AORANGI - TRICAR
CLUB ROOMS
NEWSLETTER OF THE SOUTH CANTERBURY BRANCH OF THE VINTAGE CAR CLUB OF NEW ZEALAND INC. Replica
19-25 REDRUTH ST. TIMARU SOUTH
Timaru’s First Car Built by C. W. Wood DrivingourHistory
NOGGIN AND NATTER First Thursday of the Month
March 2025
Open Day 2025
Hi Everyone;
It's been a busy month or so with numerous events and happenings in and around our club.
Sadly, Kelvin LOVE passed away on 31st January after a period of ill-health. Kelvin was a 60 year VCC member and he and Janet were very active up until recent times. Our club was well represented at his funeral, with Alistair Day providing a eulogy of behalf of the SCVCC, plus a large turnout of our members to pay their respects and a touching display of vehicles outside the service. Our sincerest condolences to Janet & Families.
The Chairman's Rally was on Sunday 16 February, and was well supported thanks, with around 28 vehicles traversing mainly sealed roads and ending-up at Bruce Washington's 'Bentley Downs' farm at Rosewill. Kevin Mercer had organised at Grasskhana/Trials Day there for younger people of our community - the aim being to promote ourselves to potential future members, with a membership to our club for the winner on the day. (See the report on this event). Our thanks to Kevin for his excellent on-going work around organising these events and to Bruce Washington for the use of his fantastic facilities, including his spacious lounge/recreation area where we had our lunch. My thanks also to Ross Hamilton who assisted with the Chair Rally route.
Saturday 22nd February dawned fine & sunny for our annual Open Day for the public, at our club-rooms. Thanks to our many members for your supportaround 32 vehicles displayed including 4 motorcycles. We had good interest from the public from around lunchtime, and it would seem that some new members may well eventuate!
Next 'Noggin' - Thursday 6 March. Speaker: Vicki WALKER - Aoraki Police District Area Commander.
Planning is also underway for other upcoming club events - annual Mid Island Rally 9th March, Motorcycle Run 23rd March, Orari Swap Meet Saturday 5 April - this is our major annual fund-raising event and we really do need to see a good turnout of our members to assist in various ways with gate-keeping right through to the clean-up at the end of the day please! This is most important for the Swap Meet Committee in order to have sufficient resources on-hand during the day and at the close particularly. Preliminary work is also happening around the 70th Annual Mt Cook Rally for Labour weekend! So - plenty happening over the next few weeks, and we would love to see many more of our members 'out & about' supporting our club events and initiatives....
Colin HAWKE Chair
PARTS DEPT. REPORT FEBRUARY 2025
This month we have had a large amount of parts collected from Ruth Campbell which our Team have successfully found space for on the shelving. While I was picking up these items I said to Ruth, 'where did Donald store all this'? She replied, 'up on shelves in the garage'
One trailer and car full collected and possibly another trailer load yet to pick up! Fellow members (me included) Don't leave clearing out your garages to the surviving members of your family. Our thanks to Ruth for these parts. Another one of our Wednesday team is Norm. Bunt. Norm has spent quite a considerable amount of time sorting all the oil filters we have, so they can be cross-referenced .Anything you need to know about filters , Norm is the go-to man!
Of course our extensive range of parts include more than filters. Come on down and have a browse, you might be surprised what you may find. Our parts dept is open each Wednesday morning from 9am till 12 noon.
Barry Smith. Parts manager.
A busy day at the parts shed. Standing room only in the Smoko room before unloading a trailer load of donated spares. Motor bike was sold almost immediately upon arrival.
NOGGIN & NATTER, 6th March 7.30pm
Clubrooms, Redruth St Timaru.
SPEAKER :- Vicki Walker –
Aoraki Police DistrictArea Commander
KITCHEN DUTY :- Ross and Delwyn Luscombe
BAR :- Sandy McMillan
Nigel Blair
Grant Lester
The Rosebowl Trophy, presented by Colin Hawke, SCVCC Chairman, fto Richard Pollard for best Exhibit in The Vintage Car Club Section of the New Year’s Day Parade in Fairlie. 1971 Ford Capri 1600
SCVCC Website Updates www.southcanterburyvintagecarclub.co.nz
To access other club newsletters go to www.vcc.org.nz scroll to News from our Branches as hard copy newsletters are not mailed out now.
