a guy in…

THE Ol’ Skool Showdown was an idea that started as a comment at the NZ Land Speed Racing event at Goudies Rd, Reporoa, earlier this year that a drag racing event for motorbikes would be a great idea. Orb Morbey and Bernie (Smitty) Smith kicked the idea around and eventually came up with the concept that an event for pre-1969 motorbikes and pre-1949 cars might just work. Let’s make it a flag drop event, and that will be another point of difference and will also be as traditional as it gets. The Sunday after the Father’s Day Drags was chosen as it always seems to rain on the Father’s Day event, and more often than not their rain date two weeks later as well. Stacey Roper used her artistic talents…

MEL’S Diner was popularised in George Lucas’ classic American Graffiti movie, which was set in 1962. However, Mel’s has actually been in existence since 1947, and at its peak, the franchise operated 35 restaurants. The chain was sold in 1972, but Mel and his son relaunched the brand in 1985. Remaining true to its origins as a car hop eatery, many of the new generation of Mel’s host regular car events, including this example from the Auburn, California restaurant where over 100 cars recently rolled up for a Saturday morning ‘show’.…

I HAVE been involved in the Christchurch rodding scene since 1974 and have never come across Kevin Forbes until recently when I went out to his rural property on the outskirts of Leeston. On arrival, I remember that his place was vaguely familiar as decades before; it had a paddock full of over 30 old trucks, mainly Bedfords. It got the nickname “Bedford Row”. These are now long gone. This was not Kevin’s first ‘rodeo’ as he built a T-bucket way back in the mid-eighties, and he also had a stock 1939 Ford “barrel nose” truck. Kevin has only been a member of Rod Benders for three years, and at this time, his son was also a member, owning a T bucket as well. Over the years, he has amassed…

Background Kiwi hot rodder Brent Taylor visited the Ruskin Museum in Coniston, England. It features The Bluebird Wing, which houses Donald Campbell’s iconic hydroplane Bluebird K7. The gallery also contains the Orpheus engine from the K7, which lay in Lake Coniston for 34 years, plus extensive displays of memorabilia, a large-screen photographic presentation, and touch-screen interactives with much background information on this fascinating man. Bluebird is Born Donald Campbell was effectively a test pilot - akin to Chuck Yeager of the US Air Force. He went into uncharted territory to determine how fast it was possible for a boat to travel on water and to determine whether a “water barrier” existed. His World Water Speed record attempts began with his invitation to Ken Norris (an aerodynamist) and his brother (a…

THE embryonic sparks of NZ Drag racing first flew at the Kopuku Dragstrip in the mid-sixties. At that time, Kevin Cairns and a couple of mates, John Ivich and Terry Rogers, decided to try their luck at this new automotive adventure. They bought a ’38 Ford coupe, cut the roof off and went racing. The bug bit hard, and they decided to step it up. The choice of a new, faster car would have to take into account the adage of power-toweight ratio. They rented a garage in Margot St, Blockhouse Bay, Auckland and went searching at Jack Nazer’s Rosebank Auto Wreckers. The need for lightweight meant they would be shopping for either a Ford Ten or a Morris Minor. There were already a few Ford Tens running so a…

THE first day of spring (Father’s Day) was perfect for the 2024 Rock ‘n Wheels show at Amberley, just thirty miles north of Christchurch. With blue skies and 21 degrees, 835 various cars and bikes showed up for the biggest Rock ‘n Wheels yet. Add to that food stalls, coffee stalls, kids’ entertainment and live music from Brian Olin and the Rubber Band, making it a great day. It’s been an annual event since 2011, when 110 cars showed up. It’s grown each year. Profits all go back to the community, and this year, those who benefited were Amberley School, Broomfield School, Amberley Squash Club and Hurunui Boxing Club. But, according to organiser Katrina Platt, they have to earn it! Hence, pitching in to run the registration, parking, food stands…