Ride down memory lane

It was a meeting for the ages.

Nelson woman Kathleen Brewster, aged 98, was a special guest on a trip down memory lane in a car made in the year of her birth, 1927.

The Delage DM tourer, built in Paris, was in Nelson as part of the Vero International Festival of Historic Motoring which has brought more than 560 veteran, vintage and classic cars to the region last week.

The class of 1927 meeting was set in motion when Brewster and her long-time neighbour Marilyn Shirley were reminiscing about old cars.

Brewster recalled riding in a dickey seat – a seat that folded from the boot of some early motor cars – in Christchurch in the 1930s.

The car was owned by a friend of the family, and going for a ride in one was still a novelty and “quite a thrill”, she recalled.

Shirley, who herself owns a classic 1961 MG Midget and has taken part in previous motoring festivals, had an idea.

Through a mutual friend in Dunedin, she discovered that Brian and Ann Walker were bringing their painstakingly restored Delage to Nelson for the festival.

So on Wednesday, Shirley took her neighbour on a surprise outing.

When Brewster saw the gleaming machine, painted in French racing blue, she said: “It’s more shiny than I am.”

But she is not short of get-up-and-go herself. She was still driving until about 18 months ago when she decided it was time to hang up her keys, and she did not need a hand to climb into the beautifully upholstered seat of the Delage.

“It’s a work of art,” she said.

Walker spent 10 years restoring the vehicle, importing parts from 14 countries.

Over the past three years he and his wife had clocked up more than 10,000 kilometres, including the trip north to Nelson.

The six-cylinder vehicle easily sat at 100kph on the open road, but he said it was handful to drive around town because of its long wheel-base, making it hard to manoeuvre in small spaces.

Asked to put a price on the restoration, he said he would “hate to think”, but it was a labour of love, rather than an investment.

His wife Ann said the project meant she always knew where her husband was – in the garage. “It keeps him out of the pub.”

Then it was time to fire the Delage up, with Brewster taking the front passenger seat.

“You never know what the day is going to bring do you?”, she said as they headed out for a leisurely circuit of Nelson via Tāhunanui and Waimea Rd on a pleasant autumn afternoon.

By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail