Magnificent Mk1: the continuing story

he acquired it. “I had it cut and polished and I put an overdrive in it as it better handles the open road. I rust- proofed it all, but there’s no rust in it. It’s had one repaint in its life, but not by me.”

It also has radial tyres now, to make it safer, and a modern radio — it was never fitted with one.

Otherwise it’s standard, down to the carpets, and any extras that weren’t fitted from the factory — the sun visor, rear louvres, monsoon shields and the like, were all Zephyr options when it was first sold. That includes the windscreen heater. That’s the metal bar fixed to the base of the windscreen, just above the steering wheel – effectively a single- bar heater warming the glass. It would have needed it, being a South Island car, especially since it doesn’t otherwise have a heater, as Laurie discovered on day one.

“When I picked it up from Takaka, the hill was closed for snow, it was snow all the way, a heck of a trip in the dark, and the only road not closed for snow was the Paraparas and there was that much ice on it that it was white knuckles until Taumarunui . . . ”

The trip wasn’t without incident. On one corner, “I came around and it slid one way, then the other — a lady had already come off the road.”

The Zephyr has no problem keeping up with traffic on long trips; it’s powered by the standard 2.2- litre six- cylinder motor with 51kW at 4000rpm and 152Nm of torque at 2000rpm, to propel a 1153kg car, pulled up by hydraulic brakes, “Drum brakes, and not very good. Well they are, when it was made they were fine, but in