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Owen Campbell’s involvement with the magazine dates back to 1968. He was an art director at Campbell Creative and it was a natural progression for him to join the magazine team. With a good grounding and understanding of typography, and with artistic skills, he attributes this as something their family inherited from their Grandfather Campbell. He never went to art school but acknowledges he had “a damn good art teacher at high school”. His talents as a singer/ songwriter were demonstrated on a 45rpm record available exclusively to NZ Hot Rod readers in the Dec ‘75 issue. The Big ‘O’ rendition on brother Gene’s ‘Pink’ label even rated a mention in a book called, for the record - ‘A History of the Recording Industry in NZ’. Allan Porter, east of Manurewa, was NZ’s first freelance official NZ Hot Rod mag photographer/ contributor. He was actually self-employed and contrary to popular belief was never an employee of the magazine. His car features would number in the hundreds but it’s his drag racing photography which has made him a legend.
By August 1969 Allan was listed as a contributing photographer. His first published photo was actually in an early 1968 Car Craft mag, USA. What was it? Wild Thing. I asked if there was one photo he’d describe as his
favourite: He was caught between two: His stud Mal Bain’s best photo without doubt was his action shot of Greg Taylor’s horrific accident in Ron Collett’s dragster, shot from a cherry-picker. The tumbling, spiralling rail went beneath him a half-second after the shot. It featured on HRM’s April ‘84 cover, made the front page of the NZ Herald and Reuters agency sent it around the world. Owen Campbell’s favourite cover was May ‘88 featuring the
Pavlovich/Piaggi T-bucket, and a close second
was Rob’s favourite is August ‘81 issue, a brave departure from the norm and the story behind the big question-mark ruffled a few feathers at the time! What about a car shot? It would be the Mustang on October ‘98 cover. Mal Bain’s association with NZ Hot Rod dates back to 1974 when he was a mechanic at Checker Motors in Newton Road close-by to the mag’s office. Through a common interest and knowing the magazine guys, he began taking photos at the drags with a Kodak 126. Some were published and he graduated to car features. He admits he didn’t know anything about cameras in those days, and his mentor was Allan Porter who obviously taught him a thing or two because he rose to the role of Chief Photographer. It would be a hard task to mention all the correspondents who’ve contributed articles over the years. Their work reflects the different styles of writing and broad range of vehicles featured over the length and breadth of the country. Everyone likes to read about a car that resides at the opposite end to themselves, that they’ve never seen in the flesh. In fact it is one medium in which you have the opportunity of submitting an article which you think is worthy of publishing.
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Allan was an early member of Auckland Hot Rod
Club and was introduced to Rob at a club meeting as
someone who could be of benefit to the new phenomenon of
NZ’s first rod mag, just as issue number two went on
sale.
io photo of Noddy Watt’s black Y-block T-bucket
for Jan ‘90 issue, and Dave Walls’ 1934 Ford coupe in June
‘89 magazine.
the May ‘86 cover showing Garth Hogan and an
orange Willys coupe.
