Club cruise and “fish n chip” run to Ashburton to visit Colin Sweetmans' car collection.

It’s Sunday March 27; 10.30 am and South Canterbury & North Otago members departed from Timaru led by Nicky and 15 minutes later Canterbury members left from Wigram led by Sam and Neville via the more interesting back roads to Ashburton.

The destination was Colin and Cathy’s place and the mission to have a relaxed lunch and view their ever changing collection of vehicles.Colin, Sam and Neville guided the parking with military precision, people converged on the beautiful grounds for their lunch and weretreated to home-made scones with jam and cream plus mini muffins all made by Cathy. This was followed with tea and coffee.
Thank you so much Cathy.

The weather was perfect, sunny and hot. After lunch members viewed Colin and Cathy’s current collection. In Colin’s words “gone are the vehicles that leak oil”, but there was still a Jag, Daimler and Rolls.

Mustangs were plentiful and so too Mazda MX5’s. All specially selected limited editions covering the different series produced.
What else? Collectible late model performance hot hatches, early and classic Japanese including probably the nicest high performance Celica in existence. A classic Mercedes, Bond 3 wheeler and some other Fords.

The vehicles are all rare or unique in some way, in perfect condition, low mileage and all registered, warranted and driven.
They are beautifully presented in the spotless shed with a bit of history on each vehicle.

Thank you Colin and Cathy for sharing your collection with us and being such gracious hosts and also Nicky, Sam and Neville for co-ordinating the runs to Ashburton.

Dennis O’Brien
(Pics by Lesley Hyland and Colin Sweetman)