Krayy
15th October 2007, 09:46
Well bless my wife's little cotton socks. I turn 40 on Thursday, and usually her pressies are a little wanting, but this one took the cake.
She was at a "Feminism at Work" forum and they held a fund raising auction. She bid on, and won, a weekend away in Rotovegas along with a BMW Z4 from Jerry Clayton's to get you there.
She kept me in the dark and drove me over to Takapuna on Friday arvo to pick the beast up, and took the kids to my parents place for the weekend (ya-hoo). As I was doing that paperwork, I thought it odd that the sales bloke was smiling and mentioning that it was "The 3 litre job...heaps of grunt for you to play with, and it fangs around the corners like it's on rails". Hmmm.
So my first drive was through Friday evening traffic back over the bridge, and I got all the way up 50 km/h in some parts. Damn. We did a cruise down to Mission Bay to show off and take in some dinner, and I was eager to hit the road in the morning.
Out jumping off point was the Bombay Caltex, where we gassed up, dropped the hood then headed for the hills. Any Aucklander with a bike knows these roads, and it was a very confidence inspiring start to the trip. I had hit the "sport" button, so the throttle response was nice and crisp, and any cars that I found in my way were quickly disappearing in the rear view mirror.
I made a point of taking the wife on roads that she had never traveled before, heading through Miranda down to Paeroa, onto the Te Aroha road to the Kaimais. The car had impressed me with it's acceleration, handling and grip up till then, but sticking it in third and belting up the mountain past all the other cages while just squeezing the throttle more and more was a revelation. I'm sure the door got a dent in it from the force of our bodies being pushed almost through it.
Top down driving is almost as good as being on a bike, and something I'll be looking at in the future. Problem is that it rained all Sunday, so even though we were on good driving roads (we followed the return leg of the Rusty's 360 miler from last year through the lower Waikato) we had to have the top up.
All up a great weekend, and highly recommended to do if you have a partner who won't go 2 up but still wants the wind in the hair experience.
Summary: A good sized boot, big engine, snappy throttle, able to cruise at license losing speeds and I saw "an interesting figure which I cannot divulge here" on the speedo (on a closed road of course).
She was at a "Feminism at Work" forum and they held a fund raising auction. She bid on, and won, a weekend away in Rotovegas along with a BMW Z4 from Jerry Clayton's to get you there.
She kept me in the dark and drove me over to Takapuna on Friday arvo to pick the beast up, and took the kids to my parents place for the weekend (ya-hoo). As I was doing that paperwork, I thought it odd that the sales bloke was smiling and mentioning that it was "The 3 litre job...heaps of grunt for you to play with, and it fangs around the corners like it's on rails". Hmmm.
So my first drive was through Friday evening traffic back over the bridge, and I got all the way up 50 km/h in some parts. Damn. We did a cruise down to Mission Bay to show off and take in some dinner, and I was eager to hit the road in the morning.
Out jumping off point was the Bombay Caltex, where we gassed up, dropped the hood then headed for the hills. Any Aucklander with a bike knows these roads, and it was a very confidence inspiring start to the trip. I had hit the "sport" button, so the throttle response was nice and crisp, and any cars that I found in my way were quickly disappearing in the rear view mirror.
I made a point of taking the wife on roads that she had never traveled before, heading through Miranda down to Paeroa, onto the Te Aroha road to the Kaimais. The car had impressed me with it's acceleration, handling and grip up till then, but sticking it in third and belting up the mountain past all the other cages while just squeezing the throttle more and more was a revelation. I'm sure the door got a dent in it from the force of our bodies being pushed almost through it.
Top down driving is almost as good as being on a bike, and something I'll be looking at in the future. Problem is that it rained all Sunday, so even though we were on good driving roads (we followed the return leg of the Rusty's 360 miler from last year through the lower Waikato) we had to have the top up.
All up a great weekend, and highly recommended to do if you have a partner who won't go 2 up but still wants the wind in the hair experience.
Summary: A good sized boot, big engine, snappy throttle, able to cruise at license losing speeds and I saw "an interesting figure which I cannot divulge here" on the speedo (on a closed road of course).