New Zealand: Driving us crazy

It has become increasingly fashionable to question the Kiwi love affair with the car.

The sandal brigade has long been fond of dissing the petrolheads among us (though they really should shoe themselves in more suitable footwear whenever they crank up their Raleigh Twenties.)

Peak oil and the decline of the American gas-guzzler industry have combined and conspired to put automobile-fanciers in the same sort of place as your average small town paedophile. Shenanigans and scandal at the top level of motor-racing not to mention the big bucks and fuel burned in the pursuit of Formula 1 success have added to the disapprobation.

At the other end of the motor mania track, as it were, are the boom-boxing, pimply-faced, attention-seeking, purpose-challenged lot known as boy-racers. And another event, the annual-no-longer Undie 500 car rally from Christchurch to Dunedin, has only added to the difficulties for those who would still admit in public to be enamoured with their car, whether Ford or Holden, Japanese efficiency or European chic.

Nelson Mail