BEADED IIBBLS .NaZa VETERAN AND VINTAGE MOTORING

JUNE •. J 9 6 7 ~

"HORSELESSCARRIAGE"

In 1893 the first gasoline pow ered motorcar in the U nited Sta tes cru ised downthe main streets of Springfield, Mass., at a speed of five mil es an hour! This carwas made by two brothers, Charles E. and J. Frank Duryea.

In 1896 Henry Ford dro ve his first car out. of the machine shop in Detroit.

Later, his system of machine-made, interchangeable parts, and assembly line

production, put motorcars within the price range of the man-in-the-street,

By the beginnin g of the 20th century, 8,000 motorcars were registered in

the United States. These were powered by steam, gasoline or electricity, and

even then they did not look much like the original "Horseless Carriage."

Some of the law s passed in the early days of the motorcar make us chuckle

today. For instance, one community ruled that if a horse refused to pass a

motorcar the driver of the car must "take the machine apart .. • and conceal the

parts in the grass". In some places motorcars were banned entire ly, and angryfarmers guarded their livestock with shotguns against these "contraptions of the

devil."

It is easy to see that early motorists were indeed brave pioneers, often

running risks that would be hard to imagine today, for they al so had to contend

with the discomfort of rough roads, open driving seats and temperamental

engines. T'imes. have changed and those first motoring enthusiasts would be the

first to ' appreciate the advances made both in car and tyre design since the

exciting, stimulating days of the "Horseless Carriage."

FIRESTONE Tyres, since the earliest days of motoring, haveset the standard of reliability, economy and safety. Today's motorist,like his father and grandfather before him, looks to Firestone forEXTRA mileage and EXTRA reliability.

Bead ed Wheds is the vo ice of th e Vintag e Car M ov ement in N ew Zealand an d of the Cl ubs w hose effor tsare foster ing and ever w ide ning the in terest in this m ovem ent an d form rallying po int s fo r that eve rincreasing band of enthusiasts. Th e fascination of ag e itself or revul sion [rom th e fla shy m edi ocrity of ourpresent day is d rawing an incr easing nu m ber of m otorists bac k to the indi viduality, solid worth , andfu nct ional elegance that was demanded by a more disc riminat ing ge neratu.n and it is to these that weded icate -

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VO L. XII , No . 50 j U I\'E, 1967

Bead ed Wh eels is PublishedQuarterly by the

VI NTAGE CAR C LUB OF N.Z . I N C.

20 HACK T HO RN E ROAD

CH RIST CHU RCH , 2, N EW Z EALAN D

Yearl y Subscrip tion 10/- post free.Individ ual copies 2/ 6 each.

Editor : Mrs M . J. ANDERSON.Assistant Ed itors:

B WYC I·IER LEY & M. POYNT O N.Co py mu st be typed on one side of paperand sent to the Editor, 20 Hack thorne

Road , Chri stch ur ch.

COp y FOR SEPTEMBER ISSU ECLO SES AUG UST 15th, 1967

IN THIS ISSUE Page

An Enjoyable Motor Tour 2

Road T est 11

South Island Easter Rall y 14

National V. & V. ~lotorcycle Rally 16

Cam era R eview 18 and 19

Nationa l Nattering 20

North Island East er Rally 21

Branch Notes -

Northern Natter

South Canterbury

Southland

Wellin gton

Ca nterbury

T ar an aki

H awk e's Bay

O tago

Austin 7 T our

Lett ers to Editor

C lassified Advertisement s

One of the fines t r esorations in recen tyea rs. GeOl'g-e Topliss and fa mily withthei r 20 h.p, Rolls-Royce which won t heVintage Concours at B1enh eim.

" BEADED WHEEL S" DIRECTORY OFVINTAGE CAR CLU B'S OFFICERS

Na tiona l Execu tive: President, A. A. Anderson (Christ­churc h ); C lub Ca ptain, A. K. ' '''righ t (Wa nganui) ;Vice C lub Ca ptain and Edit or " Beaded Wheels", Moll ieAnderson (Christchurch ) ; Commi ttee, N. C. Adarns(Auckland ), R. Ha sell (Christchurch ), J. B. Loughn an(Christchurch ), L. B. Sout hward (Wellington) .

Auckland Branch: Cha irman , H. D enton ; Secretary, H . D.Kidd, r .o. Box 3382 .

Bay of Plenty Branch: Cha irma n, J. Hoven; Secreta ry, G.Cap per, T riton Avenu e, M t. Maunganui.

Canterbury Branch: Chairman, T . D . Clemen ts; Secreta ry,N . C. Skevington , Box 5, Belfast.

H awke's Bay Branch : Cha irma n, Mr K . R. R ieper ; Secre­tary, M rs 13. K clly, 307 Freder ick Street, H astings.

Mana watu Branch: Cha irma n, D. Barker ; Secreta ry, H . C.B. Wyeherl ey, Box 385, Palmcrston No rt h.

Marlborough Bran ch: Chai rma n, C. Patchet t; Secretary,j. D. Filmic, 114 M uller Road , Blenh eim .

Nelson Branch: Chai rman, D. K ing; Secreta ry, M r D. P.Pickeri ng, 28a Kingsley Place, Richmond , Ne lson.

North Ot ago Branch: Cha irma n, VV. J Mi tchcll; Secreta ry,R . E. M urr ay, T he Ridges, I H .R.D., O amarn .

North land Bran ch: Ch ai rma n, L. K . Wrigh t; Secretary, MrsC. J Dr iver , 10 Ca rncron Street, K aikohe.

O tago Branch: Cha irman , R. E. N. Oaklcy; Secreta ry, H . JWilkinson , 70 Pacific St reet, Roslyn, Duned in.

South Cantebury Bran ch: Cha irma n, J ;1'1. Sullivan; Sccrc ­t; ry, E. R. Robins, Suther lands R. D ., Pleasant Point,Sout h Cante rbury.

Southland Bran ch: C hairman, A. D. Cascy: Secre ta rv, N.M cMillan, 146 T an ner Stree t, In vercargill. '

Taranaki Branch: Cha irman, J Castle; Secretar y, D. Moore,582 Carrin gton Road, New Plymo uth.

Waikato Branch: Cha irman, T. Bear; Secreta ry, L. H. Death,1'.0. Box 924, H amilton.

Wanganui Branch: Cha irma n, A. P. T onks; Secreta ry, Mr B.T . Deighton, p.a. Box 726, Wan gan ui.

Wellington Branch: Cha irma n, J Dransllcld ; Sec reta ry, K .G. Wilk inson , 78 Coast Road, Wainuiomata.

Whangar ei Branch : Chai rma n, T . G. Royan; Secreta ry, P.j. Colema n, 28 T uhangi St reet , K amo, Whangarci.

A ll correspond ence to th e C lub S ecretary, E. A'. Bailey,p.a . Box 2546, Ch ristc h. urch ,

Adv ertising e nq uir ies t~) he a ddressed to . the Ad ve rti sin g Ma nager , 20Hackth ornc Road , Ch ristchurch , 2. Published bv Vintage Car Club of"' ,Z . I ncor po ra ted and printed by Simpsou & Wi ll i'a ms L ld .• 169 St. Asa phSt re et , Ole-istchurch , N ew .Zcala ml. Re g ist ered at the C .P.O. ' Vcllillg to n,for t ra ns mr ssro n as a magazm c, e tc ,

An Enjoyable Motor TourW e make no apologies for doin g reprints

when th ey are as fas cina ting as this on e!This article appeared in th e N .Z. M otor andCycl e Journal for M ay I S, 1905, and it hasbeen brough t to our atten tion by the daugh­ters of Mr ]. A . iVlood y w ho was one of thepart'),'. M r Mo od » was a m ost remarkablema'; and one tuhos e m ot orin g career is inmany ways syn on ym ous ui.t li motoring itselfholding, as he did, th e seco nd dri oin g licenceeuer issued in Auckl and . W e hope to beable to give furth er stories of th e career ofth is grea t enthusiast from th e pen of hisdau ghters in lat er issues; m ean while let thissto ry spea k [or it sclf-

Our party, cons is t ing- of 1\111' and lVII'sW. B. Leyland and lVIr and lVII's J. A.Moody, had for some time con templated atour from Au ckland to th e Bluff, intend­ing- to take two ca rs, viz. , Mr Moody's 12h.p, Darracq a nd Mr Leyland's 15 h.p.Darracq. Bu siness engagements made itsomewhat difficul t to fix our time of de­parture, but event ua lly we star t ed veryhurriedly taking- onl y one car-i-Mr Ley­land's 15 h.p. Darracq.

For a long tour a complete se t of spar esis necessary, including spare leaves andclip s for spring-so It is a lso necessary thateach of the party should' ha ve a n ent irechange of clothes. In addition to th ese wetook, so as to be prepared in the even t ofa break-down in some out of t he wa y place,warm rugs and a large water-proof cover18ft. x 12ft. for the ca r whi ch would al soact as a ten t in the event of our havingonl y the key of the road f or our bed-roomdoor. It will be eas ily seen that with anex t r a ca se of benzine, and fou r pa ssengersall averaging f ully 12 st one eac h, the carhad a very heavy load for a long tour.

\Ve finally fixed Friday morning, 24thFebruary, for our st a r t , but on the previ­ous day the weather looked so mu ch likeheavy rain that we decided to star t a t onceso as to pa ss t he Rangiriri clay roads be­fore they became impassable. At 1.20p.m. on the 23rd F ebruary we sta r ted f romt'he tram terminus, J ervoi s Road, Ponson­by. ""Ve had a pleasant afternoon's run upto Ngaruawahia, where we had dinner,

PAGE TWO

and wen t on to Hamilton and stayed therefor the nigh t. Leaving Hamilton at 8.40a.m. next morning we arrived at Rotoruain time for lun ch, having had to stop a tthe foo t of t he Mamaku plateau to repaira puncture '.

After taking in a supply of benzine totake us to Napier, we left Rotorua at 2.30p.m. for Wai rakei, but we again had con­siderable trouble with the punctured tyre,but reached Wairakei in time for dinner,We left Wairakei at 8.40 a.m. next' morn­ing, and before rea ching Tarawera ourt ro ublesome tyre blew out making a gap 6inches long in th e cover. This we had toreplace with a Continen ta l cover- a covers t iff to put on when new at any tjme­but as t his' wa s 10 m.m. too sm a ll for t hewheel we had to wr estle fully an hour anda half before we were able to proceed toour lunch at Taraw era. After punishingor rather doing good justice to a goodlun ch , we left Taraw era for Napier. Be­tw een Tarawera and Puhoi the mountainscenery is exceptionall y grand, and as ourcar mounted the stiff grades easily we en­joyed this part of the journey very mu ch.From Puhoi we wired friend s at Napier,27 mil es away , notifying them of our ap­proach, and then on one of th e best! bits ofroad in the Colony tried to reach Napierbefore the telegram. We arrived at theMasonic Hotel in time for dinner, 2-} daysfrom Au ckl and; t he teleg ram was deliv­er ed just before we reached Napier.

\Ve stay ed in Napier until 9 a.m. 28thFebruary, when we star t ed in the rain enrou te for Wellington, and we graduallyran into fine weather again . When aboutsix mile s from Napier we passed a publicschool; the scholars were lin ed up just in­side the sch ool f ence, and one boy , evid­ently a leader, perhaps a school bull y, wenoticed making signals to his schoolmates,and as we passed the scholars- going atabout tw enty mil es an hour, the road be­ing goocl-this boy t hr ew a large st one a tus . The stone wa s quite as large as aman's fist; it passed just behind Mr Le y­land, who wa s driving at the time, andstruck lVII's Moody, fortunately obliquely,

on t he fro nt of her jacket. The brak e wasjammed on immediately , an d Mr Moody,though clot hed in lea t her f rom head tofoot-cap, «oat, t r ousers, and gloves allleat her- ju mped out of the ca r and' overthe fe nce of t he sch ool, and before the boywho threw the stone could realise wh athad' hap pen ed,

" He had torn down the wais t of his bre eche s,the ba ist,

I gnoring the buttons and s ti t ches ,

And the boy ver y soon kn ew the taste ofleather bur goo

From the man in the black leather breeches ."

Th ough this is not exactl y what happened,before all the scholars and some of theteachers th e boy got the best t anningfrom the man in leath er he eve r had inhis lif e. He admitted hi s guilt and he isnot likely to throw st ones again a t a motorcar.

We anived at Dannevir ke (80 milesf rom Napier)at 1.30 p.m. and had lun ch,

and lef t at 2.30 p.m. All through Hawke' sBa y we had ideal roads, but ha d' a t fre­quent intervals to slow down, and some­times to stop, owing to meeting orovertak ing large flocks of sheep. We alsolost about ha lf an hour near Woodvillewa iti ng fo r permission to cross a combinedrail way and t raffic bridge. It appears t obe the custom to close the gates of thebrid ge fifteen minutes before the train isdue, and we arrived j ust after the gatehad been shut, but as the train-whichturned out to be a mixed one, goods and'passengers--was fifteen minu tes late, and'as we had to wait for some veh icles t opa ss first f rom the opposi te end of t hebridge, we lost over half an hour. F an cyhaving t 10 wai t for a slow crawling trainthat, a lt hou gh it had a good sta r t , wepa ssed before it got t o the nex t sta tion.We got what passed for a dinner at Maur­iceville, and thought of staying there fo rthe night, but the ladies did not think theho te l too inv iting, so we asked t he land­lord wha t the road was like on to Master-

T he pa rt y is ready to se t ou t.

PAGE THREF;

ton . "Oh !" he said, "Vile, fearfu llyrough, with new metal and full of ruts'."The ladies said rough or smoo th move on,so we moved and found an ideal bit ofmotoring road , and we glided into Mas­t er-ton (160 miles from Napier) as dark­ness set in, a most enjoyable run.

We lef t Master-ton next day about 9 a.m.and, though we lun ched a t Lower Hutt,we arrived in Wellington about 1.30 p.m.,four da ys from Auckland, a distance of551 miles. We had used 30/- worth (5cas es at 6/-) of benzine, -} gallon (worth2/6) of cylinder oil, and about -} pint oflubr ica t ing oil. We were somewhat sur­prised in the Wairarapa to find that theonly peop le who he ld up their hands forus to stop t he car were peop le we wereovertaking, and however we were to getto Wellington if we had to stop behindtraps and ca r t s, going in the same direc­tion "was one of those things no fe llowcould understand," so we declined to stop,and "passed them by on the other side."

An amusing incident occurred on 3J

bridge near Mangaroa af ter crossing theRimutakas. As we approached the bridgewe found it blocked by two vehicles, onea high trap in whi ch stood a young lad y,talking to a young man below her in a lowcart. These vehicles had been journeyingin opposite directions, and had met andstopped on the bridge, blocking up thewh ole of the road. They made an interest­ing and pretty picture, "Romeo andJuliet," and so absorbed in each other thatthey did not hear us approach . We re­gretted having to disturb them, but had totoot the horn.

"It was too bad to part them so,So fair was J uli et,So disgusted Rom eo."

After hearing the horn Juliet smiled, andjumping down led her horse towards usand to one side to make room. Romeosullenly drove on, reluctant to give usroom to pass; he certainly was the mostdisgusted and angry driver we met duringour tour.

We stopped som e time in Wellington,storing our car in Mr Henning's garage.Mr Bailey (NII' Henning's manager) wasmost cour t eous and obliging. Here we

PAGE FO UR

had th e pleasure of meeting the Hon. Sec­r etary of the Auckland Automobile Asso­ciation, Mr Cleave, wh o had reachedWellington via New Plym outh . He hadhad a most successf ul tour up- to-date, andint ended returning via t he Rimutakas,Napier, and Rotorua.

While in Wellington we made enquiriesat the Tourist Department re "roads' inSouth Island," more especiall y with refer­ence to Nelson to Greym outh, and Grey­mouth to Chr is tc hurc h route. The officersof the Department were most obliging,and strongly advised us not to venture.When Mr Glidden proposed to take thisroute the Government got reports fromengineers in charge of every sect ion ofthe road in the route. These reports dealtwith the grades and narrowness of theroads, especially in the gorges, and witha ll t he unbridged rivers , named and un­named. We were given these reports totake to our hotel, where we might st udy,read, mark, learn, and inwardly digestt hem, and we were asked t o return t hemon the morrow. We accordingly returnedt hem t he next da y, and, after re turningthanks for same, we said that t he moreinformation we obtained the more unde­cided we got , and we had decided to go onand look for ourselves, for we fel t surethat any opinions outside those of motor­ists were of very little value as a guide.

Having decided to try and get through,we next in terviewed t he Union S.S. Co. recharge for freight on ca r from Wellingtonto Nelson (about 100 miles) .We were to ld£5 odd, I do not remember the shillings.We protested, pointing out that the carwould be accompanied by four passenge rs,etc., etc. Finally t he clerk retired to seethe chief clerk and' he reduced 1'I1e chargeto £2/12/6 , which we thought fair an dpaid it cheerfully. We left Wellington onSa turday, March 4th, arriving Nelson 011

Sunday morning 5th inst., mooring along­sid e the railway Wharf. We had somedifficulty in getting permission to land ourcar that day, because it was cons igned asca rgo, and no cargo was allowed to belanded on Sunday. Motori sts should notethis, and, when landing at any railwaywharf on Sunday, consign car as personal

luggage, and t he n t here would be no diffi­culty.

