After decades of custom building high performance classic cars from the ground up, IPC now offers classic car connoisseurs the opportunity to purchase one of their much -admired vehicles off the showroom floor.

IPC is a division of International Motorsport Ltd (IMS), which is best known as a professional motorsport and car-building company. They have nearly half a century of experience supporting one of the world’s largest and most successful professional race teams. In numbers, this translates to a remarkable 21 National Championship wins. An impressive array of race trophies on display in their entrance and reception areas bear testament to this. Add to these photos of their Bathurst win and race memorabilia adorning the walls, and you know you have arrived somewhere special.

Despite their high-profile achievements, the whole team is extremely modest when talking about their motorsport, vehicle building and mechanical engineering credentials. They have prepared racecars for world-class drivers to local heroes, some of whom have gone on to Formula One and Australian V8 Supercar teams. For Team IMS this is just everyday business, which they live and breathe.

International Motorsport is renowned for being New Zealand’s and one of the world’s largest professional race teams.  From our list of achievements it is evident that we have a proven track record of winning a wide range of motorsport championships during our years of racing.

Racing successfully requires a unique collaboration between team and driver.  Preparing a fast car is only possible if the feedback from the driver is correctly translated into the set-up of the car itself.  The team at International Motorsport pride themselves on achieving this by providing world class service that delivers the performance needed to be on the front of the grid.

After more than 50 years in the motorsport industry, International Motorsport recently also expanded into the market of restoration and customization. International Performance Classics now takes up much of the space at the IMS premises in Pollen Street, Ponsonby.

With their expertise and skill, the IPC team can take a customer’s dream or idea and turn it into reality.

With all my time spent working on cars during the day at Archibald’s Garage in Christchurch and the evenings spent preparing speedway cars, I was involved with a lot of people who were very passionate about Motor Racing. We all wanted to go faster but sometimes our lack of preparation let us down.

The opportunity to work with some amazing cars and drivers at such a young age was a great training ground. Cars such as the Mark II Jaguar taught me so much about the technical side of race car preparation. This era also taught me so much of the attention to detail that was required in order to be successful. I had a belief that if a company focused on absolute detailed preparation of a race car and matched this with driver talent that would be successful in winning races. That was the founding principle of International Motorsport and remains our commitment to drivers and sponsors today.

So with the encouragement of the late Formula One champion Denny Hulme, I started International Motorsport. Denny stayed actively involved with this team until his untimely death at Bathurst in 1992. I have been fortunate enough to work with some of the world’s greatest drivers and top car brands; from the golden era of Motor Racing in the 60’s and 70’s until today, where we are currently experiencing a wonderful resurgence in Motor Racing in New Zealand. We have prepared cars and teams to race in Australia, Asia, South Africa and America, and we will always strive to remain the top team in New Zealand.

Lyall Williamson
Founder and Managing Director