The biggest motoring stories in 2021 (Part 1)
Friday, 31 December 2021
It’s the last day of 2021, so we thought it timely to take a look back at a tumultuous year and see what our biggest stories were, as well as highlight some of our favourites.
So without any further ado, here is a look at our biggest – and favourite – stories from every month last year, starting with the first half of the year. Tune back in tomorrow for our most popular (and favourites) from the second half of 2021!
JANUARY
The biggest story of the month was easily Kirsty Lawrence’s report “One district ruled them all when it came to speeding tickets in 2020”, a headline that nicely blended the Waikato district’s Lord of the Rings association with the fact that the police there issued nearly twice the number of speeding tickets than the next closest district in 2020.
The second-biggest story in January was the touching tale of a Hokitika family buying back their late father’s beloved 1951 Jowett Bradford ute a decade after he reluctantly sold it.
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Our favourite story of the month was Motoring Reporter Nile Bijoux’s take on the five most overrated cars of all time. It certainly attracted some interest and more than a few comments!
Unfortunately, Stuff has since migrated to a new comment system, so the outrage isn’t actually readable any more, but trust us; it did get the comments flowing…
FEBRUARY
Our biggest story in February came via Nine News in Australia and told the strange tale of an Australian chap pulled over by the police for having hand-painted number plates on his car. It turned out that his car was neither registered nor road legal, but he had helped clear up one mystery by painting “Not stolen OK” on the plate…
A local story about the Manawatu Gorge highway replacement (stories about local area road improvements – or otherwise – always do well!) was next, while the reveal of Mitsubishi’s new Outlander SUV and our first road test of the then-new Mazda BT-50 ute tied for our third-biggest stories of February, again reinforcing the idea that we do love our utes and SUVs in New Zealand.
Our favourite for the month however, was a story where we took a look at the lengths Holden went to in attempts to save itself – including rebadging Chinese cars as Holdens. Probably better they let it die, really…
MARCH
The third month of the year kicked off with our biggest story dropping in its first week: Elon Musk said something outrageous (albeit very true) on Twitter again and trolled General Motors, except this time Ford’s new CEO chimed in and agreed with him.
Closely following Elon’s latest Twitter outburst was Nile Bijoux’s story on just how ‘powerful’ the New Zealand driving licence was overseas – in other words how easy it is for them to be used overseas. Spoiler alert: ours is still pretty good.
Our favourite story from March, however, was a look back at the five supercar concepts from the 1990s we wish had made it into production, including the awesome Ford GT90 that was my personal favourite car to use in the original PlayStation version of Need For Speed II…
APRIL
The passing of Prince Phillip saw massive interest in the custom-built Land Rover hearse that carried him to his last resting place, and that he actually helped design!
It was our biggest story from April, but was closely followed by two others – the final story of a series where we followed a Kiwi family living with a Nissan Leaf for six weeks, and contributor Richard Bosselman’s look at the Battery Industry Group’s plans for dealing EV batteries at the end of their lives.
The battery article was a part of our big project for April that we are going to count as our favourite story, even though it is a lot of them – our first “Go Electric” EV guide that ran online and in print, and included stories that covered what to look for when buying a second-hand EV, and even more specifically, a Nissan Leaf (the single-most popular EV in New Zealand), what the Government was doing to encourage EV uptake and a true beginner’s guide to electric vehicles.
MAY
The tale of a man taking the New Zealand Police to court for breaking the law over changes they made to their speed limit policy, and the court agreeing with him, was by far and away the biggest Motoring story in May, while a man being offended by a numberplate was a close second.
Stories about delays for new vehicles buyers due to the semiconductor shortage, a 1985 Holden Commodore owned by racing legend Peter Brock selling in Australia for more than a million dollars, and Kia recalling the Sportage SUV and Stinger sedan due to a fire risk also did well in May, but our favourite stories of the month centred around a pair of idiots.
Namely the bloke in the USA who was arrested after riding around in his Tesla in the back seat and the Aussie driver who was arrested after he ran a red light and the police discovered that his licence had expired six years earlier, he was on bail and under orders not to drive, and, most remarkably, his Hyundai Excel had extensive crash damage, and he had “converted” it into a convertible by… cutting the roof off…
JUNE
The Clean Car Discount scheme landed in June, and of course Kiwis were most interested in how this will affect our penchant for diesel utes, with the AA’s claim that they could cost $3000 more under the scheme topping our stories for the month.
This was closely followed by a story about KiwiRail incorrectly blaming an 85-year-old pensioner for damage done to a level crossing because it got the numberplate wrong, while articles about volcanos saving the internal combustion engine (yes, really) and the perennial favourite of how to defrost your windscreen on a cold winter morning also did exceptionally well this month.
Our favourite story of June was the first piece about our newest long-term test car, the MG ZS EV, simply because we went on to love it so much and do actually miss it now that it is gone…
Well, that’s the most popular stories from the first half of 2021 – be sure to check back tomorrow to find out what the second half of 2021 held, and let us know in the comments what your favourite motoring stories were from the last 12 months.