CLASSIC, VINTAGE AND VETERAN MOTORING FOR 78 YEARS
No. 390 October/November 2024
New Zealand’s Foremost Historical Motoring Magazine $8.95
“A BIT OF A WORKOUT!”
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TRIALS ACTION
MARKETPLACE BEHIND THE WHEEL VEHICLES FOR SALE OF A ‘71 VW BEETLE INCLUDING MG TF AND ‘54 STUDEBAKER ROADSTER
DRIVING OUR HISTORY
This image is another taken from one of the many glass plate negatives that were found by Barry Stevens some time in the late 1970s. Barry used to do maintenance work on the buildings that the McFarlanes owned around the vicinity of the Christchurch Square. Any further information available would be gratefully received. Previous images were published in Beaded Wheels 380.
PHOTOGRAPHS REQUIRED: Submissions of suitable prints and information are welcome. Post or email original photographs or high resolution digital files of
historical interest with any available information to: beadedwheels@vcc.org.nz or Beaded Wheels, PO Box 2546, Christchurch 8140. Laserprints/photocopies are not suitable. Photos will be returned as soon as practicable.
VCCNZ BRANCHES A full list of branch addresses and contact details can also be found on the VCCNZ website at www.vcc.org.nz ASHBURTON PO Box 382, Ashburton 7740 ashburton@vcc.org.nz AUCKLAND PO Box 12-138, Penrose, Auckland 1642 auckland@vcc.org.nz BANKS PENINSULA C/O, 722 Waterholds Road, RD8 Christchurch 7678 bankspeninsula@vcc.org.nz BAY OF PLENTY PO Box 660, Tauranga 3144 bayofplenty@vcc.org.nz CANTERBURY PO Box 11-082, Sockburn Christchurch 8443 canterbury@vcc.org.nz CENTRAL OTAGO C/-114 Shortcut Road, Luggate, RD2, Wanaka 9382 centralotago@vcc.org.nz CENTRAL HAWKE’S BAY C/- 448 Tukituki Road, RD1, Takapau 4286 centralhawkesbay@vcc.org.nz EASTERN BAY OF PLENTY PO Box 2168, Kopeopeo Whakatane 3159 easternbayofplenty@vcc.org.nz FAR NORTH C/– PO Box 312 Kaitaia 0441 farnorth@vcc.org.nz GISBORNE PO Box 307, Gisborne 4040 gisborne@vcc.org.nz GORE PO Box 329, Gore 9740 gore@vcc.org.nz HAWKE’S BAY PO Box 3406, Napier 4142 hawkesbay@vcc.org.nz HOROWHENUA PO Box 458, Levin 5540 horowhenua@vcc.org.nz KING COUNTRY C/- 923 Taringamotu Road, Taumarunui 3994 kingcountry@vcc.org.nz
MANAWATU PO Box 385 Palmerston North 4440 manawatu@vcc.org.nz MARLBOROUGH PO Box 422, Blenheim 7240 marlborough@vcc.org.nz NELSON PO Box 3531, Richmond 7050 nelson@vcc.org.nz NORTHLAND PO Box 17, Whangarei 0140 northland@vcc.org.nz NORTH OTAGO PO Box 360, Oamaru 9444 northotago@vcc.org.nz NORTH SHORE C/- 7 Godwit Place, Lynfield Auckland 1042 northshore@vcc.org.nz OTAGO C/- 125 Forbury Road, Saint Clair, Dunedin 9012 otago@vcc.org.nz ROTORUA PO Box 2014, Rotorua 3040 rotorua@vcc.org.nz SOUTH CANTERBURY 19 Redruth St, Timaru 7910 southcanterbury@vcc.org.nz SOUTHLAND PO Box 1240, Invercargill 9840 southand@vcc.org.nz SOUTH OTAGO C/- 1931 Breakneck Rd, RD 4, Balclutha 9274 southotago@vcc.org.nz SOUTH WAIKATO PO Box 403 Tokoroa 3420 southwaikato@vcc.org.nz TARANAKI C/- 7 Leatham Ave, Strandon, New Plymouth 4312 taranaki@vcc.org.nz TAUPO 33 AC Baths Ave, Taupo 5530 taupo@vcc.org.nz WAIKATO PO Box 924, Hamilton 3240 waikato@vcc.org.nz WAIMATE
