Traffic lined up to get into the grounds to see more traffic in the shape of earthmoving bulldozers, tractors, diggers, trucks and rollers. Whatever your flavour of big bulky vehicle, this was the show that had it.
Coming all the way down from Feilding for the event, with his 1929 Caterpillar 20 tractor, was diesel mechanic Howard Berendt, for his second Wheels show.
The 76-year-old has been getting his hands covered in grease since he was 17 years old and still does it in his work shed back home.
In line with caterpillar’s centenary celebration, Mr Berendt said the brand was special to him because he initially did his mechanical apprenticeship on one.
He hasn’t owned a single brand other than Caterpillar and has ten of them sitting in his sheds back home. Ages ranged from 1926 to the end of the World War 2, he said.
"These little tractors right there, they broke this country in as a farming nation, and we went through some good years when farmers could afford to buy a new one, especially in the 1950s."
The Caterpillar 20 he brought to the show is sentimental to him because it was the first tractor the company made when they amalgamated two companies, Holt Machinery Company and CL Best Tractor Company, together in 1925.
"In 1925 the two manufacturers got together and the first brainchild they had was this."
"Most of my life has been working on caterpillar tractors. I did my apprenticeship on them. They have been my life and that’s how you get a dairy farm, eventually."
He purchased the old beaten-down "rusty wreck" for little more than $300. He has since spent over $40,000 on the tractor.
"I may have to sell it one day; the box isn’t big enough to take it with me."
He doesn’t name each of his tractors because "you don’t get too sentimental with machinery".
Mr Berendt didn’t drive down, he hitched a ride on a big transporting truck with his tractor.
Asked why all the fuss over the earthmoving show, he said "it is a sense of power if you sat in a seat and pushed a load of dirt, I guess it’s that. Everyone likes a bit of dirt moving around the place and that was basically what it was all about."
The event ends tomorrow, and will be the last Wheels at Wānaka.
Organisers are expecting over 40,000 people to pass through the gate.
