Inhoudsopgave van July 2025 - Octane

IT’S BEEN A MONTH of highs and lows for me. The high was obviously driving a Ferrari F40 and F50 on the road, bringing a career-long ambition to fruition. It seems it isn’t just me who is entranced by them, either. As we introduced a healthy roar and a bit of panache to the Berkshire countryside on an otherwise routine Wednesday, it genuinely felt like we were brightening people’s days. There was none of the hatred (or the hand gestures) that so often greets, er, ‘intrusive’ cars nowadays, and especially when they are red Ferraris. These models may be 30 and 38 years old but the impact they had on everyone who saw them, and heard them, looked to be enormous. I lost count of the number of people we…

82nd Goodwood Members’ Meeting 12-13 April There were far too many highlights to list from Goodwood’s spring spectacular, presented by Audrain Motorsport, but Bruno Senna on track in a Lotus 97T to mark the 40th anniversary of uncle Ayrton’s first GP victory in 1985 was right up there. There were plenty of demos from Alpine, Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA and Gordon Murray Automotive among others, while Andrew Jordan won the GT3 Shoot-Out in a Corvette Z06.R. New on-track was the Win Percy Trophy for Group 1 Touring Cars, including Mini 1275GTs, VW Golfs and Ford Fiestas. Kerry Michael and Jake Hill won in a Ford Escort. Cape 1000 16-21 March Some 65 cars took part in the spectacular South African rally, which was won by Sean and Daisy Flynn in…

NOMINATIONS are officially open for the 2025 International Historic Motoring Awards. The awards, sponsored by insurance specialist Lockton and to be presented in a glittering ceremony at the stunning Peninsula London hotel on 14 November, were founded in 2011 and have become a highlight of the motoring calendar. The International Historic Motoring Awards are the only global awards that seek to acknowledge and reward excellence across both the historic and modern performance car industries and hobbies and are thought by many to represent the pinnacle of achievement. All but two of the awards are judged by a jury of greats from the classic and performance car worlds, and last year ranged from the likes of ‘Supercar Blondie’ Alex Hirschi to Octane columnists Jay Leno and Derek Bell. Of the remaining…

READING THE HAGI value tracker for the mid-’90s Corvette ZR-1 in Octane 264 started me thinking: what’s the true value of a car, and what brings the most pleasure from owning it? My own ZR-1 was built on 10 March 1995 and shipped to California, where it had a sticker price of $69,252. It was then transported to Amherst, Ohio, where it was purchased by a US serviceman for $59,001 on 15 February 1996. He arranged for the car to be shipped to Germany on 2 April 1996. I bought it in January 2000 for £29,661 – around $36,000 – when it had delivery miles only on the clock. Since then it has been used constantly and now has covered almost 92,000 miles. In 2003 I was invited to take part…

THOUGH FERRARI’S halo models might feel like road-legal racing cars, the motorsport links have not always been the most tangible. The lineage here starts with the 288 GTO, designed from the outset for Group B homologation, but the series that would have seen it go head-to-head with Porsche’s 959 on track never materialised, sadly. A single 288 Evoluzione was constructed before the official cancellation of the series, with a further four built by Ferrari racing partner Michelotto. And in effect, those four cars acted as a testbed for the use of lightweight materials in the upcoming F40. While the F40 wasn’t built with motorsport in mind, its carbon-Kevlar construction was taken straight from the racetrack and it slotted into the racing world with very little trouble. Thanks to the close relationship…

Received wisdom tells us that French executive cars don’t sell. Yet for 57 years Citroën pulled off a remarkable trick, in which it presented deliberately odd cars to an unsuspecting market – weird cars for ordinary people. And once this weirdness is in your bloodstream, it never leaves. This weirdness is otherwise known as liquide hydraulique minérale, a cartoonish green goo that makes the fabled magic carpet ride possible, coursing through the veins of Citroën’s innovative hydropneumatic suspension systems. It was publicly trialled in 1954 on the back end of the Traction Avant, and was so far ahead of its time that in 1985 a press release for the CX Series 2 said: ‘If such a system were announced for the first time today, it would undoubtedly be heralded as…

