Table of contents for No 317 November - December 2025 in NZ Performance Car

The last few months have been hectic, no doubt. First stop — Japan. Finally ticked off a trip I’d been chasing for years, and it did not disappoint. Every day was jam-packed with car stuff — workshops, museums, events, parts shops, you name it. Up at sunrise, back in bed past midnight, and somehow it still felt like we’d only scratched the surface. It’s one of those trips where, as soon as you land back home, you’re already itching for the next one. But honestly, it wasn’t just the cars that made it memorable — it was the people (as cliche as that sounds). Swapping stories, stickers, Instagram handles, and learning a ton along the way. I even got to show off a bit of Kiwi car culture, which everyone…

After a successful 2025, Chrome Showcase is back and set to return even bigger in 2026. The event, where automotive, lifestyle, and entertainment collide, will take place at the Auckland Showgrounds on October 3–4. True to its name, Chrome Showcase brings together some of the country’s best builds and most exclusive cars, along with motorcycles, supercars, car clubs, and live action in the arena. There’s also entertainment, live music, BMX displays, a sneaker show, food trucks, exhibitors, and plenty more. New ideas and features are already in the works for 2026, so keep an eye out for applications when they open next year.…

We don’t know about you, but we feel like Kiwi car enthusiasts have been waiting for something big for a good few years now. Don’t get us wrong, we’re pretty darn lucky to have such a vibrant car scene here in little old New Zealand, with events taking place pretty much every other weekend across the country. However, what’s been missing is something that takes us back to the days of Auto Salon in the mid-2000s, many of whom would regard it as the pinnacle of the local automotive scene. Indeed, we’ve been holding out for a taste of the glory days for a while now, and we’re glad to say that Chrome Showcase 2025 brings the flavour big time. The two-day event held at Auckland Showgrounds over the weekend…

Ah, the good ol’ Trade & Exchange — the original Facebook Marketplace but printed on actual paper. For the younger readers who’ve only ever hunted deals by scrolling for hours on end, this was a Thursday ritual. You’d grab a copy from the gassy or dairy before work, tear through the listings with your morning pie, and hope to score something before the other bloke did. There was even a free section — yep, people just gave away cars and parts back then. Wild times. Some scored running cars for under a grand just to thrash at the weekend drags. And the descriptions were only a few lines at best. You’d commit to driving hours to buy something sight unseen — no photos, no videos, no 30-question Q&As. These days,…

One of every model? That’s the word on the street when it comes to Auckland Evolution (AKLEVO) and what is currently repping the club’s banner around the wider 09 region. We caught up with just some of the team for a shoot at Hampton Downs, which makes sense — AKLEVO members can be found at pretty much any track event, anywhere, anytime in the North Island. Pack it up and road trip to Taupō or Manfeild — AKLEVO will, and does. If there is a form of racing, chances are someone from this crew is right into it. Many of the more mature (aka old) folk will remember wondrous things called ‘forums’, where countless hours could be wasted back in the day. AKLEVO is a phoenix that rose from the…

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There are many sensible ways to spend $3000. You could spend it on preventative maintenance, go on a family holiday, or buy approximately twelve coffees in Auckland. Instead, we decided to buy a 2008 BMW 135i that had been stolen, thrashed, and recovered without a key, then drive it flat-out across the North Island for two days. Why? Because the two of us review fast cars for a living on YouTube (under the name ‘KIWI GT’), but realised that we rarely got to use these cars fast on our public roads. So we signed up for the Targa Tour — a closed-road, high-speed convoy where civilians get to drive their own cars up to 160kph behind professional drivers. No roll cage, no harness, just helmets and a few other safety…

Hang on, who’s this fella, and why is he in my magazine? To be honest, I’m wondering that myself. Having grown up reading NZ Performance Car magazine as a Kiwi kid hooked on cars, I never thought I’d end up actually writing for the damn thing. Alas, it only took 317 editions to get here, and what an absolute privilege it is to now work alongside many contributors I have long admired. Without trying to sound too philosophical, I find it funny how big an impact something that was simply designed to get people from A to B has had on my life, so much so that it’s turned my passion into a livelihood. Being a car enthusiast is something that most people don’t really understand, which is probably why…

The summer street meet season kicks off with Rotationals X Downtime Entertainment’s second Park Up for Hunger, a massive street meet that brings car enthusiasts together for a great cause. As a food drive event in collaboration with The Salvation Army, there’ll be hundreds of cars on display, a live DJ, food trucks, market stalls, and a scenic lake backdrop. Last year, the car community helped to gather 1,050kg of food, and this year the aim is to beat it. Any non-perishable donatable foods, toys, and even toiletries are welcome. All cars are invited: JDM, Euro, USA, Aussie, old, new, stock, or modified. If enthusiasts will enjoy seeing it, it’s welcome. Spectators are free, but bringing an item is encouraged. The meet goes down Sunday, 30 November 2025, from 11…

