New Zealand auto museum planning special exhibit

Transport World, one of the largest private automotive collections of its kind, has announced a new exhibition to join its already popular display of motorcycles, tankers, Kombi vans, 1930s V8s and Henry Ford letter cars.

Located in the regional town of Invercargill in New Zealand, Transport World encompasses the Bill Richardson automotive museum, the Dig This Invercargill heavy machinery playground and the Classic Motorcycle Mecca.

The latter, situated at inner-city Invercargill, will host the new George Begg Exhibition from February 2020, dedicated to the renowned Kiwi race car engineer.

Begg was best known for his work alongside F1 legend Bruce McLaren and for building one of the first F5000 open-wheel race cars to be powered by a Chevy V8 in the 1960s.

He then went on to build 18 race cars, 14 of which are believed to still exist and Transport World is gathering as many of these as possible for the exhibit, which will also feature Begg’s AJS race bike from his motorcycling days and memorabilia from his car-building and motorcycling careers.

Transport World was opened in late 2015 by Joc O’Donnell, the daughter of Kiwi truck driver and entrepreneur Bill Richardson, who began his collection in the 1960s. Before his death in 2005 he had collected around 150 vintage trucks.

Exhibits include a 1952 Thunderbird, Ford models from the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s, seven of Henry Ford’s alphabet-letter cars, a 1940 Dodge Airflow Texaco Tanker and a Stewart 1 Ton truck (said to be the only one remaining in the world).

The museum now boasts more than 300 vehicles, a movie theatre, vintage vaults and retro zones, wearable arts, and restored vintage petrol bowsers.

Priding itself on its family-friendly atmosphere, the museum also offers a café, children’s play zones, themed bathrooms and a wearable arts collection.

In 2016, after a self-described “rush of blood to the head” Joc and Scott O’Donnell purchased a collection of classic motorcycles from an American ex-pat living in Nelson and shifted the collection south.

Classic Motorcycle Mecca is now NZ’s largest and most diverse motorcycling collection and has recently undergone further development work at the two heritage buildings the collection resides in.

More than 300 bikes are on display, including a 1937 Triumph 6S, a Peugeot dating back to 1902 and the largest Brough Superior collection in the Southern Hemisphere.

Additional work to create a space dedicated to the Begg exhibit is currently underway before it opens in February.