VCC BOP KLAXON MARCH 2023

Chairman’s Chat March 2023

I’m hoping that no news is good news regarding that cyclone causing damage to member’s property and vehicles. I have heard some horror stories coming out of Eastland and a recently shifted member is going to relate just what a close shave they had next Club-night.

Apparently the new “Buzz-Word” is “Connectivity”, highlighted by the huge number of people who bemoaned not getting information because all the electronic information systems were out of action due to power outages. When the moment came requiring cancellation of Feb club-night due to weather concerns, the lead-time was very short indeed. No time for the old Town Cryer to put his walking shoes on and go house-hold to household. We had to resort to emails and telephone calls to those not on-line. Huge pat on the back to Bryce who got the word out with no questions asked. However, some members somehow slipped through the net and didn’t get the information. If you have an email address and don’t get “BUZZ” or “Klaxon”, that means your “connectivity” isn’t functioning, and we can’t keep in touch with you. If you are not sure, contact Sec. Michael Thorman or “Klaxon” Ed. Bryce Strong.

On the same level regarding keeping information up to date, the latest Membership List for Bay of Plenty Branch has arrived and giving it a cursory once over, I note much of it is out of date. Cars owned, phone numbers, and addresses are incorrect. PLEASE inform National Office (or Michael) when your circumstances change so the Club data base is kept up to date. We will have the list available at Club-nights very soon for you to check your details.

With all the disruptions to our activities, it is going to be rather challenging to get participation up to where we were several years ago, and that’s where all of you play a part in getting active again.

I hope to see faces and vehicles out and about that have faded away.

Kind regards, Alastair

March

BOP VCC Events List for 2023

13 Club Night Speaker to be advised later. Members with birthday bring a plate please

13 Coffee Morning

15 Mid Week Run - over to Rotorua to the Landing Cafe at Lake Tarawera Watch for Notice in Klaxon and the Buzz)

20 Coffee Morning

26 Barn Find Meca. The run will start at the club rooms then onto Pukehine Beach for a morning tea pit stop. Then to Andrew Blaymires to look at his eclectic collection of barn stored classic cars. Sunbeam Talbots, Humbers, Minx, Super Snipes, VW, Austin 12/6. Bring a picnic lunch. Further details regarding the run In the Buzz closer to the run date. Weather dependant.

27 Coffee Morning

27 Committee Meeting

28 Nog and Natter at The Tauranga Citizens Club

April

10 Club night Speaker to be advised thru the Buzz

Members with birthday bring a plate please

10 Coffee Morning

12 Mid Week Run ( TBA)

17 Coffee morning

24 Committee meeting

24 Coffee Morning

25 Nog and Natter Pap Tavern ( 6pm start) This is Anzac Day

30 End of Month Run (TBA)

ANNUAL BUS TRIP 2023

This is planned for the 16th -18th October.

The plan is to travel by bus on the 16th to the Howick Historical Village for a morning visit and lunch stop, then onto the Aircraft Museum which is part of MOTAT.

It is then planned to stay at a hotel in Central Auckland, hopefully within walking distance of the SKY Casino and Hotel Complex, so not too far to walk for dining options.

The next day travel to Maungatapere to the Packard Museum which is 13klms outside of Whangarei. This is a most interesting place to visit. It is believed to be the largest collection of Packard cars in the Southern Hemisphere, also including motorbikes and British cars and other interesting equipment. The equipment is one man’s collection found on farms anywhere that he was doing earthworks etc.

Then back to Whangarei for lunch on the waterfront and to look around Whangarei, staying the night in Whangarei then travelling home the next day.

The provisional cost for this will be under $500.00 per person which includes Bus fare, 2 night’s accommodation and entry fees.

For this to proceed I need expressions of interest.

Please email John at johnandjill37@gmail.com

Comparison charts of spanner sizes - imperial and metric

Clive Taylor recently came across a chart for comparing spanner sizes - imperial and metric. The information may be well known to some members of the Club. Hhowever, for the benefit of those members who do not know about the chart and website he has attached the details here.