Summer’s heating up, and that can only mean one thing — Mad Mike’s Summer Bash returns for its eighth year! Mark your calendars for Saturday, 6 December, when Hampton Downs Motorsport Park will be taken over by tyre smoke, sideways action, and some of NZ’s best drift talent. Mad Mike himself will be back behind the wheel of the MADMAC McLaren, FURSTY RX-3 Wagon, and his legendary 5-rotor 787D, tearing it up on home soil once again. Expect wild drift battles, burnouts, a stacked show ‘n’ shine, gymkhana, RC drifting, track cruising, and plenty more to keep the day pumping. Kids 10 and under get in free, so bring the whole crew. Tickets are on sale now at madmike.co.nz — don’t miss one of the wildest events of the summer!…

Some cars just stop you mid scroll. For Andrew Saunders, that moment came when a rough AE85 shell showed up on Facebook Marketplace — driftspec, sketchy repairs, and clearly a long road ahead. He didn’t hesitate. “I didn’t even ask my wife,” he laughs. “I just bought it and parked it in the yard under a cover.” That impulse buy kicked off a three-year project that turned a neglected shell into a sharp Sunburst Yellow Sprinter Trueno built almost entirely in his own garage. It’s a car that shows what steady graft and late nights can do. Andrew’s car passion started in the late ’90s and early 2000s, sparked by Import X and late nights spent watching laps around the avenues. He snapped up every NZPC issue and soon bought…

Finally! A bucket-list trip ticked off. Japan. Seven days on the ground, and somehow it felt like we crammed in two weeks of all things car related. It was exciting, exhausting, and at times it felt like we were running purely on adrenaline (and way too many Boss coffees). Myself and NZV8 editor Isaac Western were on for a jam-packed trip to explore all and everything car culture in Japan. DAYS 1–2 EASING IN AND TOP RANK GLOBAL After a few long flights, we landed in Tokyo late evening and set up camp for the week at our mate Tom Ukai’s apartment in Jimbocho, a short walk from Tokyo’s city centre. The first couple of days were about easing in: trying new food, getting lost in Tokyo’s organised chaos, and…

There are countless reasons why people end up with their choice of project car, but for Dunedin’s Stefan Rapley, he didn’t really have a say in the matter. The year was 2003, and when a young Stefan asked his dad what was up with the Corolla in the driveway, he was told that it was just there to be cleaned for a mate. Of course, that wasn’t quite the truth — and before long, he was bunny-hopping his way down the street in it, learning to drive a manual. Like many car-mad young guys of that generation, it wasn’t long before Stefan had plans to make the car a bit more socially acceptable. The go-to mod at the time was a set of King springs, paired with 17-inch Advanti Stalker…

Can you believe it? We’re nearly six months into this project, and we’ve only just scratched the surface. Over the past few months, we first explored the pros and cons of affordable Euro tuning. Then we finally got our hands on a Volkswagen Golf R 7.5! If you’ve ever owned or been in a tuned car, you know exactly how addictive it can get. Once you start, there’s no turning back. STAGE BREAKDOWN In the Euro world, tuning is often broken into stages — Stage 1, 2, 3, 4 — which makes understanding upgrades simple. Here’s a quick guide: • Audi RS3 — factory: 400hp (298kW) / Stage 1: 500hp (373kW) / Stage 2: 650hp (485kW) / Stage 3: 700hp (522kW) / Stage 4: 900hp (671kW) plus • BMW G80…

C’S GARAGE WIN FINAL BOUT The Hedges boys are well known for both the style of their builds and their driving, so it comes as no surprise that the team came away victorious at the recent Final Bout event in the United States. They’ll give us a full rundown in a future issue, but what we can confirm is that C’s Garage — featuring Keisuke Nagashima and Cam Ward — took the team win, while Keisuke also claimed the individual award. Next stop, Super D Matsuri in California! GOT SOMETHING COOL COMING UP THAT’S OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AND WORTH ATTENDING? EMAIL EDITOR@NZPERFORMANCECAR.CO.NZ WITH ALL THE DETAILS.…

