HONDA NSX
THE PRIDE OF ROB’S COLLECTION. Remember when you were a kid and your mum said she would only buy you one new Matchbox car, so you’d spend ages poring over the display rack trying to decide which one you wanted most? Talking to Rob Cunningham about his car collection creates a similar feeling. Rob is managing director of Premier Automotive Repairs in the Australian Capital Territory. Here’s what happened when we called him about featuring in Ignition’s “Member Ride”. “What would you like to write about?” he said. “I’ve got a VL Walkinshaw Commodore. I’ve got a Honda NSX. I’ve got a GTR Skyline. What else have we got? There’s a ’55 Chev. A 911 turbo Porsche. Oh, and a Ferrari Testarossa we’re restoring.” How do you choose? Faced with such a supercharged version of the old Matchbox car dilemma, we let Rob decide. He picked his black 1991 model Honda NSX. “It’s immaculate, original, untouched – with only about 50,000 kilometres on it,” he said. “It still looks brand new.” Rob said he’d wanted an NSX for a long time but had been actively looking for about five years when he found this one, in Sydney, six years ago. “It’s just one of those cars I’ve always wanted to own, since I was really young,” he said. “The fullaluminum body, the rear-mount engine – it’s perfectly balanced and handles and performs just the way it should.” With Rob’s Matchbox car picked, it was Ignition’s turn to choose. We took the ’55 Chevrolet. It could not be a more different car to the NSX. “It’s heavily modified,” Rob said. “It’s got a late model LS, six-litre engine in it. It’s tubbed. Everything’s been chucked — everything from a different drive train all the way through to power windows and custom leather interior.
2 0 CAPRICORN IGNITION JUNE 2021