Let’s address the elephant in the room at the outset – you are going to miss the thunder and the fumes, everything noxious and noisy that should turn the stomach, but instead stirs the soul. You will miss it terribly, achingly, deeply. This is a point underlined by a ride in the most famous of all ‘Blowers’ a couple of hours after a 20-mile test drive in the new Bentley Blower Junior that is the focal point of the day. That vintage behemoth is, of course, Tim Birkin’s 1930 Le Mans car, crown jewel of Bentley’s 48-car Heritage Collection and valued at some £25million. That this car has risen to the status of the most vaunted and valuable vintage Bentley of all is only the more astonishing because, though it…

I REALISED THE other day that it’s been just over five years since I placed a particularly determined Collecting Cars bid on the Type R. I did very little research, didn’t view the car and barely had enough money to cover it, but it turned out to be one of the best car-related decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve savoured every mile behind the wheel, yet all of them had been within the UK. Until now. The decision as to where else to go was made nice and simple thanks to a recent invitation for an overnight stay in France from the team at LeShuttle. As the car hadn’t been on the road since last year, I gave it a quick service with fresh oil, a general check-over and, with a…

I’D NOTICED A while back that the Triumph would take a while before the charging kicked in. It had always taken a few seconds until it registered on the dial, but now it could be a full minute. Once it finally showed, though, everything was hunky dory. Symptom two came a bit later, when the needle on the dial started to oscillate wildly, always positive and showing a charge but jumping about like a flea on speed, which was very much out of character. A quick test with the multimeter proved the battery was receiving a very healthy charge so I ignored it. Symptom three was when the alternator packed up. I ordered a fresh one from Chris Witor and it turned up a week later. Nice job, an alternator…

IT’S A TWIN CAM, Jim, but not as the MG factory at Abingdon ever knew it. This one is powered by the Mazda version of the Ford Duratec DOHC 2.0-litre engine, so you can safely forget about the original Twin Cam’s propensity to run too lean and hole a piston. It is, however, built just down the road from the site of the original MG factory, the other side of the A34, by those nice people at Frontline. The company has been updating and upgrading MGs since 1991 and is well-respected for its many MGB conversions, but this is the first time they’ve tackled an ‘A’. Commissioned by a lady client, who spec’d every single detail to her own preference (and she clearly has excellent taste), it follows Frontline’s tried…

Original illustration for Shell by Reginald Mount Whether they knew his name or not, whole generations of Brits were familiar with the work of Reginald Mount, who lent his talents to the Ministry of Information during World War Two and beyond. Mount, together with his creative partner Eileen Evans, produced memorable posters about everything from wartime infosec to recycling. In the 1950s he began accepting work from commercial clients again, notably penning the famous poster art for the Alec Guinness film The Ladykillers. Around the same time, he provided Shell with some charming illustrations for use in an educational film, and this is one of them, in gouache on paper and preserved in good condition. £700. stephanieconnell.com 1956 Austin-Healey Streamliner by AutoCult A 1:43-scale model of the car in which…

Tom Sage Sr began collecting model trains in the 1960s in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and he went on to become a renowned dealer of vintage toys, with customers all around the world – but it turns out that he kept all the best stuff for himself. When he died in November last year, Sage left behind an astonishing collection, part of which will be sold by Morphy Auctions in Denver, Pennsylvania, on 29 May. Of the 300 treasures set to go under the hammer, hardest to miss is this battery-powered toy ship named Amerika; it’s a whopping 45in long. It was made by Märklin of Germany in 1909 or 1910, a few years after the launch of the Harland & Wolff-built luxury ocean liner Amerika, though it is not an accurate…

30 May – 1 June Greenwich Concours d’Elegance Again preceded by a ‘concours de sport’ featuring competition cars, homologation specials, supercars and hot rods. greenwichconcours.com 31 May – 1 June Masters Historic Festival At Brands Hatch and with grids for classic F1 cars, pre-’66 GTs, pre-’66 Touring Cars and more. mastershistoricracing.com 31 May – 1 June Coventry Motofest Weekender Featuring the popular Coventry Concours for vehicles built or designed in the city. coventrymotofest.com 1 June Valletta Concours Classics assemble in Malta’s capital against a backdrop of impressive Baroque buildings. vallettaconcours.com 3-5 June London Concours Classes at the Honourable Artillery Company in London will include one for ‘Fast Fords’. londonconcours.co.uk 4-7 June Kitzbühler Alpenrallye Crews competing in four classes drive 600km of jaw-dropping roads in Austria’s Tyrol region. alpenrallye.at 6-8 June…

