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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
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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Morrison Car Museum - Sunday 18 May 2025
Dave Roper organised a great Garage Visit to the Morrison Collection of automobiles. Seems a bit disrespectful to call them cars because they are magnificent. Every one is in near perfect condition and the only one not as such is a “Graham Brothers from Detroit” hearse lurking in the corner waiting for restoration. “I’m dying to go for a ride in a Cadillac” , but not this one please. There was around 30 cars to start the short drive to the collection and what a surprise. 17 or so cars, all lined up with plenty of room for us all to wander around. Roger and John who were in charge, gave us a run down on the cars and , as usual, nearly every one had a story. While the collection leans towards American and of course funeral Hearses the English side of things are not missed out; what about a 1980 Triumph Spitfire, or a 2003 Vauxhall VXR220. Of particular interest I thought was the 1923 Ford Model “T” with the story banner. SEARS, the department store promoted a special model called the “SEARS MOTOR BUGGY” for $395-00. “Speedy, Economical, Noiseless, durable and safe, a child can run it”. It is capable of “ALL SPEEDS FROM 1 TO 25 MILES PER HOUR”. There you go. The 1928 Cadillac had a long story about leaving America on the 18th of January 1928 to become a 7 passenger tourer painted “boiling Green duck with cream pin striping”. It was fitted with “fender wheels” (side mounted spare wheels) and was owned by the A’Deae family. In 1931 Thomas Welch owned it and his son rolled it and killed himself. After the incident the body was removed but later it was stored. Then a Cadillac body was fitted, then another owner and then a Coupe body was fitted. Around 1947 it became a station wagon and then a tow truck. A farmer needed an axle for a trailer but it was saved when Pat Peacock sold it to 20 year old Bill Inglis for 10 pounds. The story went on until Kevin Casey restored it back to its Coupe body and on 2004 it returned to the road after 45 years being laid up. As we say, the cars are interesting but its the people that own them and the stories about their lives that make it. A short drive to Swanson RSA for lunch afterwards finished the day off nicely.
By Rodger Anderson. Checkout the photos from the day here..... 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..... |
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