At Nelson we called upon our latetow ns man and motor ist , Mr J enny. Hewas much in terested in OUI' trip, and ad ­vised us not to t ry and get t hroug h ; hehad been by coac h and kn ew t he road.Sa id he, "You had better try the EastCoast road via Blenheim and t he Kai­kouras," but we left Nelson next dayabo ut 9 a.m. in t he r ai n, en ro ute for Grey­mouth. We soon ran out of rain, and hada pleasant morning's run over th e H opeSaddl e, and by noon reach ed an accommo­dation house where we had a plea santlunch. We f ound we were the first ca r toreach t his place from Nelson , and we werewarned by t he proprietor that we shouldsoon have two fairly deep creeks to cross.Sh or tly after lea ving him we str uck theBuller River, and also the first creek inwhi ch we stuck-a tributary of t he Buller ,We at first t ri ed to pull the car out bymean s of a rope t ied on to the front scroll,and whil e one of th e men pu shed behind,t he ot he r wi th the aid of the two ladiespulled all they kne w on the rope in f ront.It was abo ut the only t ime we appreciatedthe weight of t he ladies, and they pulled' tosuch good purpose tha t the rope ca r r iedaway, and down they lay "shoost like arow of br icks. " Unfo rtunately nobodywas read y to take a snapshot. We t hengot out fo r the fir st time our blocks andwire rope, and soon had the ca r out of t hecreek. We f ound we had in the fir st placebeen t ry ing to turn the engine as well aspull out th e ca r , for we had left t he enginein gear. I am not sure if th e brake wasnot on also. How ever, one lesson wa senough for us, we alw ays aft er that tookca re the gear was in neutral and t ha t! t hebrake was off. The water here wa s so ex­t re mely cold, and the sandflies so fe roci­ous and numerous, t hat we were glad toget a move on again.

We had now at short in terval s to crossman y creeks ; if narrow and deep we rush­ed the m, if wide and' shallow we took themslowly on t he low gear, gene rally stoppingan d examining t he creeks fo r t he shallow­est and best for ding place. Before long,however, we had again to resort to t he

block and tackle, and ab out 6 p.m. wearrived at Longford , the half-way housebe tween the railway terminals of Moto­piko and Reefton, wh ere we were inform­ed that passengers by coac h slept fo r thenight'. But t he place was so uninvitingthat t he ladies said "Cannot we reac h an­other hot el 7" and finding that th e CentralBuller Ho tel was only some sev en milesf ur ther, we decided to proceed a nd did so.Just before reaching t his hotel a ladyru sh ed out of a house-wh ich proved, tobe t he post office and tel egraph statio n­saying she had a message for us. Wewondered what it could be, and it appear ­ed t hat so exci ted had the people en routebecome about t he motor car th at wa s com­ing, that t he te legraph had been heraldingour approac h, and some drovers in char geof OBe flock of sheep and two droves ofcattle had wired back from Newton Flatanother seven mil es ahead , askin g us t opush ahead to t he Lyall that night so as tobe ah ead of t hem in the morning, fo r thegor ge was so narrow that if we were notah ead we should have to stay be hind.Findin g that t hei r t ime f or starting in t hemorning wa s 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., we wired't hem that we would leave early in themorning, and be at Newton Fl at by 7 a.m.and t hus be ahead of t hem. In order to dothis we left the foll owin g morning with­out breakfast, and arrived at Ne wto n Flatat 6.55 a. m., only to find t hat in theirsca re t hey had left at 3 a .m. hoping toge t to the Lyall bef ore us. Of course weovertook t he m, and lost between two and'three hours, but managed, after makingfri end s with th e drovers, to get throughon getting to a place wh ere one drovecould be padd'ocked, and wh ere the roadwas wide enough to drive one dr ove backpast t he ca r one bullock at a time.

The scene ry in the Bull er Gorge wellrepays to urists for an y t roub le take n tosee it. Mile after mil e t he road winds'alongside t he sw ift running Buller whi lstth e sides of t he Gorge, ri sing sev eral hun­dred f eet in height , are clothed to t he to pwith mixed bush, an en dless va r iety off erns and myriad shades of green, in fact,a ll the well-known cha rms of the NewZealand bus h scenery. It was our one

PAGE F IVE

compensation for having to travel for twohours at the same pace as the oxen infront of us . After passing the Lyall wepassed several sluicing claims, also sev eraldredges at work dili gently seeking thatelusive mineral gold. We wished' themluck, so that they might have enough andto spare, then they could buy a motor car .

Seventeen miles from Reef t on we againstu ck in an innocent-looking creek called"the landing." A lad y informed us t hatt he coach oft en got st uck here; she, goodsoul, would have liked to have helped us,and, whilst pitying us , hoped we would' becareful and not kill an ybody wh en we metthe coach whi ch was then nearly due. Shefe lt sure that there would be a dreadfulaccident when we did meet th e coach, butas the coach arrived at the landing safely,shortly afterward's, her troubled mindwould be set at rest. Wh en we did' st'op­in not too good a pla ce to let the coachpass-we found that among th e coach pas­sengers a simila r f eeling of dread hadoppress ed them all t he way from Reefton,f or had they not been wa rn ed by wire thatthey might meet a motor car ? We passedon t he road, and spoke briefly to , a manwho said he had charge of t hat secti on oft he road . He wanted to know what wethought of it, asked us to stay at Stephen­son's Hotel, Reef t on, and would we, befo releaving Ste phenson's, please leave our"sen t iments" fo r him .

Just before entering Reef ton, whilstrunning along almost noiselessly on thehigh gear on a bit of good road, we over­t ook a man on a bicycle, and fearing thatas he evidently did not heal' us, and hemight cross our bows and get run down,we gave one toot on the horn . This manhad not been warned, and ' when he lookedround he was so astonished and surpr ised'at what he saw that he fell right: off hisbike on to t he road. Fortunately he wasnot hurt, and we jus t heard him laughing­ly exclaim, "I wondered what t he --?"and we were past , un able to catch what it!was he wondered we were.

We ar r ived in Reefton in time for lun chwhich we had at Stephenson's Hotel. MrStephenson kindly gave us an itinerary ofthe road to Greymouth with some import-PAGE SIX

ant ad vice as to fording t he Li ttle Greyand Stoney ri vers. Wh en lea ving t he hotelfor the ca r we f ound it surrounded by alarge crow d, and t he f ollowing is an ex­tract from the lett er of the Reefton corre­resp ondent of the Greumouth. .41'YUS :­"Ree fton was t hrown into a state of ex­citement on Tuesday morning by t hearriva l of a motor car in Broa dway, animmense crowd gathere d to insp ect themachin e and va rio us opinions were ex­pressed. I find the motorists were Mr andMrs Leylan d an d Mr and Mrs Moody fromAuckland, who are touring New Zealandand had come from Fern Flat during t heforenoon, a dis tance of 48 or 50 mile s, oververy dangerous and hilly roads, etc ., etc."

We should like to say that though t heroads were somewhat narrow th ey werenot dangerous, nor would' motori sts whohave mot ore d f rom Auckland via Napierand t he Rimutakas call t hem hilly . Ourchief t roub le was t hat t he roads were ina chronic state of repair, and we conse­quently had more new metal tha n wecared for, unb ri dged creeks, and ca ttlewere t he chief t rouble.

'Ne left Reef ton abo ut 2 p.m., and thatnight stopped at Ngah ere . We again lostquite two hours getting t hrough cree ks,still we could have got to Greymouth t hatnight had t he br idge across t he ArnoldRiver not been down . Th e Arnold is abso ­lutely unf'ordable , and all t raffic except ingra ilway t raffic .by the railw ay br idgestopped, We tried to get permission tocross t he railway bridge by fleet ing plan ks,bu t the stationrnas ter sa id he could onlygive permissi on if he could not ge t a truckto rai l th e car across. He wired Grey­mouth and got a truck, and it was perhapsas well, fo r we found that for a long dis­tunce on eac h side of t he bridg e it was im­poss ible to get th e ca r on 0 1' off the rai l­way track, so we arrived at Grey mout hthe next day, March 8th. We were met atth e station by Messrs Schaef Bras" whowere not only interest ed in motor ing butin our to ur . We spent a very pleasan tevening at thei r home, retiring to ourhotel near midn ight. We had hard ly arr iv­ed at t he hotel whe n th e editor of theGreumouih. Artju« r an g us up fo r details

A gingerly de scent into the Otira River.

of our trip from Nelson, and next day inhis paper he wished us a pleasant journeyacross the island to Chr istc hurc h .

At 9 a.m. on the following morning weleft Greymouth for Christchurch . Quitea number of people gathered to see us offand wish us success, though nearly all ofthem thought we were taking a foolishjourney. However, with the exc eption offive or six miles of newl y metalled roadbefore reaching Kumara, we had a pleas­ant run until we reached the Waininihini­hine River, whi ch , though shallow, ha s avery wide bed covered with very largeboulders, but we managed to bump saf elyacro ss. When ac ross we noti ced' a man onhorseback with leading harness. He hadbeen asked by wire from Greymouth byfriends of ours to be ready to help us. Un­fortunately we did not notice him un tilacro ss, and had no chanc e t o thank him.We reached the Otira t erminus of the rail­way by lunch-time, and' lunched at th eOtira Hotel. We had stuck that morningin only one creek, Kelly' s Creek, and t hatonly f or a short ti me, and our stoppingwa s owing more to the soft gravellynature of the bed of the creek than of thewater. Otira is not only the t erminus ofthe railway 51 miles f rom Gr eyrn outh, bu tis also the terminus where travellers fromChristchurch finish th eir tw o days' coac h­ing from the Spring-field railway t erminusin Cant erbury .

One of our friend s in Greymout h, aniece of the Hon. R. J. Seddon, had wiredthe man in charge of the stables at Oti rato have two horses ready to pull the caracross t he Otira Riv er. As the ford was amile ahead we had not seen it , but hadheard a lot about it. Sometimes it wa scall ed the Teremakau , some t imes theOtira, but it was always sp oken of as aterror. Our grea test New Zealand poet-s­Bracken-has immortalised it in "TheLaygind 0 ' Terry M'Kow" :-"Oh th a nk ve sa ys Terry bad lu ck to th at ri ver

"We 'll ca l( it in futu re the Terry M'I(ow." ,

Had we bu t seen t he ford-though itwas bad enough- we could have pulledour car through with block and tackle, but,not having seen it , we looked' for and aftersome t rouble found the man in cha rge ofthe s tables . He was evidently t rying toavoid us, and when we found him he told 'us we could not ha ve his borses. Person­ally he wa s very SOlTY, and would like tooblige us, and especially would he like tooblige his Greymouth friends, bu t said he,"t o tell you the t r ut h my boss has £4,000in this coaching bu siness, and he does notwant any motor ca r to get through, hewants to see you st uck, to help you wouldcost me my billet." So we did not get hishorse, but NIl' O'Malley junior, son of theproprietor of the Ot ira Hotel , had adraught horse whi ch he harnes sed up, andpulled us through the ford, breaking' hi s

PAGE SEVE

swing le-t ree in doing so. T he station­master at Otira also brought his camera,and the photo he took of t he car enter ingthe f ord subsequently appeared in theWeekly Press. After crossing, and readyto start, Mr O'Ma lley said, "Now how areyou goi ng t 10 go up to Arthur's Pass?" Wereplied if the coach can get up so can we.He doubted, as the coach with a speciallygood team of five horses, and t he passen­gers wa lking, had a stiff contract. Arthur'sPass is 2,835 feet hig h, and abo ut 1,600feet has to be negoti ated in abo ut 1;} to 11mi les. Our car had just as much as itcould do, thoug h t hree of the passengerswa lked most of the way up. The steep­ness of t he grade was aggravated' by acove ring of two or t hree inches of metaland fine gravel. We were to ld' th e roadwas kept in t his state to stop vehicles go­ing down by t he run. At any rate it wasmuch the steepest climb we had in ourtour, and t he only t ime passengers had towa lk

All your readers have heard of thebeauties of the Ot ira Gorge, and as this isan account of a mot or trip, I will not at­tempt to describe the scenery, but will saythis : that the motorist who will climbup amongst the snow-capped peaks of theSouthern Alps will not regret it, but willalways look back with pleasure upon anexperience at once nove l, pleasant, andex hilarating.

Our good f riend, 1\11' O'Ma lley junior,was so sceptical abo ut our being ab le toget up that he fo llowed us some distanceon his hor se. When he fo und we wereequa l to the contract, he hu rri ed bac k toOti ra and wired to his fathe r at t he Bealyto meet us with a hor se at Bealy F ord ' a tabo ut 6 p.m . After crossing a few fair lydeep cree ks successfully, we arrived at theBealy shortly after 5 p.m, F ortunat elyNIl' O'Ma lley sen ior, anxious to see a motorca r, had lef t earlier than instr ucted' byhis son, and ar rived at the fo rd abo ut thesame time as we did . Said he, "I saw thedusht ye raised miles away." The Bea lyand the Waimakiriri join at the ford, andhere the combined beds of the rivers areabo ut a mile wide. The bed' is mostlybare, covered with waterworn boulders,PAGE EIGHT

and the water is divided into severa lstreams. We safe ly negoti a ted all buttwo, and as Mr O'l\Ia lley had by t his timearrived wit h his horse we readily acceptedhis he lp, for though we could have ma n­aged without it, we did not care abo ut un­necessary work. W e fo und the BealyHotel very clean and comfortable, thecooking good, and the host a really goodsort. He was much interested in seeingthe first motor car to cross the island bythe West Coast road.

We had had our Perfector leather tyrecovers repai red in Wellington, but by thist ime we had gone th rough them again­t he r iver beds being very severe on them- so we spe nt t he ear ly hour s of t he nextmorning, 10th March, r epairing these cov­ers with ri vet s and old, harness leathersupp lied by our host . We got away abo ut9 a.m., and sho rtly after starting we hadto stop to replace a tube owing to a patchgiv ing away. We successfully negotiatedthe fo llowing streams : the Bruce, theCass, the Craigieburn (fo ur t imes), andthe Bro ken River, as well as a number ofsmall unnam ed ri vers.

Some of th ese r ivers we only j ust gotthrough without sticking, and on reachingthe Porter River we found we had theswiftest and deepest r iver of the lot tocross. The previous week the coach hadbeen unable to cross. The weather wasbeautifully fin e, but this did not he lp forthe cloudless sky mean t more melted snowand deeper ri vers. However, we ma deevery preparation we could; lifting upacc um ulators and dry cells on to the driv­ing sea t, got well into t he middle of theriver befo re sto pping . Th e lad ies and bag­gage, in fact everything movable, was ca r­d ed as hore. Wh en standing in t he ri vert he water cur led over our hips, t he cylin­ders were und er water, and the swift run­ning current was almost level with t hetop of the coil on the dashboard . We ex­perienced some troub le with the bouldersin the river; they seemed to t ravel alongthe bottom and to pile up against and getin front of the wheels, but we got ourtackle on, and our crowbar anchor down,and after a time got our car across theriver. It took us twenty minutes to drain

the water out of the cylinders, we openedthe compression taps, and also opened thetap in the crank chamber. After sometime we were able to turn the startinghandle a little, and so forced some of thewater through the exhaust and throughthe compression taps.

After cleaning the commutator and re­placing the accumulators, we started forthe top of Porter's Pass, 3,300 feet highbut not a difficult climb. The view as weran down the other side will not readilybe forgotten by any of the party. Awayto the eas1;L-in front of us-stretched thefamous Canterbury plains and ideal mot­oring roads. We had just "one more riverto cross," the Kowhai, but we had ' to crossit four times, and then, Ho! for an idealrun and Christchurch. We waited at thefoot of Porter's Pass for the two coachesto pass. We had seen them in the distancefrom Porter's Pass. The coach drivers didnot know how to treat us or what to make:of us, so they just glared, but one passen­ger greeted us cheerily and said, ''I'm gladto meet you again. I saw you leaveNapier."

We successfully crossed' the first threecrossings of the Kowhai River, but stuckin the fourth and last. By this time wewere adepts at getting out of creeks, and!in half an hour we were on our way toSpringfield where we arrived at 2.45 p.m.Here we had lunch and changed our wetclothes, and started for Christchurch (44miles away) at 3.40 p.m. The roads wereall that a motorist could desire-we justglided along. We had two delays cif aboutfive minutes each owing to taking thewrong roads, still we arrived in Christ­church at 5.30 p.m., two days from Grey­mouth. We were the first motor party totour from Nelson to Greymouth, and thefirst to travel by motor car aCi'OSS theWest Coast road; it was a bit tough inplaces, but the whole trip was enjoyable.We stayed in Christchurch three days, andcalled upon the Secretary of the Christ­church Automobile Association, we alsohad several talks with some of the mem­bers. We here got one of our repairedcovers, but COUld not get any new tyres.

We started for the Bluff on the 13thMarch intending to lun ch at Timaru, andnow thought we only had good roads infront of us, but we were doomed to dis­appointment, for we had not gone far be­fore tyre troubles rendered our furtherprogress impossible. It took us 1·4-days toreach 'I'imaru, and then we were compelledto give in, for we had only two tyres leftfit to run. We felt disappointed at havingto give in, especially as the roads were sogood and no motoring difficulties in theway We felt angry that the sellers ofmotor cars should so far have neglectedtheir business, and' their own interests, asto be unable in the whole Colony to sup­ply their customers, who were willing topay for them, with stock size tyres. Themotor tyre trouble is bad enough, surely,and the chief drawback to motoring, andagents should not aggravate the positionby not being able to supply a tiyre that issure to be in demand, and our experienceis not a solitary one. Now, having hadmy growl about tyres, it is only fair tosay that tyre troubles were the only trou­bles we had. We did not have to use anyof the spares we took with us, not a bolt,nut, or spring, and the engine, in spite ofall the abuse, actually went better at thefinish than at the start of the journey.

