Born and bred Dunedinite Ross Buchan has never forgotten his first set of wheels. In fact, he attributes that inadvertent first generation Honda CR-X purchase to putting his hobby in motion.
Photography by Jack Prebble
“My real passion is with first gen CR-Xs. I've had a number of them, and they're just easy little cars to work on. The juxtaposition is, I'm a six foot three person who loves climbing into cars that are not designed for my height.”
Ross Buchan might not have the stature for race car driving, but he isn’t into automotives for the need for speed. Sure, he dabbles in the odd track day and enjoys an off-road adventure, but it’s an appreciation for engineering and his community connections that drives Ross’ love. “I've never been someone that needs turbo charged cars. I just like having fun,” he says.
Each car in Ross’ well-curated collection serves a purpose. He has two CR-Xs – a road one and a race one – a Honda Jazz for driving daily, his wife Teresa’s truck, a Honda City, and an old wreck. “It’s how I help sustain investing in my cars,” he explains. “I wreck old cars and sell the parts.” Thankfully, with a double garage at home, they’ve got room. “When we bought the house, I measured the driveway in front by the number of CR-Xs I could park in it. Nose to tail, I'd get six,” he says with a laugh.
The aforementioned Honda City is what takes Ross on the renowned Great Honda City Road Trip each year. An epic annual adventure where typically road-going Honda Cities do non-city things on a farm nestled in the mountains of Lake Coleridge, Canterbury. Suffice to say, it’s an absolute blast.
When Ross saw his friend Jared posting photos from the inaugural weekend, he was determined to join the following year. “I said to him, 'Are you doing that again?' And he goes, 'Oh yeah, if we can get enough people I'd be keen.'” Ross didn’t own a City at the time, but $650 later, the rest, as they say, is history: “It’s become this annual thing where all of us own these Cities, just for this one trip every year.”
The programme is always the same: on Friday, a convoy of Cities makes its way from Christchurch to camp, with an essential pit stop at the World Famous Sheffield Pies shop for a bite to eat and a group photo, as is tradition. Once there, the evening is quite social. Easing their way into the next day’s escapades, Ross says, “Saturday is where we spend the day out in the middle of the river, testing the capabilities of the cars and having fun.”
With two young kids, Oliver (4) and Sadie (7), Ross’ car passion is quite the undertaking. While he and Teresa play up the narrative that she isn’t on board with his hobby, she’s actually very supportive: “She tolerates me having wrecked cars while I'm pulling them apart. She entertains me spending all Christmas painting my car in the middle of the driveway, plus the time it takes to get it going. She knows that [the road trip] is my one weekend away that I commit to every year.”
The irony is that Ross never considered himself a City enthusiast. “It was all of these guys who have never met, but had this connection through our Honda Facebook group, meeting over these cars that none of us really cared about. And now it's turned into an annual pilgrimage to the South Island.”
Antics aside, the road trip has given Ross skills to take home to his other Hondas, as many of the guys are mechanics. “They’re just brilliant, really helpful,” he says. “I recently did a gearbox swap on the City because there was a problem with it. That's something that two years ago, I wouldn't have even had the confidence to do.”
The trip has garnered a lot of attention in recent years, with almost 900 people following its official Facebook page. People want to know how and, more importantly, why. “I think that's the fun of it,” Ross says. “We all just love it because they just shouldn't be where they are.”
“It’s ridiculous seeing 12 road-going Honda Cities tootling their way up the riverbed.” Unexpected? Sure. But it’s also bloody brilliant.
My City was fondly given the nickname 'Number One' after the first trip, because it was indestructible — it just went everywhere.
See more at: www.facebook.com/thegreatcityroadtrip
