Rob Maetzig

IN A small North Taranaki coastal village there’s a man who is busy recreating the machine behind one of New Zealand’s great motorcycling mysteries. Dave Ransom is 78, and for years he has been fascinated by the story of a motorcycle called the Maori, some 20 of which were built in England by two young New Zealanders just prior to the outbreak of World War I.

But only one of the machines ever made it to New Zealand. All the rest are said to have gone down with a ship that was sunk by enemy torpedoes in 1914. And here’s where the mystery deepens.

That single Maori, which the story goes was rescued and loaded onto a lifeboat as the cargo ship slipped under the waves, was used for years by a man near Gisborne. But it was a belt-driven machine, and popular legend says that when newer chain-driven motorcycles began to be introduced, the owner was unable to sell it – so he buried it in an orchard.

In recent years several vintage motorcycle enthusiasts have attempted to find this Maori, using all sorts of sophisticated metal detection equipment, but so far they have been out of luck.

This means that the only real evidence that the motorcycle ever existed is a single fuzzy photograph that is held by the national archives in Wellington.

This is where Dave Ransom enters the scene. An engineer who