We went to Dunedin by rail, and whilstthere interviewed IV1r Slay, the trafficmanager of the Union S.S. Co., on behalfof the Auckland Automobile Associationand motorists generally re "freights onmotor cars." He received us very courte­ously, admitted the reasonableness of ourcontentions, said that the matter was un­der considera tion, and that his Companywould do their best to meet us in thematter,

We shipped our car to Auckland, pers.s. "Hawea," from Timaru. When landedat Hobson Street Wharf, we connected thebattery, turned on the benzine, gave thestarting handle half a turn, and awaywent the car back to Ponsonby, workingas smoot hly as though it had not beenaway, and, given new tyres, it was quiteready to start again. We had been awayone month, and spent a most delightfulholiday. Kapai the motor car!

PAGE NI NE

We may play aroundwith old cars in ourspare time ! !But when we makesomething , we like itto be mode rn andup to date, like the

POUR-A-CANTHE

All SteelPetrol Container

2 gallon 56/-1 gallon 47/-

NEW ZEALAND TUBE MILLS LTD.SALES DIVISION OF

SOUTHWARD ENGINEERING CO. LTD.LOWER HUTT

PAGE TE N

ROAD TEST1929 CHRYSLER IMPERIAL ROADSTER By M. D. Hendry

Chryslers were alre ady fairly commonsig ht on New Zealand roads in the latterhalf of the vintage decade, but there wasone model that was a rare bird th en andis rarer now. When Waiter Chrysler buil this automobile empire he had to have anexpens ive model like everybody else, andth e "Imper ial" first appeared in 1926. Itwas a scaled-up version of the highly suc­cessful six cylinder Chrysler of 1924. Th atmodel with a whe elbase of 112 1f inches anda price tag of $1,595 , competed in theBuick class, the Imperial with a whe elbaseof 136 inches and ro ug hly double the price,was a imed at Cad iliac and Packard.

The first model s had a rounded' radiatorlike other Chryslers, but given a tou ch ofswank with flut es inspired by Vauxhall.In 1929 a complete restyling was ca rr iedout, and many will remember t he " th inra diator" '77' as ty pical. The Imperi al re­viewed here is of the same vintage. In aletter to a previous owner ("Shack"Sharp), Chrysler state t hat this part icularcar left t he fa ct ory abou t May 1st, 1929.At some t ime in its career, however , th ecar was convert ed to 1930 specificationsby installation of the Chrysler "multi ­ran ge 4 speed gearbox . This gearbox wasnot installed as standard on Chrys lersun til August 1929.

The writer remembers first seeing thisca r in Chr is tchurch abo ut 1949-50, parkedoutside a pub in Colombo Street . Theattractions of t he pub proved too muchf or my friends, but I t houg ht it unl ikelythat the pub would be driven away, and Ispent some time examining and photo­graphing the ca r. Unf or t unately, I havebeen unable to locat e the photos that Itook at the time. The ca r spent some timein Chr istc hurch for I remember see ing itparked in the Square and in various ot herplaces on different occas ions. Once a by­stander remarked, with uncanny acc uracy,"I'll bet she can shift."

It then went South and came into t hehands of vintage club member Shack

Sharp, of Invercargill, who carried out aconsiderable amount of restoration on thebodywo rk an d ha d a local ga rage over ha ulthe eng ine, which unfortunately theybotched. Nevertheless it was an impres­sive car, even at t hat stage , and the writerhad the pleasure of driving it a cons ider ­abl e number of mile s in Invercargill someyears back.

Since then the car has come into thehands of Charles Emerson, also of Inver­cargill, and has been given "regardless ofcost" restoration.

To quote Mr Emerson:"Every nut and boIt was removed, all

sandblasted and painted with Dry Galv.New timber where required . From t hereI had everyt hing panel-beaten and partsmade, The car was then assembled tomake sure things fitted. We t hen dis­sembled the whole car and hung all piecesseparately and painted in Duco, my firsttry at t his paint. It worked out ' qui tegood , even though I used 9 gallon s. Aftert he paint was quite hard we again assem­bled the car and it looked good. I t henhad it uph olstered in green lea th er. Tomak e the car much bet te r though, I hav eto pu t in new guides and valves as t hey arevery noisy . I could not get readily ava il­able 700 by 18 tyres so I have fitted 750by 18 imp lement tyres, quite good but itdoes make the steering heavy. This carwas fitted with ll-inch lights but I havehad 10}-inch ones fitted as I could not getthe correct lenses. I need 2 by ll-inchDepress beam lenses. For the miss ingsecond spare I dummied up Cl whe el andvery f ew noti ce th is."

1\11' Emerson ha s now located anot herImperial (sedan) whi ch provides a com­forting stock of spares .

Th e car is now one of the fines ; exam­ples of a vintage Chrysler extan t an y­where in New Zealand. It is also one ofthe rares t in the world, fo r the bor' y stylewas uncomm on even when built , and no

PAGE ELEVEN

car like this one is listed in the ClassicCar Club of America's Directory (4000members), nor has the writer read' of anyother examples anywhere in the world.

The body design was by Locke, a fam­ous New York custom coach builder, andfeatures a small door on the right forrumble seat passengers. The rumble com­partment lid is in two sections, hinged- atfront and rear. The rear lid opens in theusual way to form the seat squab, but thefront, folding forward, makes a secondwindscreen, having two glass windows init.

The power plant is a husky "big six"­the lasf of this size (over 300 cubic inchesor 5 litre) to be built in America with theexception of the Hudson Hornet of the1950s. It has a bore and stroke of 3fl-insby 5ins, and the b.h.p. figures were as fol­lows:

100 b.h.p, at 3,200 r.p.m, on 4.8 com­pression, or 112 b.h.p. on 6 to 1 compres­sion ratio. It was Chrysler, who with the1928 version of this engine (in troduced'November 1927) really started the era ofhigh compression engines using scientific­ally designed combusion chambers andmaking the best use of the new Ethyl fuel.What compression ratio is used on MrEmerson's car is not known to the writer,but whatever it is, the performance is notto be sneezed at.

The Roadster body by Locke has a door for therumble seat passenger and a hing-ed cowl with

windows shown in this view.

PAGE TWELVE

When new these cars were good for 80­85 m.p.h. With the 3.77 axle and s tand­ard tyres, 80 m.p.h . was 3,400 r.p.m., butthe present tyres would sligh t ly lower ther.p.m. for the same speed. The idea be­hind the four-speed transmission (andsimilar ones used at that time by Stutz andGraham Paige) was ' 1.'0 provide a high topgear for quiet economical cruising and ahandy, easily engaged, silent third foracceleration and hill-climbing. Except forthe synchromesh box, used only on Cadil­lacs and La Salles, gear-changing was apastime for the skilled enthusiast, conse­quently four speeds were not popular.Chrysler sought to overcome this by usingan internal-external gearset, which differ­ed from the usual four-speed, and wasmu ch quieter in third gear and easier tooperate. It is impossible to get some­thing for nothing of course, and the pen­alty was a rather fragile set of first andsecond gears due to these being compoundratios. Consequently many Chryslers hadthe "Multi Range" replaced by the simplerand more rugged 3-speed box (Reg Kil­bey's 77 is an example). The Multi Rangein Charles Emerson's car, however, is stillperforming satisfactorily and indicatesthat the reputation may have been due toham-handling by many owners previouslyunused to four-speeds. At any rateChrysler superseded these transmissionswith an "all silent" 3-speed in 1933 andthen in 1934 added a planetary overdrivethat was the direct ancestor of the major­ity of overdrives used subsequently.

The Multi-Range ratio in the box was3.38, 2.19, 1.4 and 1 to 1 giving speeds of20 m.p.h., 30-35 , and 60 m.p.h. in thegears.

The fine performance of vintage Chrys­lers is well known. They were frequententrants at Le Mans, and while they neverwon, they made a very impressive show­ing of high speed reliability and quietrunning. A standard 70 finished 6th at LeMans in 1925, averaging 52.6 m.p.h. forthe 24 hours. In 1928 two "72s" finished3I'd and 4th, behind a Bentley and a Stutz,both of which were out and out sportscars with overhead camshaft engineslarger in displacement than the sidevalve

Chryslers. The two "72s" av eraged 64.56and 62.45 m.p .h. for the 24 hours, and thesame two cars averaged similar speeds tofinish 6th and 7th in 1929 .

Most interesting and appropri ate t o thisarticle, however, is that a standard Im ­perial touring car in 1928 won the Bel­gian 24-hour Touring Grand Prix (5 litreclass) at an average sp eed of 57.7 m.p.h.The previous year, the winner' had beenthe Belgian-built Excelsior, one of t he fin­est vintage cars produced on the cont in­ent. The Excelsior wa s a 5.4 litre six(slightly bigger than the Chr ys ler Imper­ial) with overhead cams haft and threeca rb urettor s. It speaks volumes fo r Chrys­ler engineering that their slightly smallersidevalve put out as mu ch power as thehighly tuned Belgian sports mach ine , fort he Excelsior's average speed for th e 24hours was 57-12 m.p.h.-half a mile anhour slower .

The performance of t he Chrysler Im­perial roadster is match ed by pleasanthandling (the car is light for it s size and

does not feel clumsy) and excellen thydraul ic brakes.

All in all it is a very fine example of th equality vintage t ouring car as Americantastes saw it, and wa s held in high esteemin the rest of th e world.

SPECIFICATIONSChrys ler Imperial Cust om Roadster 2-4

pa ssenger, body by Locke of New York.Price, $2,895, F .O.B. Detroit in 1929.

Engine: Six cylinder, sidevalve, withcast iron block and crankcase. 7 mainbearings and vibration damper. Bore3jfins, stroke 5in. Displacement 309.3cubic inch es (5.080 cc) . Ra ted h.p . 31-54.b.h. p. 112 at 3,200 r.p.m , on 6 to 1 com­pression ratio. Torque 218 lb/ft at 1,000.

Carburettor: Stromberg.Ignition: Delco Remy.Transmission: 4-speed, overall ratios,

12.74, 8.22, 5.28 and 3.77. Spiral bevel­rear axl e, open dri ve shaft , four semi­elliptic spr ings, tubular front axle.

Radiator: Harrison ribbon type withth ermost ati c shutters.

PAGE THIRTEEl\'

Brakes: Lockhe ed Wagner hydraulic,internal 15in drums with l:'tin by 3/16thlinings.

Wheels: 18in (tyre size 7.00 ) 72 spoke,bolt-on; eight -}in capscrews mount eachwheel.

Weight : Dry (as listed' by factory )3,955 lb.

Max, speed : Approx 80-85 m.p.h.Interesting facts: Model officia lly listed

as L*80. "L" indicates second Imperia lengine t ype . The first was the "E" of

1926-27 (3tin by 5in ). * Indicates sec­ond, re styled car model using L engine.80 indic ates speed .

First tw o let ter s of ser ial number (EP)indicates year of model introduction usingfollowing formula:

W. P . C H R Y S L E R1234567 890

Designers : Fred M. Zeder (chi ef en­gineer) , Owen R. Skelton (transmi ssion},Carl Breer (chassis).

SOUTH ISLAND BALLY-EASTER 1967By E. H. Lucas

It's finished, there are a lot of tired peo­ple in sunny Marlborough , and we hope alot of happy peop le from places far andwide. I am referring of course to thesecond Marlborough Rall y, which wa s thisyear's South Island event .

When the Marlb orough branch ran itsfirst Rall y back in 1962 we were the small­est club in New Zealand and had som e 85entries, which for a small membershipmeant a lot of hard work. This year wehave progress ed to being the second small­est club in New Zealand, and wh en we fin­ally were forced to close the ent r ies at 135vehicles-cars and motorcycles-we knewthat the last one was comparatively easycompared with what lay ahead of us. How­ever, we ha ve a la rge proportion of willingworkers, and set up our committees earlyto organise th e many things which had tobe done to ensure the smooth running andenjoyable participation by entrants. Asthe time drew near we were having fre­quent meetings to fina lise the arrange­ments, and the last week was spent largelyhoping for fine weather.

After an un certain week , Good Fridaycontinued the pattern of unreliable wea­the r, and final preparations were made inlowering skies and brief showers. Mostcompet itors had a good run, and' by brief­ing time a t 7.30 p.m . most of the 135 en­tries had checked into the Showgrounds,and been supplied with a welcome cup oftea on arrival. Aft er gen eral introduc­tions of organisers at the briefing, thePAGE FOURTEEN

large attendance was given an explanat ionof all phases of the organisation, and sup­per was served before everybody retired- some to sleep, ot he rs to play. It was re­ported that a pretty wild "Indian" wasroaming the Showgrounds looking fortrouble, but there were no paleface scalpsto be had that night !

Saturday fo rtunately did not live up tothe dire predictions of t he Weather Office,and a bri sk northerly soon had most ofthe clouds dispersed. Cars were t ak en onto the show ring when judging commenc­ed, and what a grand sight the 112 carsand 23 motorcycles made lined up on theirpegs. The firs t event was held at 11 a .m.,and was a garaging test for those vintagecars not in the Concours.

Th e Rall y was officially open ed at 1.30p.m. by the Hon. T. P . Sh and, member forMarlborough , wh o, with his wife and theMayor of Blenheim, Mr S. P. Harling andMrs Harling, Mr Anderson and bran chchairman Colin Patch ett, was taken intothe ring by a fleet of three Ford Ts escor t ­ed by the two lovely lit t le 1927 Harleys ofGeoff Hock ley. The programme star t edimmediately, with compet itor s being freeto take part in the competi t ions 01' not ast hey wished. The compet it ions whichwere enjoyed by both public and compet i­tors sta r ted with a balloon busting contestfor veteran cars, whi ch tested the accur­acy of the drivel's, and showed how t oug hsome of the balloons were. This was fol­lowed' by an even t for vet eran and vintage

motorcycl es, and involved jumping over aramp and a figure 8 a round pegs. Tnisreally te sted the suspension 01' lack of it ofsome of the old machines. The next eventwas a teams' one for the P ennzoil Trophy,which was won by Canterbury. This wasa relay type of event, with the vintagedrivers having to balance a ball on theirradiator filler, th e motorcycle boys blow­ing ball oons until they burst, and the vet­eran dr ivers climbing through Cl 15-inchtyre- quit e a feat for some. After thisthere wa s a quite hilarious vintage eventwhere the cm's actuate d a catapult loadedwiuh an apple which the d'rivers had tocatc h.

After th es e fini sh ed the cars were linedup and the public were able to inspectthem. Altogether a very su cessful daywith an estimated 4000 people attending.

The evening fun ction sta r t ed with anhour 01' so of social ga thering and imbib­ing, followed by an exc ellent dinner, ashort toast list, and the presenting ofprizes. These wen t to Ray Southward whowon the Veteran Ca r Concours with his1913 Maudslay ; R. Gadd who won the Vet­eran Cycle Concours with his 1914 Ariel;George Topli ss wh o won th e Vintage CarConcoure with his 1923 Rolls Royce; andGeoff Hockley wh o won the Vintage MotorCycle Concours with his 1929 Harley.Awards were a lso mad e for the one com­ing the furth est distance from north, wonby A, J . Airs; fur thest distance fromwon by J . F. Dale, In vercargill ; for themotor cycle travelling tlhe furthest dis­tance under it s own power, won by A. J.Will s of Tai Tapu.

After this there followed some reallyser ious tale-telling, drinking, and a littledancing for those so inclined, and it is

INVERMAY-1967Th e on ly speed event on th e Na tio na l Ca lenda r

was a ga in the' Otago Branch 's famous In vermayHill Climb, held on Satu rday, F ebruary 25th.Again the wea the r was perf ect, the compan y con­genia l, the organ isatio n s mooth and un obtrusiveand the host branch's hospi tali t y ope n-ha nde d toa degree ! The results were a goo d vindica tion

anybody 's gu ess if the cont ing ent at theshowgrounds go t any sleep or not.

Sunday morning really sa w th e goodweat he r come, calm an d clear wit h a cloud­less sky, and most ca rs toured throughthe Hosp it al grounds befor e set t ing off forthe picnic. After a run of about 35 milesthrough th e country, com pet ito rs r eachedthe picnic venue at Para on t he road toPi cton, and with no public pr esenu wereable to r eally r elax. The day could nothave been better, and th e food at lun chtime had most of the 450-500 people sa tis­fied. Under the able direction of DaveMacdonald wit h J ack Soar as chief cook,some 200lbs of meat was pot-roast ed overa pit-mutton, not ' pak eha-and withpotatoes, pea s and swee t corn, foll owed byfruit salad and ice-cr eam, no one stayedhungry for long. After t his some peoplemotored to Pi cton, some j us t lazed in thesun, and the opp ortuni ty was taken t o tryeac h other's vehicles for those so inclin ed.This saw the official end of the 1967 M arl­borough Rall y.

For those of us-and it was most of themembership of our small club-wh oorganised this rally it was a mem orabl eand satisfying occasion, a nd we hope thatall participants enj ey ed themselves. Wewere very pleased to see many of our oldfriends back again, an d to make acquaint ­an ce of many new one s. Although we' kep tthe entries open over a week after theofficial closing date, we regretted havingto close entries and so disappoint a fewpeople. Even at t he numbers we had,with available accommodation and ca ter­ing facilities we were ri ght on the limit.We hope -in the future to be able to runanother rally, when we hope to see a ll ourfriends back again.

of the fo rmula so fu lly se t out in our Decemberissu e a nd the field ran g ed from tha t very his­toric New Zeal ancl raci ng ca r, t he old Sta nton"crop clus ter" to the Oa kley-R egal a nd ever yonehad someone else " breathing clown his tail-pip e"to gi ve him th e spur to f ur the r effort s ! Of sp ec ia lnote wa s th e mot orcycle showing of J a ck Cock­burn and Sid Ayling on th e very vintage GOD c.c.1924 Dougla s ancl 350 1924 A.J .S. res pectivelywho both beat the Bisslund K.T.T. Veloeette of

PAGE FI FTE EN

1938·! H owever th e ca rs turned th e tables onbikes this year with Mauger's F .T .D. of 32.79seco nds to 38.13 seco nds that was th e best moto r ­cycle time by the Dou gl a s. Vintage t imes allimp roved a ppreciably on last year; Ross Ha yn esin t he Austin was part icu larly imp ressiv e andma nag ed to get down to 40 secs., j ust pipping th ewho le Bentley contingent wh ose best run wasWilli s Brown (4~ litre ) at 40.50 with Haggitt's3 li tre j us t beh ind at 4{).80.

