Vintage Cars To Gather This Week

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30688, 2 March 1965, Page 7

Vintage Cars To Gather This Week

The biggest concentration of vintage and veteran cars yet seen will gather in Christchurch this week for the sixth international vintage rally. The cars will start their 1300mile tour of the South Island from Christchurch next Saturday.

The rally is the first international vintage rally held outside Europe, and the biggest in numbers and distance yet held. More than 300 vintage and veteran vehicles will take part, including about 40 from Britain, the United States, Holland, Australia, Malaysia, and South Africa. Tomorrow night and on Thursday night the whole carshipping space on the interisland steamer will be taken by vintage cars. About 60 will travel south each night. Many of the cars have created considerable interest on North Island roads as they have gone to Wellington from Auckland, where most of the overseas vehicles have been unloaded. The 300 vintage vehicles of about 80 makes will make a procession 60 miles long when the rally is on its way from the Addington Show Grounds on Saturday.

The cars will leave in groups according to make and age at about minute intervals for the first day’s objective—the Hermitage at Mount Cook, about 240 miles away. From Mount Cook the cars will go to Wanaka and Queenstown, with side trips to the goldfield areas and well-known scenic attractions. Catering Problem The size of the rally has made the catering and accommodation problem comparable to that of a sizeable military manoeuvre.

Hundreds of car occupants will sleep under canvas on the way. Field kitchens organised by the club will serve about 25,000 meals. About 1000 persons will make the journey, including car crews, officials, maintenance teams, and press and radio representatives. Most of the car crews are husband-and-wife teams.

The catering team will buy about half a ton of bread a day at stopping places on the way. The catering trucks will carry. about 30 tons of provisions for the trip. Three maintenance vans will travel with the convoy, equipped even to make replacement parts on the journey if required. A tyre-maintenance van will travel throughout the trip, and the Shell company will take tankers to supply 30,000 gallons of free petrol for the rally. All available hotel and motel accommodation has been booked a year ahead for those requiring it. The cars range from the 1902 Crestmobile of Mr E. Delaney, of Wellington, to 1931 models, the last year of manufacture for eligibility in the vintage category. The most famous is Genevieve, the 1904 Darracq, which has travelled already 400 miles from the Queensland border to Sydney and 400 miles from Auckland to Wellington. British Entries Fords and Austins will be the most numerous makes. British entries will inlude Lord Montagu’s 1914 Vauxhall and Miss Elizabeth Nagles exquisitely restored Bentley. There are also beautiful examples of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys both from Britain and Australia.

New Zealand has more than 1500 vintage-car members, compared with 4500 in Bri-

tain and the 10,000 members of the American Horseless Carriage Organisation. The president of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand (Mr A. A. Anderson) said that because the rally would travel through some most beautiful back country, the rally would prove an excellent way of promoting New Zealand’s magnificent tourist attractions.

Already some of the world’s largest newspapers have given space to the rally, and the Time-Life organisation is sending a journalist and photographer, David Moore to cover the rally .

The rally will visit many of the early goldfield areas before continuing to Invercargill and then Dunedin, where modern and antique motor shows will be held. The rally will end with a dinner for 1000 persons at King Edward Barracks and a week’s motor show at the Show Grounds after the rally returns to Christchurch on March 20.

Cars made before 1919 qualify for the veteran category, and cars made between 1919 and 1931 qualify as vintage vehicles.