Held on February 6-7 at Pukekohe Park Raceway, the annual event will also feature former Grand Prix stars Paul Smart and Stan Woods, team-mates of internationally renowned Barry Sheene at Team Suzuki in the 1970s.
This year’s festival has attracted a group of 14 British riders and bikes, including the top European classic racer Lea Gourlay driving a 1968 Moto-Paton 500.
The motorcycle holds the Isle of Man lap record for classic bikes at over 110mph and is being brought to New Zealand for the first time by its owner Roger Winfield.
The festival will be marking the centenary of the famous Rudge motorcycle, with a large display of both racing and road machines.
Before the Second World War, the Rudge was one of the most popular motorcycles on the New Zealand market, but the company did not restart production when peace returned.
Rudge was famous not only for its high quality but also for pioneering the use of four valves per cylinder and four-speed gearboxes, when most bikes were only two valves and three-speeds.
On display will be the famous ex-factory 1932 Rudge model that won four New Zealand Tourist Trophy races in the 1930s on Waiheke Island.
In a New Zealand first, four-times world champion Hugh Anderson will give a demonstration on a 1968 V4 Yamaha of only 125cc capacity, a bike so successful that Bill Ivy and Phil Read won nearly every Grand Prix event between them in 1967 and 1968.
