This issue is a testament to the amazing Creative Junction team. While I’ve been travelling overseas, the team had their choice of topics. The automotive scene is not something I would have picked myself but the stories that have uncovered are amazing. Yet again this issue is a showcase of Northland’s diversity, the drifting culture is huge. Despite Northland having some of New Zealand’s top drifters we don’t actually have a professional venue for these guys to race in, they travel to Auckland to practise and still end up the best in the country!
There is something about cars that have a sentimental value. As a kid my dad always had A-series Landrovers. Having spent the best part of the 70s touring around Africa, he was determined that short-wheel base was the best- obviously well suited to the many safari plains in Auckland’s North Shore.
I’ll always remember the smell of oil as he passed me the rags to hold onto, I would carefully clutch the edges so as not to get oil onto my chubby 4-year-old fingers and pretend I was part of the pit stop crew.
Although it was the technology encased within the Landrover that had me fascinated. Being in business in the late 80s meant my Dad had a car phone. He had hooked the massive black box up to the horn so that whenever the phone rang it was announced to the entire world in a rather intrusive manner, much to my brother’s embarrassment.
When the time came to sell the Landrover, it was a sad day. After that my dad bought more modern cars. They went to mechanics to be fixed as the intricacies were beyond the simple motor of a Landrover that he knew. This meant the end of oily rags and helping Dad in the ‘pit stop’, but the memories will always be there.
-PIPPA BOURKE
Welcome.