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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 click on the membership application words as follows to open an application form, complete and email this to the address on the form. ACCCA 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
Sunday 18 May - Run to private car collection in Henderson. Meet in the public carpark on the corner of Edmonton Road and Alderman Drive in Henderson at 10am, for a 10.30am departure to Universal Drive. Lunch afterwards at the Swanson RSA. Saturday 14 June - The famous ACCCA Mid-Winter Xmas Lunch and Trivia Quizz! Gulf Harbour Yacht Club, Whangaparaoa. Meet at BP motorway Dairy Flat at 11am to depart 11.30am. $40pp for Members, and $60pp for visitors. Includes one free wine/beer/non-alcoholic drink for Members, and complimentary OJ on the tables. RSVP to [email protected] by 31 May. Saturday 26 July - Run to private car collection in Papakura. Run details and lunch venue after 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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►►►►► 25/03/2025
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Pokeno Whisky Distillery - Saturday 15 March
Preparations for this Club run started some time ago, after I spotted in one of my ‘local’ community FB pages that Pokeno Whisky, the boutique Whisky Distillery just 15km up the road from our place, ran distillery tours on a Saturday for the thoroughly reasonable (I thought) $ 25/head.
So the decision was made at committee level to include this tour as a Club run, followed by a cruise down to Pukekawa where Rhonda and I would host the members at our place, for a Club BBQ, whilst the weather was still warm and mild. Saturday 15th March 2025 proved to be just that, a splendid autumn afternoon. From the usual meeting point at Best Start Karaka, the 35+ members in 16 or so Classics (and one modern and one daily driver) toured down the southern Motorway, then off at Razorback Road, over the motorway and down into the Northern end of Pokeno township, to Pokeno Whisky, in the industrial area of town. Matt, the owner and founder of Pokeno Whisky greeted us with enthusiasm as we drove our classics down his entrance driveway – well, all except Steve Plester as his Buick suffered fuel vapour lock and refused to run until it had cooled some, so a few pushed that off the road and onto the grass out front. The Distillery Tour started with Matt explaining how it all came about, where they got their water from (the main ingredient of course) and then took us all around various aspects of the process of producing Single Malt in a highly informative narration – pausing only briefly for a group photo in front of the impressive – and largest of their type in NZ – copper stills. It was freakn' hot up there, so heading back down to the much cooler warehousing was welcome. Barrel upon barrel of product was stored – stacked three to four pallets high – each pallet load weighing in at around 1500kgs! An impressive sight indeed! Then, in another warehouse, three different types of whisky were set aside in beautiful tumblers for those of us that wanted a tipple. And Matt explained what each was and how they came about. Now I’m not a whisky man personally – but my word, I wasn’t going to miss that opportunity! So committed to producing some of the best Single Malt Whisky outside of Scotland or Europe, they have their own Cooper – a Scottish chap that emigrated here just to work for PW – who now even makes specialty barrels on site, out of various NZ native woods, including Kauri. Seriously, if you missed it, I do recommend you do your own private tour one Saturday as its truly fascinating and the passion was evident in every aspect of Matts guiding talk. After nearly 90 mins, it was time to hit the road again – yes, even Steve & Marlene as the Buick fired right back up again, lol – and we cruised northwest out of Pokeno to almost Tuakau, then south along the Waikato River past the Les Batkin Reserve, over the Tuakau bridge then south through rolling farm and crop country to our place, just off SH22 south of Pokeno Village. A little trivia with regards the Les Batkin Reserve – that was the destination place of my very first ACCCA event - as a non-member no less – many many years ago! And I never looked back – such a cool Club back then and hopefully just as cool now 😊 Phil, Rhonda and I had already erected both Club gazebo’s in readiness that morning, and several committee members plus Rhonda had opted to miss the Whisky Tour and were either already there, or headed straight to our place to help with dinner preparations, so by the time the balance of us rocked up in the driveway, even the BBQ’s were already pumping out sausages, plus beef patties on one and chicken patties on the other, the salads were all done and much joviality was had over the Club subsidized dinner. And around 6pm the local ice cream lady from Pukekawa village pulled into the drive and around the back of the house to where we were entertaining, set up her caravan and after the dinner she served up beautiful fruit ice creams for those of us that wished to partake in a dessert – which was nearly everyone! That was a great way to end the dinner, for sure. After a bit more relaxing and chatting the members started to depart just before dusk – back to wherever home was for them. To see so many Classics on my property was a real treat – including having the Bricklin in my garage! – and the last of them pulled out of the driveway with headlights on at around 7.45pm. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon/evening and a real privilege for Rhonda and I to host you all. We may have to make it an annual thing? Who knows, we shall see. Anyway, thanks everyone who came, glad you all had a good time 😊 And thank you Cindy O for the drive of the Mustang for the cruise South. Rob & Rhonda. Ian's Shed Raid - Sunday 16 Feb
Robin "boy wonder" MIlliganLooking at Sunday’s rather grim weather forecast it was showing for rain all day, so even though Sunday dawned fine even when we left home, in anticipation of the 50% chance of the weather forecast being correct we brought along 2 umbrellas with us on the run.
