Table of contents for July 2018 in Octane

‘ OCTANE IS A NEW magazine for those who appreciate the world’s greatest cars. The publication effectively taps into the zeitgeist of the historic car world: the people, the events, the action, the excitement.’ That was the opening shot I wrote for the Editor’s Note in issue one, July 2003, 15 years ago. A lot can happen in 15 years and it certainly has for Octane. Magazine launches generally have an 80% failure rate and we arrived into the digital storm that is tearing print media to shreds. But we realised that the classic car world was changing fast. A tinkerer’s hobby no more, the international historic car scene was expanding into racing, rallying, concours and collecting, and the standard of restoration and preparation was improving vastly,…

Why build an unrestricted GT car? Why not? Twelve years ago I was 40 and in my racing prime, but I was thinking ‘What the hell am I going to do in ten years’ time? We’ve got this iconic name and we don’t do anything with it.’ First I had to go get the name back. I got introduced to Fusion Capital by a mutual contact who thought we shared a similar vision and it snowballed from there. What’s the next step? Our dream is racing and to build a road car, but we’re not stupid and know we have to earn the right to go to that level. The business needs to be sustainable and everything depends on how the sales go. We plan to go racing in the…

If there were a league table for the most versatile and useful items to keep permanently in the boot of your classic, it would surely be headed by duct tape and cable ties. Used individually or linked into a chain, these usually nylon (nowadays) fasteners can fix just about anything, either temporarily or, as it usually turns out, a bit more long-term. They were invented as Ty-Ray in 1958 by Maurus Logan for electrical company Thomas & Betts with the intention of using them to tidy aircraft wiring harnesses. Their applications soon increased until they attained their current ubiquity. At this very moment, cable ties are holding more than one battery in place on the Octane fleet and securing more than one window catch closed (right). They have saved the…

Valuing a modern that has met its doom is simple; there are many similar cars, the trade values them accurately and what the insurer needs to pay is obvious. It’s not so clear with classic cars. Condition varies, there may be few comparable examples, plus history, sentimental attachment – hell, even the fact that it was the last one made in lime green with purple goatskin upholstery – all skew the value. Besides, what’s important is its worth to you because you weren’t intending to sell. What you need, then, is what every specialist classic-car insurer offers: an agreed-value policy. You decide what your car is worth, you send photographs so the insurer can check that valuation is reasonable, you agree not to exceed a certain mileage during the year,…

A RAFT OF famous names took to the circuit during the eighth Donington Historic Festival over the Bank Holiday weekend. With 19 races from 14 different grids that spanned almost a century of vehicles, BTCC stars past and present did battle, the likes of Andrew Jordan, Adam Morgan and Sam Tordoff mixing it with Steve Soper and Patrick Watts. John Cleland had a highly productive weekend, securing second place in the Super Touring Car Challenge in his original Vauxhall Vectra. Andrew Jordan, sharing an Austin A40 with father Mike as has become traditional, stormed to a win in the HRDC Touring Greats group. Steve Soper, meanwhile, piloted the Bastos Rover Vitesse to third with Chris Ward in the huge Historic Touring Car Challenge, and went two better to win the…

JAY LENO Comedian and talk show legend Jay Leno is one of the most famous entertainers in the USA. He is also a true petrolhead, with a massive collection of cars and bikes (www.jaylenosgarage.com). You know, if you enjoy reading magazines like this one, you’ll probably take pride in thinking you’ve seen just about everything and you know a lot about most car-related subjects. That’s the way I felt until I went to the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. Walk through the door and you realise you don’t know anything. The average car enthusiast can wax poetically about Lamborghinis, Duesenbergs and much else. But whoever heard of a Larmar? A Hoffman? A Rovin? Or a Flipper? If you enjoy automotive history, you can reel off stuff with the best…

ROBERT COUCHER Robert grew up with classic cars, and has owned a Lancia Aurelia B20 GT, Alfa Romeo Giulietta and Porsche 356C. He currently uses his properly sorted 1955 Jaguar XK140 as his daily driver, and is a founding editor of Octane. Both of my Renault voiture experiences ended rather badly. Actually, taking an optimistic view, both experiences ended incredibly well because I’m still alive. The first masterpiece I owned from this great French marque was an R4, which I absolutely detested. It was purchased under duress as an economy car when I was at the University of Cape Town because my thirsty Lancia Aurelia B20 GT, with its 3.0-litre V6, drank juice with more gusto than Oliver Reed on a bender. Painted pale blue with its bum sticking up…