It is www.Kevin C Bacon (Baconsdozen Imperial Tools)

It is comprehensive, and runs into eight pages, so is too large for Klaxon, but the information is so good everyone should have a copy in their workshop, and one in their habitat near the phone.

Clive at 949 Omanawa Road RD1, Tauranga 3171, New Zealand

Thanks Clive!

We extend a warm welcome to the following new Members—

Please contact our Chairman if you have not received your name badge by our next meeting

Gerald Weld gklaw@kinect.co.nz 511, Rangiuru Road ,RD8 Te Puke Ph. 573 9073 or 21 2324850

Gerald has :- 1922 Austin 20/4 Tourer; a 1927 Austin 12/4 Windsor & a 1929 Austin 20/6 Carlton Saloon

Arthur King arthurking@xtra.co.nz 229.Valley Road, Omanu, Mt Maunganui, Tauranga 3116.

Arthur has a1961 BSA Bantam Motorcycle

Janice and Steve Winter janiceandstevewinter@gmail.com 99 Westridge Drive, Tauriko

Janice and Steve have a 1937 Rolls Royce.

FOR SALE—INDICATIONS OF INTEREST

Roger Hill is wishing to reduce his fleet of vehicles, and asks interested people to contact him on 027 522 3456. The cars are located in Te Puke.

Included are:-

• 1931 Daimler. Is one of the last Knight engines. Ordered for a Royal tour by Edward which didn't proceed. Engine meticulously overhauled. Has been re-wooded. New kingpins. Interestingly it has mechanical brakes and a brake booster! Not a runner.

• 1931 Vauxhall. Very rare. Complete and a runner.

• 1909 Darraque. Veteran. Complete and a runner.

• 1910 Hupmobile. Veteran. Complete and a runner.

• 1966 Wolseley. P60V. 16/60 Complete and a runner.

• 1957 Daimler Century Auto. PWV. Complete and a runner.

Eastern Bay of Plenty and Three Rivers Rallies. By Raewyn & Graeme Fenn

With all the events of the past week, our rallies seem like a very long time ago, however our hearts go out to those members who have received damage from Cyclone Gabrielle. The Metservice certainly did not overstate this one did they.

My Dad was a volunteer firefighter for a large portion of his adult life and subsequently we had a large number of employees and friend involved in the Waihi and Mayorview (Waihi Beach) Volunteer Fire Brigades and we feel gutted for the families and the Muriwai Volunteer Fire Brigade family in the loss of two members who were giving to the community All those lives lost are very sad, but these two men were special.

So, before all this happened, Graeme and I had enjoyed two really lovely weekends away in our Vintage Cars. February 4th saw us heading to Whakatane for the Eastern Bay of Plenty Rally the next day. After a great trip down, we headed to our “Go To” restaurant in Whakatane, Global Thai, where we found Deidre Rennie and Tony Fraser had just sat down. They invited us to join them and together we enjoyed a really beautiful meal and lots of great conversation, including finding out lots about each other and our love of old vehicles. Thanks for your company over the weekend Tony and Deidre. We also decided that this was our BOP VCC “Get-together” dinner, which a lot of branches enjoy, to make sure everyone is okay and set for the next day. Will you be there to join us next year? That would be great …….

Saturday dawned very overcast with threatening rain as we met at the Paroa Rugby Club. A much smaller group than usual, with several regular ralliests from Auckland having to pull out due to flood damage received the previous week during Cyclone Hale, including the well-known Dewhurst family who had sustained damage. Another 3 cars withdrew for health and Covid reasons, so the Waikato and Auckland regular contingents were very small.

The rally was one of the nicest we have taken part in for a long time, albeit that we spent a lot of the day looking for checks, only to find out later that there were only a very small number put out! A good ploy.

