Obsessed

Ha ha Dave. Does that mean you can get it out and drive it?

Maxem

Joking really about the barn find, It's mine but has seen better days. Currently covered in building materials and unable to extract it from the garage. It will clean up and will be driven again at some stage soon.

Maxem

Can now. It was sleeping comfortably in a very large pile of ceiling batts for a couple of months (no where else dry to put them other than on and around the 911). Sounds like a careless owner but the way I looked at that was it was wrapped in cotton wool while the builders were working near.

John McM

That gib dust is nasty. Maybe leave it outside on a wet windy night to get the easy stuff off then snow foam it.

johnsopa

Hey folks, my son will be spending a semester abroad at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch this fall (our fall -- your spring). So, our family of five (me, wife, 20 y.o. son, 18 y.o. daughter, 15 y.o. son) will be "dropping him off at college" by taking a two week trip to Australia followed by a one week trip to NZ, starting next Friday.

I usually end up waiting until the last minute to plan details, so I have a question. We are flying into Queenstown from Sydney and will have about 8 days until we need to be in Auckland where he meets up with his incoming exchange student group. We're planning on renting a car (SUV, likely) at Queenstown.

Does it make sense to take the rental car all the way with us to Auckland or should we drop the car off at Picton and pick up a new one in Wellington?

Thanks folks!

John

John McM

John, most people drop their rental car at Picton and pick a new one up in Wellington. Unfortunately it won't be our Spring until September so you are coming in the depths of Winter. Still beautiful, just a little bit cooler.

Give yourself time to travel if you are not used to right hand drive, and the drive is a bit more tedious through parts of the South Island due to an earthquake damaging the Eastern coastal route.

Maxem

A year or two ago we were talking about the bargain 996 manuals for thirty ish and bottom of curve opportunity.
Interesting article here

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...e-collectible/

993 Targa

Good call going to Queenstown in winter, it is always beautiful there and perfect if you are into skiing or snowboarding. I think the rental car thing just comes down to price, if you drop off then pick up you won't have to pay for a car on the ferry, but it will be a bit less convenient of course.

Do Milford Sound if you can, it's an awesome place, just a trek to get to. And be careful on the roads in the South Island at night and early morning for black ice, but it's usually not an issue.

andy928

This is a good way to enjoy the sights on the way into Milford on a bus and not worrying about the driving.
http://www.cruisemilfordnz.com/prices/

andy928

This is a good way to enjoy the sights on the way into Milford on a bus and not worrying about the driving.
http://www.cruisemilfordnz.com/prices/

johnsopa

Great suggestions. Thanks guys.

About 18 years ago, my wife and our oldest son visited the north island. We stayed with a couple I think in central north island. They had a guest house. He was a rally fan. Had some Subarus. Older gent. Anyone know who this might be? We'd love to stay with them again but can't find any contact info.

Their guest house overlooked a valley. Very secluded.

sammaw

Hi Johnsopa,


Not sure if you are trolling, but will give you the benefit of the doubt.


NZ is a fairly big place area wise, and Subaru is a very popular car here as is rally fans. Will need a name of guest house or even the name of the couple in a hope of getting an answer. There is a few members from the central north island here, that might be able to help.


But warn you this sort of question is normally taken in a negative context.

johnsopa

No worries. The couple ran a bed and breakfast. We were just trying to find their BNB again and couldn't find anything online.

Obsessed

Interesting, thanks Dave. I've had a mild interest in 996 manuals over the last couple of years. There certainly aren't as many available now as there were back then. Personally, I hope they indeed don't become "collectible" -- that just means too expensive to buy and too scared to enjoy, for an average Joe like me.

sammaw

Obsessed, I agree with you. I own a 996 cab manual, I wanted to buy an additional coupe and do a CSR type project. Issue is most of the 996 in NZ are trip(based on listings I ve seen). so need to import one from the UK where prices are starting to increase, still sub 20k pounds for a decent one. My concern is the one I ve brought back with me went through compliance easily as it was a personal car. I am not sure how easy the compliance will be on a 15 year old car, that doesn't fit the special category(due to volume). So in short I think in NZ there will be an upswing in 996 values especially coupe manuals, as the gt3 etc become unobtainable for the masses. in the UK and US where there is many and many 997s the increase will probably not be as much. additionally in the UK a lot of 996 are modified heavily as 991 gt3 rs replicas, so it is becoming more difficult to find a good original model. 997 prices have hit the bottom of around 20k pounds.