P .V. mach ine ry sa w McK ella r 's Lagond aagai n a nd lan Archiba ld wi th the S.S. 100 from

Four Stacker ~ The "Cropduster" S tan ton Specia lill Wal'ller Mau~er's hands al Invermay-an

hi storic racing car if ev er there wa s one.

Haggitt's 3 li tr e, as usual, made some very

polishe d runs.

Ch ri s tc hu rc h whilst the H istoric Ra cing ca te­gory includ ed such fam ous ma chinery as the oldToj iero-J ag a nd th e Witte T.T. Aston Ma rtin .Light vintage ma chinery wa s also th ere in forcewith Terry Chick 's Tulbot-Darracq, th e MclvorAston-Martin , Bob Scott's Fiat 501S and othe rs.

Th e Br anch's new electrical t iming gea r fu nc­ti oned with very few bugs and a ll hands got a sma ny run s as th ey wanted, some having a prac­t ice and four runs, wh ich is no t bad for an entryof 33 veh icles! In shor t a really Vintage daywith no mec hanical con tre-te mps to ma r it orbri ng a wrinkle to Dennis K ing's brow.

RALLIES TO REMEMBER!GEOFF HOCKLEY reports on the First National V. & V. Motorcycle Rally at

Masterton

We sai led from Southern sho res up on a Friday­By Saturday we'd lea rn ed a thing or tw o!F or up till th en we never had an idee ,Exactly what those Northerners could do.Th ey'd organised at Masterton a show to heat th e

band-The lik e of it was never seen bef or e!With dazzling mod els br ought from eve ry corn er

of th e land'T was no wonder that we gaz ed around in awe !

Ev eryth ing was te r rifi c a t at the Rally !Th ey'd gone about as far as t hey could go!A spectacle th ey 'd orga n ise d down to th e la st

degree,And it never missed a shot fro m "go" to "whoa" !Everything was colossal a t t he Rally!"I'was better than a London Earl's Court Sho w!There was so meth ing doi ng nearl y every mi nute

of the day,

PAGE SIXT EEN

Plu s the sort of hosp it a li ty th at urged us on tostay,

And wh en at la st th e ti me arrived to teal' ou r ­se lves aw ay,

You can understand we didn 't wa nt to g o!

Apo logies, readers, fo r inflicting theabove upon you- and we only hope thatMessrs Rodgers and Hammerstein willforgive us f01' so drastica lly remodellingone of their lyrics. Bu t the first NationalMotorcycle Rall y at Masterton was rea llysomething t o burst into song about ! Wedoub t if an ything bigger and better ha sbeen seen any where, even in England,although we could be wrong ab out t his .However, a turnout of a round eighty

machines (in cluding the static display ) isgoing to take a lot of beating any where,and as to the even t as a whole, we'll go onrecord as saying that wh oever organizesthe nex t "Na tio na l" will have a man-sizejob to top t he Masterton effort. With thisshort preamble, we'll endeavour to recordsome impressions of a memorable week­end, commencing with t he welcome whicht he Southern cont ingent receive f ro m Wel­lington branch members upon arr ival inthe capital city and the t ranspor t of thevisito rs and t heir ma chines to Mastertonby cars and t r ucks. The scene ab the Sol­way showgro unds was colourful indeed.The rows of spar kling veteran and vin tagema chines, each parked in its allotted placeand gu arded from the attentions of smallboys and t oo-en t husias t ic spectators byrop ed enclosures, with members of theLegion of Frontiersmen patrolling thearea as an added precaution, was a spec­tacle calculated to thrill any dedicatedV. & V. motorcycle fan . Breaking awayfrom the customa ry division of ent r iesinto veteran and vintage classes only, t heorganizers had separated t he compet ingmachines int o five classes-a perfectl ypracti cal innova ti on with an entry of suchnumbers, and whi ch provided much moreinteresting competition. Th e classes wereas follows: (1) Veterans up to December,1914. (2) Late vet eran s up to 1918 andear ly vintage up to 1924. (3) La te vin­tage up to December, 1931. (4) All side­car combinations. (5) Post-vinta ge up to1935. From such a bewild ering varietyof models it was diffi cult, if not imp ossible,to single nut any for special comment.Barry Lay's 1913 hub-geared E.S.A. wasa model seldom encountered at rallies-afa ct which has always seemed st ra nge tous cons idering the popularity of this mak ein pre-World War I days. Chris Chasten'svery smart 1913 Alldays was an other ex­ample of a seldom-seen model. In Class 2Len Sout hward's remarkable 1920 A.E.C.at tracted t-r emendous intere s t. An other"lone ranger " am ong t he Class 3 entrieswas B. And erson' s Super-X, while stillanother model of more than usu al in terestwas Dave Palmer's Matchle ss SilverArrow. Class 4 bro ught out several en-

t r ies of mor e t ha n passing int erest , includ­ing Hu gh Webley's re ma rkable water­cooled Humber, Bill Mun ro's Readin g­Standard, Glen Bull's Excelsior, DonLaing's superlati ve Indian Scout an d FredCollett's sparkling Harley-Davidson "74"side-va lve. In Class 5, Max Ohlsso n'ssupe rb ly-restored 1936 Bro ugh was a realeye-catcher. But t he re wasn 't a singlesp ecimen in t he entire entry which didn'treflect credit on its owner, an d t he turn ­out as a whole was a tribu te to thestrength of th e vintage motorcycle move­ment in this country . A 35-mile t imedrun, including an opt ion +-mile electrically­t imed sprint, comprised the morning'sactivi ti es, and after the lun ch break andconcours judging, field events and drivingte sts occupi ed the rest of the aft ernoon.Th e dinner and prize-giving, held in th eEa st School Assembly Hall in t he even ing,was a terr ific success- and j ust for good

VETERA l'I VI CTOR.-Barry Lay "l eads th e wa yon a B.S.A."

PAGE SEVE:,\TEE"

CAM ERA

HASTINGS-Easter Rally. 1912 Ford T, entered by Alan Collins from Auckland. This vehicle wa s theoldest car at Ihe Rally, and Alan was the recipient of a specia l prize from Castrol of a framed photo­stat copy of the prom-ammo of the World's Pirst Motor Show.

MASTERTON MAESTRO. - Trevor Kearnsand his 1924 Douglas, winner of New Zealand's

first National Motorcycle rally.

HARRY WILLIAMS figured prominently inth e a wards list.

REVIEW

Invermay-Ian Archibald's S.S. 100 makes a welcome debut among the P.V .V. Hanks.

B1enheim Easter Rally: Roy Sout hward's 1913 Maud sley that carried off the Veteran Concours award.

PAGE NINETEEN

-measure, our hosts laid ' on a most enjoy­able picnic on the f ollowing day in beauti­ful surroundings a few mile s from Master­bono Don Laing piloted the cavalcade tothe venue, where a pleasan t time wasspent loafing in t he shade (the previousday's beautiful weather continued) dis­cus sing V. & V. topi cs and sampling eachother's machines. Thus ended a week-endwhi ch will long be remembered by all whowere fortunate enough to attend .

The foll owing are the results: lVIon-tag ue Trophy for best overall perform­ance, Bull Memorial Trophy for bes t! over­all belt-dr ive machine, and winner of Class2 driving te st s, Trevor R eams (New Ply­mouth) 1924 Douglas. Norge ChallengeTroph y for best veteran performance, andwinner of Class 1 time trial , Barry Lay(Hastings) 1913 B.S .A. Winner of Class

3 time trial, Class 3 driving tests, age anddistance award, and best performance bya Harley-Davidson rider, BalTY Willi am s(Auckland) 1925 Harley-Davidson, Win­ner class 4 time trial : Dave Clarke (Wel­lington) 1928 Harley-Davidson. Win­ner Class 1 driving tests, J. Gardiner(Canterbury) 1911 Rover. Winner Class4 driving tests, Ross Oldfield (Au ckland)1924 B.S.A. Winner Class 5, Fred ColleH(Christchurch) 1935 Harley-Davidson ,Winner veteran and all belt-drive mach­ines concours, A. Brehaut (Timaru ) 1920Douglas. Winner vin tage concours, L.Southward (Lower Hu tt:) 1920 A.B. C.Best performance in ~:-m ile sp rint, M.Ohlsson (New Pl ym outh) 1936 BroughSuperior. Hard Luck award, Alan Scar­rott (Hastings) 1915 Excelsior. Teamprize, Auckland team (B. William s, R.Clarke, R. Oldfield) .

Nagle to th e Revd, J ohn Turnbull. We will onlybe echoi ng the feeling of ove r 1,800 New Zeal an dvintage " ty pe s" in wish ing th em both th e verybest f or the f utu re a nd in hoping th at domesti ­cit y doesn 't fo rce XY196 into to o sede n ta ry anex is te nce! (Ted's a ppropr ia te comme nt .)

) )\~ ~/0---+--...;-..... ~~ re~ p ~)

(

From England comes the news of th e impend­ing wedd in g of our lon g-sta nding sta lwa rt , lif eme mber a nd emiss a r y to th e F :I.V .A.-Elizabeth

NATIONAL NAnERINGS

"Don't fight thi s thing, darting; it 's bigger than both of us!"

PAGE T WENTY

r. ~

We had hoped to have a s to ry on th e localNew Zealand ent ries in th e recent Aus tral ianrally but various snags ha ve intervened-J .Dickson f rom Wh akata ne picked up a gold pl aquewit h hi s fai t hf u l 1927 Harley ou tfit an d sta yedon to do some touring as did some of the others.(See W ell ing ton No tes.)

T alkin g of lon g distances, here 's one fro mthat irrespon si ble Austi n 7 man , Les Nye fromDun edin. He writes :

"For some time now a nd in fact dating f romth e Interna t ion al Rall y , a nd later when GonionSharpe a nd I at te nde d th e open ing of th e HaastPas s road in my 1980 Austin Seven I ha ve feltth a t the "Baby" has been so re liable that a mo rea mb iti ous run would easily be fe asible a ndpl anned accord ingly . However our Br igh ton andInvermay, etc ., were ea ting into Gord on' s sp a reti me and t he long er days, so I had to reluctantly(both as a first cla ss companion on a long r una nd a master a t ha ndling sk itt ish 7's ) a t t emp tthe run without him.

" Briefly the project ed ru n was to e ncircle th eSouth Isl an d in 48 hou rs, so me thing th a t seeme drather a mbit ious on pape r, but in fact turnedou t to be a n ea sy un dertaking, th an ks to my eo­drivers ea sy master y of th e 7, a nd th e faultles srun nin g of the ca r its elf.

"The only adj ustm ent on th e wh ole t ri p wasto a n extra ex te ns ion to th e tail pipe (fi tted toa llevia te dus t nu isan ce ) whi ch ca me ad ri ft a ndwas repl aced in th e Ha ast a rea . No tinker ing ofany sor t was done to th e ca r and ex cepting f orroad work and f ue l stops the eng ine was ru n­ning continuously. We ca r r ied a por table tapere corder (which re lieved us of a lo t of the pa perwork ) a nd a tte mpte d to averag e 30 miles per

hou r . Ho w well we succeeded you find on the en­closed copy of our ru nn ing s heet."

Qui te a fea t !Bob Kni ght of Levin has written to us with a

very pa instak in g ana lysis of vehicles as shownup by th e r ecen t mem ber shi p lis t which lis ts 2259vehicles of 250 different makes . Ford Model T,219; Model A, 77; Aust in , 174; Bui ck, 77; Dodg e,81; Sun beam, 50 ; Bentley, 26 ; Vauxh all , 37 ;Darracq, 15, to lis t a f ew!

The F.I.V.A. ha ve sen t us thei r Europ eanRall y cal endar for 1967 an d anyone visitingEu rope an d wishing to take in an internationalevent can contact t he pres iden t who has th e lis t .

Na tiona l T yre Scheme. The sub-com mittee ap ­pointed by th e E xecuti ve have com pleted thei rsurvey of dema nd an d t he Executi ve is now en­deavou r ing to establ ish a busi ness arrange men twh ereby local s tocks can be ava ila ble in mostcommon sizes. Im port licen ce cu ts a re mak ingth is a pproach an ex tremely difficult one a nd mem­ber s with ca rs nea r in g com ple tio n a re urged topla ce ty res on inden t now eithe r via Hamp tonTyre Co. or th eir local Dunlop, F iresto ne or E. W.P idgeon Branch.

Sufficient licence to make stocks a pra cticableproposition is si mply no t a va ilable a t this t ime!

Every yea r after August 31s t your t rea su reris faced with th e hoary old excu se fo r not meet­ing th e ex tra subscr iption : " P lease Ma 'am , Ididn 't get a s ta teme nt. " Just prior to this issu eof " Beaded Wh eel s" a ll me mbers sh oul d ha ve re­ceiv ed th ei r ac coun ts for subs f or 1967-68 exceptthose wh o have a lrea dy paid in adv ance. Youha ve been wa rne d- after August :31st $7 sub. a ndno excuses !!

EASTER 1967-NORTH ISLAND RALLYBy B. H. Walton

This event , the result of many mont hsof ca reful planning , has come a nd gon e.Cars from as far north as Alban y andsouth to Ch ristchurch converged on Hast­ings du ring Friday.

Th e president of t he Hawke's Ba yBranch, George Howard, and sec re taryLionel Priest at t he final functi on namedthe ir helpers. I would not ri sk such aventure but t here is no doubt that to t hevisi tor at least everyt hing ran without ahitch due to t heir effor ts which is a greatcomp lime nt (and re lief ) to an y host nomatter wha t goes on behind the scenes.

Most motel acco mmodation was wit hineasy distan ce of t he Sh owgrounds whi chwas t he venue of the even t s and the rest

of t he visi tors camped in th e Sh ow­grounds buildings or were billeted by localmembe rs.

The weather was' perfect and the onlysource of irritati on in local ph en omenawas the hord es of midges, but our consola­ti ons were t ha t the deb ri efing cere monyon Friday night was not what it see medto be and tha t t he ent hus iasts in na ti onalcostume at N1e adjacent Highland gamesmu st hav e suffe red mu ch more. Some saidt hat the midges were frui t flies bu t ofcourse only a "fruit" would really kno w.

The programme starte d at th e Show­grounds at 9.30 a.m. Saturday, half theca rs being displayed in t he arena and go­ing progressively through field event s con-

PAGE TI\'E NTY-ONE

sis ting of a timed parking test, heightest imat ion, wiggle woggle serpentine andbacking te st, the other half being in alarge building for visit or s to inspect. At1 p.m. all ca rs took part in the Grand Par­ade and as they passed t he grandstandwere abl y described by Mike Po yntonafter whi ch th ose from each sectionswapped places for the bal ance of the day.

Meals were served in the beautiful oldNelson home set in wonderful gardensadjacent to the Show grounds. The bestcomplime nt I can pass here is t o sa y sin­cerely that the meals were always hotwhe n meant to be and did not tast e likebulk-cooked meal s. Th ey were ad equ ateand tasty.

Later on Saturday afternoon driversand navigators gradually and quietly dis­appeared and a circle round a table in anadj oining hostelry grew larger and larger.

In t he evening the ca bare t held at "Cab­ana" at Awato to was a roaring success andin keeping' with a moto ring event and' theda ys of "mini this" and "mini that" liquidrefreshment wa s pip ed in direct from amini tanker on wh eels.

Sunday's picnic run ver y sub t ly took usthrough country whi ch illustrated the'source of seven as pects of Hawke's Baywealth-i-vegetable, f ruit, wool and indus­t rial areas-and finished up on the banksof a river f or a private picnic barbequelun ch.

Th e barbequ e, the sunshine and the au c­t ion were pleasant leisurely ac ti vit ieswhich enabled those that wished t o talkca rs, sunb at he.

Of the official dinner I cannot speakas I was unable to attend bu t when Iar r ived fo r the presentation of trophi esshor t ly before 8 p.m. the sat isfied expres­sion on all fa ces left no doubt as to thegastronomical success of this event.

The presentation of prizes and trophieslisted els ewh ere followed by tw o excellentfilms filled the balance of the official even­ing 's ente r ta inment.

The sponso rs hip by Cas t rol and free oilwa s mu ch appreciated by all the membersbut not all wen t to the extent sh own bytw o Auckland ca rs whi ch broke externaloil pip es and sprayed four to five gallons

PAGE T WEN T Y·T WO

Alfa Romeo (1931), entered by D. Hall, Huntly.Dave is seen here, returning to his parkin g bay,after having- success fully completed, his field

events.

of oil bet ween them over the picnic-runroad s! The refund by Castrol of ourentry fee was also very acceptable.

All were invited to take their departureon Monday from the parking area behindthe Mayfair Hotel and' those able t o com­ply were presented with a gen erous picniclun ch by the proprietors of the Mayfair.Some w'ith long runs left at 6 a.m. and itis certain none slept past this hour at atleast one motel after the departure of theAlfa Romeo from Huntly th e Hurlinghamf rom Auckland and t he Franklin fromTirau.