There were lots and lots of questions, all with great answers, visible from the car, a very short timed section and cars going in several directions at times. Who would have known that there was an extremely old church in a bad disrepair, but the adjoining cemetery was absolutely pristine, right on the outskirts of the city by the Whakatane Mill and within metres of State Highway 2. From here we travelled on all sealed roads as we criss-crossed the flat roads around the area. A section of straight-lining around Kawerau was beautifully laid out and we saw the many sides of that wee town, from the beautiful pristine gardens, to the less desirable properties but also seeing the gorgeous mature trees in stunning parks. One question was “How many plants in pots?” Come on! We thought how could this question work in this lush looking area, then suddenly we turned into a small crescent and there before us was a fence with assorted shapes and sizes of pots painted on it – and 9 of those pots had flower plants painted in them! A great question and a very enthusiastic neighbour who was making sure none of us missed that fence.

Lunch was at a local community hall way out in the country, over the fence from the Growden’s property, which was extremely lucky as the Hayward vehicle which had started the rally with a tiny knock in the motor, now had a man in the engine bay of the Daimler with a very large hammer and they had to retire. Steve and Joy kindly allowed them to tow the Daimler to their property until a towie could arrange to take the car back to Hamilton. (That’s what members in the VCC do!)

After completing a tiny gymkhana to set us off at regular intervals from lunch, we resumed answering questions, with the last answer of the day being my favourite. Question: Tait’s …… ………..

Eventually we saw a letterbox at the entrance to an egg farm, covered in painted eggs and the answer to our question! Tait’s Butt Nuggets. With the price of eggs today, they really are little gold nuggets aren’t they.

Dinner that night was amazing! Four ladies who have catered for this event previously, provided us with a feast of oysters, prawns, shrimp cocktails, beautiful salads, plus a ham on the bone, AND a full leg of roast pork, chicken and lamb, roast veges and the trimmings. Then desert arrived in the form of cheesecakes, pavlovas, platters of fresh fruit and more, but to top the whole thing off, when everyone had been offered seconds, they bought out takeaway dishes for people to help themselves! I think people were a little embarrassed, so the staff set about filling the dishes with meals for people to take with them. What a wonderful catering group, hope they’re booked for next year.

Prizegiving was certainly a mixed bag and various classes were won by a narrow margin. In our PV class, they had combined PV and PWV and announced 2 second place winners and a third prize getter, then they announced that Graeme and I had won the class, all very close results. The major winners on the night were the ladies team of Pat Burr and Shona Wickham from Rotorua who won the P80 class and were announced as the Overall Winners. So wonderful for these “girls” who both rallied with their husbands and since the passing of Dennis Burr and Cliff Wickham, they have been out there “doing it” together. Congratulations girls!

We had an appointment in Whakatane early on Tuesday morning so stayed an extra night and enjoyed a lovely evening meal with Joy and Steve Growden. Just as we left the motel next morning, we noticed a fuel leak. A big shoutout to the proprietors of BARRINGTON MOTEL, on Landing Road. They took me to into town for my appointment and then he took Graeme into town to get a new fuel pump – and we were back on the road. Really lovely people in a really lovely, clean motel and they do not take emergency housing people, but the did tell us they had been caught out that weekend with 4 units booked on line by a lady, for a family function – and they turned out to be patched Gang Members, who left the units in a real mess ………!

After a quick trip home to check on our renovation and a quick clean up, we left for Gisborne on Thursday morning. We had a great run through to Whakatane, but a call from Growden’s alerted us to a big slip that had just occurred at Waiotahe, so we completed that long detour following a big truck and trailer on the narrow roads and an hour later, through Opotiki, we headed into the Waioeka Gorge, in brilliant sunshine and with little wind. The river was majestic and in places the greens of the native bush reflected in the turquoise of the river. Stunning is the only word for it really, however the other side of the road was a mix of water seeping out of sheer banks and tenuous looking areas where you could imagine large slips coming down to close the road.

