‘Perfect’ Rolls-Royce wins at inaugural classic car show

Alan Dippie, of Wānaka, with his 1907 Sizare et Naudin, billed as New Zealand’s oldest racing car, at the inaugural Ayrburn Classic car show, near Arrowtown, yesterday. PHOTOS: TRACEY ROXBURGH

It was petrol-head heaven.

About 200 vintage, luxury and classic cars were on display at Ayrburn, near Arrowtown, during the inaugural Ayrburn Classic car show over the weekend.

Included in the latest models was The Spectre, Rolls-Royce's first fully electric car which comes with a $925,000 price tag.

At the other end of the spectrum, which included cars entered by owners for judging, was the 1907 Sizare et Naudin, a voiturette, or light racing car, owned by Wānaka’s Alan Dippie.

Mr Dippie said it was New Zealand’s oldest racing car, built about three blocks from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and it featured a French oak chassis. North Canterbury farmer Marmaduke Dixon was the first owner of the vehicle.

Mr Dippie said he had clippings from Christchurch’s The Press in 1910 when it won a race on the Addington racetrack.

It later ended up on Mr Dixon’s farm and was subsequently bought by Bob Turnbull who "spent the rest of his life trying to make it go faster".

"He ended up in Ophir and when he died he had no relations to leave it to, so he left it to the town of Ophir ... and then I bought it off the township."

While Mr Dippie had raced the one-cylinder, 1.5-litre Sizare, which had a top speed of about 90 miles an hour, “I’ve only been about 60 in it ... at 60 it’s quite terrifying".

"But it’s a very quick car for 1907."

Mr Dippie also brought along a 1922 Delage/Hispano Suiza, which he and his brother, Martin, bought about four years ago, importing it from Sydney, Australia.

The 18.5-litre engine — or V8 — was a surplus World War 1 fighter engine for a Spad, Mr Dippie said.

"It’s road legal, which is surprising in itself, but it’s a bit heavy-chested — you’ve got to be quite brave to drive it, or silly, or both, because it’s very, very quick.

"It can go 140 miles an hour, top speed, and it can do a quarter mile in 13 seconds, which is up there with today's supercars, so it really is a supercar of the 1920s."

And, per tradition, it does not have seatbelts — Mr Dippie noted if one was to have a crash, which happened frequently during motor racing events in those days, "you’d rather be thrown out".

"Motor racing was more dangerous than women — it's the other way around now," he quipped.

Six judges, including Bruce Lewis, of Rotorua, lined up to go over the 110 cars entered in the competition with a fine-tooth comb, assessing them on interior and exterior condition and the engine bay, with cleanliness a key part of each criteria.

Of the standard of cars, Mr Lewis said some were "just outstanding".

The overall winner was a 1939 Rolls-Royce Wraith, owned by Simon Manning, of Lake Hayes.

Mr Manning said he had owned the vehicle for 11 years and it had been in restoration for 10.

Mr Lewis, a furniture polisher by trade, said he "couldn’t fault that".

"It was perfect.

"It was just a pleasure the more we looked at it — I managed to find two half points [to deduct], otherwise it would have been 100 out of 100."

Ayrburn developer Chris Meehan, who came up with the idea of the car show, said he was thrilled with the inaugural event, and excited about its future.

"You’ve got to do one to test if the concept works, and there’s no doubt it works.

"I would have had 30 or 40 people across the weekend come up to me, who have been to all the big car shows across the world, who have said this has the potential to be the best in the world, just because of the setting and the environment."