4 Harris St, Waimate 7924 waimate@vcc.org.nz WAIRARAPA 24B Nikau Heights,Lansdowne, Masterton 5810 DRIVING OUR HISTORY wairarapa@vcc.org.nz WAITEMATA C/- 8 Jean Place, Stanmore Bay, FAR NORTH Whangaparoa 0932 waitemata@vcc.org.nz NORTHLAND NORTH SHORE WELLSFORD/ WANGANUI WARKWORTH PO Box 726, Whanganui 4541 wanganui@vcc.org.nz WELLINGTON AUCKLAND WAITEMATA PO Box 38418, Wellington Mail Centre, Lower Hutt 5045 BAY OF PLENTY WAIKATO wellington@vcc.org.nz EASTERN BAY WELLSFORD/WARKWORTH OF PLENTY PO Box 547, Warkworth 0941 ROTORUA SOUTH WAIKATO wellsfordwarkworth@vcc.org.nz TAUPO WEST COAST GISBORNE KING COUNTRY C/- 143 Ward Street, Cobden TARANAKI Greymouth 7802, HAWKE’S BAY westcoast@vcc.org.nz WANGANUI CENTRAL HAWKE’S BAY
MANAWATU HOROWHENUA
WAIRARAPA
NELSON
WELLINGTON MARLBOROUGH
WEST COAST CANTERBURY ASHBURTON WAIMATE CENTRAL OTAGO
SOUTHLAND
GORE
BANKS PENINSULA
SOUTH CANTERBURY NORTH OTAGO OTAGO
SOUTH OTAGO
NATIONAL OFFICE
The Vintage Car Club of New Zealand PO Box 2546, Christchurch 8140 Phone 03 366 4461 Email admin@vcc.org.nz
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CONTENTS Issue 390 October/November 2024
FEATURES 8 10 26
Daffodil Rally for Cancer 2024
24
14 20 24
1927 Camping Tour
37
Marketplace
26
A Very Special Visitor Digby Young introduces his Vulcan to a new audience. The Art of Advertising John McDonald shares his passion for the art of advertising. Behind The Wheel – 1971 Volkswagen 1302S Beatrice Shilling obe Stuart Francis explores the achievements of this acclaimed English motorcyclist and engineer Camping Tour – A 1927 Road Trip Extracts from a period diary of travel in New Zealand. Rally Snippets 26
Daffodil Rally for Cancer 2024
29
Rosewill Trial - South Canterbury Branch
30
R’Oil Can Rally – Waitemata Branch
32
Balcairn Trial - Banks Peninsula Branch
48
33
Hadstock Field Tests- Banks Peninsula Branch
34
Annual Rally - Wanganui Branch
2024 National AGM Report including coverage of this year’s recipient of the John L Goddard Trophy
33
Hadstock
COLUMNS 5
From the Editor
43
Swap Meets & Rallies
6
VCC Branch Events
46
Trade Directory
7
Mailbag
47
President’s Message
7
Timelines
47
Commemorative Awards
9
Book Review
50
Festival Update
35
Polishing the brass
51
National Office News
36
Archivist News
52
Branch News
37
Marketplace
66
Passing Lane
The Vintage Car Club of New Zealand Incorporated
COVER Robert Trompetter pilots the Austin 7 while Evan Hamblin braces for an impending hazard, Balcairn Trial July 2024. Photo: John McDonald.
National Office
Phone 03 366 4461 (9.30am–1.30pm) Email admin@vcc.org.nz
Postal Address PO Box 2546, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand.
Address 12 Aberdeen St, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Website: www.vcc.org.nz
DRIVING OUR HISTORY
4 Beaded Wheels
Find us on facebook Vintage Car Club of New Zealand
The Fédération Internationale des Véhicules Anciens (FIVA) is the worldwide organisation dedicated to the preservation, protection and promotion of historic vehicles and related culture. The Vintage Car Club of NZ (Inc) is a founding member of FIVA. VCC Life Member Rod Brayshaw is the New Zealand delegate to FIVA and also a member of the FIVA Technical Commission.
