Double vision

Compliments of the season. I trust you all had a decent, relaxing break over Christmas and that you’re raring to go for 2018.

The name Garry Boyce will be familiar to many of you. His glorious, concours Masters Class–winning 1957 Mercedes-benz 300SL roadster graced the cover back in February ’08, and who could forget the feature story on his super-rare aluminium-bodied 300SL gullwing in our April 2015 issue, not to mention his magnificent 540K roadster and Alfa Romeo 6C that have also featured more recently in this magazine?

Garry’s 300SL roadster is very special to me. It all came about when Garry mentioned to me that he had been approached by Paul Halford about taking his 300SL roadster to the Queenstown Auto Extravaganza back in February ’08. Paul had also been invited to display his 1965 Mclaren-elva MKI (M1A) Can-am car, as well as his gorgeous 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 — all previous New Zealand Classic Car cover stars.

During the course of our conversation, Garry asked if I would be interested in going along, as he would meet up with Paul in the South Island at some point and travel together — it seemed like a wonderful opportunity, and only took me a nanosecond to say, “Yes, I’m good to go”.

Needless to say, it was the road trip of a lifetime for me. Fabulous weather, driving through Central Otago on some of the best roads in the world in the 300SL roadster with the top down, together with Paul, driving his Ferrari — I was in classic car heaven. One of the highlights was when Garry passed me the keys at a petrol station in Twizel and asked me if I’d like to drive for a while. A couple of hours went by in what seemed like minutes as I soaked in the experience of driving one of the most legendary cars on the planet.

With the 2018 Ellerslie Classic Car Show just around the corner, Garry is set to raise the bar yet again, entering two identical 300SL roadsters into the Teams Event competition — the first time two such vehicles have been judged in competition together anywhere in the world, and another fine achievement for this great hobby of ours.

Until next month …