The meet point at BP Motorway was fairly busy that morning and we had to park across in the smaller parking bay, and with 25 members cars meeting together there meant that we had comes have to park in the next parking bay over. Thankfully the weather was still fine which meant that we could all gather around for the usual pre-run natter, fetch coffees from the Cafe, and conduct the driver briefing without need of umbrellas. President Rob noted a special welcome to our newest members Nick & Jacinda Clarke with their lovely 64 Chev Impala, who along with Rodger Anderson won one of the two $50 gift card run prizes. Mark briefed everyone on the short run to the private car collection in Whangaparaoa, noting that the owner Ian is a low-key private person and has asked that we please respect his privacy and not share with anyone outside the Club the location of his warehouse or post photos of the outside of the building. So although having departed in relatively fine weather, shortly after turning onto Whangaparaoa Rd the rain started in earnest, but luckily had mostly stopped as we were parking, so umbrellas were still not required. “Shed” not being the correct term though, as it’s actually a large non-descipt commercial premises with very high-stud roof affording height for a double-stacker 4-post lift with room to spare. Warehouse would be a better term. Ian’s collection shows a preference (bias?) for Chev Impala’s with 4 in the collection, one immaculate manual-trans Impala SS for sale, amongst a collection of mostly American muscle cars with a sprinkling of non-American cars as well. Apparently he has an even bigger collection in his native Canada! But equal to the collection of cars was Ian’s huge collection of models, and retro motoring and TV memorabilia and artwork (much of which artwork he prints himself), much of it from the 60/70/80’s Thunderbirds/Batman/Star Trek era that many of us will still fondly recall - a thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half walk down memory lane. Most started drifting off around 12.30 for the short drive thru Silverdale/Millwater, again through passing rain showers, to the very plush Wainui Golf Course clubhouse for lunch off their set menu, and with fortuitous timing umbrellas were once again not required when we arrived for the short walk from the carpark into the Clubhouse. The meals were again at least as good as I recall from a previous run (apart from the relatively poor $$/volume ratio of the glasses of Pinot Gris being the only real neg), otherwise a great ambience venue with a pleasant outlook onto the few mad people playing golf in passing showers. A very enjoyable afternoon catch up with members. And finally, I’m pleased to say that by the time we left the umbrellas were able to be put back inside at home without having got wet at all. Many thanks to Mark & Maureen for organizing this great run, which I understand was nearly a year in the making to gain access to Ian’s collection, very well done indeed. Phil Officer. Check out the photos from the day here..... Ellerslie Concours Car Show - Sunday 9 Feb
It was back in May last year that the Club was notified by the Ellerslie Car Show Committee (a new one every year) that the theme for the 2025 show was ‘Summer Holiday’.
I’d bought the Chevy Caprice Station Wagon just 6 months earlier and I thought that a ‘Longroof’ Station Wagon display by Club members would suit the theme perfectly. I put this idea forward to the Club Committee and suggested that we should enter the ‘Judged Display’ part of the show as we could add to the Club coffers if we won or were placed in the competition. And so the search was on to find 8 suitable vehicles to suit the Summer Holiday theme. We finally settled on this collection: VEHICLE OWNERS 1960 CHEVROLET IMPALA ROBERT & NICOLA WILLIAMS 1970 LILLIPUT CARAVAN ROBERT & NICOLA WILLIAMS 1960 DODGE DART PIONEER DAVE & CATHERINE PARKER 1963 CHEVROLET BELAIR CHRIS & JANG THOMPSON 1970 AMC REBEL CHRIS & WENDY WILEY 1972 PONTIAC GRAND SAFARI ROSS & SUE GOLDING 1976 PONTIAC GRAND SAFARI ROB MILLIGAN 1993 CHEVROLET CAPRICE CLASSIC ALEX ROSS I put my hand up to coordinate and manage the display and I must say a huge thanks to all of you that were there on the day for your enthusiasm and contribution to what we all thought was a Winning Display! It was an early start, meeting in the carpark opposite McDonalds (NOT at McDonalds) at 7.25am on Sunday morning, especially for those that had a bit more distance to travel. After all, Onehunga isn’t that far away for me! Glad to say you were all on time and we were soon on our way to Ellerslie Racecourse and, as I had hoped, were one of the first clubs to arrive. Having entered the event several times over the past 35 years, I knew that an early arrival had distinct advantages, especially being able to stake your territory claim and position your cars without any tussles with other Car Clubs! We were soon all into it and setting up our displays with bucket loads of ‘Summer Holiday’ paraphernalia coming out of those HUGE Station Wagons! There were picnic sets, beach balls, wash lines strung between cars with bikinis (not Rob’s) and beach towels, bright umbrellas, vintage beach chairs and a delicious Watermelon Tea Punch that Grahame and I made to keep the team hydrated through the day. In the background we were listening to the Beach Boys, quintessential USA Summer Holiday music. Topping it all, we dressed all the guys in the same ‘Summer Holiday’ themed shirts which they all got to keep at the end of the Show. The Judges eventually arrived, and we quickly ‘bribed’ them with a glass of the Tea Punch which they were very grateful for and thoroughly enjoyed, one even came back later and asked for the recipe. At 2pm, it was time to gather in the Parade Ring to watch the Awards being handed to the many Category Placegetters and Winners. As usual, these things never start on time, and I took the opportunity to ‘spend a penny’ only to come back as Rob was collecting the Trophy for 3rd Place in the Club Display Category. A disappointing result, as we thought we had a winner. We’ll just have to try again next year, depending on the theme, of course! Also particular noteworthy was club member David Lane winning the Concours Survivor class with his 63 Corvette - top effort, well done Dave! Alex Ross. Check out the photos from the day here..... |
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