Man y friendships were made and re­newed, t he weather, the hospitality, theorganisation were perfect and as the yearsgo by t hes e rallies ga ther an atm ospherecolou red I am sure by the personalities ofmembers who are individualists of aunique type. Forty to fifty years agomotorists were motorists and individuals,but today they are a ma ss of road users.The very interesting and informative talkon road safety by Traffic Officer Codring­ton emphasized the t ragedy of t his loss byroad users but felt that our club is doinga real se rv ice by preserving it and a spir itof helpful coope rat ion on the road andfostering road safety and tolerance.

Official results:Best Overall winner: R. Hicks, Mor rins­

ville, 1927 Au stin 7 (541 points).Oldest car at Rall y: A. V. Collins, Auck­

land , 1912 Ford T.Longest dis tance travelled to Rally: N.

C. Adams, Albany, 1925 Bentley (330mile s) .

Hard Lu ck trophy : E. lVIoffitt, Otahuhu,1928 Essex .

Ma rch sa w th re a fix tures fo r Au ckl and mem­bers-two with th e happy sent ime nt of doin gscm ethi ng fo r ot he rs .

T he first wa s t o assis t a t a Gal a day to he lpra ise funds for th e intellectu ally handicapped,a project we ha ve supported previously. Tenca rs turned up an d though muc h of the da y con ­si sted of fen din g off ty pes that love to sm earca ndy floss a nd ice cream over g leaming paint­work and upholstery a nd see how many fing er­pr in ts th ey can g et to th e square foot ofbrasswork, the orga nis ers of th e Gala we re verya pprecia ti ve of our con t ribution towa rds the rais­ing of ove r ,£600.

Th e second March fixture wa s at Maungata­whiri wh ere we sa id "Thank you" to the pi oneerfamily of th e distri ct, 1\11' and Mrs Lyon, ou rhosts at most of our Hunua Hundred lun chbreaks, on th e occa sion of th e Centennial cele ­brations of th e distri ct. Th ere is no doubt ourca n; with drivers and pa ssengers in period cos­tume lent an atmosphere to th e occas ion in keep­ing with th e portrayal of th e pa ssing years.

The thi rd fixture wa s th e E aster Rally a tHastings. Twenty-three ca rs ente re d and mostsucceeded in getting th ere.

Our five teams did not disgrace th em sel vesa nd one was verv close to th e winners of th eMaxwell T rophy. . It is fe lt by ma ny th a t con­s ide ra t ion will hav e to be given in futu re to somesu bdivisi on of entra nts. In conco urs judgingthere is no fai r compa r ison between the ca r tra il­ered to the ra lly a nd one driven 300 miles u nlessallo wa nce is mad e aceo rdi ng ly. Sim ilarl y it is adifferen t ma tter in field events to ma noeuvre tw oton s of metal mea suring 15 feet by 6 a nd 8 cw tmeasu ri ng 8 feet by 4. Thi s is no criticis m ofou r hosts or meant to det ract fro m the successof th e winn ers but a th ought thrown open fordebate. Th e comme nts of Dermi s King apply inth is resp ect a lso a nd his letter in t he March issuea re appropriate an d time ly. If we don't wakeup a nd study thi s point more carefully we won'tha ve a club or cars in 15 years tim e and oursuccessor will be a poor and pathet ic subs t itu te- a club of 20-year-old cars or a bi t olde r or atbest a ve ry limited range of P.V.Ts. Have weforgotten th e meaning of th e six lin es a t ita licsat th e head of th e title pa g e of eve ry issue of" Bea ded Wh ee ls "'? Read it now !

Mick Hobinson ha s don e a beau tiful job in th ere s tora tion of th e Kiss el and it s maid en outingwill be ea g erl y a nti cipa te d. This is lik ely to bea little dela yed as Mick find s it necessary tobattle for hi s daily cr ust lik e most of us.

Jim Lewi s ha s sta r te d on hi s Vete ran Talbot.Th e chassis wh en it arrived wa s more holes th a nchassis a nd after sand bla s ting pa r ts of it weremore so ! Ji m has one part at least completelyrestored in th e stee ri ng box and shaft .

A new idea for a t r ia ngular event sha re d byAu ckland, Tauranga a nd Waika to is being inv es­t igated a nd 15 or 20 ga th ered in Ha mil ton re-

NORTHERN NATTER By Brian Walt::n ccnt lv to cons ide r i ts form and ideas we re toss eda ro und f rom which a satisfacto ry solut ion willno doubt emerge.

The pred omina nt idea at th e mome n t seems tobe fo r ea ch of the three centres to be host in tu rnin successive years and the other two willa rra nge a timed run from th eir ind ividual cit iesto th a t of the hos t. Auckland Anniversa r y Dayweek -end would make it a mo re enjoyable week­end a nd the na me Au ckland Provincia l Rally, a reideas wh ich emerg ed. -l t will be necess a ry ofcou rse for th e three branch commi ttees to a menda nd finall y approve of the ideas.

To ot he r branches in the North Isl a nd wesa y, "See you a t the Spa H otel, Taupo, June24th ."

SOUTH CANTERBURY NOTESBy Russell Cross

Th e annua l Mid-I sland Rally wa s ou r majoreve nt for th e yea r and with a large entr y listand good day wa s enjoyed by a ll. Th e event wasdifferent from those of previ ous years in thata tim ed run in th e morning with field tests enroute with a good meal at th e Otaio Conun un ityCent re and th en a short drive to Jim Sullivan 'sfarm where the run fini sh ed ea rly in th e after­noon . Th e ea r ly fini sh to th e run with afternoontea (and other refreshments) was enjoyed bythe compe tito rs, giving th em an unhu rried cha twi th other com pe t itors. A socia l in th e Ca ro lineHall in th e evening with a prize-giving finish edoff the day . The resul t s a re :

Veteran : Overa ll, W. Mille r , 1906 Reo. Fi eldtests, G. J elf s , 1915 Ford. T ime t ria l, C. Pearce,1911 Sunbea m. Conco urs, M. But le r, 1907 DeDion Bouton. Mot orcycle, L. Daw son , 1912Dougl as.

Vintaae ; Overall , N. Skev ington , Ch rysle r.Concours , A. G. T aylor, Chrys le r. Time t r ial, J .K ydd, Che vro let . Fi eld tests, J. Perry, Ford.Moto rcycle, G. Pa tterson , Douglas.

Th e age mil eage troph y was won by Co!inPearce wh o drove up f ro m Clinto n in his 1911Sunbeam.

It was interesting to not e th at not one trophywen t to th e South Canterbury Branch.

The first National motorcycl e rally in Master­ton was attended by two local members , one ofwhom, Alan Brehaut, won the Concours for Vet­eran and Belt drive ma chines with his immacu late1920 4 h.p. Dougla s.

Six members mad e the journey to Blenheimfor th e Sou th Islan d Rally and all enjoye d th em ­selves . No troubles were encou nt e red on th eway up bu t one of our loca ls was seen on th ereturn journey curing an overhea te d ge ne ra torby pouring the on ly coolan t he had on him overit-a flag on of a certai n brown bevera ge!

Restorati ons are under way in several mem ­bers ' hands a nd so me of the m should be a mongthe bes t a ro und. Ron Montgomery's F ord, whi chmad e it s fir s t appearance at Blenheim, will afte rsom e more finishing will proba bly be one of th ebest in the d is t r ict. Lew Pemberton has pull ed

PAGE TWENTY-THREE

hi s F ord to bi ts a fter seeing Ron 's a nd is restor­ing it again. A coup le of our new members a rea lso working on their cars , Mr s Lori rner-Allanon her Wi llys Kni gh t coupe, a nd Ted Fussell onhis Studeb ak er. Motorcy cles are a lso under someattention, B rian Goodma n is trying to chang eth e colou r of his New Hudson tw in f rom ru st toth e origi nal colour a nd on th is ma chine theguards were in th e condi t ion where thebol t holes a re the only things he ca n use again!Ron Montgom ery has been looking at hi s 1921Norton and wh en the Ford is finish ed he willstop look in g a nd star t work ing. Th e w riter isworking on hi s 4- cylin der Ace a nd find s it ma y befoul' times as hard (and fou r t imes as expe n­sive) a s a s ing le. Ala n Breh aut has a dded an­ot he r mach ine to his range of hori zontal tw inmotorcycl es . (He ha s exam ples of Dou gl as 's,A DC, H url ey Davidso n hor izon tal twin s) , a rarebird in th e sha pe of a water-cooled Will ia mson;th is ma chine ha s a Doug las-made motor of962cc, with crank han dle s ta rting, wh ich is nearl ya ll cas t iron.

Prep ara tion has been under way now forse vera l mon th s for th e Na tio na l Ra lly nextEaster whi ch wil l be held in Timaru , a nd \~' e h cpeto make it one of conside rable enjo ym ent to a ll.vis itors.

SOUTHLAND BRANCH NOTESBy Barry Barues

Our branch membe rs ha ve been quite busysince Riverton , tu rning up in large nu mbe rs a tlocal even ts . The Gore members recentl y organ ­ised th eir fir s t Ra lly a nd were rewa rd ed with anexce llent attendance. Th e lad s mad e a g reat jo bof it and I ca n se e th is event becomin g a welles ta blishe d annual eve n t. Appropr ia tel y enoughGo re member Bruce Gri erson sco oped the pool bywinning th e veteran se ct ion, and th e ove ra ll, wi ththe 1911 Overland.

Followi ng th is event it was supposed t ha t notmany membe rs would be very interested in oura nnua l Au tu mn Rall y a nd a sma ll cou ntr y hot elwas booked for the wee k-end. H owever to th esu rp ri se of th e organ isers every body see med towant to come a long and anoth er nea rb y hot elwas al so booked to 'ta ke th e overflow. Needles sto say, a g ra nd week- end was had by a ll, evenif th e on ly two veterans presen t , both motor ­cy les , succumbed to the ague after the compet i­ti ve side wa s over a nd were brou gh t back byt ru ck.

Th e res tore rs have al so been bu sy lately.Ralph Pa rk er had hi s 1926 Chc v, 4-door seda nout f or the fir st time a t Gore wh ere he had th emisfortune to hav e a n ax le snap ju st a s he com­menced th e field t ests. H owever the Che v, wasmotoring well f or the Autu mn Rally a cou ple ofweek s later. Ken McMill an is doin g a comple tebackend overha u l on th e 1911 Silver Ghost a ndhas jus t obtained a vin tage Austin 7 chu mmyf or res toration . Da vid a nd Ru ssell Mclv or havenea rly finish ed th e donkey work in reb ui ldingth eir well kn ow n 1908 De Dion including a new

PAGE TWENTY-FOUR

2-sea te r body to completely or ig ina l spec ifica ­ti ons . J ohn Dales' 1931 16/ 50 Humber ha s tak ento th e ro ad again afte r two years. Firs t t r ipwas to th e South Island Rally at Easter with les sthan 20 mile s on a comple te ly recondi ti on edeng ine.

Dermis Hunt has acqui red a 1929 Su nb ea m350cc motorcycle and whi le this is not a TT modelas a va ila ble fro m th e factory it does hav e t heO.H.V. TT eng ine .

Anoth er motorcycle recentl y ca ptured is a500cc " Big Po rt " A.J .S. of ab ou t 1926 now ownedby Robin Ba rnes. Syd Ayling's 350cc " BigPort" A.J .S. did very well at Inverrnay du e inno s mall manner to Syd 's ca pa ble rid ing, but Iexpect th e 500 should go p retty well , to o.Triumph ac t ivit y in club ra llies in the hands ofWayne Ni choll wh ose 1912 model has been toBrighton , Mid-Is la nd a nd seve ra l local events th isyea r a nd T re vor Barnes wh o is having someteething t roubles with his 1927 500 but which hasshown s igns of bein g a g ood performer. H ow­ever, new me mber Ad a m Brierley is res torin ga 1918 T.T . model an d Ray E uns on has a circa1915 "Tru sty" with th e Sturmey Archer gear ­box a nd hand cha nge. A form er me mber Ver nRu ssell ha s rejoine d the club with hi s 1912 Hum­ber mot orcycle.

Willi s Brown is now the proud owner of apos t vintag e O.H .C. 1100cc La gonda whi ch he isrefu rb ishing a little. Gordon Officer has a dde da Morris Cowley roads ter in dereli ct cond ition tohis sta ble. His other sma r t ly res tored Morris2-seater has been motori ng well t his season andwill be fitted with a new hood wh en the hoodbows come to light.

At ou r la st me et in g Ra y Lind sa y g ave us ata lk a nd showed slides of his recent t ri p to Aus­t ralia where he competed in the Eas ter Rall ywith hi s 1916 F ord. Ra y's trip has spa rked con­s ide ra ble interest in th e International Rall y inAu strali a in 1970 an d se ve ra l membe rs ha vemade tenta tive pl an s to atten d. At the momen tit cos ts a bou t £7/10/- one wa y for a motorcyclea s aga ins t .£60 fo r an a verage siz ed veteran ca rto ship f rom Bluff to Sy dney. Is it a ny wond ertha t many of those interested a re conte mpla t ingtakin g motorcycles .

WELLINGTON NOTES By Ken Wilkinson

This is our last repor t f or the bran ch 's yearas ou r a nnua l genera l mee t ing fa lls du e in May .Wh ile one is te mp te d to dwell on even ts whichca tch th e eye such as our very su ccess f ul NationalMot or cycle Rally of F ebrua ry la st, we find th a twe have ac complished a g reat deal in th e ordin­ary r un of th e mill things for whi ch th e club wa sformed. Our mem bershi p is no w ove r 150 andfor most of the pa st year ou r club night a ttend­a nce has been regularly in th e seventies andind eed th e last club night attendance wa s 86.Th is we fee l is very satisf actory a nd shows t ha tth e members are giving suppor t to th e bra nch'sex ecut ive com mit tee in a rr-anging a programmeof talks f rom experts on th e va r ious parts of

J

vehicles and th e way to dea l with the m in re sto r­a t ion work. Th ere is a con sid erable am ount ofre storation wo rk going on at the mo ment. Ata la te r time we will lis t it .

Allied to this programme wo have a s pec ia lcourse going on for members of the b ranch inpanel-beating. At th e moment 14 members a reon this one whic h is being held a t Well in g tonPolytechnic a nd it is so success ful tha t it see mslikely that an ot her one for members wi ll be r unnext year an d a lso for ensuing yea rs.

However there has been a drop in th e num­ber of vehicles competing in some of our localevents . We sha ll look into this and endeavour toput it righ t.

Six of ou r members, J onathan Dransfie ld,Da le Conlon, Bi ll Delan ey , Pete r Ha nsa rd , Cha r ­lie Maxwell and Len Southward went to Austra­lia to take pa rt ill th e Nationa l Rall y at A lbury.Those with whom we hav e ha d contact enjoyedthe mse lves imm en sely. Bill Delaney gave usa description at ou r la st club ni g ht of som efa cets of it which were interesti ng and amusi ng.We now know wh y it has taken on e or two ofthem so long to get ba ck to New Zea land afterth e Ra lly concluded .

Six o'c lock clos ing t im e is ve ry hard to ta keafter a few weeks with a 10 p. m. one!

Th e most recent club event was th e Old Wai ­rarapa Wi nter Wa nder whi ch we ha ve broughtforward to autumn. This r un wa s originally in ­tended to be the la s t before the vintage and ve ts .were la id up for the wi nter. H owever to getmore enjoyme nt an d a greater number of en­trants it wa s decided to bring it forward andthis was th e fir st of th e ne w run s. We held iton 80th A p ril and asse mbled in F eatherstonwhere morni ng tea s were served at J ones 'Gurage.

We then to ok off for a wander round th e verybeautiful cou nt rys ide a nn ended up in the Glow­worm ca ves up Blue Creek Road, whi ch is five0 1' s ix miles south of Ma rtinborough. After ap icni c lunch the ca ve which is rea lly a tunnelca used by a stream and through whi ch one ha s towade, was visi te d.

Ma ny go t wet, so me very wet . But it wa sgood f un an d th e sixty-odd participants wenthome very contented .

CANTERBURY NOTES By Gavin BainDespite the onslaught of t he so uthern winter,

branch events ha ve stil l been very well su ppo r te d,and thi s year events arc continuing much long erthan in the past.

The branch hill climb was th is veal' held atWindwhistle , th e ven ue used by th~ Ca n te rburyCar Club in past yea rs. The surface was notrea lly up to sta nda rd despite a con sid e rableamount of grad ing on the da y bef ore the event,but with more work thi s wou ld be an idea l spotfor a speed climb. No less than I S. vehiclesturned out consisting of 10 vintage, three motor­cycles, two post vintage machines, and three h is­toric racing cars. A g ood nu mber of mem bers

came out to watc h and certain ly en joyed theruns put in by se vera l cars. Ross Haynes in theAust in 7 Sp ecial was most impressive and PeterHenry with his B.S .A. and sidechair was seen totake to the grass several times. Mention shouldbe made of Geoff Owen who rebui lt his J 2 M.G.in one wee k from a pi le of bits, on ly to haveignition bot hers at high revs . It was go od tosee George Wrigh t with h is 4 ~ Ben tley out aftera long spe ll. Ron Hasell had th e misfortun e tothrow a rod on th e way to th e venue an d Au sti nHa dler had rear ax le t rou bles with his L typ eM.G. Result s of the regularity t ri a l we re : P .Henry, B.S.A. motorcycle, Lst ; B. Brown, Sun­bea m, 2nd ; R . Ha ynes, Austin 7, and G. Bain,Alfn-Romeo, a rd equa l.