SCVCC website - February 2025
- February newsletter placed up
- Focus given to mid island rally
- Events page updated
- Behind the scenes wordpress updates
Upcoming - More stories of various runs, online version of newsletter, information about upcoming events, members vehicles in gallery, Stories and photos from members are ENCOURAGED and can be sent through to website.scvcc@gmail.com
2025
March 9th Mid Island Rally
March 23rd Motorcycle Run
April 4th, 5th Swap Meet
April 10th Midweek Run
May 8th Midweek Run
May 11th P Class Rally
May 25th End of Season Run
June 1st All British Day
June 5th AGM
June 12th Midweek Run
Young Drivers Day.
Number of non-members that drove in one or more of the events 16
Number of members 8
Winner Alice Homer from Staveley (Prize -free membership to South Canterbury Branch)
Second and best Male Driver Hamish Brown (Geraldine)
Bruce Washingtons Prizes
Rip Shit and Bust
Rip Shit and Dust
Kevin & Ruth Mercer
Denver Boulton (Christchurch)
Jessica Lee (Christchurch) (Granddaughter of Alan Averis.)
Alice and Abby Homer on course, Morgan Nixon and Lex Westoby on start line
Denver Boulton and Jessica Lee on Hill Climb
Alice Homer and Kevin Mercer on trials course Hamish Brown and Steve Brown Trials Course
2025 South Canterbury Branch Chairman’s Rally - Shannon
Stevenson
The 2025 South Canterbury Branch Chairman’s Run took place on Sunday 16 February, the summer heatwave arriving at long last.
Attracting around 20 members vehicles, the run took us north of Timaru. When leaving Timaru we all encountered a number of police doing breath testing, passed by all drivers on the run..
The route took us along back roads to Temuka and Clandeboye, and across to Orari and Winchester areas. Crossing the Opihi, it was past Timaru airport and into Rosewill Valley, the end venue being the Washington property, ‘Bentley Downs’.
The run coincided with a trials event on the property aimed at all ages held by Kevin Mercer and supporters where anyone game enough could drive a purposebuilt vintage up a hill. It was a fun experience to watch, and to actually participate in.
Thanks to the organisers for a great run - and trials event.
Here's a few notes on our trip to Napier for art deco weekend.
Marian & I travelled to Napier on Wed 12th Feb, we were met at the airport by her sister Heather & her husband Jeff, they had been to a nephews wedding the weekend before & stayed on. The 4 of us took in the sights & had hot sunny weather except for our last 2 days.
Art Deco weekend celebrates the rebuild of Napier after the 1931 earthquake, when concrete was used extensively as a building material which lends itself to balconies, parapets, flat rooves, arch ways etc & these buildings today look as modern as any new building. In fact a lot of later ugly 1970's to 80's buildings have already been demolished.
There were 2 shops selling a lot of art deco period clothing, the Art Deco Centre & Napier General store. I got a bit excited & bought braces & a straw boater hat but there were striped suit jackets, trousers, vests & lots of hats there too. For women there were flapper dresses, miles of white beaded necklaces, all sorts of funny shaped hats, parasols, furs, etc.
Starting on Friday, there were many vintage cars on display, these were mostly earlier Packard’s, Bentleys & a few Studebakers, Fords, Bugatti & Rolls Royce’s. Some car owners didn't seem to understand that cars are supposed to be 1946 or earlier to attend, I saw a 51 Bentley & an early 60's Vauxhall trying to mix it the earlier cars.
Saturday was the main day with many people, entire families etc all dressed in 20's to 40's clothing & most looked very smart. Then there were the nobs, who just had to be out in your face showing off, dressed like dandies. Since the RNZ Navy were in Napier at the time of the quake, & were able to call in other navy vessels to act as a kitchen supplying food to survivors & a hospital ship, they had have a strong relationship with Napier. The Navy silver band started off the Saturday & later the vintage car parade saw many Navy staff getting chauffeured around.
There were a few different air shows on during the day, typically a team of 4 planes with I peeling off, to go solo while the other 3 performed various acts. The planes were typically WW2 period, de Havilland, Mustang, P40 etc.