FROM THE
EDITOR
I think that electric vehicles (EVs) will eventually have a place in the transport world. What could be better than a little EV runabout for doing those shopping trips around town and even to slightly further afield – for a coffee perhaps? And no petrol costs. Not much help to the world’s pollution issues though. However, I don’t think they will spell doom for internal combustion engines (ICE) just yet. Here is a sprinkling of headlines taken from the Telegraph UK during the first part of this year: Profits at Mercedes plunged due to plummeting sales of its new EV range. Porsche abandoned sales targets for EVs amid declining customer demand. Ford loses nearly $50,000 on each EV sold, while Tesla’s profits
Beaded Wheels Publisher
The Vintage Car Club of NZ Incorporated The Historic Vehicle Authority of New Zealand ISSN 0113-7506 Vol LXXV No. 389
Typesetting and Design
RGB Design & Print Ltd, Christchurch
Editor: Kevin Clarkson Sub Editors: Judith Bain, Rosalie Brown,
Mark Dawber, John McDonald, Greg Price, Charles Rushbrook
dropped significantly.
ability to manufacture almost everthing that you use on a daily basis. Think computers, clothing, cars, and everything made with plastic and other composites. We would be back to the stone age, living in caves. Come to think of it, wouldn’t life be much simpler if that were the case? I’m off now, out for a hunt to find something we can eat!
There are plenty of other headlines of a similar nature and I think we can take from this that the science is not yet good
enough or robust enough or safe enough (think fires) for EVs to flourish just yet. I’m sure their day will come once these major issues are sorted. Even so, I think the ICE technology will be with us for some time yet. Most readers will remember the days in the 1980s and ‘90s when all the talk was about “Peak Oil”. This was in relation to the fact that it was considered back then that we were using oil up so fast that we were past the peak of availability, and we were on the downhill slope to running out of the stuff! When was the last time you heard anyone using that term over the last 20 years? In my case – never! Now we find out that there seem to be oil reserves aplenty and science is still looking at the big picture for oil extraction. However, we do need to consider what we could use as an alternative for without oil and its derivatives we would lose the
Correspondence & Editorial
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Battery manufacturers like Germany’s Varta are facing severe losses, with shares down 70% in a month. The EV industry faces overcapacity, high costs, and diminishing consumer demand. Political investments in EVs, such as EU’s €80bn in the Green New Deal, are under scrutiny for wasteful spending. The Biden administration’s substantial subsidies and grants for EVs in the US are criticized as inefficient use of taxpayer money Economists warn that political interference risks creating market overcapacity and economic losses in the EV sector.
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Kevin Clarkson Editor Beaded Wheels
The contents are copyright. Articles may be reproduced complete or in part provided that acknowledgement is made to “Beaded Wheels, the magazine of The Vintage Car Club of New Zealand Incorporated” as the source. Reproduction of articles must be at least 12 months after original Beaded Wheels publication date. Beaded Wheels reserves the right to digitally store all published material for archival purposes.
CLOSING DATES FOR DECEMBER/JANUARY
Editorial Copy 29 October 2024 • Advertisements 10 November 2024
Beaded Wheels 5
THE ART OF ADVERTISING Words John McDonald
One of the few repeatable pastimes of my adolescence was invading every local new car franchise in Christchurch and coming away with a brochure or two on the latest model. Some dealers were more generous than others in this regard, Hutchinson Motors (Ford) being particularly inviting by having two large unattended racks of brochures, upon which a mate and I swooped regularly. The handful taken was in direct proportion to any hovering salesman…..
Dominion Motors in Gloucester St were also generous suppliers of free literature, and our appreciation of their products (Riley, Morris, MG, Rolls-Royce) and quality of their publications ensured we visited on a frequent basis. Alas this did not result in acquiring any literature wearing the iconic pantheon grille. My burgeoning collection was stored under my bed in a large box. Unlike a real car, catalogues and brochures don’t require warrants of fitness, registering, or petrol, all helpful factors to a impecunious teenager. Following marriage this box accompanied me (and wasn’t stored under the bed), remaining undisturbed for a good 40 years. The main collection period of the early ‘60s seemed to herald a transition in advertising where the catalogues, traditionally illustrated by artists’ impression, were being phased out in favour of items utilizing glossy photographs. It was also prior to the stringent advertising standards we see today, with a proliferation of illustrations using what is quaintly termed “artistic licence”. Most blatant would be the miniature occupants luxuriating in the vastness of their new Austin A35 saloon. BMC were undoubted masters of the airbrush during this time, regularly using the same illustration from the outgoing model,
10 Beaded Wheels
▲ Artistic license to the fore as demonstrated with this image detailing the cavernous interior of the Austin A35.
