themotorhood.comthemotorhood.com | New Zealand Classic Car | New Zealand Classic Car 6969here, the entry list had grown to 750 cars.
Eight years later, New Zealand once more
hosted the rally and the response was
massive: 1060 vehicles, including 962 cars
and 64 motorcycles, and 139 marques
from 11 nations. The president of the
Vintage Car Club of New Zealand (VCC)
at the time, Lionel Priest, said that the
two-week event was probably the largest
gathering of entered vehicles in any motor
event in the world.
Years later, Montagu recalled, “I particularly
enjoyed my rallies in Australia and
New Zealand, and found that, for veteran
car driving, the best was the South Island of
New Zealand, where the roads were virtually
empty and the only other obstruction was
wandering flocks of sheep.”
Ironically, given his comments in 1964 about
our isolation, when he arrived in Rotorua for
the start of the 1980 international rally — the
21st on the world stage — Montagu worried
about enormous shipping costs, casting a
doubt over the staging of future international
rallies in this country. He said that the cost
of entering the event could put it beyond the
reach of many enthusiasts.
“It cost me £3000 to ship my 1912
Hispano-Suiza here, and that doesn’t include
airfares and accommodation for my wife
and myself. The way things are going,” he
predicted, “this could be the last one held in
New Zealand.”
Happily, his worries proved groundless,
and, in February 1986, the Pan Pacific Rally,
starting in Christchurch, drew 800 vehicles
and 2000 participants. While not officially
given international status, the Pan Pacific
attracted good overseas support, and was
followed by similar events in Palmerston North
in 1992, Hamilton in 2000, Invercargill in
2006, and Whanganui in 2012.Motoring pioneer
Montagu’s father, John Douglas-Scott-
Montagu, was a great pioneer of British
motoring: the first Englishman to race a
British-made car on the Continent and the
first to take a British monarch for a drive
in a motor car. His 1899 Daimler was the
first automobile to be driven into the British
Parliament Palace Yard at Westminster. In
1902, he started an early weekly motoring
magazine, Car Illustrated, remaining as its
editor until the outbreak of World War I,
and once wrote, “The motor car is a jealous
animal and wants your whole attention.”
He commissioned art editor and
cartoonist Charles Sykes to work on the
magazine. Sykes created the Spirit of
Ecstasy bonnet ornament, which would
adorn every Rolls-Royce and was modelled
on John Montagu’s secretary and lover,
Miss Thornton.