After further stoppages for two lots of major roadworks, and having enjoyed lunch in Whakatane, we finally arrived in Gisborne six and a half hours after leaving home. Friday we spent relaxing and having a good look around the area. We had a beautiful lunch at Matawhero Winery in Riverpoint Road, sitting in the shade of some large Walnut and Olive trees, before heading to the VCC clubrooms for another of their amazing barbeque dinners. This branch has some fantastic hospitality and this barbeque was no exception.

Saturday morning, we left the clubrooms after briefing in brilliant sunshine. We received our instructions immediately before leaving the gate and were astounded at the amount of paperwork we were given, including lots of historic photographs to match with modern day places, questions and checks. Just down the road we found the first photograph of an old hotel and marked that off, followed by a very historic church where one had to get out of the car to find the date it was established, then our navigator (me!) misread the next two instructions, first left, right at T (within 10 metres of one another) and so off we sailed into the distance, with two other cars and had travelled for close to half an hour before realising something was very wrong ……………..Oh dear, bad navigator! By the time we got back on track we were way behind the pack and then we realised that there were a lot of street names missing, so out came the old paper map, and with the Sutcliffe’s from Kawerau still trying to find their way also, we found our way to the next major instruction and headed up Waimata Valley Road to a lookout on the right where a VCC Marshall would show us where to go, but after 17 kilometres and No Marshall, and having sustained a broken headlight in a HUGE Pothole on a bridge, we headed back to the main road feeling very disgruntled.

Headlight glasses for a 1934 Graham Bluestreak are NOT mass produced, as you can imagine.

So, heading back into Gisborne, we took the “Phone A Friend” option, only to learn that there were more roads ahead that had missing signposts and it was starting to rain. Time for a meeting with the Sutcliffes and that “Committee” decided that we should head for the lunchstop at Tatapouri Bay where you can swim with the stingrays or go glamping – and we would enjoy our lunch. As the cars began to drift in sometime later, we saw lots of frustrated people and found local knowledge had played a huge part in getting everyone to this point. Very sad for the organisers, as they had checked the rally route two weeks prior, but not the day before as is recommended.

Never mind, we had a really lovely day, met some nice people and had a lovely couple of house in a café on the waterfront with the Eastern Bay of Plenty Contingent, Growdens, Costers, Spackmans and Sutcliffes.

Dinner that night was at the R.S.A.in Gisborne, where a small group of us enjoyed a lovely meal. It was very politely pointed out to the organisers that there had been things done poorly this time, apologies were received, along with assurances to do better next year. This was followed by some conversation about the impending Cyclone Gabrielle. We decided that it would be pertinent to get out of town very early in the morning as it was drizzling when we went to bed.

Out of bed at 6a.m. and on the road at 6.30 in pouring rain, we thought this would be a long day, however by the time we got to the start of the Gorge the road was dry with little traffic. What we did see in the gorge included 17 dead possums, 2 baby pukekos in all their gangly gorgeousness and 3 brown wekas crossing the road! 3 offshore racing boats towed by powerful tow vehicles, 4 black utes and several white vehicles.

After a much less than memorable breakfast inn Opotiki, we arrived home in Waihi Beach at 12.30pm, pretty dry, tired, but after a good weekend.

On Monday, we were contacted by the organisers of the rally to see that we were all home safely – and then Cyclone Gabrielle did her worst. I have tried to contact the Chairman of the Gisborne Branch, Rodney Clague, but his phone is not able to be connected, so have sent an email to Gisborne Branch to check on how things are going and extend our good wishes, but no reply to date.

Lets hope they are safe and well and their cars undamaged/

Another Amazing experience with the Vintage Car Club.

Additional Note:

I have received an email from Rodney, Chairman of Gisborne VCC, who told me that their club rooms, within the Gisborne Showgrounds, were unaffected by the cyclone. Their Club Night did not go ahead on the night of the storm – for obvious reasons, however, the city itself was relatively untouched.