There was an airshow on Friday evening, it was spectacular with aerobatics, backward loops etc. This was the only airshow with a compere, the rest of the weekend you had to guess what was going on.
There were 2 cruise ships in on Friday who added around 6000 more people & another ship in on Saturday, passenger numbers unknown. We had been given a booklet back at Christmas, of over 50 pages with the weekend activities, there were things going on all around, from reenacting the camping on the beach by thousands of homeless people after the earthquake, to dances, steam train rides were back for the first time since 2015, fashion parades, etc.
Highlights were seeing 12 Bugatti cars all together, unfortunately I didn't get a photo of them. Then we saw the replica 1936 Bugatti 2 door black Atlantic coupe, this was Jean Bugatti personal car & demonstrator which disappeared in 1939 after his death while test driving another Bugatti. There were 3 other coupes finished in 1936, each valued at US$100 million. The replica was created by Classics Museum of Hamilton, who could find no evidence of any other replicas being built of it
We saw 2 early Rolls Royce Siver Ghosts, 1908 & 1914.
I personally thought that they needed to do a whole lot more organizing using comperes for all activities as the locals were just as confused as us. Accommodation is booked out 12 months in advance, we booked relatively expensive motel rooms & found only a few weeks ago a lot of cheaper hotel rooms along Marine Parade, which had obviously been cancelled. I took many photos of various cars, I hope I didn't get too many of their descriptions wrong. Apologies if I did.
Thanks, Grant Mehrtens
Ford Model A, note the banner across the windscreen saying it survived the 1931 Earthquake. Only a few cars had this banner.
Sunday Night Dinner Chat
Restored 1931 Bugatti with Crocodile Covered Seats using the underbelly part. Rest of the Crocodile skin was on display, it's very thick & bumpy.
Part of Living on the beach after the earthquake display
One of many people dressed for the weekend
1936 Bugatti Type 57S Atlantic Coupe
1930"s Chrysler 77 Boat Tail,
Barry B.
Last month I referred to the death of Andrew Anderson, the last surviving founder member, and this month I would like to remember Kelvin Love who not long ago not only donated some items to the Library, but became a major benefactor to the Club when he and Janet donated their 1938 Nash. Kelvin has been a loyal and cheerful supporter of the Club during his 60 years of membership and he will be missed.
Another high profile Club member who died recently was Clynt Inns who regularly supported South Canterbury events in earlier years. Clynt, who was National Secretary during my time on the National Executive, had a major impact on the Club and was the Rally Director of the 1996 International, of which I am sure many members will have fond memories.
I shan’t apologise for referencing Clynt here, though I cannot think of even a tenuous link to the Library.
On a different note, we have had for a little while now, a number of sales ledgers from Hervey Motors which I have to confess that to date I had not yet studied in any depth. Recently Clive Merry asked to see them in order to track down what information he could on a vehicle sold new by Herveys and after some research found the relative entry, which he noted included the entry for colour of the vehicle as C Beige. The colour of a number of other vehicles were recorded in the same way. I did some further checking and found earlier references to a colour Covert Beige so think it can be safely concluded that is the correct name. Many of the vehicles having this colour were vans and I suspect that it is the sort of dirty white many commercials such as CF Bedford’s were painted. Functional and serviceable but hardly an exciting choice for your new car. There is another older ledger recording sales of motorcycles from 1917 into the late 1920s. Clearly that was not by Hervey Motors though later in the same volume purchases and sales of cars in the post war years and on into the sixties, appear to relate to Herveys. Can someone tell me who were their predecessors with whom this volume would have started?
I would like to thank those who have commented favourably on my article on the 60th Anniversary of the Haast Rally printed in the most recent issue of Beaded Wheels. Normally, one just has to be thankful not to receive criticism of the effort and adjudge lack thereof to be acceptance that the article was OK, so I am quite chuffed that so many have thought it went a bit beyond that. While I think it is important that historical milestones in the Club are acknowledged and not forgotten it is gratifying to think that people have actually appreciated reading about this particular one.