Not all replicas are born equal. It wasn’t so long ago that the lexicon was rather more straightforward: a road car was real or it was a replica. Nowadays, thanks to the determination to differentiate between the various castes of replicas, to elevate some above others or just to hype up a car for sale, we have a Roget-baffling range of descriptions: from recreation and homage, via reimagining and all the way up to the usually lamentably misused ‘tool-room copy. All mere garnish to Jenks’ original categories of resurrection, reconstruction, facsimile et al, of course. Almost as confusing is the social acceptability of replicas – whether scratchbuilt or involving the ritual sacrifice of a less desirable model – even beyond the throngs who refuse to countenance them at all. I…

1898-1903 Type A voiturette A bench seat, 273cc single-cylinder engine and very little else. An instant success that laid the foundation for Renault’s rapid growth. 1905-10 Taxi de la Marne Renault won the contract to build Paris’s taxis; the Type AG won its ‘Marne’ epithet when the fleet was requisitioned for World War One transportation. 1911-28 40CV Variously the French President’s daily driver, the 1925 Monte Carlo Rally winner, and a 24-hour speed record holder, with 7.5- or 9.1-litre engines. 1937-60 Juvaquatre Inspired by the Opel Olympia and conceived to attract new customers to the Renault brand, by being cheaper. Tough and simple. 1947-61 4CV Renault’s Beetle rival, dreamed up during the closing stages of World War Two. Tiny, lightweight, hugely popular; the car that put France on wheels. 1961-94…

STILO ST5 HELMET From £534 www.demon-tweeks.co.uk Designed by drivers, for drivers, the ST5 range of Stilo helmets is packed full of features. Lightweight, with a sleek aerodynamic profile, the ST5F N is available in white exclusively from Demon Tweeks. MOTO-LITA 60TH ANNIVERSARY TROPHY WHEEL £350 www.moto-lita.co.uk In 2018, Moto-Lita celebrates 60 years of craftsmanship. To mark this milestone, 60 trophy wheels have been handcrafted from a Mk3 spoke pattern with sapele wood. Signed by Simon Green himself and topped with a bespoke billet cap, this steering wheel will complement any historic motor racing collection. MHD LIMITED-EDITION WATCHES From £177 www.mhdwatches.com To celebrate its partnership with Shelsley Walsh, MHD has launched three limited-edition straps to partner with its current range and is offering them in its Speed To Spring sale for…

ROBERT COUCHER International editor • 1937 Bentley 4¼ • 1955 Jaguar XK140 • 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC TONY DRON Test driver • 1932 Austin Seven GLEN WADDINGTON Associate editor • 1983 Porsche 944 • 1989 BMW 320i Convertible ANDREW ENGLISH Contributor • 1960 Triumph TR3A • 1965 Aston Martin DB5 SANJAY SEETANAH Advertising director • 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio • 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante MARK DIXON Deputy editor • 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in • 1966 Ford Mustang 289 • 1989 and ’91 Land Rover Discoverys • 1994 Range Rover 4.0 SAMANTHA SNOW Advertising account manager • 1969 Triumph Herald 13/60 Convertible • 1989 Mercedes-Benz 300SL MARK SOMMER Art Director •1969 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1300 Saloon JOHN SIMISTER Contributor • 1934 Singer Nine Le Mans • 1961…

NICE WEATHER on 22 April. Particularly welcome after such a protracted winter, one that had meant the Beemer stayed in the garage for longer than intended, despite it flying through its MoT in March. And 22 April was Drive It Day, so I spent an hour or two washing and polishing before ferrying various children and their various friends to various locations. Roof-down, naturally. They loved it, of course, but it wasn’t exactly a big occasion. Naturally enough, winter hadn’t finished having its way with us (I write this on the last day of April, looking out across a particularly grey and mizzly London. It’s 8ºC outside, and windy too). But a bunch of hardy vintage car owners were about to set off on the tenth-anniversary Flying Scotsman rally, and…