The South Island Champs is switching things up this year, dropping the usual split format for a three-day track takeover at Levels Raceway in Timaru. From November 14–16, it’ll be all about action on the tarmac. With the regular indoor venue undergoing major upgrades, the team’s decided to bring the Show & Shine outdoors for one year only, setting it up trackside on Sunday, 16 November. Expect refreshed categories and a slightly different take on the format. Alongside the show cars, there’ll be drifting, roll racing, cruising, burnouts, unveils, trade alley, entertainment, and more. The event also serves as the final points round of the official Roll Race NZ Series. It’s shaping up to be a solid weekend for anyone keen to get trackside and see some of the South…

‘Buy once, cry once!’ It’s a catch cry that’s often associated with building the best damn creation you can. Whether you’re operating out of a ramshackle single garage or a state-of-the-art workshop facility, the saying holds the same weight. Don’t cut corners. Don’t you dare scrimp on the critical bits and pieces. Above all, ensure that you’re doing it once and doing it right. It’s not something we all abide by though, when we dive headfirst into this melting pot of chaos we like to call ‘car culture’. It’s something of a learned experience. An approach shaped by years of building; breaking; improving; and, ultimately, enjoying whatever car-shaped morsels your particular box of choccies had in store. For Timaru-based recidivist slider Johnny Baxter, this searing yellow S15 is the embodiment…

“Everything, everywhere; it’s just a lot to try and take in” is how one attendee described the World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC), held at Sydney Motorsport Park. “It’s the hypercars and the drift for me — oh, and the girls,” said another with a cheeky grin. If you haven’t been yet, it’s hard to put into words what this annual festival of ‘Motortainment’ is all about. Held just 40 minutes from Sydney’s CBD, it draws tens of thousands of fans through the gates each year and reaches millions more via live streams. There’s nothing else in the Southern Hemisphere quite like it — a place where the precision and engineering of chasing a single flying lap in an aero masterpiece meets the energy and spectacle of a car show, the…

Christchurch local Sofia Robertson has managed to turn a childhood dream into reality with this 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX STI — it’s her very own track-dedicated weapon, sitting on the verge of becoming a fully caged race car. Meticulously built over the last three years, she competes in her local circuit sprints through Canterbury Car Club, hour long endurance races, and even drag strip runs — managing a 10-second pass recently at Ruapuna. It’s a car that 25-year-old Sofia has poured her heart, soul, and countless hours into, in order to make this V11 a 30psi-munching, fully forged, 650-whp monster. Her journey into performance cars started long before she even had a driver’s licence. “Ever since I was a little girl, I had a very big dream,” Sofia recalls. “There…

ANGUS WANG AGE: 27 //LOCATION: AUCKLAND //OCCUPATION: FITTER AND MACHINIST BUILD TIME: SIX-AND-A-HALF YEARS //LENGTH OF OWNERSHIP: SEVEN-AND-A-HALF YEARS THANKS: JAKEB MACKENZIE, FOR LETTING IT LIVE AT HIS PLACE FOR WAY TOO LONG WHILE I DID THE INITIAL ENGINE SWAP; JOSH WILTSHIRE, MAX FARMER, GLEN DEO, AND THE REST OF THE WHOLE SOME WORLD LADS, FOR GIVING ME A HAND THROUGHOUT THE YEARS //FAVOURITE DRIFT TRACK: HAMPTON DOWNS CLUB CIRCUIT NZPC: Hey, Angus, your street machine is looking sharp! How did you get into cars in the first place, and what else have you owned over the years? Thinking back, it would have either been Gran Turismo 2 or one of the early Fast and Furious movies that sparked the interest in cars. As for cars I’ve owned, it was…

ANDRE ANDERSON AGE: 37 // LOCATION: AUCKLAND // OCCUPATION: DIESEL MECHANIC BUILD TIME: SIX YEARS // LENGTH OF OWNERSHIP: TEN YEARS THANKS: THANKS TO MY WIFE JESSICA, FOR CONVINCING ME TO KEEP THE CAR WHEN TIMES WERE TOUGH; HIREN TAILOR AKA GOTFLO, FOR BEING A GC SUPPLYING THE TURBO KIT; RAJ AT BRIDGESTONE TYRE CENTRE GLENFIELD, FOR SUPPLYING THE TYRES, AMARDEEP SINGH AKA KALEKA, FOR KEEPING THE FAITH; AND AVINESH NARAYAN, FOR HELPING WITH THE BUILD FASTEST ET: 10.985S NZPC: Hey, Andre — cheers for sharing your boosted DC5 with us! First off, how did you get into modifying performance cars, and what other cars have you had along the way? I think Fast and the Furious played a massive part, but it all started when a good mate, Daniel…

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