There’s a youngish (I’d put him at late 20s/early 30s) kind of bloke on Auckland’s North Shore who ‘commutes’ to his office in town in some sort of late model Lamborghini (not sure which one and TBTHWY (To Be Totally Honest With You) I don’t really care because for the purpose of this week’s column it doesn’t matter.
What does is he’s pushed whatever button you push or spent the extra $5-10K on the aftermarket titanium exhaust system to make the otherwise gorgeous-sounding V10 engine go all ‘pop-bangy’ on the over run, meaning if you are walking like I used to regularly do along Constellation Drive from the corner – say – of Apollo Drive to the…..bus station at the western end you can’t fail but to hear it…then roll your eyes at the whole incredible crass-ness of the scene when you turn your head and body around to check what is making all the noise…and after nodding appreciatively recoil in horror as your eyes settle of the personalised number plate… BIGWAD!
Talk about rubbing your nose in it.
As it turns out, BIGWAD is not the only Lamborghini with over-run issues I’ve seen being driven regularly on Auckland’s mean streets.
World famous (apparently!!) YouTube ‘body-building sensation’ and ‘Influencer’ Joe Rakich (he of the washboard-like abs and Popeye-like biceps) started out using his bright ‘neon’ orange Gallardo to drive between his home in West Auckland and the North Shore, but I saw a year-or-so back now that he must have ‘traded up’ to a similarly garish neon green Huracan.
How did I know? This time I was wandering up from my then workplace off Constellation to (trendy Auckland supermarket) Faro for a mid-afternoon take out flat white when on hearing the distinctive bark of a high-revving V10 followed by the machine gun-like pop, pop, pop, pop, bang, pop, pop (etc and I’m sure that most of you reading this immediately ‘get’ what I’m trying to say here) my head did it’s involuntary swing thing in the direction of the noise but instead of the dark iridescent grey or brown of ‘BIGWAD’’ my eyes were accosted/rewarded with a sight of an altogether different beast, an obviously close to brand new, neon green Huracan – this time with the personalised number plate RAKICH.
“Hmmm,’ I thought to myself, RAKICH. Isn’t he that rooster who was on TV the other night, crowing about hiring out Eden Park for the night to propose marriage to his girlfriend?
A quick Google and it was one and the same.
All this talk of Lamborghinis, personalise number plates and YouTube influencers might suggest to you that I am ‘taking the piss’ and that I somehow disapprove of what ‘Mr BIGWAD’ and/or young Josef Rakich spend their money on.
On the contrary this is actually a column about ‘the changing face of Targa (events) here in NZ and I really only raise the issue of Messrs BIGWAD and RAKICH to prove that rather than happen in isolation, the changes in the make-up of a typical Targa field are tied intrinsically to economic and societal changes that have been happening in greater NZ Society as a whole.
Not that long ago, for instance – let’s say between 30 and 40 years ago – the ONLY (as in just the one) late model, contemporary, Lamborghini nominally bought new here was a Countach (??? that’s if my memory serves me correctly) owned but only ever used sporadically, by a member of the Gough family (of Caterpillar-heavy machinery importer Gough Group Holdings nee Gough, Gough & Hamer, fame).
Fast forward until today and New Zealand now has its own dedicated Lamborghini importer and dealer – Independent Prestige – based in a flash new Giltrap Group building in Auckland’s Grey Lynn, with a growing clientele of enthusiast owners and serious growth plans based around the new 4×4 SUV Model, the Urus.
Five-time Targa NZ winner, Aussie-based entrepreneur Tony Quinn rather infamously crashed out of the 20th anniversary Targa NZ event in the South Island in 2014 in the V10 4WD Huracan he bought to replace the Nissan GT-R35 he had used to win the four previous NZ events on the trot.

Ironically, perhaps, Quin’s decision was based on the performance in the Targa Tasmania around that time of legendary local tarmac rally specialist Jason White and his co-driving uncle, John, the pair winning the event outright 4 times in an exotic Lamborghini Gallardo V10 4WD.
As it turned out however, Targa Tasmania and Targa NZ have – apparently – evolved into two very different styles of event.
There, where the same smooth-surface road sections are repeated year in and year out and pace notes have been in use for years, it is more a road ‘race.
Here, where Event Director Peter Martin prides himself on finding and sharing as many new roads and parts of the country at each event as possible, and where the recent introduction – for safety reasons – of a rudimentary pace note system incited a bitter debate as to their pros and cons, our events are more like a rally.

For a long time, too, ‘our’ Targa was very much a ‘bucket list event where a core group of event specialists would be joined at each new event by a sort of ‘revolving door’ of wide-eyed newbies, keen to scratch their ‘Targa’ itch.
In theory the best way to ease your way into a Targa event – particularly if you have zero experience of any other forms of motorsport – is via doing at least one event on a Targa Tour.
From small beginnings back in the day, the ‘Tour is now seamlessly integrated into each and every Targa event, with the accent of meeting and getting to know and enjoying the company and camaraderie of your fellow ‘Tourians’ rather than ‘tagging along’ and wondering how ‘old mate’ is going in the ‘main event.’
Each year, of course, someone ‘graduates’ to the ‘main game.’ But nowadays the Tour has its own regulars…. like Lamborghini Gallardo owner Roger Battersby from Auckland, and retired Hawke’s Bay GP ‘Dr’ Rhod Murray.
Both successfully completed the 2021 Targa Rotorua event over the weekend just passed, Battersby and co-driver Bridget Jones in Battersby’s distinctive orange 2012 model Gallardo, Murray, with good mate Malcolm Bennett alongside, in the family’s daily-driven Audi A3.
But back to those economic and societal changes I mentioned earlier.
I can still remember standing absolutely slack-jawed and yes, probably drooling, as a guy in a gorgeous (then) late model Porsche 911 E rolled through a major downtown Brisbane intersection one afternoon while I was on holiday there in early 1972……gabbling away on a ‘car phone!’
Seriously, there were no Porsches in Gore where I had lived all of my 13 or so years up until that point. So, seeing my first one – in the flesh as it were – was a massive buzz.
As for the guy using the phone – which like all at the time had a flexy black cord linking the handset to what I am guessing now would be some sort of R/T box taking up most of that magic little Porker’s passenger footwell – all I can say even 49 years after the fact is, wow!
These days, of course, it’s a rare day driving, riding one of my push bikes or simply walking along a busy thoroughfare in and around Auckland when I DON’T see something worthy of an admiring swivel of the head.

And by the look of it, it is going to be the same with Targa events into the foreseeable future. At the Rotorua event last weekend, for instance, the field split saw 54 cars in the main competition category and a bumper 43 for the Targa Tour.
There was quality where there was quantity too with 6 late model and 2 earlier model Porsches, a late model Nissan GT-R, several sporty Audis and late model BMW MINIS plus a couple of Subarus, the odd near classic (like the ’94 HSV VR GTS Holden Commodore) as well as at least one ‘genuine classic’ (though I might be showing a little bias here), the 1970 Chrysler Valiant VG of Miles Clark and Charlie Cavalo.

There were even some clever-ish personalised number plates in evidence…….the one I liked best the German word, FLACHT, on the late model (991) GT3 Porsche RS of Martin Dippie and Jona Grant.
A quick -up on Google translate and I’m thinking, ‘yep, that works,’ because FLACHT in German means; ‘to flatten, to push over all before you……………
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