‘Looking forward to unwrapping my Vietnamese-made bumpers for the Aston DB5. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst?’ Andrew English ‘After two years of worrying whether the Series I Landy’s fuel pump would pack up, it finally has. Fortunately, I bought a solid-state Lucas replica ages ago’ Mark Dixon ‘Just exhumed my Austin-Healey 3000 from its winter storage. Where does the oil, air and coolant disappear to? I checked the levels before garaging it!’ Martyn Goddard ‘My plan to gently reintroduce the Jensen to daily-driver and long-haul status rather fell apart this month’ James Elliott ‘A mystery breakdown put my Porsche 944 off the road for three months. I’ll reveal more next time. Hopefully…’ Glen Waddington…

WHEN A CAR enthusiast travels by road, certain direction signs cause a tingle in the spine. Brooklands, Goodwood and Donington, perhaps. They might get the same sensation at Le Mans, Talladega, Daytona or Bathurst – or possibly the tingliest sign of all: Monaco. The Principality of Monaco, incorporating the town of Monte Carlo, is the second-smallest country in the world. But its wealthy core of customers ensures it’s hugely important to motorsport and to the industries of luxury cars and boats. At the turn of the year, motorsport begins with the Monte Carlo Rally. The very thought takes you back to the days when crews in beanie hats set off from starting points all over Europe, to do battle on the snowy cols. The cars on the modern event are…

What made Automobile Year unique as a motoring annual on its 1953 launch was that it gave equal weight to its coverage of standard road cars and to motorsport in all its forms – and it collated work from all the great photographers of the time. Originally published in English, French and German editions, it reverted to just the first two languages after a few years, and is now available only in French. That’s a reflection of its dwindling fortunes as readers have defected to more specialist publications such as Autocourse for their Formula 1 fix, but a set of Automobile Year is still a very valuable reference tool. If you’re lucky, you might pick up a complete set for £500-1000 at an auction, and that would be a bargain…

Wooden trucks, pedal cars, prams and motor vehicles in tinplate, plastic or diecast metal – practically every variety of wheeled toy was made at some point by the giant Lines Brothers’ Tri-ang company. The Minic range dates from 1935 onwards and consisted of more than 70 tinplate models powered by clockwork motors. Subjects such as the London double-deck bus, fire engine, taxi and ‘£100 Ford’ all had such an unmistakably British feel that the American Chrysler Airflow doesn’t quite seem to fit. However, right-hand-drive versions of the car were in fact assembled at Kew, and its streamlined styling made it look so different from other cars of the period that toy makers couldn’t resist it; Dinky Toys also made a model of it at around the same time, in diecast…

PATEK PHILIPPE 5524R-001 IN ROSE GOLD A key event at this year’s Baselworld watch fair was the surprising use of Patek Philippe’s Instagram account. The brand launched both its first self-winding travel watch for ladies and the new 5524 Calatrava Pilot Travel Time on social media – the times are changing even for traditional brands. First released in 2015 in white gold with blue dial, this 42mm edition comes in a warm rose-gold case and brown sunburst dial with black gradation. £36,460 ZENITH PILOT TYPE 20 EXTRA SPECIAL IN Inspired by its own archive, Zenith presented its bronze Heritage Pilot Extra Special Chrono in 2017. This year, it has followed up with a 40mm all-blue iteration with fluted crown. A dusty matt-blue face with SuperLuminova Arabic numerals is matched by…

TEMPTING TEST MULE Bonhams Aston Martin Sale, Reading, UK 2 June This Aston Martin DBS is said to be the test mule for the fuel-injected V8 that replaced Tadek Marek’s straight-six in the William Towns design. With the early 5.0-litre V8 proving unreliable, the first owner replaced it with a 5.3. It also has some factory-born idiosyncrasies such as the intakes on the bonnet and aluminium sills. Estimated at £130,000-180,000. bonhams.com A QUESTION OF SCALE Osenat, Fontainebleau, France 16 June This Bugatti Type 46 Coupé de Ville (est €350,000-400,000), isn’t the most expensive car in the Feidt collection, but it’s our star. It was created in the ’70s, built over a decade by Jean-Pierre Varin and Gabriel Lebret to look like a shrunken 1932 Royale Coupé Napoleon. The result is…

