WHILE countless car events are hosted in New Zealand’s small towns, none take over as comprehensively as the Repco Beach Hop does with sleepy Whangamata, on the Coromandel Peninsula. The five-day Hop is limited to around 2000 entrants, which is plenty in and of itself, but that’s only scratching the surface of how many cars actually show up. Walk down any street of Whangamata (pronounced ‘fong-a-ma-tah’, not ‘wanga-matter’) and you’ll spot classisc cars in driveways, and the supermarket car park is full of them too. It’s something that can’t really be comprehended until it’s experienced.
Now in its 24th year, the event started off
