Story: Coaches and long-distance buses

A Mount Cook Motor Company driver carries three women passengers in one of the company’s first Cadillacs, near Queenstown. On the running board are an acetylene-gas generator for lighting, a tin of oil and a new tyre, still wrapped. The company started running service cars in 1906, having operated a coach service for the previous 20 years. Its first cars were De Dions and Darracqs. They took carrier pigeons in crates, so that if the cars got stranded, help could be summoned by air mail.