 He left soon after with a dream to build what he promoted as the first New Zealand car, the Anziel Nova.In New Zealand's then highly regulated economy he failed to gain the necessary import licences to build the cars, and abandoned the scheme in 1970 after a four-year battle.Gibbs then moved to Sydney for two years, where he worked as a merchant banker, returning to set up the Chase-NAB merchant bank in Auckland in 1972.