SPEEEEEEEEEEED!
CRC Speedshow is New Zealand's premier automotive event, drawing crowds of over 30,000 people to Auckland's ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane. There was something on display to satisfy everyone no matter what they are into, be it Cars, Bikes or Motorsports. There was at least 10 million dollars worth of cars on display at Speedshow this year with the most expensive car being insured at 4.9 million dollars! and was on loan from it's Australian owner.
I decided to head up on the Saturday to check it all out and drool over all the expensive metal on display and get some photos of course.
Another nice piece of machinery on display was this McLaren MP4-12C GT3 on the Highlands Motorsport park stand which is a new track that has recently opened up in cromwell down in the South Island.
This Citroen GT Concept had been shipped all the way from Europe to New Zealand to be on display at Speedshow, the interior on this car is really interesting to look at and is crafted from some rather space-age looking materials, then there is the massive carbon fibre diffuser hanging off the back end of it, I mean just look at that thing, it's huge!
Our Australian readers might recognize this car, it was on loan from Lindsay Fox for the show and was being displayed on the GT Logistics stand.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lamborghini, Indepedent prestige had 8 Lamborghinis on display including the classic Countach and the timeless Miura.
This Ferrari 430 Scuderia GT from Forza Works in Auckland was on display to advertise the NZ Festival of Motorsport celebrating Ferrari at Hampton Downs this coming January.
To celebrate Aston Martin's 100th anniversary there was 5 Aston Martins on display including the classic DB5 made famous by James Bond.
Another big hit at this years show was the New Zealand Legends of Speed display which included cars and bike driven and ridden by famous New Zealanders, including Denny Hulme's E30 that he drove at Bathurst.
Another iconic vehicle on the Legends of Speed display was Rod Millen's AWD Pikes Peak Toyota Celica which he broke the record with in 1994 which he held for 13 years until it was broken in 2007 by Nobuhiro Tajima after the course had been partially paved.
Kat Benson also unveiled her new Burgerfuel sponsored Time Attack Mitsubishi Evo VII at the show which she will be running in the New Zealand Superlap series.
The biggest display was the show within a show that is the Castrol EDGE/ Teng Tools Custom and Classic show which took up an entire hall. There was some awesome cars on display including this Rat Rod which was built in the USA for its New Zealand owner who took it on a road trip to the Famous Boneville Salt Flats when he picked it up before he shipped it back to New Zealand.
It wasn't just classic American muscle on display though, Another nice car I came across was this incredibly well setup R32 GT-R which looked like it had a lot of time and money poured into it. It was rocking a massive snail and a nice set of Nismo wheels wrapped in sticky Nitto NT05 semi slicks, being a huge fan of the R32 I was green with envy at the owner of this immaculate GT-R.
The best display in the Custom and Classic Show was this Mini in a lifesize replica of a Die Cast box, I imagine this display must have taken a lot of effort to create but it would have been all worth it as it turned out amazing and is one of the coolest displays I have ever seen at speedshow.
Outside in the Ezybuy Car Auctions Live Action Arena there was several attractions including the D1NZ Drift Demos with 8 of New Zealand's top drifters including Ben Belcher and Nico Reid, there was also Fanga Dan, Gaz Whiter, Daynom Templeman, Drew Donovan, Andrew Redward and Bruce Tannock who where all putting on a show for the crowd.
In the second session I took a break from taking photos because I was lucky enough to get to go for a ride with Drew Donovan from Team DMNZ in his LS2 powered S15. I thoroughly enjoyed it, you haven't experienced drifting until you have been in the passengers seat of a drift car, it's a real adrenaline rush and a hell of a lot of fun. A massive thanks to Drew for the opportunity.
Out in the Lobby they had this Land Speed record holding Mini Cooper that absolutely smashed the record for "production car with an engine under 1000 cc's" setting the record at over 250 KM/H!
This immaculately presented '69 Camaro was on display on the Meguiars stand and looks like it would be a real weapon on the drag strip.
This McLaren M8A Can Am Car was also on display on the the Legends of Speed stand to honour Bruce McLaren.
I will wrap up this post with this Lamborghini Diablo SE30 that was also on display to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Lamborghini. [Ed - Droooooooll!]
- Josh
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