New Zealand has lost one its greatest and most enduring champions with the death of rally driver Peter “Possum” Bourne.
The sport is numbed and saddened by his death and our thoughts and sympathy are with his wife Peggy and her children at
this time.
Possum began his rallying career in the late 1970s and immediately impressed with his skill as an engineer and driver.
He strung together a list of victories in rallying and hill climbing throughout the 1980s and was New Zealand National
Rally Champion in 1991.
His steady performance caught the eye of Subaru and he was contracted to undertake a number of Asia Pacific and other
international rallies. Although based in Pukekohe, where he established a very successful motorsport business, he has
undertaken most of his rallying in the past decade in Australia and around the Asia/Pacific region. He was, the reigning
Australian Rally Champion, a title he had won seven times.
Over the past decade he has continued to carry the New Zealand flag high in Asia/Pacific rallying and was Asia/Pacific
Champion in 1993, 1994 and 2000, and consistently the top finishing Kiwi in the New Zealand International Rally.
In New Zealand and Australian motorsport, Possum was a household name and a hero. He was an excellent ambassador for the
sport with an easy personality and dealt easily with the media, the public and the sport’s officials.
He was a proud Kiwi who rates among the very best motorsport competitors to emerge from New Zealand and we, along with
thousands of other New Zealanders, mourn his death.