Hot-rods hit highway to hell
No-one can move on this road between 8am and 9am. It’s beach paradise gridlock. It is where the political rubber meets the road and much of it isn’t moving.
The hot-rods driving towards me were all glistening paint and chrome, the noise of finely tuned V8 engines a cacophony of mechanical music.
They were purring their way to the Whangamata¯ Beach Hop.
It’s always a sight to see at this time of year. These mechanical works of art with countless hours of love hammered into their shapes making for a mobile testimony to the outrageous creative skills and craftsmanship of New Zealand’s rodding community.
Nothing to this pair of eyes compares to a beautiful rod on the road. You can take your boy-racer rotaries, but the old styles and shapes of American cars from the 1950s onwards is retro mobile eyecandy for the modern automotive age.
Rods seem to glide over the road rather than chew it up in an unwelcome symphony of rotary phut-phut noise, and blow off valve grunts and spits.
Enthusiasts have seen these old American cars age with grace and style. The modern builders’ take on some of their chopped and channelled shapes still captivate the attention with their altered chrome and curves that are so evocative of a different time and a different age.
I’m not convinced their Japanese equivalents will age quite so well into their phut-phut rotary futures.
As I stopped to watch the rods pass by a thought came to mind. They were all nose-to-tail on one of the most dangerous stretches of road anywhere in the country, State Highway 2 between Tauranga and Waihi Beach.
It’s a killer road. I’ve driven it many times as have many other Hamiltonians making their way around the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty beach destinations for holidays.
Debate rages in the Bay as this killer stretch of asphalt hasn’t been upgraded to stop the carnage, despite local MP Simon Bridges being roading minister for three years in the last government.
Accidents are common on State Highway 2 with three serious accidents occurring there since January.
It’s all Labour’s fault, according to National MP Todd Muller, which says much for the twisted logic of our MPs when they had control of the purse strings and did nothing for nine years.
Other social media arguments are shared saying roads don’t kill – drivers do. There is truth in this view. But there is a context that is needed. There are more drivers on the road and many of our roads are beyond capacity.
They were never engineered for the traffic that is now on them every day.
More than 1.1 million cars are bought and sold and registered in New Zealand each year with more than 11,000 new cars registered in Auckland in January alone.
This statistic brings me back to the last National administration and its flawed economic growth programme based primarily on immigration, while ignoring the infrastructure costs needed to sustain it.
From crowded classrooms to long delays in hospital waiting rooms, from cluttered roads to increasing home ownership/rental costs, the increased strain on New Zealand’s infrastructure to cope can be experienced here on State Highway 2 between Tauranga and Waihi Beach.
No-one can move on this road between 8am and 9am. It’s beach paradise gridlock. It is where the political rubber meets the road and much of it isn’t moving.
In contrast the glorious stretch of highway heading into Hamilton with the Waikato Expressway is testimony to great planning, engineering and application.
It’s so good there is room for complaint. Why limit the highway to 110kmh? I drove the new expressway recently to its 110kmh speed limit and did the same on the Te Puke toll road (Eastern Link) and came away thinking the same thing. These new safer highways should be 120kmh in the righthand fast lane.
Keep the newly raised limit to 110 in the left lane and let the bigger V8s, rods and other cars that can drive easily and safely at 120kmh do so on these straight pieces of bitumen.
Modern cars are safer and so are the roads. Driving safely at 120kmh on these new short stretches of highway seems a simple step to take and it’s still a long way from the open limit on the autobahns of Germany.
And so as the hot-rods disappeared out my rear view mirror and drove on to the coast, I thought of local Whangamata hero Noddy Watts who deserves the credit for inspiring the Beach Hop rock ‘n’ roll festival.
It has become so successful the roads to the coast will be full of gleaming tin as car enthusiasts make their way to the Whangamata coast, rain or shine, to pay homage to a simpler time when Waikato roads to the coast were unsealed and cars were beautiful to behold, rather than merely functional. Drive safe beach hoppers. It’s not the 1950s any more.