This year’s festival coincides with a momentous period of change for Invercargill city, including the completion of the $165M revamp of the city centre.
The new city-centre development adds topspin to the groundwork that Bill Richardson Transport World owners Scott and Joc (Jocelyn) O’Donnell have done in creating a supportive environment that makes Invercargill the best as well as the most logical place to host the biennial four-day George Begg Festival — a festival of motor sport that is well on the way to becoming the southern version of the famously fun Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The city now boasts two world-class museums, which were founded on decades of Bill Richardson’s efforts gathering an eclectic array of vehicles and memorabilia of all types. It includes collections such as the display of Ford ‘letter’ cars and brilliant dioramas. Joc is a big fan of VW Kombis, after completing her OE around Europe in one, so it’s no surprise that there is a large collection of these iconic vehicles in multifarious forms.
Bill Richardson’s Transport World houses the collection in an impressive building modelled in the art-deco style, as suggested by daughter Joc. It opened on the main road into Invercargill in 2015 and soon proved to be a great success, attracting thousands more visitors each year than expected. It’s a must-see for the leather-clad faithful who also flock south each year to attend a week of events celebrating Southland’s other motor sport icon, Burt Munro.
Joc and Scott quickly realised that a second museum dedicated to two wheels would be even more appealing to visitors to the ‘Burt’, so they turned another group of buildings downtown into a world-class motorcycle museum, Classic Motorcycle Mecca. It has recently added to its famed collection of John Britten’s genius designs with the inclusion of the Britten Aero-D-Zero.
The goal now is to round out the festival with a programme of events that offers something for everyone in a motor sport–themed family holiday, with social events, music, food, and wine. The aim is to give everyone ample incentive to dress in period costume, conveying the fun and freedom of motor sport’s heyday on and beyond the track for the entire event — just as the crowds, sideshows, and stalls do at the Goodwood Festival