OCTANE HAS PARTNERED with The Royal Tunbridge Wells Festival of Motoring to celebrate the 130th Anniversary of the Kent town’s hosting of the UK’s first motor show. A special event will be held on 2-3 August on the historic Pantiles in Royal Tunbridge Wells, not far from where the original took place at the end of the 19th Century. The original show, a ‘Horseless Carriage Exhibition’ at the agricultural showground on 15 October 1895, was organised by Mayor and pioneer motorist Sir David Salomons, who defied the Red Flag Act to drive his own Peugeot Vis-à-Vis to the event in excess of the 2mph urban and 4mph suburban speed limits and without the legally required flag waver. Two further Horseless Carriage Exhibitions took place in 1961 and ’66, with Donald…

The Ferrari F50 is 30. Yet even today it is apparently impossible to judge it other than in the context of the F40. For this story we started planning with only the F50 in mind and then garnished it with an F40 – mainly because we could, but also because it just felt natural. So, as the F40 elbows its way to the table and blows out the candles on the F50’s birthday cake, yet again, I too plead guilty to smothering the F50’s long-sought right to independence. This state of affairs feels pretty unfair on the F50 (every Jaguar XJ-S nods sagely in sympathy), but does anything better illustrate its neglected place in the classic firmament? To understand how we got here, we must first understand the car and…

‘AFTER I BOUGHT the F40, I didn’t have another car for many years. I put much of what I had into that car. I was living in a small apartment and stored it in a council lock-up; I certainly couldn’t have afforded any really large bills. But I used it daily, I’d go shopping to Tesco in it, I drove it hard on trips to Europe, and I never had any major issues.’ Karim racked up about 13,000km in his F40 during the early 2000s and he kept it for nearly 20 years. Along the way he also acquired a 288 GTO, an Enzo and a couple of F50s. But it’s telling that F50s are the only kind of Ferrari he now owns. In fact, he likes them so much,…

M35 1969 Weird, even by Citroën standards: only 267 were built of 500 planned, all bodied by coachbuilder Heuliez in coupé style on an Ami 8 base, the smallest of the hydro-suspended Citroëns – and powered by a 497.5cc single-rotor Wankel engine. Each one was labelled a prototype and offered to selected Citroën customers to put all the tech to a real-world test. It was a total showcase yet sadly only 100 escaped the crusher as part of Citroën’s buy-back scheme (basically a bid to avoid parts back-up responsibility). Suspension lessons learnt made their way into the subsequent GS, as did the gearbox. SM 1970-75 The most Citroën of Citroëns? It was certainly the most ambitious, built off the back of the incredible success of the DS, yet so complex…

‘IT LOOKS A bit like a Facellia. That’s shrunk a bit.’ Cue derisive chortling from editor James Elliott. And fair enough. But there’s something distinctly, well, European about this engaging little car. And when you discover what it’s based on, that air of apparent sophistication is perhaps surprising. Because beneath the faintly exotic metalwork sit the underpinnings of the Austin-Healey Sprite, a fabulous little roadster that, to us Brits, offers rather less of the cosmopolitan appeal of this car. That’s not to knock the Sprite, of course: if it hadn’t had so much to offer, there’s no way we’d be discussing it now. And the story of how an Italian manufacturer that had built its success on the Lambretta scooter came to put together a tiny number of coupés around…

ONCE THE HIGHEST-paid stuntman in the world, a NASCAR team patron, a would-be Land Speed Record breaker, and a man for whom there was no such thing as pre-commitment jitters, Hal Needham would come up with an idea and then get things done. Much like the time he decided to become a film director. His output would be derided by highfalutin critics but, if your formative years were the late 1970s and early ’80s and you loved car chases, his movies were the best things ever. Becoming a populist Hollywood polymath was a long way removed from his start in life. Needham was born in Tennessee in March 1931, and his mother left his birth father the moment he arrived. He said in later years that he ‘never had a…

FOR THE SECOND time in as many months, we have witnessed the sale of an original Ruf CTR ‘Yellowbird’ at auction. Leading Broad Arrow’s Porsche-themed Air|Water sale in California, this particular example was chassis 23 of the 29 built, commanding a final $4,680,000 price. That’s some way off the benchmark $5.5m figure attained by the ultra-low-mileage Gooding Christie’s car in Amelia Island, but was still within the $4.5-5.5m estimate. The total sale achieved $15.3m, an almost identical figure to that of last year’s inaugural event, with a 76% sell-through rate. Following the Ruf in the rankings was a 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder that, complete with desirable Weissach pack and Martini Racing livery, sold for $2,590,000. Also in the mix at the top of the sales charts was a Singer-reimagined 911…

