Possum Bourne

Peter Raymond George "Possum" Bourne (13 April 1956 – 30 April 2003) was a champion New Zealand rally car driver. He died under non-competitive circumstances while driving on a public road that was to be the track for an upcoming race.

He was a three time winner of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and the Australian Rally Championship seven times consecutively, amongst many other titles. In 1993 he becamethe first New Zealand resident to have a works contract in a FISA rally championship, when he drove a Subaru Legacy for Prodrive.

Bourne lived in Pukekohe, Auckland, near his workshop. He lived with his wife, Peggy Bourne, and three children, Taylor, Spencer, and Jazlin. Bourne earned his nickname, "Possum", on the night he crashed his mother's Humber 80, while trying to avoid a possum in the middle of the road.

His autobiography, Bourne to Rally, was completed just days before his death. A bronze memorial statue of Bourne, unveiled a year after his death, stood overlooking the event he loved the most. The statue was moved to Pukekohe town square in April 2013, unveiled alongside the 2013 ITM 400 V8 Championship parade. In 2005, Peggy Bourne entered Race to the Sky, despite having had no formal rally driving experience, as a tribute to her late husband. In 2013, his oldest son Taylor Bourne competed in the 2013 Possum Bourne Memorial Rally with his stepfather and MP Mark Mitchell as co-driver. When Taylor completed the event, he went on to say "It's easy understand why he loved it so much".

Bourne was best known for his exploits behind the wheel of Subaru cars, initially the RX (the turbocharged version of the Leone), then the Legacy (rebadged as the Liberty for the Australian market because of a perceived clash with charity organisation Legacy Australia).

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