retro-classics - automotive blog

Archive for February, 2009

oldschool.co.nz Nationals 2009

February 17, 2009

March 13th & 14th!

It’s not far away now people. (less than a month!) If you’re interested in this and you aren’t on oldschool.co.nz I urge you to join and get something sorted out. The nationals will involve a track-day as well as a show, cruise, bbq and relaxation day where everyone can just enjoy their cars and others and the company of those whose passion is cars of the past. The majority on OS are small Japanese and Euro/Brit car types, though that’s not to say there’s no room for others, everyone is welcome.

Lonely Lancer

Details Below;

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: Events

Retro Pitfalls

1

February 16, 2009

by kyteler

Dodgey work by previous owners is one thing. Most people who buy a used or classic car are aware that at some point in it’s life it will have been mistreated, the likelihood of stumbling across that shed find wonder is fairly slim. Both my 1963 & 1973 Skyline, despite some time spent parked up 20 & 10 years respectively, were by no means immune. With the ’73 being a more common car I did expect it to be a little thrashed and rotten, though perhaps not as much as it turned out. The ’63 I didn’t expect as much wrong with it. There is a bit of rott which considering it’s age is quite slim, but the real problems lie in weird additions of wiring by previous owners and quick bodges here and there. However, as I said before these are things by previous owner’s and we come to expect them. What we don’t and should never expect is bodge jobs by actual automotive shops or at least those that call themselves such.

If you follow the link further down in this post you can browse through almost 100 pages of what is a horrible and painful saga for the unfortunate purchaser of a Dukes Of Hazzard replica which cosmetically seemed fine, as such;

Looks pretty at a distance

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: External Projects

Delivery from zeppan.jp!

1

February 13, 2009

by kyteler

Direct from Japan!

After Orion kindly posted about the closure of zeppan, I jumped onto their website and ordered what I could in the slim selection that was left. They arrived today, thankfully my boss is Japanese and she happily transferred the money into Takeshi’s account for me. The whole process took no longer than a week, even with several back and forth emails to add more on and comfirm details. It’s such a shame that zeppan.jp is closing up but I guess thems the breaks.

Anyway, here’s what I got;

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: Automotive Documentation

Teretonga; Classic Speed Fest.

0

February 12, 2009

by kyteler

IT RETURNS!

February means it’s time for the Classic Speed Fest. Invercargill’s portion of the Southern Festival of Speed. An annual event that goes through Christchurch, Timaru, Invercargill and Dunedin. Though in recent years the Dunedin section has been somewhat missed out. They don’t have a track, there’s a street circuit that gets laid out and.. as with most things, the few whingers ruin it for the on weekend of the year that it happens. There’s also a Hill-climb in the Dunedin segment, but I believe at least last year that road was being re-done.

To give a taste of the Classic Speed Festival, here’s a few snaps of cars from some previous years events.

Maserati 8 CM

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: Events

The “scene” that NZ forgot.

4

February 11, 2009

by kyteler

It’s not surprising that it was missed really, a scene that exploded in Europe and the UK went by relatively un-noticed here in NZ. Reasoning was likely due to the lack of need or requirement.

After-all, why get into small, compact, low capacity cars when there’s no insurance or congestion reason to do so. So, whilst NZ and Australian (and America) were still kicking about in V8s and large saloons, the UK and Europe got onto something altogether different, no doubt the Mini was a contributing factor to it all, however the 205GTi, the Golf GTi, the Alfasud’s and others kicked this up a notch.