When a car is sent to a junkyard, there normally isn't any hope left for them. They are usually sent overseas and turned into tin cans or other miscellaneous items, but not this car. This is the tale of the Peugeot 106 that could.
Not too
long ago, this wee Peugeot 106 was sitting in a paddock, looking rather
sorry and minus a driver's side window. Covered in dents, scrapes and
the worst coat of enamel paint ever applied by man combined with an
interior that resembled a nightclub's bathroom, death was certain for
this little car.
However, a budding young racing team had a plan and a deal was struck with the owner of the car.
As part of the deal, a second parts car was acquired at no extra cost, after it had to be pulled out of a blackberry bush that it had been "resting" in for a year.
This parts car proved very fruitful, giving up it's radiator, driver's seat, left front brake caliper, fuel cap and two wheels two the "red" car. The team spent many long hours preparing, modifying and painting the "red" car in order to get it into tip top shape for the BOS (Bucket Of S*%T) class at the Trentham Autocross track.
And here is the result! The car was given a completely new lease of life thanks to a lot of hard work and determination to get a once "dead" car back up and running as a cheap, fun and reliable racing car. In it's inaugural run, the pocket rocket managed to make it into the top 32 of the autocross competition, which is incredibly impressive considering that the car is still running standard running gear and came out of a paddock. This proves that you don't need much money to build a competitive autocross machine.
While surfing the net looking for cool car vids, I came across this awesome video of a Nissan Skyline GTS-t that is fitted with an RB25DET out of an R33, going insanely fast up a hill climb track in Australia. It has been filmed using a binaural audio recorder, which means the sound is of incredibly high quality. It works best with headphones, so chuck a set on and enjoy!
Recently, the MTA reached the milestone of 100 years old and to celebrate this occasion, they decided to hold a big auto show in Wellington, the capital city of NZ.
After a wee bit of travelling, we made it to the first hall of cars called "Great Kiwis, Great Cars". The first car that stood out was this classic Mclaren Formula 1 car, which is powered by the formidable Cosworth DFV Quad Cam V8 which was a highly successful motor of that period.
This particular car was raced all over the place and has also raced at the Leadfoot Festival, an invite only festival of speed.
This Maserati 250F looked pretty scary to drive, with it's big straight six motor and thin tyres.
Next up was this accurate replica of Burt Munro's "World's Fastest Indian" land speed record motorcycle. It gave me an insight as to how freaky it would have been to ride at high speed as most of the bike looked like it shared more components with a bicycle rather than a motorbike! Nevertheless, it got the job done and Burt was able to set multiple records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. This was truly in the spirit of "Home Built".
Some of our international readers may not know what this car is. It's called the Hulme F1 and was built to compete with supercars such as Ferrari's and Lamborghini's.
New Zealand's Land Rover, the Trekka.
This is currently the world's fastest Mini. It recently set records at Bonneville and achieved 156 MPH.
The Mini is running a highly modified A Series with a Twin Cam BMW motorbike head and Turbo induction.
Here is one of the legendary Britten motorbikes that were built to compete at a world class level. It is a very stunning motorcycle and the engineering work that has gone into the bike is astounding.
Now we head into "The Future Today" hall. This new Mclaren sported a very crisp and very deep metallic orange paint job. The shape of these cars are out of this world and are very aerodynamically efficient.
Carbon!
The Rinspeed Budii, strangest vehicle I have ever seen. I couldn't get any shots of the interior but I can assure you, it is very strange. The steering wheel and column dance around and there are screens everywhere.
Now we head down to the underground car park section dubbed "For the love of cars". The Matt Gaskin Motorsport Nissan Skyline R32 V8 was there and looking very flash in it's gold and orange colour scheme.
This pair of Datsun 240Z's was a pleasant surprise as there are barely any of them around anymore. Both looked excellent and sported period correct modifications.
Very low and very evil!
Another surprise was this Mazda RX3 rally car which looked like it was a very straight car and would probably fly along the numerous rally stages in NZ.
Anyone remember the classic movie Goodbye Pork Pie? This Mini is a replica of the heavily lightweighted version in the movie and has been made road legal through the use of plexiglass doors and headlight supports.
A very tidy Porsche 356 coupe.
Here's a legendary piece of Japanese automotive history. A prince Skyline 2000GT-B. This car is technically the first Skyline GT-R before the GT-R name existed.
The 2.0L Straight 6, called the G-7, is fed through triple Weber Carburretors and produces 127 BHP from the factory.
A period correct Ford Falcon XA Coupe running classic 5 spoke wheels and a very swish purple and black colour combination.
A needle in a haystack: This 1973 Mazda RX3 is completely original and is a numbers matching vehicle. It still runs it's factory 10A motor and has had a meticulous restoration a few years ago.
When's the last time you have seen a Honda NSX? This example of Honda's breakthrough supercar was very tidy and looked superb in it's factory red colour.
Last but not least is this stunning Datsun Bluebird SSS. There are virtually zero of these around anymore and this example was immaculately presented. From a distance, it reminded me of the original Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R, but a more scaled down version.
That concludes our feature on the superb MTA100 Auto Show. The event was well run and there were plenty of nice cars to look around and admire.
