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Decades after a boyhood ride in a British roadster, a veteran aviator now enjoys freedom on four wheels.
When Tom Grant bought a 1953 MG TD convertible several years ago, he was fulfilling a dream that began when he was only a youngster.
Despite being 98, he still has happy recollections of riding in the classic British marque at age 12.
His first trip was in an MG P-type, a model built from 1934 to 1936.
The thought of owning one had been embedded in his mind since then.
“I really wanted one,” Mr Grant said.
His 1953 car shares the same shape as the earlier vehicle, both of which were designed by Cecil Kimber and produced in Abingdon, England.
“These things, I realised, they are like a magnet,” Mr Grant said.
“People just can’t resist admiring them and commenting on them.”
Before buying his classic MG, Mr Grant was a long-time aviation enthusiast.
“I was only a sport flyer, not commercial.”
Not only did he regularly take to the air, he also built wooden replicas of competing World War 1 aircraft.
One was a German Albatros D-5A, a biplane fighter flown by the country’s Army Air Service.
In 2015 he crashed his replica plane on farmland above Brighton Rd but managed to make a perfect emergency landing and walked away unscathed.
Alongside this classic fighter, he built a British Royal Aircraft Factory SE-5.
He described flying the SE-5 as “beautiful”.
“It would be one of the nicest aeroplanes to fly.”
At age 95 he gave up flying.
Instead he now drives his MG and regularly takes part in club cruises.
“I drive that every day.”
His journeys take him anywhere within about a 64km radius of Dunedin.
Members of the MG Car Club Otago Southland and the Otago branch of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand gathered at Mr Grant’s Fairfield farm on Saturday, to celebrate his 98th birthday.
MG Car Club Otago Southland member Ngaire Donaldson said the group was lucky Mr Grant wanted to join.
“He has been a big drawcard, not only with his car but him as well,” Mrs Donaldson said.
“Tom’s whole . . . his love of life.”
Mr Grant offered a clear secret to longevity.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it,” Mr Grant said.
“I’ve discovered or decided or realised that death starts at conception.”
“It doesn’t stop.”