The final volume in a trilogy chronicling New Zealand’s transport history has been released, detailing the rise of the country’s motor vehicle culture and the network of industries and institutions that helped shape it.
The Road Gang, by transport historian Keith Mexsom, explores how coach and bicycle makers cautiously shifted toward motor vehicles – a technology once dismissed as a passing fad – and how a powerful ecosystem of dealers, manufacturers, road builders and regulators sprang up around it.
“This third and final volume of New Zealand’s transport history describes how some of the first coach and bicycle builders and importers hesitantly transitioned to the new motor vehicle first viewed as a novelty that wouldn’t last,” Mexsom says.
“But the motor vehicle did last –– encouraged by a Road Gang of assemblers, importers and dealers, parts and tyre manufacturers, oil explorers, and road builders who sought to make their fortunes as they eagerly met the needs of a motoring public conditioned by market forces and transport necessity to buy their goods and services.”
In The Road Gang, Mexsom turns his attention not just to the private sector but also the role of public institutions.
“These are their stories, as well as those of the supreme leaders of the ‘Road Gang’ –– New Zealand’s Governments and Local Bodies –– all too ready to encourage and profit from the motor vehicle gravy train by way of import duties, taxation, registration, licensing, parking fees and fines, while also mandating transport-related decisions that favoured the motor vehicle as the prime mover.”
The new release completes a trilogy that began with Waka Paddle to Gas Pedal: The First Century of Auckland Transport, first published in 2016 and revised in 2020, and continued with Gas Pedal to Back-Pedal: The Second Century of Auckland Transport, released in 2021.
Supported by 16 years of study, Mexsom says all three volumes are “extensively researched and accurately referenced and indexed, with narratives describing the real people and factual events that have influenced New Zealand’s transport scene from the 1840s to the present day.”
For more information or to request a review copy, visit keithmexsom.pubsitepro.com or contact the author at kwme@westnet.com.au.
