Being captivated by that car at the Greenlane interchange in 1989 like no car has ever captivated me before or since triggered a plan to have my own ‘king of the dinosaurs’ one day. The opportunity came three years later when my first trip to the USA finally took place, quite late in life compared to many of my hot rodding buddies.
My first trip to the States in 1992 came by surprise, just as my new fixation on ’59 Cadillacs did three years previously. In 1992, I’d only been in Auckland for three years, had only just turned 30, had a young family, and having sold a home in Whanganui to purchase one in Auckland meant that I had a mortgage up to my eyeballs — and to top it all off, I had a thoroughly miserable income! They were tough years, and a trip to the US wasn’t on the immediate horizon for me then.
I’d just spent those first three years after arriving in Auckland convincing the Government to allow us — a rag-tag bunch of long-haired hot rodders — to operate a ‘self-governance’ system
