NZ Motoring web sites

[Richard Gee]

Hi there. I have found the Performance Car web site, which has a forum, but I can't find anything for Autocar (seems to be integrated into 'Stuff') and Top Gear's site seems to be down.

Just wondered what else was out there. Is there anything like this site??? - ie that has car news, motorsport news, classifieds, car-specific sections and appropriate 'car' orientated advertising and a few forums.

Be interested what you guys think.

Cheers,

Richard

[Esprit]

In short.... no, not from what I've found. Very thin on the ground for that sort of stuff over here. In terms of general motoring forums in NZ, this and NZPC is about it, other than that there are a lot of brand-specific forums (NZHondas, toyseed, SkylinesDownunder etc) but yeah... if you find any let me know!

In terms of local motoring journalism there's VERY little. The NZ Car market is so small that most articles read like a press release or advertisement for the car they're testing. It's not as bad as it used to be... I remember when they basically every review of a Toyota in NZ was GLOWING purely because they gave the most advertising dollars (by far) to the magazines and they had the best-equipped marketing department around.

I also remember the days of "Jim's Car Show" which was our closest (but still VERY VERY distant) attempt at a car show.... again it played pretty much like a 30-minute long Toyota ad most weeks.

Edited by Esprit on Sunday 23 July 07:24

[htsd]

There is NZV8 forums and NZ Classic Car forums but I haven't looked at either of them. NZPC is fairly representative of the NZ car forum scene- a few knowledgeable, well-spoken people, a few knowledgeable, badly spoken people, and then a bunch of people who didn't pass Standard 3 English (but would pass NCEA English!). They tend to be pretty cliquey as well and you will be turned on if you get out of step with one of the 'insiders'. The focus is far and away on Japanese import drags/drift and the street/show scene.

As for motoring news, Shell Helix Motorsport on a Sunday tends to give a decent roundup of NZ events if it is still running. The Herald runs a couple of car articles a week (Wed and Sat). Autocar is a reasonable read but I actually find it too dense, not to mention they don't have a website that I know of.

My verdict? Pistonheads is the best. It provides a good overview of interesting new releases with a bias towards UK/European manufacturers who are some of my favourites. They also cover motoring legal issues and promote responsible driving. The people on the forums are mature, generally well spoken and friendly. I wouldn't change a thing.

I almost detect a hint of 'Could someone make a PH-esque site in NZ' in your query. I'm surprised there isn't something that caters to that audience already, especially given the massive rate of supercar/european car ownership in NZ. If you were looking at it, a bit of a chat to people like the Ferrari Owners Club, Porker Owners Club, Lotus CCNZ, Jag club, BMW Z car club etc would be worthwhile. On their own I guess they're too small to run a useful site (look at Lotus getting hacked) but if you combined their audiences it could turn out very well. Email me if you want to bounce some ideas off someone.

[Richard Gee]

Yes, I am interested. I am a journalist by trade and a car fanatic and motorsport enthusiast by choice, plus I've seen how the fourms work over the years and have been a member of the SELOC forum in the UK for three years. I have the time to do it as well and quite a few ideas of how it might work.

I guess at this stage opinions would be useful on the stuff that is available to you at the moment. I think there is quite a bit of decent written material available amongst Autocar, Top Gear, Classic Car etc and may be there are a few ways to bring some of this content, together with some material produced 'in house' covering the home and international scenes - into an NZ focussed site.

Plus I registered a fantastic domain name the other day which I am amazed was still available.....

All opinions would indeed be welcome. If anyone needs an email, it's richardgee2ATyahooDOTcoDOTnz

[htsd]

Classic Car is owned by a publisher (whose name I forget) who also do NZPC and NZV8 Magazine, along with one of the techy gadgety mags as well. CC occasionally post content on their website but I don't think the others do. Even so, Pistonheads often reference other car sites so there is merit in providing a centralised information source.

I'll try and pull together some cohesive thoughts/ideas and send you a mail. It'll give me something to do at work tomorrow when I'm bored!

[iwilson]

As I mentioned in our email Richard the biggest problem with getting something like a Kiwi PH going is keeping out the riff raff, without ending up over moderating. Mind you at the end of the day a forum belongs to it's owner. If you have a problem just hit the delete member key...

I'd be keen to see something get going, we are after all tucked away in the corner on PH.

[Kiwi XTR2]

Yoda said:

Hmmmmm . . . difficult, it is . . .

The good forums that I'm familiar with are either:

a) Very specific. With a pre-existing 'community of interest' that binds it together; or

b) Broader. With a very content-rich site including articles, galleries, video, retail, events, classifieds etc

I'm not really sure where a new forum would fit ?

Have you thought about media relations for either LTNZ or the Traffic branch of the NZ Police?

"Speed is Evil"

[Esprit]

Richard,

I'm very keen to be in on this. This is something that I've been thinking about for a while too as I feel it's a niche in NZ that's currently empty.

If you're after some help for setting up a website like this I'm a bit of a novice writer myself and would happily invest some time in trying to get an idea like this off the ground.

[Richard Gee]

Thanks for the opinions here. I share all of the concerns everyone airs on here - keeping sites acceptable to everyone is difficult everywhere it seems. I'm going to progress it though and see how I go. As I said, I have nothing else on so doing plenty of research and discussing content and ideas seems an appropriate starting point.

[marksteamnz]

Richard a couple of others you might want to look at

SCCNZ and the Sports racing car site
www.sccnz.co.nz/

Constructors Car Club
www.constructorscarclub.org.nz/

www.fraser.co.nz/

Links on these sites may also be of some use

Cheers
Mark Stacey

[Kiwi le]

The Ozzies have one - www.aussieelises.com/