IF THERE’S ONE automotive marque that seems to hold universal admiration from all corners of the enthusiast universe, it’s Alfa Romeo. A huge part of that is due to the company’s racing legacy, and RM Sotheby’s has just announced the outstanding Quadrifoglio Collection – which features a number of Autodelta’s greatest hits. Front and centre is a 1968 Alfa Romeo T33/2 ‘Daytona’, one of the ten surviving T33/2s. This is chassis 15, which made its debut at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1968 (taking fifth in class) and went on to compete in the Targa Florio and at the Nürburgring and Spa in period. It was the first T33 to get the larger 2.5-litre V8, still fitted today. This car lived a fascinating life following its primary career, spending…

THE BMW ISETTA really is a prime example of why less can sometimes equal more. Have you ever seen a bubblecar driving around and, even if only for a split second, considered that they are not only incredibly cute and quirky, but actually make a great deal of sense? Small, very cheap to run and full of joy, these tiny vehicles once helped to mobilise entire nations but, while mobility may once have been their primary purpose, today these characterful little vehicles can represent a whole lot of fun. Although later made successful by BMW, the Isetta story actually began in Italy, when motorcycle manufacturer Iso – later the company that would bring us the Grifo and others – decided to develop something that would take advantage of what Renzo…

To take advantage of our special offer and get three issues of Octane for £5, either visit octane-magazine.com/subscribe or call +44 (0)20 3966 6695 Print issues Octane is available at the usual branches of UK shops, such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and independents, as well as WH Smith High Street and Travel. You can order the latest magazine or a back issue, delivered direct to your door, by visiting octane-magazine.com Digital issues Download the Octane Magazine app on Android or Apple and you will be able to enjoy the new issue. Alternatively you can source the digital edition via either Zinio or Readly. Subscribe You can find superb offers on print and digital at octane.co.uk/subscribe. Order before 13 June to start with issue 266. Problems with your subscription? Please email…

Ice Drive Sweden February 2026 Four groups can take part in this Classic Grand Touring offering over a range of dates in February, one of which will experience a new four-night package staying in the ski town of Salen, with the traditional two days of ice driving and a third day with snowmobiles and dog-sledding. classicgt.co.uk Anantara Concorso Roma 16-19 April 2026 The inaugural concours, scheduled for last month but postponed due to the funeral of Pope Francis, will now take place in spring 2026. With UBS as presenting partner, its focal point will be the spectacular Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome hotel (above), with the 50 all-Italian motoring greats displayed at Casina Valadier. Many of those signed up for 2025 have confirmed their participation in 2026. anantaraconcorsoroma.com Nordic Challenge June/July…

Would you buy a classic racer if it wasn’t perfect, maybe missing a few parts, with a body sporting the odd light dent, looking a bit grimy here and there? If your answer is no, well, you just missed the opportunity to buy one of the most original racing Maseratis in history, the 1956 200 S, chassis number 2403. The fact that it has been hidden away from public view for nearly 30 years simply adds to the mystical status of this car. But don’t think of it as some kind of suspect barn-find, or a pile of pieces in some remote outpost. This car spent its days in a dry, dark, protected environment on the outskirts of Turin, garaged with other cars, all owned by the same passionate guy…

When choosing an expedition vehicle for a multi-month trip from the Czech Republic to Mongolia through challenging countries such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, considerations such as capability, reliability and the availability of parts should be taken into account. Usually. Dan Priban carried out his vehicle selection slightly differently: a pair of 40-year-old Ukrainian supposedly amphibious vehicles was his choice. ‘You wouldn’t be sitting here talking to me if we’d done it in a Land Rover or a Unimog,’ Dan shrugs. Unusual expedition vehicles, it turns out, are his forte. He is known in his native Czech Republic for the ten years he spent driving Trabants around the world. ‘We went to many countries, but one we couldn’t do in such useless cars was Mongolia. It was a country we wanted…

