End of an era

Tim Bailey, who started the Auckland dealership Continental Car Services in 1967 with $1200 and a Morris Minor van, died last Saturday, aged 62. He had been ill for some time. Bailey arrived in New Zealand from Britain in 1958 as a teenager, and did his mechanic's apprenticeship in Wellington before moving to Auckland and a job as service manager for Fiat distributor Town and Country Cars in the 1960s. In 1967 he set up a small garage in a Mobil Oil petrol station at 40 Great South Rd, Newmarket. The business grew and Bailey bought out Town and Country Cars to acquire Fiat, his first new-vehicle franchise. Other franchises followed, including that of Porsche and Ferrari in 1975. Bailey sold CCS to the Asian Sime Darby Group in 1998, but remained chairman until his death.

RX-8 orders boom

Demand for the Mazda RX-8 flagship has exceeded its first month's sales target by 500 per cent, with the company holding more than 5000 Japanese orders alone. The first RX-8s were delivered to Japanese buyers last week. The rotary-powered four-door sports car goes on sale in New Zealand later this year.

Aucklander honoured

Auckland racing driver Mark Pedersen has won the Jim Clark Trophy for 2002/03. The award, which began in 1970 after the death in Germany of the Formula One champion, is presented to the driver who produces the most memorable racing performance during the New Zealand season. Another recipient at the MotorSport New Zealand awards was Jonny Reid, winner of this year's New Zealand Grand Prix and the Talleys Formula Ford Championship. Masterton rally driver Richard Mason won the Rally Founders Award and Wellingtonian Ross Armstrong the Lupp Trophy for his commitment to historic and classic events. V8 Supercar driver Greg Murphy joined Motorsports Wall of Fame, alongside people such as Bruce McLaren, George Begg, Denny Hulme, Paul Radisich and Possum Bourne.

Track 'em down

The Tracker Network is a vehicle-recovery system in Britain. The company, which uses satellite-navigation, has just won a Royal Automobile Club award for helping police to retrieve 1300 stolen vehicles worth more than $90 million last year.

BIG party time

Two divisions of General Motors Corp, Vauxhall and Buick, are celebrating their 100th birthdays. The name Vauxhall comes from the part of London where it began business. But Vauxhall itself is a corruption of the name of a medieval London landowner called Fulkes, who lived in Fulkes Hall. Get it? Buick's heritage began in May 1903 in Detroit. David Dunbar Buick, a plumbing supply contractor, set up the Buick Motor Co a month before Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Co. A modest 37 Buicks were built before Buick sold out in 1904 to William Durant, a carriage-maker in Flint, Michigan. Durant boosted production to 750 in 1905, 1400 in 1906 and 4641 in 1907. The following year Durant used Buick to form General Motors.

Mini convertible

BMW has confirmed that a convertible variant of the new Mini will go into production within two years. At the moment the German carmaker is concentrating on getting the diesel Mini off the ground in Europe. The oil-burner is called the Mini One D. The decision to expand the Mini family comes as sales exceed expectations by about 40 per cent. The strongest Mini market is in Britain, where 15,300 models were sold in the four months to the end of April. Among the buyers were superstar Madonna, who splashed out on an electric-blue Mini Cooper S with $10,000 of luxury extras, including leather interior, 17in alloy wheels and a satellite-navigation system.

We are the world

Americans have just had their Memorial Day long weekend. The American Automobile Association expected 35 million Americans to travel more than 80km from home. About 29.4 million of those were expected to go by motor vehicle, a rise of 0.3 per cent.