On that note, while filing some stuff I came across again the 3 scrapbooks compiled by late Russell Paul covering the Haast Rally. Unsurprisingly, these books are examples of exactly how one should compile a scrapbook and they quite diverted me from what I was doing. If anyone wants to have a look at them, I should be delighted to dig them out. We do have other scrapbooks and memorabilia relating to major rallies and they too are available to anyone wanting a journey down memory lane.
Friday 4th April
Swapmeet 2025
Programme of Requirements
8.00am : Set up and install Boardwalks and Safety fencing
9.00am : Measure and mark out sites, pegs, and number sites.
Setup and position Rubbish Bins, picnic tables, pig tails and tape
fencing
Road signs and other signage
Lunch Break : Brief meeting
Continue with setup
Saturday 5th April
7.00am Site holders gate opens.
All gate Keepers to report to Office 15mins prior to allocated duty time.
All helpers during the day to report to Office
4-00pm Swapmeet finishes
Dismantle and clean-up begins (not before 4.00pm)
Return all equipment to container and various sheds, including road signs etc.
Re-stack container
Emu parade to check grounds and car park.
Members required to supply own hammer, measuring tape pliers and knife. Utes and trailers required
Members required for Loud speaker, Display Cars, Disabled parking.
This is the only Club Fundraiser so all able members are required to help over the two days.
Ground Convenor - Barry Smith 03 6847405
Sites - Michelle/Krystal Munro 021 1726168/027 8567940
Gates - Glen Hawkins 027 2076625
Parking - Gavin Munro 021 0528264
Finance - Nola Day 027 2035007
2025 TRAVELS HITHER AND YON Barry B
I guess it started with New Year at Fairlie. The 1925 Studebaker got a last minute gallop when the plan had been to take the 1979 Suzuki was ditched after a shower of rain arrived just before take off time. The Stude turned out to be the better choice for a disappointingly cool day.
Intentions to take part in the Ladies Run were thwarted by a conflicting event but the following week saw us lined up at Timaru Airport for our flight to Wellington only to be told the flight was cancelled “for operational reasons” despite the plane having just off loaded its passengers and sitting outside. A 2 hour bus trip got us to Christchurch just in time to get onto a rebooked flight and we duly arrived 4 hours late and thankfully so did our luggage. A couple of days later it was on and into brother Trevor’s 1980 Suzuki and sidecar and off to Palmerston North for the National Motorcycle Rally.
Weather forecast for the weekend was not very favourable but Rally day turned out better than the 130 entrants could have hoped and we enjoyed a super run through great motorcycling country for a beaut barbecue lunch at the Cheltenham Hotel which went down a treat with hungry bikies. That night was a catered meal at the impressive Manawatu Branch Clubrooms. Sunday morning forecast was very gloomy but the rain held off sufficiently to head out to the Black Barn, a privately owned building housing a collection of motoring memorabilia etc, to which all adjourned after the field tests for our packed lunches. Shortly afterward the rain arrived and it was back hot foot to our digs to get ready for the prizegiving dinner at the Club Rooms.
The only South Canterbury entrants were Lex Westoby and ourselves and Lex with 1936 Royal Enfield was the winner of the PV class and also Overall Winner of the Montagu Trophy, while we won the P60 class, sidecar trophy, and were second overall, all much to our surprise!
Lex took the opportunity to test interest in the 2027 event being hosted by South Canterbury with a majority of those present being interested in participating. Manawatu set the bar really high so we will have to be right on top of our game to make sure we equal or better their efforts. We will need lots of members in addition to the motorbike guys to pitch in and ensure our event lives up to the standard of the previous National events we have run here. I’m up for it - are you willing to help Alistair put it together?
On the way back to Upper Hutt we visited the Thomson Motorcycle Museum at Rongatea which includes an amazing array of very early bikes in basically original condition, a very interesting and worthwhile stop.
