CLASSIC TIN

Hayden Crocker found this old girl for sale, sitting on the side of the road in Cheviot, North Canterbury. Eventually, it was there no more. “I thought, damn, someone must have purchased it. But, about six months later, it reappeared, and I managed to scrape together sufficient funds,” he told us. It had no WOF, so Hayden picked it up on the back of his trailer, and when he got back to town, he took it straight to the WOF shop to find out exactly what the damage would be — to his surprise, it flew through with a clean sheet. It was driven around for a number of years before being stripped bare in Easter ’15, then delivered to Picton for the bodywork to commence. Only 175 hours of gentle massaging (and maybe some bashing) later, and it was good to go.

Power comes by the way of an A14 that had been freshly rebuilt for a rally car that Hayden stumbled across for sale. It came complete with twin Dell’Orto side-draughts and a five-speed box, a deal cheaper than what it was going to cost to build his own, so, naturally, it was snapped up.

At the time of writing, Hayden was about to fire it up again for the first time. The rear shocks still need to be ordered and mounted, and, with a bit of luck, he will be driving the old girl not long after this mag hits the shelves.