with the additional changes (sometimes extensive) airbrushed in. The 1962 and 1965 MG Midget brochures show changes laboriously inserted to the wheel rims, door handles, windscreen, quarter lights, side windows, etc, when one wonders why completely new photographs were not taken. Mentioning MG again, the artistic input from Maurice Conley and F Gordon Crosby was used to dramatic effect in several of their early publications, with the 1936 MG two litre example epitomizing the romance of the open road so well. The four occupants are being swept urgently along a country road despite the appearance of excessive positive camber on the front wheels. The flowing lines of the car are brilliantly captured, the suggestion of speed giving further impetus to the MG slogan “Safety Fast”. Artistic merit is my main criteria for brochure collection, not necessarily the car itself. That’s why there is a special fondness for the item issued in 1953 for the Standard Eight. At best the car was basic family transport, but the sales material would do justice to a car three times the price. The lack of an opening boot compartment is nicely sidestepped by describing the aperture as “completely water and dust proof”, and illustrations beautifully prove capacity more than doubled when the rear seats were folded, additionally,
one could add, along with one’s back when extracting heavy items from its depths. Similar artistry is found in Volkswagen brochures of the same period, this time by Bernd Reuter whose signature fittingly accompanies his work. And that’s another bonus of collecting advertising material, learning more about the artist themselves. Reuter was highly regarded in the car advertising world from 1926, illustrating brochures for Adler, Auto-Union, Hansa, Graham-Paige, Lincoln
The lack of an opening boot compartment is nicely sidestepped by describing it… as “completely water and dust proof” Beaded Wheels 11
HIN BE
D THE WH EE L
n’s) (and Bronwy ^
IAN AND MARILYN MCKINLAY’S 1971 VOLKSWAGEN 1302S
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY Words and photos Greg Price
14 Beaded Wheels
How’s this for a novel idea? Rather than buy your daughter her own car, sell your classic Volkswagen (VW) to her, who then stores it at your place, and ‘acquire’ it back when she’s done with it some 20 years later! Way to go, eh? What is it about VWs (aka ‘Bugs’) that makes them so attractive and sought after to so many people? I dunno, but my attraction to and appreciation of them goes back to the early 1960s. Firstly, a school chum’s father used to work at Five Star Motors (VW dealer) in Auckland’s New North Road, and his dad would visit him driving one of the latest models. Secondly, my godmother (Aunty Rhoda) used to travel to Germany and buy brand new ones and eventually bring them back to New Zealand – the last example of which I got to drive, before she headed home in it to Rotorua, having picked it up off the Auckland Wharf! Unfortunately, on her way home on that occasion, on a long straight stretch of road north of Hamilton, some idiot coming in the opposite direction left his overtaking manoeuvre too late and collided head-on with her. Today, the car would have been written off, but back then, because it was German assembled, and virtually brand new, (albeit just two years old) it was repaired. Aunty Rhoda never went to Germany again after that! From memory, this had been her third such purchase, and was the latest 1500 version. Would you believe there was even one taken to the South Pole — well, Antarctica, actually. In more recent times, my wife Karen and I owned a low ownership, low mileage and over-serviced red 1971 VW 1600, (with white-wall tyres, of course!) but we sold it postearthquakes while it was still undamaged. I regretted that decision as soon as it departed on the transporter to points South, thus I got to envy the McKinlays who still had their cream 1971 1302S, albeit their example was the one with the larger front bonnet. One of the McKinlay’s other classics was the subject of a BTW back in 2017, it being an Austin 16/6 Burnham Saloon, which avid readers might recall, had daughter Bronwyn doing her studies in the roomy back seat area! Thus, when Editor Kevin suggested their Bug might be a candidate for a Behind The Wheel (BTW), I whole heartedly concurred. But first, for those of you who don’t know much about the history of this marque, I’ll try to keep it short and simple.
HISTORY OF THE VOLKSWAGEN According to Wikipedia (which isn’t always correct, I might add!), the Volkswagen Beetle was a small car produced by the German company Volkswagen from 1938 to 2003. One of the most iconic cars in automotive history, the Beetle is noted for its distinctive shape. Its production period of 65 years is the longest of any single generation of automobile, and its total production of over 21.5 million is the most of any car of a single platform. The Beetle was conceived in the early 1930s when the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, decided there was a need for a people’s car — an inexpensive, simple, mass-produced car — to serve Germany’s new road network, the Reichsautobahn. The German engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his design team began developing and designing the car in the early 1930s. The result was the Volkswagen Type 1 and the introduction of the Volkswagen brand. Volkswagen initially slated production for the late 1930s, but the
Beaded Wheels 15