After their house explodes and they bump into a gunman, journalist Alf (Temuera Morrision) and his American girlfriend (Beverly Hills Cop’s Lisa Eilbacher) head to the West Coast, on the run from the cops and mysterious forces. The conspiracy plot is mostly an excuse for chases, capers and crashes galore, all imbued with plenty of pell-mell shenanigans (this time heading north in a red Falcon) by Goodbye Pork Pie director Geoff Murphy. The movie marked Temuera Morrison's first big screen starring role. This excerpt sees John Clarke cameo as a used car salesman.

This documentary uses archive footage and interviews to tell the story of motor-racing legends Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, and Chris Amon. The trio topped podiums in the sport's 'golden age' — one of those eras when unlikely Kiwi talent managed to dominate a truly global sport. The Team McLaren racing team that four times Grand Prix winner Bruce McLaren founded in 1966, has been the most successful in Formula One. That same year McLaren and Amon teamed up to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 1967 Hulme was Formula One world champion. 

In this 2011 series Te Radar re-teams with company JAM TV (Off the Radar, Radar’s Patch) to meet people making a difference to sustainability issues. This first episode sees the comedian exploring green motoring: he visits a Kiwi project to make potato starch wing mirrors for a Nottingham F3 racing team; checks out the Trekka (the only NZ designed and mass-produced car) with journalist Todd Niall; rides a battery-powered Citroën in Whangarei, and tinkers with his Dad’s Land Rover. The first season won a 2012 NZ Television Award for Best Information Series.

In this second part of a documentary on Kiwis and cars, host Rita Te Wiata explores motoring in the latter half of the 20th Century. She begins in Christchurch where Ford V8s were a vehicle for post-war romance, then heads to Tahuna for beach racing. Te Wiata pockets the licence she supposedly got in part one and heads to Raglan to look at the car-enabled freedom of the 60s and 70s: surfing, fishing, caravans. While downsides are mentioned (motorways, pollution, accidents), mostly it’s a paean to petrolhead passion. The tour ends with a cruise up Queen St in a muscle car.

In this 2011 Jam TV series, reporter Hadyn Jones motors around Aotearoa in a 1966 Ford Falcon and caravan to meet the locals. He starts his engine in Dargaville, where he meets mechanic Ken, who gets the 'blue beast' going; Ange, a mother of three who got a burnout car for her wedding anniversary; he chats with axe-man Jason Wynyard at the Arapohue A&P Show; plus a heap of Dalmatian Kiwis. Critic Karl du Fresne rated the series appointment viewing, with Jones possessing a "rare knack of being able to make them [interviewees] relax and reveal themselves on camera."

Sean's prize possession is a 1958 red and white Ford Fairlane. His sister Annie works in an auto paint shop. But Annie is sick of playing shotgun, while her brother drives. What she wants is Sean's trust, and the chance to use her spraypainting talents to give the Fairlane a new look. After the Fairlane is stolen, the pair find themselves caught up in an adventure which tests their relationship. Writer Debra Daley based the script on a short story she had written about growing up in the ‘car culture' of Henderson, in West Auckland. 

In 2002, musician Moana Maniapoto was prevented from using her first name to market herself in Germany because it was copyrighted by someone else. That bewildering experience prompted this award-winning doco made with partner Toby Mills. It explores wider issues of commercial exploitation of 'exotic' indigenous cultures by global companies — a vexed area which Western intellectual property law seems ill-equipped to deal with. There are case studies of the good, the bad and the ugly over usage by brands including Lego, the All Blacks, Ford, Moontide and Playstation.

This episode of the Prime profile series follows a day in the life of driver Greg Murphy. The motorsport idol cycles to work — the Adelaide first round of the 2005 V8 Supercar series. There he adjusts to a new team after his 2004 Bathurst 1000 victory (the fourth time he's won the touring car race seen as the pinnacle of Australian motorsport). The down-to-earth Holden pinup charms sponsors and fans; discusses being an honorary Aussie; defends motor-racing as a sport; and when Murphy's gear-box blows it underlines his appreciation of success borne from struggle.

Some of the great names of international rugby can be seen both playing and reminiscing in this hour long history of British and Irish Lions tours of New Zealand. 1930 Lion Harry Bowcott is the oldest player here, conceding his side were surprised by the toughness of the New Zealand style of rugby; tough like 1950 All Black captain Ron Elvidge, who came back on to crash through a tackle and score a try, despite a fractured sternum and stitches in his head. The documentary concludes with Gavin Hastings’ 1993 Lions team. It was made as a preview for the 2005 tour.

In this first episode of the six part comedy drama, a suburban Mum (Jodie Dorday from movie Via Satellite) reaches the end of her tether with her washed-up rock singer husband Brian (Shane Cortese), and he comes to the end of his life — atop a broken bong. After her three closest friends convince her she’ll face a murder rap, Jodie makes a fateful decision to dispose of the body. The show marked a move into drama for reality TV supremos Eyeworks Touchdown. "Think Sex and the City meets Desperate Housewives in an Outrageous Fortune kind of way." wrote Listener critic Diana Wichtel.