Nearby Te Karaka and a friend of Rodneys, who lived in the Waimata Valley (where we went on the rally), have suffered severe damage. At the time of writing, his friends had neither power nor water.

Regular rally reports Editor

Let’s hope we never have to endure this dreadful damage.

Big thanks to Raewyn and Graeme for their regular rally reports! - Editor

Eastern Bay of Plenty and Three Rivers Rallies.

Taken before the rally

BMW bike made in Czechoslovakia

Penny Firth from Auckland

INTERESTING OLD FORD POSTCARDS, sent in by Peter Butler

USA CAR ADVERTISMENTS FROM THE PAST

PH 07 574 8740

BOP RADIATOR SPECIALISTS LIMITED

Telephone—07 573 9109

Fax 07 5738915

259 Jellicoe Street, Te Puke, 3119, Bay of Plenty

Email—sales@bopradiatorspecialists.co.nz

Cleaning with out chemicals or abrasives, it is eco friendly and cost effective way compared to other methods such as media blasting or paint stripping. It can remove light rust off delicate car/engine parts. It will easily clean a metal head gasket previously impossible with conventional cleaning methods. Benefits are- no harsh chemicals, no abrasives, no expensive set up cost (as with media blasting), no loud noises during the process, no hazards as with high pressure equipment, very precise cleaning and no clean up cost!

This cleaning can be done in your garage if required as it is plug and play! Cost is dependant on size of job and location (if it cannot be delivered to us)

BOP VCC COMMITTEE 2022-2023

KLAXON EMAIL: klaxoninfo@gmail.com CLUB WEBSITE: www.bayofplentyvintagecarclub.com

EMAIL: bayofplenty@vcc.org.nz FACEBOOK bay of plenty vintage car club (Public page)

For Club enquiry's at anytime contact Kaaren Smylie 07 576 4180 or 021-66-43-41

BOP VCC Operational Information

The Club Rooms are 29 Cliff Road. P O Box 660, Tauranga, 3144.

Key contacts are:

Chairman– Alastair Jones 07 5761124 Email: gandajones@kinect.co.nz

Secretary– Michael Thorman 07 5444291 Email: bayofplenty@vcc.org.nz

Club Captain Jill Whitcombe 07 5524201 Email: johnandjill37@gmail.com

Monthly events—

Club night (except January) - 2nd Monday, start time 7.30pm

Mid week run — Wednesday following the club night

End of the month run Held on the last Sunday of the month.

Committee Meeting — Last Monday of the month

Noggin ‘n’ Natter 4th Tuesday at 6pm

Location Sequence of Noggin ‘n’ Natter

1, Tauranga- Tauranga Citizens Club, Cameron Road.

Contact is Kaaren Smylie phone 021 664341 or 07 576 4180

2. TePuke– The Anann restaurant. 4 Palmer Place.

Contact is Paul McIndoe phone 5733328

3. Tauranga- Tauranga Citizens Club, Cameron Road.

4. Katikati- Forta Leza Café, SH 2, Katikati.

Contact is Owen Smith, phone 07 570 2000

If your birthday falls in this month please remember it is your turn to provide a plate for supper. Thanks to last months birthday people for their food.

Please remember to wear your name badges to all events. BADGES ARE FREE TO NEW MEMBERS.

LIBRARY HOURS— The library is open on club nights from 7pm. Also on most Monday mornings Yvonne & Paul work in the library until midday. Members are welcome to call in to search for or return books. If making a special trip please phone them at home on 07 572 0163 or 027 6098510 beforehand to ensure that they will be there. We are accepting good clean car service manuals or books that relate to automobile history or travel for our club library

PARTS SHED—Clean out your sheds and bring those surplus parts down. They may be just what someone else needs Parts shed open most Monday morning. Contacts are Jack 07 5766346 or Colin 027 2629161

HELPUSHIREOUTTHECLUBROOMS!

CONTACTKAARENSMYLIE075764180OR 021664341