Bertone 1988 in New Zealand

markx19

Mark Weinberger
I read in a book that NZ got 48 1988 Bertone's.
I'm yet to see one come up for sale is there any NZ people out there that have or know of even one?
 
I worked in Auckland for 9 months in 1998/9 and there was a Mica Blue Gran Finale parked in the carpark of the building where I worked. I remember it had quite some rust around the base of the windscreen frame - but I loved the wheels and interior and the colour. I thought it might be a UK import - but remember clearly that it had a km/h speedo. I never got closer than that but I recall it did not have a cat converter so I'm pretty sure it was carby like the UK cars.

At one stage it looked like I would be posted over there for a year or more and I went and test drove a "NZ New" Red 1988 that was in a car yard on Great South Road in Ellerslie where Continental Citroen is now located. It had fairly low km, was exactly the same as my 1988 cars (including rear spoiler, interior and phone dial wheels) with the exception being it was carby (and no cat). It had been there for months, had $7990 on the window and I reasoned I'd make a low-ball offer and it would be a fun run-around and when I returned to Sydney I would bring it with me and use it to rebody my accident damaged red one that I had bought the year before. It drove well and I started getting serious but I got recalled to a due diligence project in Australia and then left the company before I was due to go back.

BTW - I remember reading that there 150 cars sent to NZ (that sat around for many years unsold) - but no evidence obviously. I also have no idea how they were split between 1987/8 (like our Bertone's) and 1988/9 Gran Finale models but I can assure you they were both there.
 
Back
Top