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<strong>Tour</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>New</strong> <strong>Zeal<strong>and</strong></strong><br />
Monday 23 rd Jan. The next morning we were up early as<br />
we needed to collect the Lagonda from the storage depot. I<br />
was slightly apprehensive that the car might not start but<br />
this turned out to be totally unfounded as it started without<br />
any issues.<br />
Buildings devastated <strong>by</strong> the quake.<br />
On the day before the tour started we were very kindly<br />
picked up from our hotel <strong>by</strong> Kevin Atkinson, who is doing a<br />
magnificent job rebuilding a MK 1 18/80 RX 7207 he<br />
acquired from Irvine Black. Kevin drove us to his house<br />
where we meet his wife Julia <strong>and</strong> their collection <strong>of</strong> dogs.<br />
Kevin showed me around his collection <strong>of</strong> vintage cars <strong>and</strong> I<br />
was extremely impressed <strong>by</strong> the amazing work he is doing<br />
on resurrecting the 18/80 from the pile <strong>of</strong> parts he<br />
purchased.<br />
Kevin Atkinson’s M.G. 18/80 begins to take shape.<br />
Later after a c<strong>of</strong>fee we left Hazel & Julia <strong>and</strong> Kevin kindly<br />
drove me to visit Irvine Black <strong>and</strong> see his emporium <strong>of</strong><br />
vintage <strong>and</strong> classic cars. Irvine is making steady but slow<br />
progress with his 18/80 rebuild.<br />
We had a lovely lunch with Irvine <strong>and</strong> his wife prior to<br />
moving on to see Peter Lyttle’s 18/80 rebuild. Sadly Peter<br />
was not available but he had given Irvine a key to his garage<br />
so I could see his collection <strong>of</strong> cars <strong>and</strong> horse drawn<br />
carriages. Peter’s 18/80 is much further advanced than<br />
Irvine’s car <strong>and</strong> the quality <strong>of</strong> the workmanship is very high.<br />
Kevin <strong>and</strong> Peter should be proud <strong>of</strong> their achievements <strong>and</strong><br />
hopefully we will soon hear they have completed their<br />
rebuilds <strong>and</strong> the cars are back on the road. Kevin drove me<br />
back to his house where we had an evening meal before he<br />
kindly dropped us back to our hotel after a really amazing<br />
day.<br />
This was the first time Hazel had seen the Lagonda, apart<br />
from pictures, <strong>and</strong> I hoped she would be happy travelling in<br />
a vintage car as she had never done so before. Again<br />
everything turned out fine, she climbed aboard, <strong>and</strong> we set<br />
<strong>of</strong>f to drive the short distance to our new hotel <strong>and</strong> the start<br />
<strong>of</strong> the tour. On arrival there were already a number <strong>of</strong> other<br />
people there. We booked into our room <strong>and</strong> shortly<br />
afterwards set about cleaning the WD 40 <strong>of</strong>f the Lagonda.<br />
Prior to shipment I was advised to spray WD 40 over all the<br />
aluminium <strong>and</strong> nickel parts <strong>of</strong> the car to prevent the salt<br />
from the sea spray attacking the surfaces. It worked well but<br />
took some effort to clean it <strong>of</strong>f.<br />
Later that evening we met up with all the other entrants at<br />
the “Welcome Dinner”. The organisers had been very<br />
thoughtful <strong>and</strong> provided very good name tags for the<br />
entrants to wear which helped me a great deal as I am<br />
hopeless at remembering people’s names.<br />
Tuesday 24 th Jan. We went on a 120 miles “shakedown”<br />
run to a large sea inlet at Akaroa on the east coast. The<br />
route took us over some very mountainous <strong>and</strong> deserted<br />
roads which provided stunning views especially as the<br />
weather was warm <strong>and</strong> sunny with a lovely blue sky.
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