NZ designed cars – 3rd May13

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Trekka to Zetini and not much inbetween

 New Zealand is responsible for some really innovative designs – the jet boat, the bungy jump, the eggbeater, the referee’s whistle and the Zorb – but not much in the way of cars. However there are a few, the latest being the very Italian looking and sounding Zetini Haast.

 The first proper production car designed and built here was the Trekka, a car that used Skoda bits and Landrover inspiration. 2500 were built and probably only 2.5 of those are still alive today. It was a start though.

 So what happened next? Well, apart from a few fibreglass kit cars, it took until 2006 when the Hulme F1 supercar was announced. The only thing the Hulme and the Trekka have in common is neither have airbags or ABS. However, we are still waiting to see a privately owned Hulme F1 blatting on our roads. So a win to the Trekka on that score – so far.

 Then there’s the latest effort, the Zetini Haast. It’s better looking than the Trekka and faster, too. It will be powered by Chevy V8s, and be very light weight. You get no roof, bumpers or door handles but all of those things would detract from the gorgeous retro looks. We can’t wait.

 So the humble Trekka is still NZ’s only proper production car as the other two have yet to go into production. But wait, we are missing one – the Gibbs Aquada.

 We’ll take a closer look at all these New Zealand cars in the next edition of the Good Oil.