Satisfaction in ghost of motoring past (+ video)

A pleasing symmetry exists when old cars travel historic roads, John Kennedy says.

Crossing Danseys Pass yesterday are (front to rear): a 1930 Ford Model A delivery van, a 1927...
Crossing Danseys Pass yesterday are (front to rear): a 1930 Ford Model A delivery van, a 1927 Chrysler, a 1913 Rolls-Royce, a 1930 Rolls-Royce and a 1929 Model A Ford. Photo: Stephen Jaquiery
Mr Kennedy, one of eight drivers winding their way towards Dunedin from Oamaru through Danseys Pass yesterday, will leave the pass today to travel through Naseby, Ranfurly and then down the Old Dunstan Road and on to Dunedin tonight.

‘‘When you have old cars, you look for old places to go, and because the cars have history they very easily link themselves to other early history - it fits together,'' Mr Kennedy said.

Mr Kennedy, a retired banking software entrepreneur who divides his time between Martinborough and a small village near Ascot in the United Kingdom, was driving his 103-year-old car, the Radley Ghost, a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost once driven in the 1913 Austrian Alpine Trial by English aviator James Radley.

The four-speed, six-cylinder car finished first each day in the 2700km contest that pushed early cars to the limits of reliability.

Mr Kennedy, who is in his 70s, bought the car in 1988 and rebuilt it in 1993 and has since driven more than 250,000km in it. He has organised three re-enactments of the alpine trial that brought his car to prominence.

When he first took part in the re-enactment, a photo album emerged, inspiring Mr Kennedy to write a book, Mr Radley Drives to Vienna: A Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Crossing the Alps - 1913 & 2013.

Mr Kennedy followed the car's original owner's journey from London to Vienna and re-created more than 50 100-year-old photographs retracing the route the Radley Ghost travelled over 19 mountain passes in May and June 1913.

The car's current journey began when Mr Kennedy drove the classic car into a shipping container so it could be transported to New Zealand from Southampton in October last year. He picked it up in Wellington a week before Christmas.

Putting his car through the paces before the Dunedin to Brighton Veteran Car Rally tomorrow and the International Festival of Historic Motoring, hosted this year by the Otago branch of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand, was a pleasure.

Last night, Mr Kennedy said he was pleased to see the road through Danseys Pass had not been swept along into modernity.

Mr Kennedy last drove the road 10 years ago. ‘‘It's at least as demanding a road as it was 10 years ago,'' he said.

‘‘And you don't have to do it, but while it stays a demanding road, the type of people that want to do it enjoy the fact that this is really pioneering motoring and as every year goes by there are less and less places where you really feel like you are doing pioneering motoring. That's one of them.''

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz

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