Skip to main content

Kōrero: Cars and the motor industry

Trekka

Trekka

The Trekka was New Zealand’s first significant foray into car design and manufacture, with around 2,500 built between 1966 and 1973. The vehicles were powered by Škoda engines from Czechoslovakia, while the bodies were manufactured in New Zealand. They were not a major success and only came about because of New Zealand’s restrictive import licensing regime of the 1960s.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Trekka

This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Eric Pawson, Cars and the motor industry – Sources of cars, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/22838/trekka (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Eric Pawson, i tāngia i te 2 March 2010, updated 1 December 2014.

Comments

Ludwig Messer
16 June 2020
The Trekka is, I believe, a viable recreation vehicle. It is cheaper from what I've read, to import a motorcar from another country than to manufacture a car in New Zealand. My late Father had Chevrolet Impalas: 1961, 1963 or 1964(?), 1965, and 1969 model years. I knew a nice neighbor who lived long ago in New Zealand. When I was in Venice, Italy on holiday in 1974, I met a nice young couple there, who were from New Zealand.