Katikati: Horse drawn gig restored to former glory

Jim Perrett restored the old gig from his memory of it as a child.

Jim Perrett remembers playing a perilous game of cowboys and indians on horse-drawn gigs with his siblings as a child.

Although the gigs were on their way out in the 1950s, the carts were still used rurally when he was growing up.

‘’Where I came from, everyone had the old carts in their sheds.

‘’We had a few of them but it was the end of the era . . . tractors were coming in and Model A and T cars. Once tractors came out, nobody used the carts any more.’’

He has rebuilt a gig from old parts he’s been holding on to for 70 years.

Gigs were open carriages with large wheels, a forward-facing seat and shafts for a single horse.

Perrett always loved the relics. His grandfather Bill let young Jim have gig parts all those years ago and now he’s finally found the time to rebuild the cart.

‘’ I always thought ‘one day I’m going to make one of those’, one day I knew I would rebuild it.’’

Perrett thinks it was first built around 1890 with oak wood.

He believes the cart was used to take the cream cans to the roadside to be picked up because there was room behind the seats for four cream cans, he said.

Perrett moved to Katikati in the early 1980s and invested in kiwifruit and avocado orchards. They also once owned a nursery.

He’s been working on the cart for two months and built it from memory.

‘’It’s not a big job. It’s just having the knowledge of where the bits go and I can remember that from when I was a kid.’’

The cart will be decorative and be on display outside his house.

Perrett has more gig parts and plans on making another soon.