THE OTHER ALLAN
In 2014, having recently acquired NZ Classic Driver from the previous publisher, RnR Publishing – headed by my friend Bruce Mountain along with his partner, Robyn Dallimore – approached me with a proposal to take over editorship of the magazine. I gave the idea much thought but, in the end, I declined the invitation. However, grappling with a lack of copy for their new acquisition, I gave Bruce and Robyn a feature I’d written about a Lotus Europa S that I’d never got around to publishing (by an odd coincidence, the light blue Europa S featured in that article was, seven years later, purchased by another friend, classic car upholstery expert, Steve Whitren).
That should have been it as far as my involvement with NZ Classic Driver went but, as they say, nothing remains the same and everything changes.
As a result, when Bruce and Robyn approached me again in early 2016 my situation had changed and, following considerable thought, I agreed to take over from the magazine’s previous editor, Tony Haycock, as from the March/April 2016 edition.
After several years working alongside Bruce and Robyn, they decided to sell NZ Classic Driver and from the January/ February 2020 edition the current publisher took over the reins while I retained the editor’s position. Surprisingly, although my time with NZ Classic Driver has been relatively short – just five years of the magazine’s 19-year life – I’ve now edited over a third of the issues.
As NZ Classic Driver celebrates its 100th edition, I made another decision – to momentarily stand aside and let the magazine’s founder and original editor, Allan Dick, introduce our special anniversary edition – allowing this Allan to give way to that Allan!