26 May Mathewsons Thornton-le-Dale, UK 26 May Coys, London, UK 26 May Dan Kruse Classics Midland, USA 26-27 May Essex Classic Car Auctions Tolleshunt Knight, UK 27 May Shannons, Sydney, Australia 1-2 June Mecum, Las Vegas, USA 1-3 June Collector Car Productions Mississauga, Canada 2 June Classic Car Auctions Leamington Spa, UK 2 June Bonhams, Reading, UK 3 June Bonhams, Greenwich, USA 5 June H&H, Epsom, UK 5 June Barons, Esher, UK 7 June DVCA, Dorchester, UK 7-10 June Leake Auction, Tulsa, USA 8-9 June Mecum, Denver, USA 8-10 June Russo & Steele Newport Beach, USA 9 June Morris Leslie, Errol, UK 16 June Osenat, Fontainebleau, France 16 June Silver Auctions Coeur d’Alene, USA 16 June Anglia Car Auctions King’s Lynn, UK 16 June Oldtimer Galerie Zurich, Switzerland 20-23 June…

1971 Alfa Romeo GT Junior ¤43,000 This charming restored Junior ‘Scalino’ has a 130bhp 2.0-litre, GTA wheels, white front valance and no bumpers, giving it a real competition car feel. carcave.be 1995 Mercedes-Benz E320 Coupé. £22,895 One of the last W124 Coupés, and beautifully preserved after spending its life on Japan’s salt-free roads. It has just been imported and shows 89,000km. It’s also right-hand drive. neweraimports.com 1959 Moretti 750 Tour du Monde. £24,950 Moretti made cute coupés in the 1950s before switching to Fiat-based cars and this unrestored Tour du Monde looks big fun. Imported in 1994, it is Guernsey registered. leriche.com 1978 Peugeot 504. ¤12,950 Just the thing for our pothole-riddled roads? Supple suspension and legendary ruggedness aside, the 504 just has a classy feel, and this Dutch example…

WHAT TO PAY Searching for V8s, we found a 1932 Deluxe Fordor sedan ‘older restoration’ at $36,000, a $45,500 Deluxe Phaeton, and a completely original five-window for $50,000. A concours 1932 Deluxe roadster was $79,000. We found only one 1933, a running four-door sedan with decent paint and interior for $22,500. A fully restored 1934 cabriolet was $59,500. A second, with a 12-volt conversion, was $65,500 in a private sale. One in original condition, other than a later Mercury flathead and wheels, was $75,000, as was another fully restored in 2017. Proving just how critical body style is, a complete, unrestored and drivable four-door ’34 sedan was only $6500. LOOK OUT FOR… Four- and eight-cylinder cars were identical beyond powerplant and badging, so check the serial number on the chassis…

STEPHEN BAYLEY  ‘I grew up in my father’s Ford V-8 Pilot. My first car was a Cortina with a bench seat. Once I drove a Mustang from LA to San Francisco and back in a day. Ford sponsored my Design Museum. The Ford F-150 is one of the world’s great vehicles. J Mays is an old friend.’ Stephen’s encounter with Mr Retro-Futurism is on PAGES 112 TO 116. HARRY METCALFE ‘Even after taking a Testarossa to the Sahara in 2015, driving a £4100 Rolls-Royce to the Arctic Circle in winter was madness. We encountered blizzards, wandering moose and daytime temperatures in the minus-20s. The best car journeys should always be memorable. This one was unforgettable.’ Arctic Rolls: PAGES 92 TO 102. GLEN WADDINGTON ‘It’s three years since I was invited…

IF YOU HAVE EVER suffered from having a family that doesn’t quite share your enthusiasm for attending motoring events, then Heveningham Hall is the answer. This Concours d’Elegance, which is now in its third year, takes place at the same time as the 5000-acre Georgian estate hosts its long-standing charity country fair, meaning a whole weekend of fun for all the family. The concours has rapidly established itself as a must-see fixture on the motoring calendar and is fast gaining a reputation for the outstanding pedigree of the 50 cars exhibited each year on dramatic grass terraces designed by renowned landscape architect Kim Wilkie. The cars are judged in three categories – best pre-war, post-war and supercar – and last year the judges (Ian Callum, J Mays and Max Hunt)…

