If you’ve not heard of Levin before, fear not, it’s not normally a town known for its car culture. An hour and a bit north of the nation’s capital, on State Highway One, Levin, to many, is simply a main street dotted with a few gas stations and takeaway joints, which you pass through, but on October 1, Tararua Rodders showed that Levin is a whole lot more. The Rodders’ biennial Chrome N Custom Auto Festival has been running for a while now, and its reputation is clearly starting to snowball.
Unluckily for the club, wet weather leading up to the day meant that vehicles couldn’t park on the large grassy area of the Horowhenua Events Centre, where the show was held. Up to 500 custom and classic cars generally park there for the event, adding somewhat to the spectacle. However, the festival really didn’t need any such extras — it was impressive enough without.
An indoor hall full of competition vehicles, a big rig display, a four-wheel drive display, a powerboat line-up, dragsters, and of course, the indoor show and plenty of traders all combined to create what must be the best event of its type in the lower North Island — and so you can see that for yourself, here’s a gallery of how the day went down.
