When Targa original Mike Lowe and co-driver Philip Sutton line up for this year's 21st Targa NZ, everything will appear the same… but it won't be.

Up until now, the former Bay of Plenty driver has started all 20 events in his identifiable ENZED-backed Abarth sports coupe. Although things will look the same there will be a huge difference – 50 years of difference.

Mike Lowe with Barty 1, the 1964 Abarth Berlina Corsa pictured at the end of last year's Targa NZ event. Photo: Fast Company/Mike Lowe & ProShotz.

Mike will start this year's race in a near-identical ENZED Abarth. The car Mike started the first of his record 20 Targa NZ events in back in 1995 was a rare, limited edition 1964 model Abarth Berlina Corsa (nick-named Barty).

It was powered by a hard-working, rear-mounted 1000cc engine, producing around 70kWs and able to propel the little Fiat 600-based car to a top speed of around 175km/h.

Formerly from Rotorua and now an Adelaide businessman, he'll start his 21st event in ‘Barty2-The Sequel,' – a brand new front-wheel-drive Abarth Assetto Corse works race car converted to R3T tarmac rally specification.

It is powered by a turbocharged, front-mounted 1400cc engine which produces 140kWs of peak power and has a top speed of 225km/h.

Mike is one of only two entrants to start all 20 Targa NZ events and the only one who has done so in the same car.

In theory he could have continued to refine and upgrade his original Abarth, but when he broke a crankshaft in the 2013 event, Lowe decided it was time to cast around for a replacement. When the same thing happened last year, he knew he had made the right decision.

'In the 20 years of Targa we have seen the event get faster and with less older cars running,” he says.

'In that time we had to push Barty way beyond its design brief just to keep up and it became clear that we needed to keep him for special or smaller events, and find something else to use for the next 20 years.

'When I saw the new Abarths (on a visit to the factory in 2012) I knew then we had to have one.”

On completion of the 20th annual Targa event in Queenstown last year, ‘Barty' joined a host of other iconic New Zealand sports and racing cars in the collection of the National Motorsport Museum at Cromwell's Highlands Motorsport Park.

Lowe says he will never sell Barty – 'my kids call him the third child,” – but it may still race again, albeit not on this side of the Tasman.

'A new race engine is being built as we speak with the aim of having Barty back in race-ready trim by early 2016 so we can compete in either Targa Tasmania or Classic Adelaide next year,” Mike confirms.

'Targa NZ is without doubt the best motorsport event in the world. I have raced at all tracks in Australasia in all manner of vehicles from open wheelers to Porsches, but after competing in the very first Targa in 1995, I was hooked. Eeverything else is boring.”

This year's six-day Targa NZ event starts in Auckland on Labour Day (Monday, October 26) and finishes in Palmerston North on Saturday, October 31.

In-between are 35 closed special stages comprising a total of 1035.5kms linked by 1431.7kms of touring stages with overnight stops in Hamilton, New Plymouth (two nights), Palmerston North and Havelock North before the finish.