DEREK BELL Derek took up racing in 1964 in a Lotus 7, won two World Sportscar Championships (1985 and 1986), the 24 Hours of Daytona three times (in 1986, ’87 and ’89), and Le Mans five times (in 1975, ’81, ’82, ’86 and ’87). Just to give you fair warning, this column contains a blatant plug. By the time you read this, copies of my new book Derek Bell: All My Porsche Races will be hitting the shelves. Hopefully, they won’t stay there. Written in conjunction with Octane regular Richard Heseltine, it details the many races I contested aboard a Porsche during my career as a professional wheelman. By my reckoning, I started 200 between 1971 and 2000, not including subsequent outings in Historics. That’s in everything from a 917…

1. I came to London in the ’60s, got a job in insurance and immersed myself in the folk scene. I also got into cars, my first being an Austin 10 and then an MGA. It was a magical time for an 18-year-old. 2. My grandfather was killed in November 1917 at Cambrai. He and the other fallen were my inspiration for a parade on the centenary of Britain entering the war on 4 August. We had 40 Edwardians, 50 Chelsea Pensioners, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, plus 100 ministers and other dignitaries, but the icing on the cake was the Foreign Office giving me the use of Lancaster House, which is unheard of. I will never do anything more important. 3. My wife Valerie painted this picture of…

JESSE CROSSE Contributor • 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 • 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth DAVID BURGESS-WISE Contributor • 1903 De Dion-Bouton • 1911 Pilain 16/20 • 1926 Delage DISS MARTYN GODDARD Photographer • 1963 Triumph TR6SS Trophy • 1965 Austin-Healey 3000 MkIII DAVE KINNEY Markets expert • 2005 Ferrari 612 Scaglietti DELWYN MALLETT Contributor • 1936 Cord 810 Beverly • 1946 Tatra T87 • 1950 Ford Club Coupe • 1952 Porsche 356 • 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL • 1957 Porsche Speedster • 1957 Fiat Abarth Sperimentale • 1963 Abarth-Simca • 1963 Tatra T603 SARAH BRADLEY Contributor • 1929 Ford Model A hot rod • 1952 Studebaker Champion • 1956 Chevrolet 3100 pick-up • 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner • Various motorbikes MASSIMO DELBÒ Contributor • 1967 Mercedes-Benz 230 • 1972 Fiat 500L…

‘IF ANYONE fancies a ride, I have a spare seat next weekend,’ emailed Bob Davy. Luckily for me, I was free, willing and very inexperienced in vintage Chinese aircraft – because Bob was offering a ride in his mid-60s 300bhp Nanchang CJ6A, once used by the People’s Liberation Army air force for training and border patrols. This kind offer came about after Bob’s feature on flying a P51 Mustang in last month’s Octane. Early on Sunday morning, I said goodbye to my family – hopefully, not for the last time – and headed over to White Waltham airfield, near Maidenhead in Berkshire. Over a can of Coca-Cola, which is supposed to stop you feeing sick mid-air, Bob and technician Mark gave me a briefing and tried to ease my nerves…

THIS YEAR MARKS the 55th birthday of the 911, brainchild of Ferdinand Alexander ‘Butzi’ Porsche, who passed away in 2012. The grandson of the car company’s founder, Ferdinand, or ‘FA’ as he was affectionately known by his colleagues, was arguably the first car designer to apply Bauhaus philosophy to automotive design, extolling the virtues of form that followed function. So radical was his thinking that the architecture of the 911 – sleek and graceful in silhouette but methodically purpose-built – remains relatively unchanged to this day. A true nonconformist, FA Porsche believed in the principles of ‘pure form’, design that dismissed decoration in favour of ergonomics. This modernist approach wasn’t limited to the bodywork of roadsters – like the Bauhaus artists before him, FA believed that design should reflect a…

TUDOR 1926 Tudor’s 1926 is not a reissue, but a new line of watches that are distinctly retro-looking. The pattern on the dial and jubilee-style bracelet add to the old-school appeal of these unisex timepieces, which come in a host of sizes (26, 36, 38 and 41mm) and dial colours: black, silvered, opaline and diamond set. You can bet there’ll be more, too, not least because the cost of this collection is very attractive, starting at £1250. Tudor is targeting millennials with these entry-level watches, equipped with ETA workhorse movements like many of the watches from Tudor’s popular Black Bay line. FROM £1250 VACHERON CONSTANTIN FIFTYSIX COLLECTION The FiftySix’s design is drawn from the Vacheron vintage reference 6073 from 1956. That timepiece was cutting-edge, with a water-resistant case and one…

