Living the dream: Southward's Sports Cars

Welcome to Part 2 of Our Southward's Car Museum Feature. In Part 1 we covered the NZ built vehicles that were part of the collection and in this article we will be showcasing some of the performance cars held by the collection.

First up is this Chevrolet Corvette C7 that is on loan to the museum. This car is optioned with the Z07 package that features an Eaton Supercharger and special Rotocast Cylinder Heads with incredibly wide Michelin Pilot Super Sport Tyres. It is currently offered for sale at the moment and anyone interested in buying this awesome vehicle can contact the museum.

This is an incredibly rare and special car, A Ferrari 750 Monza. This particular example has been restored back to it's former glory after being involved in a terrible accident. What is unusual about this car is that it is powered by a 3.0 Litre Twin Cam Four Cylinder instead of the usual V12 found in most Ferrari's

This is a Begg FM5 Formula 5000. These cars are brutally fast on the track and make a wonderful noise from their practically unrestricted exhaust system.

You may recognise this car from a certain snow jump that went viral a few years back, Ken Block's Subaru WRX STI.

Here's something for the Mitsi Fans, a stock Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 6.5 Tommi Makinen Edition. This car was in good condition but had obviously been driven hard at some point due to the wear on the gear knob and steering wheel.

This is a rare sight these days, a stock Nissan Skyline R32 GTR. The only modification done to this car was a large Silent Power Exhaust. This car was incredibly tidy with minimal wear to the interior apart from the steering wheel which looked a bit tired.

This Honda NSX was completely immaculate inside and out and appeared as if it had just been built, it even smelled new inside. This car oozed quality with high quality plastics and fine leather seating. Surprisingly, the NSX was incredibly easy to see out of which is unusual for a mid engined car. (Don't worry about the "DO NOT TOUCH" sign, we got permission from the manager before we were let loose on the cars :))

Great Scott! Yes the Museum even has a Delorean! This car is in incredibly good shape and makes you reminisce about Back To The Future. Although quality is not the greatest on these (and it shows when you get up close) they are still an awesome car and you feel like you are sitting on the ground when behind the wheel.

This nice red Mitsubishi GTO is the nicest I've ever seen and it is completely stock standard and immaculate inside and out. Although it is a non turbo model, the 220 BHP produced from the 3.0 Litre Quad Cam V6 is more than the amount made by the Nissan Skyline GTS-t.

This Toyota Supra RZ Twin Turbo was also immaculate and completely original but the only downside was that it is automatic. Nevertheless, these cars are incredibly smooth and with 320 BHP, pretty quick as well.

This Lamborghini Diablo is one of the rarest in the world, being one of 8 right hand drive VT Roadsters produced. The car is absolutely mint and is incredibly comfortable.

One of the most significant and instantly recognisable cars in the collection is this Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing". It was recently sympathetically restored in house by the team at Southward's and I must say they have done a very fine job of doing so.

Tucked away in a corner were these two American Muscles, a Shelby GT500KR and a Dodge Viper RT/10. The Shelby GT500KR is one of only 1,000 produced of it's type and features a Supercharged 5.4 Litre V8 which develops 540 BHP. The Viper is a first generation model and delivers 400 BHP from its 8.0 Litre V10.

The Vipers interior is quite spartan but has some cool little features such as these air conditioning dials that are aircraft style and feature the Viper logo on them.

Thanks for reading Part 2 of our Southward's feature, stay tuned for Part 3 in a few more days!