Within the closing run in direction of its diamond jubilee, the one motorized vehicle to be mass-produced in New Zealand is making a cheeky effort to work its means again into in style tradition.
The standard Trekka, a jeep-like car that wasn’t – is making its tv debut in a brand new industrial for Bell Tea, Aotearoa’s oldest and largest tea model.
In the meantime, a largely youthful technology might need noticed an animated model of the Trekka, motoring by a music video for “The Floating Opera” a single by Anamelia – behind which is Tamaki Makaurau’s Amelia Berry.
“I needed the video to have a definite New Zealand really feel,” stated artist and video maker Simon Ward, with the Trekka tootling alongside on a highway journey by Napier, Dunedin and extra, en path to a gig on the late seventies music competition Nambassa.
The Trekka would have been previous its peak when Nambassa was launched in 1976, to turn out to be for just a few years the nation’s iconic music and counter-culture competition round Waihi.
Ten years earlier the primary Trekka, rolled from the automobile meeting plant in Auckland’s Otahuhu, with 2,500 being constructed till 1972, when the beforehand import-restricted automobile market started to open barely, providing extra attractive Japanese autos.
Arriving right into a automobile market the place new utes and vans had been costly, and in restricted provide, the Trekka discovered favour with city tradies, households, and blokes in rural areas, undeterred by its modest Skoda two-wheel-drive underpinnings.
Like Ward’s music video, artistic company Havas landed on utilizing a Trekka as a Kiwiana marker, within the tv industrial for Bell Tea, a New Zealand model which matches again to 1898.
“We characteristic actual Kiwis from throughout the nation and from all walks of life, every sharing what their cup of tea means to them,’ stated Nick Cowper, JDE Peet’s NZ normal supervisor.
“On condition that the Trekka was the one mass produced automobile made in New Zealand, it felt like a pure match to characteristic it alongside the beautiful backdrop of our nation and the people who find themselves right here,” he stated.
Fortunately for the idea, a Trekka restoration had lately been accomplished in Rangiora, completed in pink, the color wanted to match Bell Tea’s model. Filming was completed close to Lake Tekapo.
Ward made his personal Trekka. Beginning with a line drawing of the car’s unique dimensions, he constructed his in a pc, sticking with a preferred Trekka color of the day, and including some 70’s psychedelia artwork to its physique. Although he had one nagging doubt concerning the authenticity of the thought.
“I did surprise how new and costly the Trekka would have been on the time,” he stated. Probably not a probable alternative for a band on the highway?
Not an issue although. By the mid-late 70s the Trekka – already one of many least expensive new autos in its day – would have been nicely down the depreciation curve.
Sarcastically, it was artwork which most likely kick-started the Trekka’s revival from being a forgotten relic of an industrial previous, to taking its place amongst Kiwiana such because the Buzzy Bee.
Artist Michael Stevenson’s “That is Trekka” was the work which represented Aotearoa on the 2003 Venice Artwork Biennale. With a restored Trekka at it’s centre, and parts similar to a wall of butter bins, the work advised the story of an agricultural nation with industrial ambitions.
Skoda attributes the European ripples from that occasion, to prompting dialogue about embracing the Trekka chapter of the Czech carmaker’s personal historical past. It now has an instance in its manufacturing facility museum in Mlada Boleslav.
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