April fooling

Before the New Zealand winter clamped down, I flew back to Christchurch. The official reasons were to visit my father for his birthday, to see friends and see the autumn landscape - Queensland doesn't have an autumn, the trees stay a dull grey-green all year round. I went up to North Canterbury with a friend, and to the Botanic Gardens (cliched but beautiful nevertheless).

The unofficial reasons for the visit were to send my V8 Herald to the body shop (Brands Hatch) and bring back a pile of restored but never used parts for the GT6 in Australia. Having two restoration projects on the go simultaneously in two countries makes life interesting. Because it's in my garage in Moranbah I can do 90% of the work on the GT6 myself, whereas I have to farm out 90% of the work on the Herald coupe because I'm away 50 weeks of the year.

Andrew Stanton completed the chassis modifications with this backbone connecting the front and rear suspension. The idea is that this will provide additional rigidity to counter the torque of the V8. He also built a 'wide-track' front end and fitted a Holden diff. No way this baby will blow up!

Seeing if the carpets still fit. The front floorwells are the only unaltered parts of the floorpan!

Once again Ashley's Tow Taxi swung into action

The Herald at Brands Hatch