Buttercup catches eyes and donations
Buttercup the Riley Elf Mark II is so cute that she turns heads — and so cheap that she gets filled by strangers. A gentleman stranger picked up the tab for filling her up as the little car headed out of Thames back to the home of Repco Beach Hop, Whangamata.
Owner Allison Eagles put $37 worth of petrol into her beloved yellow car when she left Auckland for Whangamata and was struggling to add another $14 as she headed out of Thames back to Whangamata on Thursday.
“This lovely man in front of us in the gas station paid my bill for me,” says Allison. “He said, ‘I’m glad yours is cheaper than mine to run’.”
Allison loves putting Buttercup to work raising money for a good cause, and she added the $14 to her charity fundraising. At Repco Beach Hop, Allison is taking a donations bucket for Kidscan, doing her bit to support other mini owners on The Pork Pie Charity Run, a bi-annual fundraising road trip that’s based loosely on the route taken by the Blondini Gang in the original New Zealand movie.
The first run took place in 2009 with 36 teams making the trip from Kaitaia to Invercargill over five days. There are now 60 cars spending six days on the road and entries for the 2019 run were filled in just seven minutes.
The Run departed from Paihia today, raising funds for Starship Hospital, Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand and Kidscan. To date more than $1 million has been raised.
The fundraising page is at www. kidscan.org.nz.
“I’m loving having her and showing her off, she’s tiny but pretty and she’s eyecatching. She brings a lot of laughter and smiles to people. It’s hilarious fun, we do everything from car shows to raising money for hospices, we get out there and put up our flags to support a worthy cause.”
Allison bought her buttercup for $7000 and spent another $7000 doing her up, including adding a new motor. She says there are only about 100 left in New Zealand with 17,860 of the Riley Elf Mark II ever made.
“I grew up with my dad having sheds full of cars, my love of old cars was there from the beginning and I always wanted a mini but could never afford one.
“It’s been an absolute blessing,” she says of finally owning her car, which was registered in New Zealand in 1965 and has a top speed of 124km/h.
Tauranga’s Shona Sharp is another lady owner of an adorable economical car — a 1960 107E Ford Prefect that she says comes complete with “pink bits”.
Naming the car Peggy Sue, Shona bought the car almost three years ago and has lovingly restored it.
Buttercup and Peggy Sue carried on to Onemana today for the Castrol Edge Thundercruise, day three of the five-day Repco Beach Hop which continued over the weekend in Whangamata with evetns including rock and roll dancing, bands and a nostalgia surf festival.