KEY POINTS:
Spotted on the Auckland wharf the other day was a left-hand-drive Chevrolet Camaro awaiting shipment to Australia. The black US two-door carried Victorian state plates and was covered in white triangles, to bamboozle the automatic focusing lenses in digital spy cameras. A closer look revealed a V6
engine under the bonnet. Sure bet the Camaro had been testing its winter tyres at the Snow Farm, near Wanaka.\
* * *
The Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Corvette clubs are holding their annual get-together in Newmarket on September 21. Organiser Gary McCrystal reckons the event is the biggest Downunder. The Cobra Car Club has also been invited. It's at Andrew Simms Mitsubishi between 10am and 4pm.
* * *
Travellers arriving at Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch airports over the next two weeks can jump into a new Ford FG Falcon to get into town between 8-11am and 4-8pm. It's a Ford New Zealand promotion to get people behind the wheel of the sedan. Says marketing manager Chris Masterson: "For frequent travellers the transfer from airport to the city is wasted time. Now they can utilise this time to test-drive the new Falcon." Book online at www.travelfirstclass.co.nz or call 0508 FIRSTCLASS.
* * *
A wealthy man from Auckland's east is selling up and moving to Australia. Among the playthings he won't take with him are an early BMW motorbike and a vintage Ford. Both are for sale privately. The middle-aged Kiwi has had a gutsful of the place. He sent an email to a friend saying MMP has "corrupted" this country forever.
* * *
Korean carmaker Hyundai has been told emissions from its planned plant in Nosovice, Czech Republic, better not affect the quality of the local Radegast beer - brewed just up the road on the edge of the Beskydy mountains. The brewer has long used its location to promote the freshness of its products. Hyundai promises emissions "will be a third of those from the Skoda plant" in the country.
* * *
The worldwide shift toward smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles has reduced production of BMW's large-displacement engines to a trickle. "We are producing the wrong engines here," Manfred Schoch, chairman of BMW's works council, told an employees' meeting. "We can now produce the entire global demand four days a week on a one-shift operation."
* * *
Landlord Richard Ott's tenants in the US state of Delaware would not answer the door when he went to collect rent. So he decided to flush them out. The police report says the 30-year-old parked his Hummer down the street around midnight, waited until the lights in the house went out - then drove the Hummer through the front door.
alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz
