It was nice to be reunited with my first classic car — a 1948 MG TC that I rescued from a field and restored from the ground up. After shipping it to a friend in New Zealand in 2015. Finally, I was going to drive it again.
Soon after the appalling election results last November, my friend Samuel and his family in Wellington invited us to enjoy their summer and Chinese New Year for as long as we like. It was the ideal opportunity for a visit since Sam would be home for three weeks with his wife Kirsten and their youngest daughter. Their oldest daughter is a freshman at the University of California Irvine. So, her “beedroom” and bathroom would be ours. AND, finally Sam had found the right guy to help certify to their DMV’s satisfaction that my improvements to the MG TC were safe and indeed an improvement. He being the scrutinizer for New Zealand’s stages of the World Rally Championship. No more difficult-to-borrow dealer plates would be required to drive it!
Some Background
We met when they lived in the northern suburbs of Detroit for about a decade. We both had Jaguar E types and shared a passion for exceptional cars. Samuel is French, a graduate of the world famous ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, and the global design director of the Icona Group, whereas I am just an aficionado.
MG TCs were made only as RHD (steering wheel on the right). So, naturally New Zealand is a proper home for it, not Michigan where Jurassic trucks roam wild with their drivers preoccupied by their infotainment systems. As far back as 2012 I was sure it would live a much longer and happier life with them. Kirsten, a New Zealand native, had finally bought a house in the hills above Wellington on top of two 2-car garages — one with glass doors which is also Sam’s home office. Two of his Jaguars, a MK 2 and an XK150S are still projects. His E-type is also there, but not yet happy with the three Weber carburetors he was trying out.
Shipping the Cars to New Zealand
In 2015, once he had ample garage space in Wellington, I was about to ship his two Jaguars he stored with me; one, an XKE OTS that he restored, winning a trophy at the Meadowbrook Concours d’Elegance, and an XK150S roadster project. I suggested that I also ship my 1948 MG TC to him for several reasons. Sam is a couple of decades younger, French, an auto designer, and also an accomplished hands-on enthusiast and Jaguar restorer. Also, the TC’s cylinder head was off, so the declared value would be lower. Moreover, I was certain they would provide a happy home for it and the MG TC would be a lot more fun to drive in New Zealand.
Just Getting There Takes a Lot of Effort
Of course, I was looking forward to driving my first “ground up” rescue/restoration project again, and my wife loved the chance to visit our friends, tick off another country visited, and escape our winter and disastrous election.
Our 2025 winter of dread flipped to summer instantly, if you ignore a 14 hour flight from LAX. We missed our connection from Auckland to Wellington because LAX delayed our departure with a gate change and then a terminal change triggering another security check, followed by equipment problems refueling our A350. Connecting in Honolulu might have been smarter!
All long-haul flights land in beautiful Auckland, near the north end of the “North Island.” New Zealand is much like our west coast, stretched out roughly like Santa Barbara to Portland with twice as much coastline, just as progressive but with even more geologic activity. Summer there is winter here, it is a day plus an hour ahead of Hawaii and as isolated. About five million lucky people live in New Zealand.
Sam and Kirsten met us at the airport with two cars, the TC and her Audi Avant. Since Sam upgraded the brake drums to shiny finned aluminum with new splined hubs, and I had already added new wheels with Blockley tires before shipping, my other upgrades, especially the Datsun steering and five-speed British Ford transmission, had transformed an antique car into a better motorcar, much improved for enjoying the hills of Wellington and visiting the other side of mountains.
Blissful Driving
Not far north of Wellington is the Remutake Range with peaks around 3,000 feet, much like our Appalachians but dryer, more like Northern California. The pass for Highway 2 which climbs 2,000 ft. is new and perfectly cambered with a lot more turn-offs than in California, and Sam says much safer than it used to be. He drove the TC to Masterton where Kirsten has a friend with a vineyard. I drove back. Along the way we stopped at two museums — one at Greytown that preserves the first settler’s village and another that housed an unusual locomotive, The Fells, invented to squeeze a third rail for climbing and descending that mountain pass.
I must say, that trip was a reawakening for me to the pleasures of TC motoring — the experience is close to riding a motorcycle. The thrill of clipping inside apexes downhill on the switchbacks was astounding! I never felt that limp chassis conform to the road like a hand wiping water beads. And those Blockley tyres get a much better grip on the road than the OEM style Dunlops and the finned aluminum drum brakes never faded! That sharpened my focus on simply managing speed and aiming.
Uphill was another story and still mostly about maintaining momentum. But the extra gear with closer ratios was helpful, delightful actually. One more aspect of that drive, was that oncoming lumber trucks elevated the danger in my mind. I well remember two decades earlier in the Vosges Mountains, a load of logs ripped loose directly in front of an oncoming car, also on a switchback roads. That killed a young family. My first blog post mentions it. I never take fun driving with impunity!
A shorter day trip was to a bucolic valley with pastures on both sides of Ohariu Valley Road. That valley definitely looks and feels like Carmel Valley in California but with a lot of sheep and horses. Again, Sam drove the TC from home in Khandallah, 4 miles north of downtown, farther north and over a high ridge using several switch-backs up, then down. I’d memorize the route and landmarks for my turn driving back. I have more photos from that tour because the drive was mostly touring, after a much lower pass over a ridge. Our turn-around was where Sotheby’s International Realty posted two large signs advertising new low rise McMansions on seven and thirteen acre estates. Buying can include dual citizenship, on a more modest scale than Peter Thiel did when Obama was President. Yup, I agree. This part of our Goldilocks planet will be one of the last outposts of civilization as we like to know it. Patagonia is another good choice, but there is that language barrier until you hire a “fixer” to speak for you.
For more about our visit to New Zealand and all the places we visited during our stay, you can see my wife’s blog.
Postscript
This past fall, the MG TC was displayed as part of New Zealand’s Heritage Festival. Here is the video of Kirsten making the introduction.