Lunch time lineup Cheltenham Hotel
Militaire Thomson Motorcycle Museum
Barry and black bike Palmerston Nth
After arriving back home the following Wednesday evening, it was out to Barry Crossman’s place next morning to load the 1924 Peugeot on to Alistair’s trailer and off to Invercargill for the 70th Anniversary Southland Rally. The reason for taking it being that the car was on the very first Southland Rally in 1955, 4 years before the car came into my ownership. I was a bit disappointed that more was not made of the 70 years of the Branch history but the Rally was well organized and I had a great time with some of my old buddies and acquaintances of over 50 years standing, several of whom had made a special effort to be present too. We fluked a second place in the vintage road section and received a special award for bringing one of only 2 of the vehicles on the first Rally (the other being Doug McLeod’s1922 Sunbeam14/40) and for bringing it so far, which was much appreciated. The following weekend was the Wallaby Rally to which we took the Suzuki and Sidecar to make up for not taking it to Fairlie. This is always an enjoyable run, well supported by South Canterbury members, some of whom won awards. Sorry don’t remember them all but Lex won the Motorbike section.
Next on the agenda for me is National Exec Meeting so will miss out on Mid Island so the entry has gone in for the first Central Otago Gold Motorcycle Rally. At Easter we plan to take the Studebaker to Blenheim where our son wants to use it in conjunction with the Omaka Airshow. Whew!-it’s all go this year!
Peugeot at 1955 Rally
S C team and the loot!
Attractive Square 4 Ariel and elegant sidecar Thomson Museum
Well restored Honda CX500
Open Day 2025
Open Day 2025 had 32 Club vehicles on display which included a 1911 Clement Bayard from North Otago VCC which was trailered up for the day by the Armiger Family. Also on brief display was a 1939 Vauxhall 10 and a 1930 Dennis Lawnmower owned by Garth Elder who was in process of relocating to new accommodation and called by. The Vauxhall is not yet restored but the lawnmower is in regular use and is also listed on the worldwide Dennis website.
1911 Clement Bayard
1939 Vauxhall 10
1930 Dennis Lawnmower Setting up BBQ for Lunch
1942 Chevrolet Flat deck Master Owned by John Smallridge
A couple of the motorbikes on display
Other Coming Events Elsewhere
(Check our Web Page for further details on Events
Waimate Motorcycle Rally 8th March 2025
Taupo Lake Taupo Country Roads Rally 15th March 2025
West Coast Scenicland Rally 22nd March 2025
Otago The 2025 Southern Backroad Adventure 22nd-23rd March 2025
Wanaka Wheels at Wanaka April 18th -20th 2025
Cambridge North Island Easter Rally April 18th - 21st 2025
Fielding Highland Fling 2025 April 25th-27th 2025
More photos of 2025 Napier Art Deco - Grant Mehrtens
1924 Delage, motored up from Dunedin by David & Christine Mehrtens. Took 4 days to get there, formerly his father Geoffs
1936 Ford V8 Highway Patrol Car & Patrol Man.
Early Packard
Rushton Steam Roller, McLaren Traction Engine & Ford Model T Truck. Part of
1914 Front & 1908 Rear, Rolls Royce Silver Ghosts
car.
1921 Ford Model T Limo with 3 Rows of Seats
Office Bearers 2024-2025
Chairperson: Colin Hawke (Glenys) 6889955/ 027 4896663
Vice Chairperson: Vacant
Immediate past Chairman Alistair Day 027 2025007
Secretary: Pauline Young (Wayne) 6861833/ 027 5399225
Treasurer: Nola Day (Alistair) 027 2035007
Club Captains: Gavin and Michelle Munro
Kevin Manchester (Ngadia) Michelle 021 1726168
Gavin 021 0528264
Kevin 027 5178769
News Letter Editor: Les Rzepecky (Helen) 021 1220011
Clubroom Convener: Sandy McMillan 027 6155150
Parts Shed Manager: Barry Smith (Lynette) 6847405
Librarian: Barry Barnes (Carla) 6885105
IT Officer: Shannon Stevenson 6863263/ 027 2453519
Committee: All of the above
Ross Hamilton (Wendy) 021 2407137
Identification and Certificate:
Swap Meet:
Chairman:
Alistair Day, Colin Hawke. 027 2025007 6889955/ 027 4896663
Site Convenor/ Secretary Michelle Munro (Gavin) 6864824/ 021 1726168
Treasurer: Nola Day (Alistair) 027 2035007
Ground Convenor: Barry Smith ( Lynette) 6847405
Committee: Gavin Munro (Michelle) 6864824/ 021 0528264
(Plus all above)
Krystal Munro 027 8567940
Glen Hawkins 027 2076625