DRIVEN

A few months back we featured Charlie Bailey’s gorgeous pro-tour Chevelle (NZV8 Issue No. 170) and there was an unexpected response to the eight-week build along with the list of his previously owned vehicles. Yes, that compilation was long and quite an accomplishment for a guy so young. It was only after we received messages asking where he had been hiding that we realized you’d certainly need to be driven to have amassed such a stable of muscle.

And driven is what we found Charlie, after asking about all those cars, trucks, and bikes. It all started way back up north, well before he could even drive (see what we did there?). His passion for all things automotive began in the sand dunes on the outskirts of Kaitaia. Actually, it happened well before that, but for the sake of brevity, let’s begin on Ninety Mile Beach.

When Charlie was a young 12-year-old whippersnapper, his dad showed him the ropes, letting him drive a Chev-powered Land Cruiser in the backblocks and along those wide-open sands among buses and day trippers. It was there that Charlie found the drive for his first successes. Noticing tourists and city slickers taking their rentals on to softer sand and then frantically panicking when they were stuck, he set up shop in the dunes — with planks and shovel at the ready — waiting for opportunities to arrive. Remember, this was a kid with half a decade still