FOR ONCE, THIS winter I managed a sensible compromise: warming the engine up every week or so and, on occasions when weather permitted, running a short local route that allowed a burst of speed over a few miles. The result is that the Jaguar has emerged in the recent warmer weather without any problems and, as a result of Jaguar specialist Jamie Gibbon’s sterling work in rebuilding the carbs last autumn, it pulls away and accelerates without the slightest hiccup. The problem of uneven running that dogged the car for so long – and, I suspect, may even have been a reason behind the previous owner parting with it after spending so much cash restoring it – seems at last to have been overcome. I also took advantage of the…

APRIL IN THE eastern Alps. Green grandeur, exquisitely surfaced roads, the prospect of some excellent weather… well, maybe. But also rain at times, as it turns out. While in spring sunshine it’s only natural to go topless everywhere, that becomes more like a challenge when clouds threaten on the horizon. And when the rain hits, well, it’s time to test the 6.8sec capability of the roof to close (or open) at speeds up to 50km/h – or 31mph when you’re away from the Rossfeld Panoramastrasse and stuck in traffic on the main drag through Stoke-on-Trent. Wherever you may happen to be, Aston Martin claims it’s the fastest electric folding convertible roof of any car on sale. Impressive stuff, though certain other figures may be of more interest to some. Outputs…

1. I set up Autofarm in 1973, when the market for repairing and selling older 911s was tiny, built it up into a business turning over a million pounds a year, and sold it to two of my management team in 2015. Three years later, through the RS club in France, I was asked to bring a car to a TAG Heuer event and found a gift package of this Carrera model and watch in my hotel room. I thought at first that a previous guest must have left them behind by mistake! 2. While I was away in France, my wife Sue – then aged 73 – was doing a marathon solo journey up to Falkirk, Scotland, in this horse-drawn wagon to raise money for The Brain Tumour Charity.…

Book of the month Yes, the price of this book is more than some of us would pay for a functioning car – and £750 is just the starting price for entry, applicable to the first 150 copies. If you’re a bit tardy getting your order in, the cost rises to £1000 and then £1500 for the final batch. Should you prefer a more exclusive version, you’ll be looking at a minimum of £1750 for a leather-bound edition, while for one of the ultra-limited ‘chassis editions’ – well, if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. Though, if you are an Aston ‘DP’ project car owner, you probably can. Nevertheless, it’s nice to know that some people are willing to a) create such beautiful objects, and b)…

A FULLY RESTORED vehicle can be a wonderful thing, but there’s a certain allure to a 50-year-old car that remains, by and large, as it left the factory. This turquoise Series 3 E-type is one of those incredible timewarp examples, having covered just 19,800 miles from new. It was picked up by a private collector in 2014 and ‘sympathetically rejuvenated’, which means that mechanicals have been fully worked through ‘to aircraft standards’. Bodily it is said to retain the vast majority of its factory paintwork, with all trim and interior parts original, too. Further cars from the same seller – The Merlin Collection – will be offered in the same sale, where it’s estimated at £80,000-100,000. handh.co.uk 1975 Ford Escort Monte Carlo, Coachwork by Frua Bonhams, Chéserex, Switzerland 29 June,…

JUST IN CASE our celebration of all things F50 still hasn’t convinced you, here’s a particularly special example of its even more legendary predecessor. If you’re up on your F40 chassis numbers then this car offered by DK Engineering is a ‘7-series’ production example. In simple terms, it’s one of the earlier cars – the 74th off the production line to be precise – and is unadorned by adjustable suspension or catalytic converters. Look particularly closely and you’ll see bare aluminium intercoolers and more ‘lightweight’ fit and finish of carbon-Kevlar components. Leaving the factory in January 1988, intended for sale in Switzerland, this F40 was first destined to appear at the Geneva motor show alongside the then-brand-new Mondial T. Ferrari historian Marcel Massini has confirmed the car’s identity, even verifying…

I COME FROM the Alsace region of France with no connection to cars or racing whatsoever. My mother Ingrid was a maths teacher and my father Guy was a gymnastics coach – my early life was spent doing gymnastics [he was multiple regional champion], specialising in floor and the high bar. Then I got a moped and my passion for gymnastics waned as I raced around on that with my friends, but my only goal was to get my driving licence. I still do gymnastics maybe once every ten years; a few years ago I went to the gym with my daughter and was really proud I could still do a double backflip. The next day I really suffered! With the help of my grandmother, I bought my first car,…