Underground, Overground, Thunderbolt's free

Optimism thrives in New Zealand. The £100,000 needed to get Golden Arrow running again pales before the dream of Roy Southward, a major NZ car collector who plans to search for George Eyston’s Thunderbolt LSR car, apparently buried in a municipal tip in Wellington. Marooned WWII after a display there in 1940, Thunderbolt lay in a shed before being destroyed in a fire in 1946. Rumour has it that the remains were finally buried a decade later. Thunderbolt’s Rolls-Royce

engines, driving twin rear wheels, propelled her to 357.5mph in 1938.

Now Southward plans to use radar to scan the site and pinpoint the remains of the only missing significant LSR machine. If successful, he would to partially restore and display the car; but, Wyn Owen’s achievement notwithstanding, the sad pictures of the charred hulk suggest it might be kinder to revive the 18th century landscape tradition and be content with a picturesque ruin. GC