A long-time motorsport enthusiast and classic car owner wasn't happy the other day at the World Rally Championship near Kaukapakapa. It wasn't the rally cars that annoyed him, but the police cars with speed cameras.
"It was a disgrace," he said. "Here we were, genuine rally fans on our way to watch, and the cops are out on back-country roads booking people. Three cars were working the area from 9 am to noon. How cynical can the revenue-gathers get? Go to one of the European rallies and the cops are helping to organise parking and to get people to vantage points. Here, they see it as a chance to punish people. It's got nothing to do with road safety. It's just another way to get money from the ordinary bloke to help pay for the social services in this country."
Up they'll go
The price of cars in New Zealand is set to rise over the next three to four years, says Toyota executive Alistair Davis. Since December 1992, new-car prices have fallen by 20 per cent in relation to wages in New Zealand. But prices could rise to 1992 levels next year if the dollar continues to weaken. "The exchange rate collapse looks as though it will significantly erode the benefits that buyers of new vehicles have enjoyed over the past few years, and this is one of the major issues facing the new-vehicle business for the next three to four years," he says.
Back to the clouds
Chrysler is to move out of Detroit and into the shiny Chrysler Building in New York, once the world's tallest skyscraper. The stainless-steel tower, built in 1930, is adorned with hubcaps and racing cars, hood ornaments and wheel spokes.
Chrysler is moving back because it feels it has lost its American identity and the confidence of investors since it merged with German giant Daimler-Benz in 1988. It wants to recapture its roots in America's jazz age of the 1920s and 30s. Despite the glitter of its Art Deco exterior, the building has rarely been a commercial success.
In his early days the founder, Walter P. Chrysler, occupied offices at the top of the 77-storey building where he would entertain fellow tycoons at his private Cloud Club. After he died in 1940, many sections of the building fell into disuse and floors were taken over by artists and writers.
Photographer Margaret Bourke-White lived on the 61st floor, where she would clamber on to the building's ledges to take many of the best-known images of the skyscraper and the city below.
Writer and film critic James Agee would dangle from window ledges by his fingertips - he said he did it to thicken his blood.
In 1997, a consortium of property developers and banks bought the building for $500 million and has set about reviving it. The club has been reclaimed from vandalism and water damage, and will soon be restored.
Road skills good, too
Ford driving instructors might take some credit for the All Blacks' memorable win over Australia last Saturday.
The Ford Advanced Drivers School tested the players' road skills at the Whenuapai Air Force base.
"I was impressed with how the team performed," says Mark Cooper, the school's manager. "There is often a tendency in a group such as this for a sense of bravado to prevail, but everybody was dedicated to refining skills and learning new techniques. I believe they all gained a greater sense of road awareness from completing the course."
And the manager of the All Blacks, Andrew Martin, was also impressed. "I know that a lot of the boys now realise the difference that a few extra kilometres of speed make to the stopping distance of a vehicle."
We are the world
A driver in London has been fined for drinking mineral water while she was stationary at a red light.
This follows a fellow being fined for eating a chocolate bar while driving on the motorway around London.
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