818 YUX where are you?

[Ian Williams]

I have never understood why owner would be against their cars being recorded on the register. We have a ridiculous situation here where a past Chairman of the VARNZ was completely hostile to sharing information with the UK citing "privacy" as one of his reasons. The information recorded on what exists as a register in NZ is very poor as a result of this attitude, many of the entry's are wrong, which is sad because NZ has some interesting late numbered run out models and it appears some very early examples of a particular Model. For example the earliest and the latest recorded surviving RM saloons which were not on the register, my Nippy was also not on the register and turned out to be a car of interest once added, the list goes on. One problem for a registrar is the owners knowledge, and at times honesty when submitting details, we have a few EA sports on the NZ register, not one of which is a genuine car and most are simply very loosely based specials rather than authentic replicas, yet that is not recorded. Or a Type 65 with a replica body, touring engine, gearbox, back axle, saloon seats etc that is, according to its owner, in completely original condition. This is compounded in NZ with a lack of information being made available to owners, such as the Association publication about how to identify your seven coupled with no drive by the Club to bring the register up to date and record the cars correctly. I know that if that were done we would discover some very interesting facts about the cars exported here. Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future the abysmal internal politics of the VARNZ will get sorted out and the club can get back on track as a register and source of information for owners as its creator Peter Fry intended. Some may feel I am being pedantic in my comments and views, but personally I feel that a well run and accurate register is a gold mine for restorers and historians. I would also like to see in this digital age photographs of the cars kept on file as well as numbers.