On Saturday, Canterbury’s classic Jaguars will be in the spotlight at a free event at Risingholme Park, Opawa. The public display of 60 vintage cars will showcase classic and modern Jaguars.
The event marks the 75th anniversary of the first Jaguar MkVII produced.
Organiser Dr Richard Waugh said Christchurch has long had a strong Jaguar following, despite being about as far from the Coventry factory in England as you could get.
“That’s really due to Archibalds, who became the first Jaguar franchise in New Zealand in 1950,” he said.
Waugh said the Mk VII, VIII and IX were especially coveted in Christchurch.
“(Jaguar) was a very advanced car at the time, one of the world’s fastest and best handling saloons.”
Waugh said a lot businessmen and wealthy farmers bought them.
“They really were the special car to have.”
Waugh, who owns a 1954 Jaguar MkVIIM, said there were about 25 of the rare MkVII, MkVIII and MkIX models left in Canterbury.
“We’re hoping for a world record of about 20 Jags. We’ve put the call out nationwide,” Waugh said.
The MkVII attracted several distinguished owners, none more notable than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who took delivery of her car in 1955.
Her MkVIIM saloon, which she kept until 1973, was finished in a special metallic shade of the royal colour claret.
The MkVII also enjoyed racing success – Stirling Moss drove one, while an Irish team drove the car to victory in the 1956 Monte Carlo Rally.
Closer to home, Christchurch’s famed crime and detective novelist Dame Ngaio Marsh owned two Jaguars.
She was said to have enjoyed their racing heritage and style, and cherished them until her her death in 1982.
Her second Jaguar, a 1960 XK150 sports car, is privately owned in Wairarapa, but the fate of her first beloved XK120 is a mystery.
Marsh purchased it in January 1951 while she was in England, and registered it in Christchurch later that year.
“It became a well recognised car around Christchurch,” said Waugh, who was tasked with trying to find it in the mid-1990s by the Ngaio Marsh House and Heritage Trust.
“The trail went cold in Hamilton. I’ve got an idea that somebody may have it tucked away somewhere, or it went to Australia.”
“I think it’s a book of international significance about the MkVII which was a very advanced car in its time. It was the fastest four-door saloon in 1950, probably the best handling with a very revolutionary engine.”
The book profiles 50 cars in New Zealand and is published by a charitable trust.
It follows Waugh’s first motoring book, Classic Jaguars in New Zealand, published in 2021.
The St Martins resident has authored up to 20 titles on NZ airlines, aviation accidents, church history and social history topics.
An ordained Methodist minister since 1985, the now retired Reverend spearheaded several significant memorial projects, including nine permanent memorials for NZ airliner accidents that occurred between the 1930s and 1960s.
Waugh is leading a campaign for a national Erebus memorial to address what he called a “glaring omission” for New Zealand’s worst civil disaster.
He said the historic Risingholme Park was chosen as the venue for Saturday’s meet because it was gifted to the citizens of Christchurch by Sir John McKenzie, a well-known businessman who owned one of the first MkVII Jaguars in Christchurch in 1951.
- The Jaguar Drivers Club’s free public display is on from 10am to 2pm on Saturday at Risingholme, 22 Cholmondeley Ave