Th e fastes t times on th e day were: W.Mau ger, Stanton , 39.8, 1st; L. White, Aston­Ma rti n, 41.8, 2nd ; G. Ba in, A lfu -Romeo, 4 2. :~ , 3rd;R. Haynes, Austi n 7, 38.0, 4th .

Class winners were: R. Haynes, Au stin, Vin ­tage ; P. Henry, B.S.A., Motorcycl e an d P .V.; W.Mauger, Stanton, Hi storic.

Sun be a m in th e dnst-c-Brian Brown I( Speed 20)really trying- at Wind whistle on a very vintage

sur fac e!

A few day s la t er th e wiv es of seven commit­tee members ra n a t rial whi ch a t t ra cted 19 s ta rt ­e rs . The run took ca rs on a 7:3 mil e t r ial throu ghthe gorges with lunch at the Lob urn Hall. Afterlunch the route too k competitors to Les H u mm'sf a r m at Southb rook for afternoon tea. Results:B. Humm, Chev., 1st; B. Ha lligan, Ford A, 2nd;L. Humm, J ewett, ard.

Earlier in the year th e branch ra n what issu re to be an a nnua l eve nt . F our old hom estead sin the North Ca nte rbu ry a rea were vis it ed bysom e 17 veterans, ao vin tage and a few moderns.Th e run was a real success and th e homest ea dswere f ound to ha ve many fascinating fea tures,not the lea st of th ese being th e gorgeous brassla mps at one p roper ty, sa id to have com e off th e1910 Talbot of Godfrey Hall, and used during theperi od th e car did service as a hearse .

Res torations have been proceeding a t a satis­fa ctory rate and Ga vin Pa terson ha s reall y beenwork ing on his early veteran Renault 4. He ha sa lso a cquired a 1911 Four in comple te a nd orig­ina l condition whi ch will no doubt get the treat­ment th e same a s h is Dougla s. Dave Ma nharthas acquired a Ch ry sler 70 ro a ds ter from Nigel

PAGE TWE NTY-FIVE

wentMas­take

Moo re

tak in g

TARANAKI BRANCH NOTESBy Des

membersIt is goo d to see mo re of ourpar t in ot her branch es' r allies .

Almos t a ll of ou r moto r cycle membersdown to th e N ati on al Motorcycle Rally atterton , a lt ho ugh only three were able totheir machi nes.

Easter a nd the No r th Isl and Rall y at Ha s t­in g s sa w seven ca rs a nd one mo torcyc le thererep resenting Ta ra naki, plu s a n excep tio nallylarg e proportion of Taran aki members .

The Hawke's Bay boys exce llecl the mselves inpu t t ing on a really goocl show, a ncl the g ene ralfee ling am on g those who went wa s " We are go ingto do th is 1110re often."

On th e local scen e se ve ral res to rations a repr oceeding . Max Olsson 's nice ly r estored 1936Brou gh Supe r ior mo torcycle ca me f orward andwas a ccepted as a P .V.V.

A ne w appli can t for mem bership , P erc Rose­warne, has spen t t he la st two years res torin g a1930 F ord A 4-d oor se da n a nd mad e a n excelle ntjob of it too.

J im Sorenso n ha s restored hi s 1925 Triumphmotorcy cle a nd Dick Zia rn a his 191:3 New Hud­son . Th is is beli eved t he only ex ist ing on e inN ew Zeal and.

And now we come to our pride an d joy- thea nnual Maun ga-Moana Rally.

With great enthus iasm local membe rs wer ebeh ind t he or ganisi ng commi ttee a nd thingswe nt off to a flying s tart. T im e and again thequ es ti on , " Wha t ca n we do to h elp ?" was aske d,a nd was a ll the encou ragement t he sub-committeeentrusted with the orgunisa t.ion cou ld possiblywish for.

Of the forty-e ight entries recei ved , f orty- fivea rr ived a nd took pa r t in th e proceedin g s.

It would be diffi cul t to imagine a grea te rvariety of ca rs tha n t hose that were the re.

A sta t ic displ ay was staged on th e Sa turdaynight wh ile a noggin a nd natter was helcl in a na djoin ing hall.

On th e Sun day mor ning, the ca rs se t off on afull da y's motori ng. Th e cours e was set to takein va rio us ba ck roads , a nd included going overa sw ing bridge, th ro ug h a tu nnel , over a saddlea nd finall y climbing pa r t way up the Big Hi ll toth e lunch break a t th e No rth E gmont Cha let.

Part way t hroug h th e morning's ru n, a se r iesof field t es ts we re held in a f a rm er 's paddock.

At the Cha le t , ins te ad of a plea sant two-ho urbreak in deli gh tful surroundi ngs (as t he organ­isers intended ) t he rains come down a nd how!But once down t he hill agai n and a ll was well.Several pu t th e ir hoods down again f or th e fina lru n to t he fini sh .

Later t he dinne r and social a nd da nce washeld, t he "stayers" con ti nuing on at a member' sres ide nce after th e hall was closed, un til mu ch,mu ch la ter.

Visi to rs wh o ca lle d to ma ke th ei r fa rewells ,next morning, were trea te d to a bi t of the dogthat . . . e tc!

A satisf'actorv blend of historic machinery andhomesteads ( se e Can te rbury Notes ) .

P r ice a nd a matched pa il' of De Soto road s te rsha ve come to light re pu ted to be the only tw o inthe country . Les E veritt ha s ac quire d a veteran2-cyl. Gladi ator fo r whic h a f ew parts are re­qu ir ed if anyone can help. J ack Wilk ins has fo u nda vete ran Argyll less motor a nd gea r box, butotherwise r em a rkably co mplete whi ch will bestarted as soo n as his house is fin ish ed , a nd Levis'mo torcycle ow ner, Sid F a lconer, has ac qui reda boa t -t ail ed Essex roadste r f ro m th e Ashburtona rea.

Bill Lu x ton's Stutz coupe has been so ld toRalph Cr um in Ashbu rton and wi ll soo n be re­s plende nt in new pa in t, ch rome, upho ls te ry, etc.Ted Loveridg e has bou gh t his seco nd P.A. M.G.from New Pl ym ou th a nd this sho uld be arrivingsoon. We a lso heal' th at Don Oddie in Ti ma ruha s mad e a trip to Wellington to ge t on of theseca rs and your scri be is urgently in need of aG-cyl motor fo r his 19a5 M.G.

Recen t visitors to Ca nter bury ha ve been RonRoycr oft f rom Glen Murra y a nd our old f riendDa ve Bowman of Ne w P ly mouth.

Despi t e winte r now we ll a nd tru ly here, t heredoes not seem to be any le t-up in eve nts andsevera l, inc luding t he fa mou s I r ishman Rall y,a re s ti ll to co me.

Most recent t r ial wa s our annual a ll -day eventove r Ba nks Peninsu la. Thi s cove re d so me 100miles of roa d ranging f'rorn goo d sea l to prett yg r im grass trac ks. Mos t popula r ( ?) compe ti­to r wa s Iva n Tuylor who showed g rea t fores ightin r unn ing completely out of spa rks on the one­way roa d from Port Levy to P ig eo n Ba y ! Thef act that he was on e of t he leading ca rs helpedgreat ly. Pe te r T emp ero t rie d towing th e inani­mate Daimler a nd spent the res t of th e day nu rs­ing a s lipping clutch. On e of t he marsh al s atth e bottom of th e hill into P ige on Ba y obv ious lykn ows a s leeve-valve Dai mle r 's smoke scree ncapabilit ies a nd was Seen we a r ing a gas mask!F irs t place we nt to Rex Che ne ry in hi s 1924Bean foll owed by Les Humm in h is 19aO Chev ,roadste r. An exce llent tria l a nd tha nks a re dueto Tom and J ohn Kin g fo r organis ing a nd r un ­ning this .

PAGE T\\'E:>:TY·SIX

In cidentall y, for the benefit of thos e membe rswho may be passin g th ro ugh Ne w P lym outh anytime, the T aranaki boy s gathe r at t he Priva teBar of the Crite rio n 5 to 6 on F riday nights,

OUl' monthly club night is the third T hu rsda yin th e month a t the Clu brooms, 80 J unct ion Roa d,whi ch is a pproxi mately one mile south of thecit y limit s on the Ma in So uth H ighwa y,

HAWKE'S BAY NOTESBy Gordon Vogtherr.

Now that the 1967 Nort h Is land Easter Rall yis beh ind us we can settle down a lit t le and sur­vey the la s t three months in retrospe ct.

All other ac ti vities in the branch ha ve takensecond place to th e Rally, but so me int eresti ngout ings were he ld.

On 19t h Ma rch a leisur ely run was held start­ing fro m F a rndon Park a nd fo llowi ng severa lback road s, past t wo "Spiri t Mercha nts" andthe nce on to th e Sh aw property at Te A wa nga.An enjoyable day was spent by th e r iver, it beingplea sin g to see so many ch ildre n th ere, Afterlunch we a ll cu rried on to th e Sho wgrounds tolook aroun d the am en ities a nd se e ju s t how mu chwork was necessary to be done before Easter.

The March Nog gin & Natter att racted 85mem bers together with 12 lad ies. We saw th eCastrol film "Crossroads Alice" whi ch made usall feel ra the r hot a nd dry.

Sunday, 80th April, saw foul' vintage an dthree modern vehi cles take an ou t ing in the finea utu mn weathe r to vis it Les Lemrnon at Puke­titiri. After lunch Les to ok those intere sted onto Ba ll's Clea ring som e four or so mil es fromth e Le mm on pro pe rty.

Cha ir ma n George Howard has really goneVintage and pu rchased t he Wa rwick Ca shmore1927 Ersk ine, and is no w settling down to restor­ing it to t he con dition th a t he wan ts. AnotherP .V.V. car has com e in to the Club, Don a nd J ohn

Sloa n ha ve bought Fra nk Renfrew's 1937 Hlitre Ril ey Kestrel , and the only regret is that todate we ha ve not brought F rank into the Clubal so . Rex Scarrott has got a 1922 Oldsm obiletourer home and someone will hav e th e job ofres tora t ion ,

Al f La mbess and Go rdon Brown have come toterms, Alf tak ing Gordon's Oa klan d and Gordontaking Al f' s 19:30 Chevrolet,

At our la s t meeting on 12th A pr il membe rsb roug ht al ong sli des taken at t he Rall y, manybeing of great int erest, and we were able to se ea preview of th e 16mm movie film which wh enfini sh ed sh oul d be of inte res t to all Vintagists.

Don 't forget the Ha wkc' s Ba y Bran ch 's Safa r iRall y at La bour Week-end. It is la te r than youthink, an d we would like to se e you all over hereagain,

OTAGO NOTES By Geo. Tofield

At th e end of F ebruary we had the secondma jo r event in Ot a go' s ca lenda r , th e In verrnayH ill Cli mb,

Poss ibly all th is speed and soci a lisi ng t iredever yone cut too much for s ince th at ev ent m ostof ou r functions ha ve been ra ther ligh tl y a ttend­ed. A run to Wa ipori Gorge a nd ba ck wa sa tte nded by five ca rs, only tw o of th em vintag e.A film even ing held in Apri l showed simila r ten­dencies with only tw enty 0 1' so members presen t .

Res tora t ion activiti es ha ve taken a new tu rnin Otago re cen tly with Mal colm (Ja mes Hyphen)Macdoug a ll busily restoring hi s T ojiero -J ugu a rand Brian Middl ernass doing like wis e with la nMcKellar's 4CLT Maserati.

A plea si ng feature of this branch 's a cti vitieslately has been the increa sing numb er of ourmembers wh o a re finding their way to eventsheld by othe r branches , R iverton this year sa wsix Otago ent ra nts wh ile t he re were eigh t atth e Mid-Island recently.

11 VINTAGE VOYAGE"From Cambridge to Christchurch in a 1930 Austin 7 Tourer

By Bert WilliamsonIllustra ted by Dick Hill

As a newcomer to Vintage Car circlesand especially, as has been ca re fully ex­plained to me , as a member of that elitecorps t he Vintage Au stin "7" owners, Ihave been prompted to tell of my recentexperiences.

I sh ould explain at t he beginning t hatwith my characteri stic modesty it ha s notoccurred to me that I had don e an yth ingparticularly wort hy of not e. Since then

PAGE T \\,E:":TY-SEV EN

it has been pointed out to me by experi­enced men whose opin ions I would hardlypresume DO question, that a record of myepic journey should be preserved for pos­ter ity. Under this pressure I have at lastag reed to tell all. It has been suggestedto me that my feat ranks with the da sh tothe Pole by the immortal Capt. Scott, butthis is too much , even for me. I ratherthink of it as being in the tradition of t hatgreat exp lorer and adventurer OttoZootch, who blazed the trail from theIndies to the And es in his undies.

I wish here to record my thanks andgratitude to the many vintage car enthu­siasts throughout New Zealand whom Iha ve met and who, one and all, so warmlywelcomed me to their rank s. I hesitateto use names but I am compelled to men­tion one, truly the "Father Confessor" ofall Vintage Austin "7" owners whose helpand sound advice, given so freely, has en­ab led me to become the happy owner of aVintage Austin "7 ." I refer of cours e toRoss H. Haynes of Christchurch, affec ­tionately and aptly known as "FatherHaynes." With his encyclopaedic know­ledge of Austin "7s" , together with his

unbounded enthusiasm, he is a good manto kn ow. My sincere thanks Ross .

He , it was who firs t told me of the 1930model to urer for sa le in Cambridge nearHamilton . I immediately wrote to theowner and his description of the little cardecided me to go to Cambridge at the firstopportunity to inspect it with a view tobuying it and driving it home to Christ­church. I arrived in Cambridge on the12t h F ebruary, 1967, and early the fo l­lowing morning I met the owner and in ­spected the little car. It was a case of" love at first sight." With t he car thatis. It immediately became evident to methat I was dealing with an honest manwho had truthfully represented the condi­tion of the car .

Within two hours we had completed' adeal and I was behind the wheel of mylittle treasure heading for Taupo. At thisstage I was being escorted by my brotherin his Mark 2 Zephyr, which was a verycomfor t ing thought. While the deal wasbeing comp leted I caught my brother giv­ing me some rather puzzled looks fromtime to time . I got the impression thathe thoug ht I sho uld not be left alone for

.. . .. and final ly stopped on a hill , wit h the radiator boi ling."

PAGE TW E:'\TY-EI GHT

too long as undoubt edly I was not qui t ere sponsible. We arrived in Taupo in theaf t ernoon and booked a motel for t henight. The proprietress was clearly alady of keen discernmen t as she directedmy brot her to park outs ide while, with agran d flourish , she escorted me to thecar port of her very well appointed motel.This was an honour whi ch I accepted as afit ting tribute to my little car.

I was on t he road ea r ly nex t morningfor Napier leaving my escort t o follow anhour or two later, with his da r k foreb od­ings ab out t he steep hill s befor e me stillringing in my ears.

I was well through th e steepest gradesbefore trouble came. Th e engine bega nto run rather er rat ica lly an d fina llystopped on a hill , wit h t he radiator boil­ing. After allowing time f or the engine1:'0 cool I was away ag ain bu t did not getvery far until t he same tr ouble occurred.By th is time my escort had come up withme and' af ter a consulta t ion I reluctan tly

agreed t o have the t ow ro pe attached. Inthis way we proceeded t o the next townwhere a mechanic had a look at my moto r .He slacked off the pet ro l pipe to the car­buret t or to ensure there was an adequatesupply of fu el which there wa s. He closedthe bonnet but left the petr ol union slack,having evidently f orgotten to ti ghten itaga in . F or this serv ice I was char ged10/ 6.

On again we went eventua lly limpinginto Napier in t he ear ly af t ern oon. I fel tsure that the trouble was in the ignitioncoil. I bough t a new coil and condenserin Napier which I fitted and thereafterth e engine ran perfectl y . By this time Ihad gained so much confidence in my littleca r that I changed my plans. In stead oftaking her to Lyt telton on the roll -onferry I decided to cross from Wellingtonto P icton by t he "Aramoana" an d drivehome to Christchurc h.

I set off from Hastings on Wedn esda y,15i'11, and drove to Paraparaumu, Two

s

'Welding, cutting a ndall ied pr ocesses havecom e to be an int eg­ra l pa rt of our coun­try' s industri al life.Until the ad ven t ofweld ing such methodsas rive ting and bolt­ing had been th eprincip al means ofjoi ning one metal toanot he r.Pioneering thi s fieldI ndu strial Ga ses havebeen keep abreast ofall pr act ical an dscientific develop­ments overseas giv inga sound ba sis for theconsistently h ighqu al ity equ ipme ntthey sup ply.

From ahumble beginning5

A Complete Welding Servic e from One Sour ce of Supply

PAGE T WENT Y-NINE

things happened on this leg of the trip.First my generator stopped charging,lea ving me so lely dependent f or ignitionon a rather dice y-looking old battery.T hen the weather turned nasty and Idrove into P almerston in a heavy rainstor m with my oilskin coat as the onl yprotection from the elements.

~ . " "~........ <,

" . . . th e onl y prot ect ion f'rom the ele me nts ."

Here I ca lled at th re e garages to havemy ge ner a tor se en to but was turned awaybecaus e eve ryo ne wa s to o bus y to attendt o me. No t hing for it bu f to press onkeeping my fingers crossed and hoping myropey old battery would not die on me.The go ds who protect fools suc h as I weregood to me and I drove into Paraparaumuin t he late afternoon we t and cold" but inhi gh s pir its. The lady a t the boa rdinghouse wh ere I was given dinner, bed andbreakfast, ask ed me if I had a ca r and ifso would I like to park it in the yard . AsI had been all otted a bedr oom with a largedou ble bed I sa id I would like to take my"baby" t o bed with me. This r equ est wa sturned down . The underside of my ca rbore cons ide rable ev idenc e of my travelsthrough the dairying count ry of the Wai­kato. P erhaps it wa s not unreasonablethat th e landlady woul d not all ow me totake it into th e bedroom in suc h a filthys tate. I had to be con te nt with pa rkingher under my open bedroom window whereI could keep an affectionate eye on her atinterval s dur ing the night.

