Some random 2008 car pics

I was browsing through my 2008 cellphone pics and came across some I hadn’t shared, of cars old and new.

    Cute little Fiat 500 in Lyall Bay, in its resplendent retro style. This was taken pretty late, hence the bad lighting. They are not as plentiful as I expected, due to the low numbers allotted for this market.    I don’t think I uploaded this one from a trip to Auckland. Remember the squared-off styling that was so fashionable in the 1970s? This was a regular 400, and not a 400i, if I remember correctly. Not the prettiest car from Maranello.    Not many of these have survived. It’s an unusual car and not particularly loved in their day. In the 1980s, as the Austin badge disappeared, the Rover company badged some of these without a marque and they were officially just Montegos. In New Zealand, this wouldn’t do, so Rover slapped MG badges on them for the 1990 models.
   Now, I know there were MG Montegos, too, but these were different: these last New Zealand Montegos were not the sporting models, but regular bread-and-butter ones that had been Austins in the UK. Hence, there was an estate in this range, too—the ZT-T was not the first MG estate, as some believe. Strangely, although the MG Montego Turbo was sold here in the 1980s, these in fact lacked a model name, so they were called MG 2·0s.
   At best, the last New Zealand Montegos are an automotive footnote. I doubt many will remember them.