Jon

Farmers often accept them to hold down the plastic covers of silage, etc. Alternatively:

Make a depressing tyre swan.

16 hours ago, azzurro said:

 

Great spots! Would love to see the ad too.

Pretty sure the 9 or so utes apparently in NZ were imported by a 'quirky' chap*, so unsure if there were any cars or not? A Caro** with a twin cam would be a real sleeper, but do not want.

*dont know what that means, but thats what someone on t124 said

**updated body that looks like an even fuglier 4 door Lada Samara still on the old RWD 1500/125 floorpan 

I think you'd need to be 'quirky' to import some FSOs into NZ in the late 1980's. Anyway, here's the adverts, slightly wonkily scanned from NZ Car, February 1989:

Love the generic wheel trims, as seen on most slightly tramped up shit cars of the late 1980's. Lol at advert barrel scraping: "Tough as old boots" "Side indicator repeaters" etc. 

In line with my nerdish credentials, I've run the reg plate of that blue beauty and it comes up on carjam as never being registered, so I guess that's a system glitch, or it didn't even last long enough to be remembered on a computer system. To add further to my nerdishness, I checked the price plus GST (10% before July '89, if you're bothered) and that ute  would've cost almost $29000 in today's dollar!

That Polonez is RHD and has the same gash trimz, so there's a chance that at least one of them made it over here. Doesn't even have a reg plate, so maybe there's a NOS unregistered  Polonez kicking around in some quirky Barry's shed somewhere....

Because I'm such a spotting nerd, here's a pic I took of yours last year:

And that yellow CCH one, with a 125 front end, which I took a few years ago (and totally got busted doing so by the driver):

Gotta say, I much prefer the original front, as it reminds me of the way they looked when littering the streets back in my childhood in the UK. Does anyone know if a Polonez exists in NZ? I'll fish out the FSO advert in an NZ magazine I've got somewhere...

My French-detecting eye spotted a Peugeot 604 - can't have ever been many in NZ.

This documentary aired last night on Maori TV (they usually have a quite interesting doco most Tuesday nights) and I only managed to catch a few minutes of it but it's a haven of Oldschool end of life stuff being demo derby'd up in the Northland. Shot in 4:3 video and featuring plenty of dubious hairstlyes and fashions, I was sure it was a 90's production but it's actually early 2000's, which is really quite surprising, considering how shortly afterwards a lot of these cars would've become desirable. Like Mazda 929s from the mid 70's - mid 80's and plenty of RWD Fords. In fact, RWD anything.

Here's a link, if you've an hour to spare:

https://www.maoritelevision.com/tv/shows/tuesday-feature-documentaries/S01E001/kaikohe-demolition

Link to discussion: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/47476-jons-vb-station-wagon-ld28-out-308-in/

On 14/03/2015 at 02:17, Jon said:

My Dad's coming to visit in a couple of weeks and he's always up for a bit of unpaid labour, so I may look to get the LD28 and box out during his stay

With my lightning quick reactions, I pressed this plan into action a mere 21 months later than expected:

Note the kayak on the roof for extra internet cool points and also the headlights, grille and bonnet removed, to make the job look more involved.

That's not me on the ground doing stuff by the way; that's my cousin, who did a vast majority of the work, whilst I pondered over various bits and did a small fraction of removing stuff, plus took some terrible photos on an outdated camera phone, for the benefit of a few people who like to read about old cars on the internet.

Here's a very similar photo, just prior to the one above (where 'we' were removing the Nissan gearbox) which shows the LD28 freshly removed and testing the load bearing capabilities of some old seatbelts, whilst I pause to take another photo.

There's a bit more to say about the 308 motor but that'll have to wait for another time, as I've had a few drinks tonight to celebrate/commiserate the LD28's passing. 

Lush, looks like a Mk. 3, where did you spot that one? 

New Plymouth. There seemed to be a fair few old Austins knocking about that weekend, so I guess there was some sort of staid gathering, no doubt involving lots of sitting about in garden chairs behind your own car in a paddock, surrounded by likeminded individuals.

I also spotted this the next day:

I LOVE BROWN CARS!

I saw you towing that the other day, when you went through traffic control at one of our fire calls! On a slight tangent, I pine hard for a Dennis appliance, as I'm a complete sicko. 

After a hard day's observing stacked British cars at the aptly named British Car Museum in the Hawkes Bay, it was time to head to Napier for curried sustenance, upon which I spotted smitty's fine Simca wag:

Then, just round the corner was this winner-mobile:

I'm working in Kingseat on the 8th, 9th and 10th Nov, so could always come up in the Commodore, if that'd fit the bill and nothing else comes up?

 

Just some stuff ive seen round aucks in the last week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This just turned up on my Facebook feed:

Judging by background P11 Primera, this will be no earlier than mid-90's, so it served its role for quite a while.

Here's a JDM one a mate bought last year, after I saw it for sale on Trademe:

Pillarless doors and entry levels steels combo only further ingratiated it to me .