N ext morning I found a sy mpat he t icauto electrician wh o cleane d th e brus hesof my ge nera to r and with the ba t tery get-

PAGE TH IRTY

ting a char ge again I was on my way toWellington to catch the afternoon boa t toPicton. To those wh o kn ow it, dri vin g asmall ca r into Wellington on that busiestof highways is a rather fri ghtening experi­enc e at any time. I kept well to my leftand it is well I did. Ab out a mile or sofrom the city I was over t aken by a greatsnor t ing bell owing mons ter of an a r ticu­lated truck loaded wit h huge steel beams.At the moment of pa ssing I saw some ­thing that looked lik e a broom handlehurtle from the t op of his load to the roadway. I was soon made aw ar e that theobject which was bou nding along directlyin front of me was a large s te el cro w-bar6ft long and 1;]:in in diamet er. It came torest in the gutter where I "souvenir ed" it,and brought it home wi th me. Anybodywant to bu y a cro w-bar ? It would make apair of fine bac k axles for an Austin 7.

" I was overtaken by a grea t snorting bellowingmonster."

At six o'clo ck t hat afternoon I droveasho re on to t he good old "Mainland" atPi cton. Was it only imagination whichmade me think that my little ca r pu r re dwit h pleasure at fe eling t he soil of theSouth Island under her tyres? After anight in Blenheim and next morning me et­ing a few congenial "Vintage Car " cha r ­acters, on the road again down the beauti­ful coas t road to Kaik oura, Saturday,18th, dawned bright and clear. I sa t onthe rock s whil e my fri end Archie, lookingremarkably lik e "Old N ick" himself in hi ss kin - diving suit and spear gun, swama mongst the rocks and kelp and brought ast r ing of beautiful butterfish as ho re f orme.

Away t hen on the last lap with a realold man "Nor ' wester" wind buffeting my

Is today'smost modern oilright foryesterday's car?

Def initely.No ca r, old or new, cou ld fa il to go better on today's

Castrol . Au st in know thi s-and the y recommend Castrolfo r an o ld A ustin 7 as st rongly as the y recommendCastrol fo r their cars of today.

Because Cast ro l means pro tec t io n. Mea ns reli ability .Mea ns smoother, troub le- free motoring.

The age of your car doesn't matter .The oiI do es.

Be sure to choose Castro l.If you have an A ustin of this vintage use CA STROl X l .

THE AUSTIN SEVENLUBRICATION CHA RT

CASTRDLSUPERGRADESWITH"UGlUIC TUNGSTEN"

"Like 'Old Nick' him self."

little ca r ab out leaving me in 110 doubtthat I was back in Canterbury.

Wh en I drew up in my own drive withth e tonneau of my mu d-stained little carfilled with spa re tyres, luggage, and bigcrow-ba r sti cking over t he bac k, my sonremarked, "Dad looks like he's just ar­r ived back f rom a long 'sa fari '."

Well, I had , hadn' t I?

LETTERS TO TH EEDITORDeal' iVladam,

I ac knowledge Denis King 's letter in theMarch issu e of " Bea ded Wh eels" a nd m v firstim pulse was sim ply to ignore it com plete ly . Onreflection however, I reali sed t hat th e let ter hadbeen writ te n by a club memb er who has beena ro und for a long t ime a nd should be ve ry mu cha ware th at the Vintage Ca r Club of New Zea ­land ha s a lwa ys had an interes t in compe t it ivemotoring in so me form or a nothe r. In fact theV.C.C. was one of th e g uidi ng hands behind thefo r ma t ion of the Associa t ion of Ne w ZealandCar Clubs wh ich was intended to be the servantof a ll motoring clubs in Ne w Zeal a nd . Wh enthe situation cha nged so mewhat owi ng to one 0 1'

two power-happy individua ls gaining control, theV.C.C. wisely withdrew from the A.N .Z.C.C. buthas still re ta ined to my kn owl edge, a sym pa the­tic outlook towa rd s the motori ng en thusiasts ofNew Zea la nd who ha ve in the past , an d will inthe future, want to use their cars occasionallvfo r com petitive motorin g. .

I think that all ou r readers wi ll agree tha tthe great strength of the Vintage Car Club of

PAC E THIRTY-TWO

N ew Zeal and lies in its a bili ty to ca ter for alltypes of Veteran, Vintage , P .V.V., an d HistoricRacing veh icles wit hin one organisation a nd int his resp ect we a re probably un ique. T his arrange­ment works pe rfectly an d it is only when a fe wsingle -minded an d sel fish ind iv idual s who a reonly interested in pursu ing t hei r own pa r ti cularinterests, start to incite some form of dissension,that any trouble occurs.

It should be quite obvious to all our members ,no matter what pa rticular type of vehicle theyown or wha t facet of the vin tage movement theyenjoy, that they must be left to decide for the m­se lves what they a re going to do with thei r ownvehicles. (We in Well ing t on B ra nch found outto ou r sorrow some yea rs ago th at it is not advis­a ble to interfe re with a person who intends touse hi s vehicle to suit h is own par ti cular lik es0 1' dis likes). I n othe r words there a re some ofus wh o wish to use our veh icles compe ti t ive ly a ndth ere a re some of us wh o get our ma in enjo y­ment f ro m th e restoration and sh owin g off ofth ese wond erful vehicles . Th e moment tha t some­body star ts di ctating to members how theirvehi cles should be used, they a rc immedia tel yprovokin g th e a rgume nt th at there is a nee d fora nothe r club, or clubs, in Ne w Ze al a nd . .

I a m sure that we are all completely happywith th ings th e way they a re a nd by bein g to le r­ant of our fe llow members we can continue to bethe most p rogressive and embraci ng body in theVeteran and Vintage world.

Yours faith fu lly,MIKE POYNTON.

Dear Mada m,I read with interes t you r correspondent's

opin ion of racing an d hill - clim bing vintagevehicles in the March issue of "Beaded Wheels."Th is br ings up a most im portant factor in th efuture activities of the club as a wh ole, t hro ugh­ou t our country. The com petit ive hill climb isadver t ised as such and only th ose prepared toen te r th eir vehicles 0 1' those with suitable vehi­cles bu ilt fo r th is purpose nee d enter, bu t itsee ms that a lthough man y of the provin cial ralliesare adver tised as stra ight rall ies, many of thema re in fac t, designed to take th e vinta ge motoristove r some of the worst corrugated du sty 0 1' muddyun seal ed roads in th e provin ce, making th e rallyinto a gl orifi ed r eliability tria l. Now it's allvery well to say th at th ese vehicles were bu iltfor such conditions . Most En gli sh, E uro pean a ndAmerican roan s were cla y road s or ma cad amsea led du ring th e vin tage pe riod, not sma ll metalchip wit h cross cor rugation ca used by modernhea vil y lad en trucks a nd buses. I ha ve toda yspoken to two vin tage vehicle owners in thisprovin ce who are not entering thei r recentlyres tored veh icles in the a nnual Ma ungu-M oan arally, the reason being that they ha ve spent con ­sidera ble t ime an d a g rea t dea l of money inrestoring the ir vehicles, and don' t wish to chancethei r precious tyres an d immaculate enamelpa intwork with ro ug h roads an d the resul tan tstone chips and other possibl e defects that wi ll

be caused by exc es sive vibratio n, over a r ou tethat is 20 per cent on unseal ed r oads. Allbr an ches shou ld ha ve a look at this point andwhen th e ca lenda rs are made up for next sea­so n's provincial ra llies , it should be clearlys ta te d whe ther each run will be pl easant motor­in g over sealed road s, a re liab il ity t rial ove rr ough un seal ed road s or a straigh t out hill climb;th en en tran ts fro m other p rovinces can pic k th erall y or rallies th ey wi sh to attend , g ivi ng con­siderat ion to wh at th eir vehi cle was built fora nd to how much ti me a nd effort th ey ha ve putinto th eir restor a ti on.

I am, etc . CONCOU RS .

r.o. Box 20 5, Nanyuki, Ken ya , 1/ 5/ 67.Dear Madam,

I ha ve now receive two cop ies of your exce l­lent ma g a zine, f OI' wh ich I have to th ank Mik eRose of Auc kla nd. Th e ma ga zine is pa rti cul a rl yin teresting to me as I was in New Zeal and from1954 until 1958 , th e fir st two years at MasseyCollege in Pa lme rston N orth. In tho se da ys theca r pa rk a t Massey looked lik e a Vintage CarRally, There were numerous Aus tin 7s; one, Iremember in parti cul ar, wa s a n ea rly f abr icsa loon in perfect condit ion. It was bought byone of th e students f rom its on e lady owner andstill had it s ori g in al f abri c. Th el'e 'w as a ' lustyan d reli abl e Ru g by 4, an ea r ly 'twe nt ies A ustinwith eno rmous ly hi gh saloon bodywork, a ndnumerou s Am er ica ns such as Model A Fords"Essex, Chrysler, Po nt iac , e tc . I had a 1927 Nash" Lig ht Six" ( I shudder to think wh at th e"Hea vy" one was lik e l j which I resc ue d f rom abreaker's ya rd. H e told me he wa s goi ng t obreak it up as a ll th e big- ends had go ne. Istart ed it up a nd su re enoug h th ere was a fe arfu lcla tter whi ch sounde d ju st lik e big- ends kn ock­ing, but th e oil pressure was perfect. Th e restof the ca r was in very goo d cond ition right downt o the origina l velvet upholstery so I bough t itfor £20. On stripping th e engi ne I could findnothi ng wro ng except f or a mysteri ous mark onth e ins ide of the t iming cover. I reassembled itan d ran the eng ine with the cover off a nd sureenoug h th e noi se was gone . The t roubl e wa sa hairline cra ck nearly ri gh t round th e web ofthe fibre ca mshaft gea r an d whe n the engine wasrevved it flapped a nd hit th e timing cove r. Areplacem ent from th e sa me breaker cost me 10/­and fo r three yea rs th e ca r ga ve ex ce lle nt se r ­vice. I so ld it for £30 just before I left ; I hop eit ha s found a g ood hom e.

Two year s ago I fou nd th e body of a 7thseries Lan cia 'La mbda lying OIl a fa rm I wasman a gin g a nd after exhaus ti ve enquir ies roundth e ne ighbo urhood, discovered tha t a cha p wh olived 100 miles a way had stripped it ab ou t tenyears ago wi th the idea of rebuild ing an incom­plete Lambda whi ch he had ac quire d. I went andsaw him a nd discovered that he still had a ll th eparts and he gave me th e lot. It is a lmos t com­plete now as I ha ve bou ght most of th e miss ing

parts f rom th e Lancia Club in U .K. The wheelsare 22 inches f or which I couldn't get ty res a ndwhile se arc hing fo r suitabl e wh eel s I w as told ofa n old car with cent re -lock wire wh eels lying ona farm near Na iro bi. I we nt to investigate an dth ere, with th e grass and scru b growing u pthough it , wa s a 4 ~ litre In victa.

The In victa is almost comple te ly r estored nowbut it has been a major opera tion and includedbu ild ing a new body. I t goes very well and ata recent East Af rican Vinta ge Car Club mce ti uzit record ed th e best S.S .- ', mile of 20.4 second~which is no t bad a t an al t it ude of 6,000ft.

1 am emig rating to New Zeal and in Janua ry ,a nd al th ou gh it will al mos t break me, I inte ndto bring th e two cars with me. I think it will beworth it. I a m ce r-t ai n ly looki ng forwa rd tojoining the N, Z. Vintage Ca r Vlub,

Yours si nce re ly,B, E . H UMPHRE YS.

We sha ll a ll be look ing f orw ard to J anuarv- ke ep us info rmed of your a r riva l da te a ndpl ace !--Editor.

Suit~ 522, 5th Floor, Penneys Building,Queen & Ad elaid e Sts ., Br isba ne,

Que en sl and, Australi a, 18t h April, 1967.Dear Mrs Anderson ,

,I was most interested to read your Marchiss ue of your journa l.

1 a m an old member of t he Veteran Ca r Clubof Au stral ia , Queens la nd Division , a nd my flee tcomprises th e f ollowin g : 1907 I.H .C. Bu gg y, 1912Hupruobil e, 1914 Cove ntry Rh yl.

At present, I a m res toring an Ald a ys &Onio ns 1904, the pa rts of whi ch 1 di scovered out­s ide Mncka y, North Queen sland, a nd th e remai n­der a t J uli a Creek in f a r North-West Queensland.

Th e eng ine a nd gear b ox have been pra ctica llyrestored a nd a re in ve ry g ood condi t ion, but anu mber of ot he r parts of th e chassis a nd con­t rols are missin g , a nd I wa s wond e rin g if a nyof you r members had res tor ed a s imila r Al da ys& Onions mod el a nd who could gi ve me so me ofth e background inf ormation as to th e t im ing ofth e engine, etc ., a nd to advise if there a re a nyspa re parts availa ble f or wh ich I could excha ngeother vete ran car pa rt s.

I ha ve a vai la ble a spa re engi ne a nd a lot ofpa r t s for a 1907 Bug gy, a lso some s pare pa r t sfo r a 1912-14 Huprn obil e, a lso some old typ e car­bu rettors and magn etos .

You a re to be congratula ted on the editoria lcontent of your journal a nd ·1 would ap p recia tebein g pl aced on you r mailing list, if t his is pos­s ible f or whic h 1 would be plea sed to pa y th enecessary pos tage, etc.

I wa s particularly inte rested to read th e refer­ence of th e Ald a ys & Onions in your March issue.

With best wi sh es from our Veteran Ca r Clubme mbe rs in Queen sl and.

You rs si ncerely,ALLAN J . CA MPBELL, O,B,E .

Would those kn owledg eabl e in Alda v & Oni on s101'e pl ea se wr ite di rect to Mr Campb~ll .-Edi to r .

PAGE T III RT Y-T II REE

D ear M adam ,

1 wa s int ere sted in th e book revi ew of " 1\H istory o f th e World 's Mot or cycl es", publ ished inth e D ecember "BEADED \VH E E LS" , having re­ce nt ly ob ta ined a co py. As your review er sta tes,it is ve ry readable, well produced , a nd a goo d buy.H oweve r, I noti ced a couple o f erro rs worth co r­recti on. On page 65 it is s ta ted th at motorcyclin g inAm eri ca was a lmos t dead bv 1919 . Lik e Charl es IIthe patient a ppea rs to have ' been a n un con scionablylong tim e a-d ying. M otorcycle pr oducti on in theU ,S,A. in 1920 was a t a high er level th an any pre­vious yea r, excep ting the peak one of 1913. Th isinforma tion co me s fro m an art icle published in" Automotive Ind ust ries" in 1920.

Eigh t yea rs lat er, wri ting for the 1929 issueof th e " Encyclo ped ia Britannica ' William S. I-Ia r­lcy (chief engi neer of th e T-I -D com pa ny ) sta tedthat p rod ucti on for th e prev ious th ree yea rs hadbeen 45,000 un its a nnua lly . T his fign re was 75 percen t of th at fo r th e Ame rica n indu stry to ta l in 1920,so it is so me wha t p rem ature to cla ssify U .S. mot or­cycl ing as "dead by 1919" .

T he ot her poi nt is one that ca uses a grea t dea lof mi rt h from tim e to t ime amongst H arl cy owne rs.On page 107 the a uthors sta te :

" T he Brou gh Su peri or, a pish ly imitat ed by aCovent ry Eagle that looked very mu ch th e sa meexcept for the girde r forks th at posit ively sh r ieked" fake" to a nyo ne accustomed to th e elega nt Cast leforks o f th e Brou gh " .

U nfortu na te ly for th is fine sound ing th eory, th eboo t is on th e o the r leg. I t was th e "Castle" for kth at was th e fake. The idea that th e so-ca lled" Castle" fork was a n exclusive Brough producti on isone of th e grea tes t m yth s eve r perpetrated in motor­cycling.

Earlv Bro uui. SS80 and SS I00 models werefitted wi th Ha rley for ks imported by G co rgc Bro ughfrom the 1-1 -D factory in Milwaukce. Brou gh th enma de arra ngements to have the fork bui lt und erlicen ce in Bri ta in , a nd it was ca lled the " Castle".R epea ted rcfcrrcnccs to th e m a ny marve llous q uali ­tie s of the "exc lus ive Cast le fo rk, fou nd only onBrou gh Supe r iors" a ppearing regul arl y in Brou ghlit er a tu re a nd Engli sh peri odi cal s, have ca used end ­less a mu sem en t to Am erican motorcvcle ent husiastsdow n th e veal' s. Act ua llv the " Cas tie " was an in­fer ior co py' o f th e orig ina ], a nd th is was even ad m it­ted by a member of th e Bro ugh Superi or C lub in'Veteran a nd V in tage' M agazine as recently asM a y 19G6.

Ha rol d K a rsla ke, wh o was su p posed to haveinflue nce d George Brou gh in fitti ng H urley fork"was th e younger broth er o f Frank Ka rslak c theNorth W~st Californ ia agent for Harley-Davi~lson,a nd a not ed roa d race r ider in th e 1920-24 period.

