Established in 1996, we are a group of passionate car enthusiasts who live and breathe American classic cars, and are based in Auckland, New Zealand.
Our mission in life is to provide an environment for other like minded car aficionados to savour and enjoy their American classics, without the rules and restrictions that seem to dog other areas of everyday lives. If you are an American classic car owner who feels the same as we do, we invite you to take a small journey through our site to see if this sounds like you. If you like what you see, and want to be involved, then send in a membership application. The only hard and fast condition of membership is that prospective members must own an American classic car that is pre-2000 model year which must be of historical interest. |
UPCOMING ACCCA EVENTS
April - Sunday 21st Meguiars Coffee & Cars, Auckland Showgrounds, Greenlane. Meet at 7.45am McDonalds Greenlane, Cnr Gt South Rd & Greenlane West, 8.15am departure. May - Sunday 19th Shed Raid to Pukekohe, lunch at Mercer Landing Cafe, details TBC. June - Sunday 2nd Meguiars Coffee & Cars, Auckland Showgrounds, Greenlane. ACCCA is host club with preferential parking. 7am meet. June - Saturday 22nd Mid Winter Xmas Lunch, Kumeu Valley Estate. Run details TBC. American Classic Car Club members are unable to provide classic vehicles for events such as weddings, birthdays, family outings etc, as they are not licensed to undertake these activities.
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Waiau Pa Hop - Sunday 7 April 2024
The much anticipated Wiaua Pa Hop at Clarks Beach rolled around again this month, always a perennial favourite for us due to the goldilocks aspect of the run being neither too long nor too short, and it’s a pleasant spot to spend a few hours, with plenty of food, entertainment and prizes. As with last year, the organisers wanted everyone to pre-register so as to mail out stickers, which this time arrived in the mail in a more timely manner, and I think that as a result compared with last year there was a better flow through the entry into the park and no long queues as with past events.
For this run, instead of meeting at the usual BP truckstop at Drury (which is becoming increasingly busy with trucks) we tried a new meeting point at the BestStart Karaka (kids childcare) which offered a near empty good sized carpark, with 2 café’s within 30 seconds walking distance – indeed a best start to a new meeting point! The Committee have re-implemented a now up-sized run prize for each run going forward, and the drivers of the 13 classics present went into a draw for one of the three prizes for a BP, Supercheap, Countdown $50 gift cards. Congrats to Mike Rielly, Kerry Bramley and Michelle Vernon, and thanks to Steve Plester for generously putting his prize ticket drawn back in for a re-draw. At that time of morning there was little traffic, so no delays or issues to exit the carpark onto a side road and turn right across Hingaia Rd for the short 20 minute cruise to Clarks Beach, where we were very warmly greeted by the parking attendants who were clearly expecting and enthusiastically greeted us on arrival, and directed us to a reserved spot on the grassy knoll in front of the Yacht Club and assisted with parking. This year the weather was spot on - no wind, nice and sunny, and not too hot. A large turnout of cars this year with well over 280 pre-registered entrants as at Saturday. More food vendors this time than from what I can recall from last year, which was just as well because it was a much larger crowd than last year too. A new layout of having the main stage on the grass beside the food vendors with a covered marquee with table and chairs was a plus, particularly so because you could watch the very good Elvis tribute act whilst waiting for your food order, and sit on the grass to watch all the entertainment! Overall I thought the organisers did a much better job this year with all of my “observations” from last year fairly well addressed – very well done Allan; looking forward to next year already! Phil Officer Checkout the photos from the day HERE... Ross Brothers Museum Cambridge - Saturday 16 March 2024
Revving it up at the Ross Brothers!
Having been told about a new exhibit at the Ross Brothers Museum (we knew something big was coming, just not what), it was decided another run to the exceptionally good Ross Brothers muscle car and Earthmoving machinery museum in Cambridge to see what all the hubbub was about. Meeting point was at the BP truckstop in Drury as usual, it’s interesting that having effectively been “moved on” from out the front truck parks, the back area around the fuel pumps is becoming just as congested with trucks now – we may need to experiment with other alternate congregation points. A very pleasant traffic-free run down the motorway (thankfully no stationary queues at the Rangiruru road-Not-works, just slow through at 50kph, then turned off at Taupiri for a easy cruise through Gordonton and into Cambridge from the East, arriving at 11.30am. After an introduction from our host Murray telling us about some of the newer exhibits, including including one of Scott Dixon’s Indy race cars, and Kenny Smith’s Formula 5000 race car. Moving through to the other side of the museum through the digger bucket, and confronting the Superdozer blade, and walking around this to immediately see a humungous Cat front-end loader in a new extension to the shed. This loader has never worked in NZ, it was bought from a Central Queensland coal mine and imported by the Ross Bros, refurbished and repainted in their workshop and is in fully operation condition. It weighs 193 Tons, each tyre weighs 4.7 Ton and costs $87,358 – EACH! The bucket on the front of it is only the small 17 Cubic Metre bucket, the large on is 43 CM and can carry nearly 32 Ton of material. Murray gathered us all together and said that they only start it up for large groups, and would we like to hear it running. Hello - is the Pope catholic – of course we would!! Well, anyone who knows how large Mack trucks are started by compressed air will know what the startup sounds like - but in this case for a V16 diesel the noise is just like that - but x10 louder! One certain lucky was caught on camera sitting in the drivers seat with a huge grin, giving it a bit of jandal and a good ol’ rev up and smoking out the shed! What was quite interesting was a Cat brand stereo front and centre on the dash, certainly had to wonder how the driver would have ever been able to hear it, but would have been most appropriate to have some AC/DC playing full volume whilst loading the ROM trucks. I see they were also in the process of re-staging all the machinery exhibits in “action” settings as well, Murray says in about 6 months time it will be finished, so well worth another look then. Some of you might remember from a previous visit the ‘64 Ford Thunderbolt race car that Ford only made 500 of for Homologation, and they are custom designed for speed, including having acrylic windows instead of glass. The Ross Bros are in the process of getting this fully race-ready to take it to the Father Day drags this year and see what it can do on the Quarter Mile. Given that they say it’s the second fastest car in the collection, and their fastest car does 0-100 in less than 3 seconds, I think a trip to the Drags this year to see the Thunderbolt run will be a must-do. It’s going to need bigger rear tyres though…. The Ross Bros are to be again commended for running a truly great car/machinery museum that is constantly being updated and evolving, that is open to the public for still only $5 – you tell me where you can see all this, and hear a loader like that running, anywhere else at that price. You certainly can’t in NZ. My two Thumbs are standing in salute! As usual there just isn’t enough time to properly take everything in, particularly when you can easily spend the entire time talking with Murray and other visitors there about all the stories behind the exhibits, and we had to toot and cajole some members out of the car workshop at 12.30pm to make our way over thru Cambridge and Leamington to the Podium Café on the shore of Lakes Karapiro for a lunch. Having been recommended by our new members, the Café had reserved outside tables for us we were able to order off the menu and enjoy lunch while watching the jet-ski slalom racing on the lake. I thought the food was very good and would happily eat there again, but what particularly impressed was the service, where they had all the drinks brought out straight away one after another, and then served all the food to everyone whilst the first people were still going – in my experience it’s very rare at Cafes these days to have a large group of people all eating at the same time. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the sun chatting amongst ourselves after lunch was finished, and I got the distinct impression no one really wanted to leave! All in all, another enjoyable days run to remember well. Phil O. Checkout the photos from the day HERE.... Standring Shed Raid - Sunday 18 February 2024
Lucky with the weather, lucky with the final Plan, lucky finding Standring’s, unlucky with the lack of knowledge about the planned meeting place at the good old Smales Farm. Checked the Car Park two Sundays and all good- plenty of room for 40 or so cars to park and a couple of Coffee Places up at the main buildings for a take away coffee. Goodness, as we arrived there the place is full. There was a special one off plant market day and a thousand people all carrying little pots of ‘green’ stuff (sorry I am better with black car stuff under my finger nails than green.) Never mind as there was an anticipation of a fabulous garage visit and I am relieved to say that most enjoyed it. Graeme Standring and his car partner Nick Brown make a great commentary couple and recounted many tales of wonderful adventures wanting and buying these vehicles. Not to much ‘american’ but a delightful array of ‘motors’ never the less. I particularly liked the one about the lovely green VW Karmann Coupe. Graeme found it not far from his home. His Wife saw it and said she loved it so, with birthday coming up Graeme thought ‘mmmmm- surprise’. Graeme went to look at it and they went for a drive. The trouble was the seller kept driving past there own house so Graeme was constantly bending right down and remarking what great carpet there was on the floor, frightened his wife would be watching. Imagine pulling a very expensive ‘Gull wing Mercedes’ into a thousand pieces, recondition it and putting it back together correctly. It was one of his first and they learned very quickly to use the old Mac I-pad and take heaps of photos before disassembly. Nevertheless they have ‘done a lot of cars now including; 1. MG ‘C’ type. 2. VW Karmann. 3. two Datsun 240Z sports cars. 4. Mercedes 280SL Pagoda. 5. Porsche Cayman ‘R’ (one of his favourites I think). 6. Renault Red Bull. 7. Aston Martin Coupe. 8. Jaguar XK 120. 9. Ford Sierra Cosworth Turbo. 10. Chevrolet Corvette. Checkout the photos from the day HERE... |
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1. Today at the bank, an old lady asked me to help check her balance. So I pushed her over.
2. I bought some shoes from a drug dealer. I don't know what he laced them with, but I've been tripping all day. 3. I told my girlfriend she drew her eyebrows too high. She seemed surprised. 4. My dog used to chase people on a bike a lot. It got so bad, finally I had to take his bike away. 5. I'm so good at sleeping. I can do it with my eyes closed. 6. My boss told me to have a good day... so I went home. 7. Why is Peter Pan always flying? He neverlands. 8. A woman walks into a library and asked if they had any books about paranoia. The librarian says "They're right behind you!" 9. The other day, my wife asked me to pass her lipstick but I accidentally passed her a glue stick. She still isn't talking to me. 10. Why do blind people hate skydiving? It scares the hell out of their dogs. 11. When you look really closely, all mirrors look like eyeballs. 12. My friend says to me: "What rhymes with orange" I said: "No it doesn't" 13. What do you call a guy with a rubber toe? Roberto. 14. What did the pirate say when he turned 80 years old? Aye matey. 15. My wife told me I had to stop acting like a flamingo. So I had to put my foot down. 16. I couldn't figure out why the baseball kept getting larger. Then it hit me. 17. Why did the old man fall in the well? Because he couldn't see that well. 18. I ate a clock yesterday, it was very time consuming. Mark Twain on intelligence:-
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