2 litre V6 for bonus #orionfapfactor.

Sadly, the interior was disappointingly subdued and as an extra kick in the nuts, it smelt quite a bit of old people, since it had only had one retired NZ owner since importing, hence the fantastic condition. I should've bought it off him when he sold it and definitely would've if it had been a manual. 

Despite being bought and sold in Auckland, it was bought by a bloke living in the next town who has a Sigma too, so I think it's being looked after.

RAD oh man how could you not want front exhaust, didnt even know it was a thing

It's a 2 stroke diesel too, for extra grim/win points!

Here's a short video of an earlier model bwarping away. Conventional exhaust though, sadly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wol_U4mkjs

Wheres the Yard youve seen it?? I got it from Putaruru, but I leave it all sorts of places round the north depends on where my diggers have to be.

I saw it in Tokoroa for quite a while, so it possibly lived there before you bought it. Was in the yard of a drainage company.

Anyway, pic for thread:

Here it is back in May, when I spotted it at the Hamilton swap meet:

Wonder why the boot lid has been changed for a shitter one? I like their style, regardless.

Despite having much to do today, I seem to have an unwitting urge to post some content on here for a load of people I don't know. I've been meaning to do a few scans of some choice articles I've been reading, as recently I've acquired a metric motherload of old Australian car magazines, spanning from the early 70's to the present day. Personally, I'm totally interested in the stuff up to about 1990 and the rest is a bit meh, so am hoping to sell the later ones on.

Thankfully, the magazines I picked up recently represent about 90% of the back issues of WHEELS magazine from the era I'd wanted (I've only 8 issues missing from the 1980's!). This represents the pinnacle to me, since it's effectively an Aussie version of the UK issued CAR magazine (probably about the best ever car magazine ever written - up until about 2000, when it went shit). It even has articles from CAR contributors, so no doubt some articles are recycled between the two.

Enough of the holy grail pinnacle magazine stash chit-chat - let's get back to basics a bit with a scan about a home built 4WD Toyota Crown wagon, from a bunch of Overlander magazines I also bought recently. 

Click on the images for a resolution that's about the size of the original mag:

So, the quality could be better and I couldn't be bothered to re-scan the last page to make it less wonky but I thought it was a start at least. 

There's also some pretty interesting articles from Overlander regarding quite intrepid journeys, so I might bosh a few of those up in good time.

Here's a tribute vehicle which someone on here posted up recently:

These threads seem to be common on most car forums I visit, in a preaching to the converted sort of way (we all like driving after all, so assume we're all not too bad at it). On the basis of that then, here are my pet hates:

People who don't keep left on motorways. I see why truckies stick to lane two, or they'd forever be moving in to it to make way for people joining the motorway at mega slow speeds because of incompetence/short slip lanes. Also, when in heavy traffic, find a lane and stay in it - if we all did this instead of multiple dick move lane swaps that slow down traffic, we'd all get home quicker.

Nanny state reductions in speed limits at 'dangerous' parts of roads - i.e SH2 south of Bombay. The impatience bit is a bad trait on my part though, as the 20km or so of 90km/h adds an extra 3 mins to a journey, or something.

People who can't overtake quickly on a passing lane/pull out in front of you to pass a slow moving car, when you've had the foresight to hang back a few metres so you're doing 100km/h(+) upon the beginning of a passing lane, giving more people a chance to pass. I blame auto boxes for this tardiness in performance/attitude.

Sounding horns/flashing lights when being overtaken, often when there's an open, straight road ahead. 

Anyway, on the statistics front, I know that there was a minor increase in the death toll last Christmas holiday period but can categorically state that one such casualty was a result of a health issue, not human error (except for the health bit). However, said victim was driving a commonly picked upon vehicle on a road that is a well known speed trap, so I'm sure such a statistic will be skewed to add a few more roadside safety cameras there from time to time.

I've seen that sitting about in a yard where the mechanic I use works. Had no idea they re-branded these as Internationals, I just thought it was an Iveco. Obviously with much less power if an Iveco, I assume.

Snap! Spotted it two Fridays ago:

Anyway, have some actual new content too, in the form of a fancy pants imported 2.3 Cortina Ghia seen just round the corner from the RX7:

And a Mk3 I saw the day before, north of Otorohanga:

Have a couple of older Kenworths I spotted on Friday:

On a totally different note, was the Ford Transcontinental sold in NZ? 

I always thought they looked cool for a European truck (Saviem cab, I think). My big brother had a Corgi toy one just like the tanker above but you had to keep the tractor unit hitched up, or the cab weight tipped it over.

Saw these from the passenger seat of a Mazda Lantis this afternoon (excuse the blurring, etc):

!!!!!!!

Then I actually stepped out of the car, as I thought this fab Anglia befitted such effort:

Shame I saw it at a panel and paint shop, as that probably means that all the hard earned patina will soon be covered up.