Since re ly,

M . D. Hcndry,

P.-\GE TIIIRTY-FOUR

C LASS I FIED ADVERTISEMENT RATESMEMBER OF VINTAGE C AR C LU B OF N .Z _

I N C.: Free for fir st three lines (a pprox. 25words ) ; th er eafter 1/- per lin e (8 words ) .

1\'ON-MEMR ERS : 5/ - for first three lines or less;Ther eafter 1/- per lin e.

T o be accepted all ad vert isem en ts mu st be type da nd be acco m panied by th e necessary rem itt an cea nd must be in the ha nd s of the Edi tor not lat erth an th e 15th day of the month before publicat iondat e.

Sp ecial di spl a y ad verti scmc ntss of ca rs for saleco m ple te with ph otos mar be inse r ted at specia l a ndve ry reasonab le rat es, for det ai ls of whi ch se rv icewrit e to th e Editor.

FOR SA LE BY TE NDER : T en de rs are invitedf or th e purchase of the fo llowing: One 192 5Dennis Fire E ngi ne. In ori gi na l co nd it ion. Thi sfire e ng ine comp le ted t he 6th I n tern a ti on al Rally .Th e pro bl e m of suita-ble storage n ecess itates thed isposal of thi s veh ic le . F u rther det ails a nd con­di t ions of tender ca n be obtaine d from : R. D.T homson, 28 Jun cti on Road , N ew Pl ymou th .WAN T E D : Parts, ph ot os , inf'ormntion for 1902T homas motorcycle (Engli sh) dip on ty p e motor.W ri te G. Tu m er, 45 Old Renwick R oad, Blenheim.WANTED : MI C Petrol F ill e r Ca p, and colla r ,sc re w on 01' s na p on, 1 ~ in tan k ope ing, a ls o acet y­lene gen erator. W. D. W ilcock , 27 R iverton Rd .,1\1t. Maunganui .FOR SA LE OR SW A P : Hupmobile motor andgearbox a ppro x 1916 Mode l N? Also re ma ins offron t gu ard s f or same. Brand ne w C.A.V. g en ­e ra tor fo r coi l igni t ion Aus ti n 7 . F our ZOin w irewh eel s (h eavy ), alloy discs co ve r ing spo kes , co u ldbe Miu erva. 1926 P a igu mec hanical compo ne n ts.Sali sbury diff. , J e wett motor, etc. R. R. fe nde rModel 'I' ea rl y 20' s. N. A . Dewhurst, 21 MahiaRd ., Manu r ew a.WA NT E D TO B UY: Cash offered for P.V .T. t wo­sea te r SPOlt S ca r- M.G., Alvis, S.S., Lagonda, ors im ilar make. Must be in fir s t class order andpossess fir st class coac h wor k. Price a nd pa rti­cu la rs t o Peter Cox, " The Cross ing ," L ichfi eld ,R .D. 2, P utaruru.WA NTE D TO BU Y fo r 1928-29 Pl vm outh : On erud ia to r, wi th surround, in any cond it ioJl. Pl easecontact Mr R. \Va rd , 60 F ou r th A ve., T auran g a.Phon e 85-421 even ing s .F IAT ;)01 1 92 :~ , pa rts wa nted , back-end, g ear­box, a su it a ble r ear passen g er sc reen, or a nyparts . P hone 6:5-804, or writ e Cra ne , 125 MountPl ea sa n t Road, Chri s tc hu rc h 8..vI.G. PARTS W A NT ED. An y pre-wa r bits, pa r­ti cularly wh eel s and six -cylinder en g-ine . GavinBai n, 89 Me rival e Lane, Ch ris tc hurch l.F OR SALE: 1927 Sunbeam 16.9 h.p. T ou re r r e­sto re d to or ig ina l s pec ifica tio n and with rea rsc re en , T yres good, :3 new. Spare head, gearboxetc . V.C.C. No . 1178. Original handbook. F redGover, 1'.0. Box 94, F elding. T e!. 2214 .WANTED: Au stin 7 parts a nd han db ooks, 1927­28-29 . Write 1. Lude ma n, clo Postm en's Bran ch,() P anmure, Au ckland.

FOR SALE : 1925 Sunbeam 14/40 to ure r 4-cyl.O.H.V. Final ra tion 5 : 1. Six near new 21 x4.50 tyres on Dunlop type wire wheels; tonnea ucover and fr ont s ide screen s; new ba ttery. Ni ckelplating , paintwork floor and running board lin ingand genuine leather upholstery all in fir st cla sscondit ion. £485 in cluding s pa re chass is f ra me,fr ont a nd real' ax le, torque tube, crankcase (2),cyl , block (2) , cyl. head (2), cra nksha f t (2),gearbox and numerous oth er parts. Apply J. B.Morris No, 4 R.M .D" Ch r is tc hurch. Phon e497-477.WANTED : Jap V twin eng ine is s t ill needed f ormy 1911 Bat motorcycle. Can anybody help '!Also any De Dion parts, no matter how sma ll ;and any Italian instruments, oil pressure, wa tertemp., e tc., f or Alfa Romeo. Gavin Bain , 89Merival e Lane, Ch r is tc hu rc h 1.WANTED : Morgan 3-whee ler. Ca n anyone as­s ist me in find ing one of th ese ma chines '! Anycondition . Ga vin Bain, 89 Meri val e Lane , Ch ris t­church 1.FOR SALE : 1931 Morri s Major Saloon- completechassis and mechan ical re so ra t ion plus a t r em en­dous amount of body work a lready don e-goodtyres-would make a good famil y or dail y usecar. Mik e Poynton, Box :n02, Wellington .WANTED TO BUY : Veteran, Vintage, or Post­Vintage a ircraft eng ine or parts th ereof-an y­thing con sidered. Mik e Poynton, Box 3102 ,Wellington.HARLEY Sidecar Chass is (l ong spring model tofit 1925-29 7/9) wan ted to buy, 0 1' would sw ap f or350 s .v, H-D engines, gearboxes, frames, e tc.Geoff Hockl ey, 7 Gre sha m Terrace, Chr istchurch7. Ph one 889-708.FOR SALE : 1929 Triumph Super Sev en un re­s to re d with many spa res. 5 match ing tyres, 3ex cell en t. Al so most parts 1928 Ch ry sler G. B.Fyfe, 14 Bledi slo e Cres., Wainui oma ta .WANTED for Cle ment Bayard type A.C. 4ALab out 1909. Rear radia tor, top of g earbox , chas­s is, wheel hubs, rear axl es, clutch yoke, a lso anyparts. Write Gon ion Helli er, Coni cal Hill, No. 1R.D., Gore.WANTED: Th e sea t body section f or a 1923Model T roads ter 01' will exc ha nge some of l!H7­22 vintage fo r abo ve. Write I. K. Gray, p.a.Box 1204. Palmerston No r th.

WANTED : A.J.S. 1928 fo rk links, tank, sea t ,handl eba rs, guards, al so early Druid front ri mbrake par ts . Swaps include Harl ey parts. Sell20 x 3.85 tyres (3 ) £2/1 0/- . Phone 384-628,Cha ston , 255 Cas hmere Road, Chr istchurch :J .WANTED: For In ternational 1907-1 911 AutoBuggy any engine, r ear axle, 2 wh eel s or bod yparts to enable ma chine to be comple te d. Phone77-536 or write Micha el Thoms, :3G3 GloucesterS t reet, Ch ris tchurc h .FOR SALE: 1937 Jowett 10 sa loon, 40,000 m iless ince new, all or ig ina l, r equires eng ine overha ul,a nd minor gen eral attention, could ma ke a niceP. V.V. £100 or haggl e, C. D. Geary, 24 Wood ­lands Road, Glen E den, Au ckl and .WANTED TO BUY: a 10-12 H url ey-David soneng ine . This motor would have th e letters J. D.pref acing th e eng ine number. J. Dick son , 30Chu rc hill St ., Wh akatan e.WANTED : Radia tor she ll, Rotax 4-cyl ma g .1280W, also Rotax he ad a nd side ligh ts, doorhandles for 1928 Singer 8 Junior. Wri te G.Turner, 45 Old Renwick Road, Blenheim.FOR SAL E : One 300 x 21 Dunlop Unive rs a l M/ CTyre virt ua lly new condit ion £3. Also 2 tubessa me size 10/- each. W. D. Wilcock , 27 Ri ver­ton Rd ., NI t . Maunganui.WANTED: 1920 circa or veteran C.A.V. squa retype elect r ic generator , Smith' s speedometer andcab le drive, Autovac or French ma ke va cuumtank. Best pri ces paid. J. G. Wa tson, 51 Cha ts­'wor th Road, Sil verstre am .F OR SALE: 1935 Lan ch ester, 4-d oor sa loo n.Fluid flywhe el , pre-s elect or gearbox, possibly th eonly one in N.Z . Runn in g beautifully, on ly 3owners. Re as on f or selling : owne r (aged 90)g iving up driving, £20 0 or near offer. Writ eto E. W. B. Ho m ab rook, GO Corn wa ll Street,Mas terton.MISSING! Th e bulb horn belonging to my 1920Va uxha ll was a pparen t ly "borrowed " wh ile I wa sin England. Its in goo d order, needed ni ckelplating, no rubber bulb. Possibly a membe r mayha ve bought it in go od faith , if so, I will gla dlyrep ay him or replace it with another. It 's a nor ig ina l part. Help pl ea se! Dick Messen g er ,r .o. Box 161, Au ckl and.WANTED: Gearbox and oil pump for IndianPrince, a lso any li terature. Da vid Goodman , 12Kinvig Street, Dunedin.WANTED : F or 1929 450 c.c. A.J .S. Re a r Stand,Kn ee Grips, Com ple te Ki cks ta rter Mechanism ,Mudgua rd s, Both Chai n gu ards, Headlamp, Tool­box, Ba ttery Box , Generator Sp lash Gua rd, Gear­lever and Gate. Al so, f or 1000c.c. Ari el, CastIron Square F oul', Oil Pump, Tappet Cover , Tim­ing Cover. R. Cla rk en , 22 Lau roston Ave., Pa pa­toetoe, Au ckland." NEW IMPERIAL" Motorcv cle 350c.c. 1930a pprox. Complet e but in di~lll antled condition.£15. Ap pl y Flat 1, 28 Ch urch ill St re et , Ch r is t­church 1.WANTED: Ace 4-cylinder . moto rcycle eng ine,cra nksha ft or a ny Ace parts, a ny condit ion. It.D. Cross , 25 Kin g St ., Timaru.

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WANTED TO BUY OR SWAP: Gearbox for19:30 B.S.A. 500c.c. (Sloper). Al so wh ee ls, orhubs on ly f or Super X or Henderson motorcycle,1924-1 9 :~0 . B. R. Anderson, 15 Oldham Ave .,Nupier,FOR SA LE: 11 h.p . two -seater Standard. Com­pl ete, but no bod y. Sp ares, odds and ends. Offerwanted . A. N. Beissell, 59 Godley Av e., Christ­church . Ph one 526-:348.PACKAI{D S IX SEDAN , 1925 model :326 forsa le . Partl y restored, in rally-ab le condition .Excellent mechanica ls , good body with new roofand som e upholstery. New plating, March 1966.4 new retread ed 3:~ -5 (600 x 2:~) tyres. Discwh eels. New paint March 1966. Best offeraround £200 takes . Driveable a nywhe re. M. S.Taylor, 18-6A Queen's Drive, Wellington.WANTED : Bullnose Oxford rear ax le ho using(12 in brake drums) up to 1926. Also hood bowsfor 1928 Au stin Hi/fi op en road tourer . G. S.Ti er, 10 Kapi a St. , Da rg uvill e.WANTED: ANY photos, Hi story, or ANY partsfor 1914 Match less 1DOOc.c. V-twin . Rogers, 164Rosebank Rd ., Avonda le, Auckland .PAHTS WANTED: Cadi llac Single Cylin de rMotor and t ra ns miss ion a nd oile r. Radia tor,s teer ing box a nd colu mn including cont rols andpedals. Ha ve some spa res for swa p. Also fo rDe Dion Bouton single cy linder ; front portion oftubular chas sis, s te ering wh eel a nd diff. gear­box . Have some De Dion parts fo r sw ap. D.Hall, IG1 Ma in St., Huntly .FOR SALE : 1911 King Dick motorcycle , restor edregardless of cos t. Small a mo unt left to do.Wh at offers? W. F. Timms , 94 Martin Hd., Fair­field , Dunedin . Ph one :32-578.FOR SALE : 1927 Au stin 12/4 Se da n. Restoredcondition, mechan ica lly sound, goo d tyres, spareengi ne , diff erentia l, driveshaft, e tc. Want offers.Ross Nobl e, 41:3 No rth Rd ., Papanu i, Christ­chu rch. P hon e 529-552.WA NT E D : Ford T op en va lve gear block orModel N, R, S block 0 1' engin e, any condition orprice. I Willia ms, 43 Derby St., Christchurch 1.FOR SALE : Wolseley motor-partially dis­mantled . Approx. 1930. Gear box No. 21/60187n:3; block No . 87620 H (M .C.); Head, mani­fold, clutch . £5. Contact, Ian Hende rs on, P .O.Box 344, Rotorua.WANTED: Any pa r ts, es pec ia lly eng ine andba ck end, for Austin 12/4 1924. Handbook ormechanica l info rm ation greatly appreciated . A. D.Pa in,2 44 Rodn ey St ., Wellsford, Nth Auckland .WANTED : Information leading to ca ptu re ofa 1935-9 Indian-Four motorcycle, spr ing f ra memod el preferred , cons ide r an ything. N. L. Wogan,5G Flock ton St., Christchurch 1.FOR SALE : New a lumin iu m a lloy pistons f orModel T Fords, a vai labl e a s un ma chin ed castingsor ma ch ined to any oversi ze to 50 thou. GordonBoult, 1 Toronto Street, Gor e.FOR SALE: 1931 Ford A Tudor Sedan. Body,tyres and eng ine good, needs upholstery, e tc .£140 o.n.o. Peter Stanford, pho ne 61>9-287, Au ck­lan d.

PAGE T JlI RT Y·S IX

WANTED : Xmas Accommodation , with Vintageca lenda rs on th e wall, Vin tage ashtrays in th elou ng e a nd spare parts in th e ba ck ga rde n. Iwould be p leased to hea r f rom members withfamily hom es in W aik a to, Bay of Pl enty, Pove rtyBay, Hawke' s Bay, Manawatu and Wanganuiarea s who wou ld be tour ing th ese provinces forten to fo urteen days from next Boxing Day withreciprocal free use of one ano ther's homes, s leep­ing two nights in eac h province. Does that makesense ? Well , we'll try again. On December 26thand 27th my family would sta y in th e Wa ikatomember's hom e whi le he stayed in th e Bay ofPlenty membe r's home who in turn wou ld moveto P overty Bay, and so on while the Wanganuim ember spends tw o nights in New Plymouth. OnDecember 28-29th I s ta y in the Bay of P lentymember's home while he s tays in Hawke' s Bay.Ea ch family would use each home a s sleepingaccommodation f or two nights while in that pro­vince. If you're interested in an in expensivetour which coul d take you anywhere (town orcount ry ) tha t a fell ow member ha s a ccommoda­tion availa ble, supplyi ng your own food and linen,lea ving each hom e in a tidy condit ion, wh enyou' ve used it, sp end only f ourpen ce, se ndingyour name a nd address, number in your family tobe accommodated, and th e num ber of beds ava il­a ble f or use in you r home to F'raser Steven son ,10 W oolcombe Terrace, New Plymouth.WANTED : Correct headla mp fo r 1924 IndianChief. Al so Sche ble r ca rb comple te or parts.N. L. Wogun, 56 Fl ockton St., Chris tchu rch l.FORD T MAN UAL 1919. Give to go od hom e.L. N. Wogan , 5G Flockton St., Christchurch 1.SW A P OR SE LL : 4 brand new 1912-1:3 Model TCommercia l Roudster mudguards (co st .£40) forchass is, wh eels and s prings for 1914 Mod el T.Ca sh adjustment wh ere required. Phone Auc k­la nd 15-895 or write A. J . Ca rpe nte r Jnr., 19Wellpa rk Av e., Gr ey Lynn , Au cklan d.WANTED: One go od battery box , complete readyto insta ll. One ge nu ine Indian Scout Hoyt a m pmete r, a lso ready to ins ta ll, f or my 1928 IndianScout, will swa p for above as new one U. S.A.Series No. 2 Klaxon Handphone for motor cycles .D. A. Laing, P .O. Box 285, Ma sterton.WANTED TO BUY: Fmme parts fo r 1915 Hen ­derson 4 a nd my 1917 Henderson 4, al so barrel sfo r my 1920 -21 Henderson 4. D. A. Laing, 1'.0 .Box 285 , Masterton .WANTED: Five 25in disc wheels for 1920·2 5Nash. G s tud. Tv rc size 88in x 4in . J . M.Taylor, 37 Kakapo si., l nv ercargill.FOR SALE : Alum inium piston s f or FORD "T"sta ndard or oversiz e. App ly Doug McLeod , 342Ra cecourse Road, l nvercargill.FOR SALE : Limited supply of new Au stin 12/4cam shaft a nd ge nera tor cha ins . K. A. S te ffen­se n, 23 Englefield Road, Ch ri stchu rch 5.WANTED : Five 25in Disc wh eels for 1920- 25Nash . 6 stud. Tyre s ize 83in x 4in. J. M. Taylor,:37 Kakupo Stree t, t nverc urg ill.WANTED : Attractive Vintage or Post VintageC? lIverti ble . J. W. Sawers, 14 Brans comb e Street ,'I'imaru. Teleph one 5768.

c. HUNTON LTD.55 Kilmore Street Phone 69-786

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