The Meteor

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THE METEOR
photo ex Mac Taylor collection

Until seeing the above photo I was not aware that we built anything like this sedan runabout in NZ. The Meteor was owned by Mr. W. Goodfellow & cost approx. £1,600 to build. She was 30′ long & capable of a speed of 30 mph. The forward closed cockpit had seating for 8 persons & was upholstered in grey leather.

So woodys – who built her, when, what powered her & what became of her?

Harold Kidd Update

METEOR was built for William Goodfellow in May 1931 by Sam Ford. She was 30ft x 7ft and constructed of Honduras mahogany with a double-skinned bottom. Her original power was a 225hp Kermath. She was capable of 30mph. He kept her in one of the sheds in Ngapipi Road where her nameplate is still on the wall.
Goodfellow sold her to the NZ Coastguard Service just before WW2 when she was taken over by the military. The Government disposed of her by tender in May 1945. Lanes remodelled her for Beamish-White for use on Lake Okataina where she was kept as a tourist attraction for many years. I have a nice pic of her there which I’ll send to Alan.
She’s still around; no doubt other WW followers can bring her up to date.

I took the photo below, of her old name board – while visiting one of the Ngapipi Rd boat sheds to view Matareka II, back on March 2014.

P1160971

Lake Okataina photo below ex Harold Kidd

29-05-2016 photo below ex Nathan Herbert

Meteor ex NH

 

21 thoughts on “The Meteor”

  3. The ex Nathan Herbert-supplied photo above, and from the high mountain background, would appear to be of a South Island lake scene quite unlike Lake Okataina and may be of a different Meteor as suggested by rhodes33.

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  4. I am not sure if this was the “Meteor” owned after WW2 by Len Adams, or not. But I remember going for a jaunt in Whangarei Harbour in the 1940s some time, and distinctly remember that the tophamper consisted of a double wheelhouse type structure with a lower section between. It was all quite upright in appearance. Years later, in the 1960s I saw a launch at a Rotorua lake, either Okataina or Okareka, and said to myself “that’s Meteor”. After checking the boat it was indeed Meteor and was virtually unchanged from when I had last seen her. I was quite amazed I had remembered her so well. So my problem is that what is pictured above doesn’t quite seem to be the boat I remember, unless she had been much modified before Len Adams owned her, which was probably about 1947/8.

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  6. In the 1995 book “Deeds not Words” the history of Auckland Volunteer Coastguard Service, Capt Barry Thompson said she had been reported at Thames “recently” and I’m pretty sure Alan Beamish-White told me that she’s been heavily modified…pure anecdote though.

    http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=q&hs=1&r=1&results=1&dafdq=&dafmq=&dafyq=&datdq=&datmq=&datyq=&pbq=&sf=&ssnip=&tyq=&t=0&txq=goodfellow+meteor+coastguard&x=38&y=9&e=——-10–1—-0–

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  7. Ok that makes sense. I should have read more carefully.

    The style is very similar to the Robinson Seagull sedans as owned by the one Al Capone.

    Does she still exist after the third remodel or has she rotted away into the depths of history?

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  8. Hey, I did say that she was “remodelled” by Lanes for Beamish-White. The Okataina pic shows the results of that “remodelling”. She has been “remodelled” since then again, not quite so successfully.
    Incidentally, Sir William Goodfellow (not sure when he was knighted) sold her to the Coastguard in November 1940, during the war, not prewar as I stated.

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  10. Although the IMTEC show that started all this by Ken Lusty is a lot older dating to the eighties, see you all there -we had a busy first day.

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  12. The two photos of Meteor show very different arrangements. I think its a different boat or she underwent a major refit – aft cockpit has gone from a single seat to a large area with high bulwarks, and the searchlight has moved from the foredeck to the cabin top. The window proportions are completely different, with one having the lower side window edge parallel to the deck line and the other tapering. The triangular windows are of a different proportion, as are the for’d windows.

    Spanner in the works sorry.

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  19. METEOR was built for William Goodfellow in May 1931 by Sam Ford. She was 30ft x 7ft and constructed of Honduras mahogany with a double-skinned bottom. Her original power was a 225hp Kermath. She was capable of 30mph. He kept her in one of the sheds in Ngapipi Road where her nameplate is still on the wall.
    Goodfellow sold her to the NZ Coastguard Service just before WW2 when she was taken over by the military. The Government disposed of her by tender in May 1945. Lanes remodelled her for Beamish-White for use on Lake Okataina where she was kept as a tourist attraction for many years. I have a nice pic of her there which I’ll send to Alan.
    She’s still around; no doubt other WW followers can bring her up to date.

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