We are grateful; to Dave Bray for the following article on motoring in a Nostalgia XK120 replica in New Zealand. It could have been titled "Nostalgias do Off Road" but his point of "Use it or Lose it!" is well taken. Our cars are meant to be used and enjoyed, not cosseted and pampered, wrapped up in cotton wool, confined to the show room or garage. If you think we have it rough on a run down narrow country lanes and "B" roads in the UK, it aint nothing like what you might experience on a run in New Zealand. - WebMaster
Dave Bray - Nostalgia XK120 OTS Replica - New Zealand
I have never really understood those folk who spend enormous amounts of time and no little resources in building or buying a car and then prefer to polish and preen it rather than actually putting it to the use for which it was intended.
A car is meant to be driven – it’s not much darned use for anything else, that’s for sure. How and where it is driven is another issue of course, and while a lot of members like use theirs to drive around the track, that no longer has any appeal for me – each to his own, I guess – and I prefer to ‘tour’ in the widest sense of that word.
Just recently, and through Ian Price, we were invited to join the Daimler SP250 Club in their 2008 weekend ‘Wilderness Tour’ centred on Rotorua.
Despite the weather being a bit cool and dodgy, we headed off in that direction on the Friday, well wrapped against the conditions and, except for comfort stops we made the trip in reasonable time. Two of those stops were quite brief and caused by sharp thundery downpours that seriously limited visibility for a few minutes; these were dealt with by pulling over and sitting under the trusty golf umbrella until things eased off a bit.
We met up with the 20-strong SP team in Rotorua that evening for several hours of chatter and laughs accompanied by vast quantities of well-washed-down “F&Cs” – this as a prelude to an early start next morning.
Well, after the bottles had been cleared away, that is.
The starters for the ‘Wilderness Tour’ included eight SPs/Darts or whatever you want to call these lovely wee fibreglass V8s, ourselves in the Jaguar – also fibreglass you’ll note - as well as two metal machines, a new Discovery (‘my SP in the paint shop’), and a VW Golf wagon (‘mine has a seriously leaking rear main bearing’).
After a lot of barracking about real sports car drivers bumping around on back roads and freezing their various appendages off, while ‘some people’ toured in well-sprung, air-conditioned comfort with – of all things – heated seats, these two tin-tops were appointed tail end Charlies (I’m sure I heard someone mention that they were some sort of Charlies anyway) with rescue and resuscitation duties.
The various window signs on the Land Rover should have forewarned us of likely road conditions offering; they included such services as towing and rescue as well as grief counselling for distressed Daimler owners.
Well rugged up in the light of the cool temperatures, we headed off at a fair clip at about 8.30am in the general direction of Opotiki. While the roads were all sealed, there was a very interesting diversion off SH30 thorough Awakaponga before passing through Whakatane and Ohope then somehow joining SH2 to reach Opotiki for a morning tea break.
As conditions had warmed up by this stage, some of our heavier clothing was discarded – as distinct from a later comment to the effect that “Sandy and Dave got their gear off at Opotiki” – before continuing east along the coast to turn onto the Motu Road, which is where the real fun began.
The mastermind of this weekend – and several previous ones, we learned – was one Harvey James, and I could do worse than quote extracts from his extensive and very accurate trip notes, viz:
“WANDERING STOCK, LOGGING TRUCKS? (No, Please…not on this narrow stuff)
ONCOMING TRAFFIC
30 MILES OF UNSEALED ROAD
In many places the road is very narrow with precipitous drops beside the road.
There are many blind corners.”
This piece of road started with an easy climb up a long valley on a mixture of sealed and unsealed road, unsealed quickly becoming the norm as the climbs becoming more severe.
The surface progressively deteriorated and the corners became more extreme, and I found that the Jag needed third gear (of five) most of the time and second to grind out of many of the uphill corners.
As there had been some rain in the previous few days, there wasn’t much of a dust problem to contend with, though I couldn’t help wondering if that dust-settling moisture wasn’t a bit of a mixed blessing when we encountered the first ford; fortunately only about four inches or so deep – no problems there, though any dust the cars had collected was immediately exchanged for a layer of fine damp river silt.
After negotiating a series of highland valleys, a second ford was encountered. Our trip notes accurately warned:
“THIS FORD APPEARS SUDDENLY PART WAY AROUND A SHARP LEFT HAND BEND. THIS FORD IS DEEPER THAN THE FIRST”
Having watched several brave souls plunge their SPs into this coffee coloured bit of river, and heard the ‘flubble-flubble’ motorboat sounds from their now submarine exhausts, I hopped out and closed the crotch-cooler air vents in the Jag’s wings, as they had the potential to ingather a lot of water, before following suit.
I must admit to being just a wee bit concerned as to whether or not there was enough ground clearance to cope with any obstacle hidden under water, remembering how we had managed to break the steering rack on the road at Pauatahanui a few months ago.
No problems, though the cars were pouring water out of various orifices for quite a distance afterwards, and Ian became very nearly the casualty of the day as his Dart went into fuel-saving mode when it decided to run on only half of its eight pots for a while.
The lack of power made the subsequent climbing a bit problematical, and as a product of the post-double-declutching era, he suffered the indignity of having to come to a stop to engage the now very necessary but non-synchro first gear. However, the ultimate indignity of travelling on the end of a towrope was averted when the water eventually boiled off from wherever it had been lodged, and all eight plugs decided to fire up again.
The road surface (surface – hah, what surface?) deteriorated even more for a few miles until we eventually emerged at Motu, and headed down to a nice remote spot at Motu Falls for picnic lunch – a great wee spot for a well-earned break.
Back on the tar-seal
From Motu onwards we were back on the hard stuff, and it quickly became clear that there was some enthusiasm for brisk motoring to clear out the systems and revive the pent-up enthusiasm of vehicles and drivers.
Rejoining SH2 at Matawai, it was back up towards Opotiki and eventually to Awakeri for ice creams, chat and fuel – by which time it must have been approaching 5.00pm.
I must confess that at this point we decided to abandon the part of the run down through to Murupara which we had done previously, as well as to the hot pools at Waikite, and headed back to Rotorua for a much needed shower and to put a hose over the car – we weren’t the only drop-outs I noticed, and the whole mob later re-gathered at the organiser’s establishment at the Waimangu Volcanic Valley for dinner.
He and his partner worked their magic on barbecue and in the kitchen and we were royally fed and ‘watered’ (someone must have drunk some water, surely?) before a couple of light-hearted presentations were made, and a recent engagement between two of those present was toasted in the bubbly that had been travelling around in a chilly bin in the back of the VW Golf all day.
I guess that it could have been used to top up a radiator if the need had arisen – yeah, right!
This made a lovely end to a really great day, a day that we were made to feel really a part of despite our lack of Daimler SP250 credentials.
A 20-minute drive back to Rotorua in the dark emphasized that the 1950’s lighting on the Jag though adequate, simply isn’t up to present day standards, but that aside we had a wonderful time.
There was only a touch of rain early on in the trip home on the Sunday, after which it was sunny, windy and dry.
Overall we covered 843 miles (say 1,350kms) door-to-door, and on the drive up and back between Wellington and Rotorua the Jag drank about 9.6 litres/100kms which is close to 30mpg – more than satisfactory as far as I’m concerned.
Doubtless the ‘off-road’ travelling in low gears consumed somewhat more!
I’ve never really understood the ‘concours brigade’ who would rather polish a car than actually get down and dirty while using it, and after a weekend like this one I am more than ever convinced that the old ‘use it or lose it’ adage remains an excellent philosophy – whether applied to a car or anything else.
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