LE FREAK ISN’T so much ‘chic’ as curiously futuristic. Ulysse Nardin’s avant-garde timepiece, first released in 2001, is a pioneering example of high-tech horology. It flipped the mechanics of the watch inside out by doing away with the hands and the crown, and instead using the movement – a flying tourbillon – to display time. As this complex movement rotates on its own axis, it actually displays the time as it ‘makes’ it, hence the Freak name. The watchmaker recently extended this family of timepieces with a quartet of super-light titanium models called the Freak Out collection. The traditional anchor and anchor wheel have been replaced with two silicon impulse wheels at the centre of the dial, ensuring force is always released in the direction of the balance rotation and…

£1,093,000 ($1,540,000) 1962 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster RM Sotheby’s, Fort Lauderdale, USA. 6-7 April £847,000 ($1,193,500) 1962 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster RM Sotheby’s, Fort Lauderdale, USA. 6-7 April £540,500 ($770,000) 2012 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Edition Barrett-Jackson, Palm Beach, USA. 12-15 April £300,000 ($420,000) 1938 Mercedes-Benz 320 Cabriolet Worldwide Auctioneers, Arlington, USA. 21 April £298,500 ($418,000) 1971 Plymouth Hemi ’Cuda Worldwide Auctioneers, Arlington, USA. 21 April £265,500 ($374,000) 1932 Packard Twin Six Individual Custom Sport Phaeton RM Sotheby’s, Fort Lauderdale, USA. 6-7 April £263,500 ($368,500) 2006 Ford GT Mecum, Houston, USA 5-7 April £261,500 ($368,500) 1990 Lamborghini LM002 LM/American RM Sotheby’s, Fort Lauderdale, USA. 6-7 April £259,500 ($365,750) 1949 Bentley B Special Speed 8 by Racing Green RM Sotheby’s, Fort Lauderdale, USA. 6-7 April £251,500 ($352,000) 1965 Shelby GT350 Worldwide Auctioneers, Arlington, USA.…

BRABUS FOUNDER and CEO Prof Bodo Buschmann died at the end of April after a short illness. He founded the tuning company in a workshop behind his parents’ Bottrop car dealership in 1977, when he was just 22 and still studying law and business management, and from day one focused on ‘refining’ Mercedes-Benz. The business soon outgrew the workshop and moved to its current site while expanding well beyond its Ruhr roots to become globally respected. With the motto ‘Never work for money – work for passion’, he was renowned for putting in the longest hours of anyone at the company and pursuing his dreams with extremes such as the monster Brabus 900 Rocket, with its 370km/h top speed.…

22 July 1894 was a seminal day in the history of the motor car, when French newspaper Le Petit Journal staged the world’s first motor ‘race’: the Competition for Horseless Carriages. It wasn’t officially billed as a race, but rather ‘an exhibition for the capabilities of the motor car, testing reliability, design and practicality’. The ‘race’ was run from Paris and ran north-westward along the Seine valley, ending 79 miles away in the Normandy city of Rouen. Paris-based Le Petit Journal had a reputation for boosting sales through unusual promotions – long-distance bicycle racing, such as the 700-mile Paris to Brest-and-back-again race in 1891 and 1892, plus a road walking race – so, with the advent of motorised vehicles, it saw an opportunity in a Competition for Horseless Carriages. A…

STEPHEN BAYLEY SB is the individual for whom the term ‘design guru’ could have been coined. He was the founding director of London’s Design Museum and his best-selling books include Sex, Drink and Fast Cars and Taste: the Secret Meaning of Things. ‘Ford Stops Making Cars’ was not precisely the headline on the April press release, but damn near. The descendants of Henry Ford, who saw personal mobility as an inalienable right, no longer saw the point of making cars. The last US Ford Focus is about to be built and Fiesta production ends in a year. The Crown Vic creaked into the sunset six years ago. Next? Coca-Cola stops making carbonated obesity products? Uncertain times indeed. The following anecdote demonstrates the frustrations of an advisor to the auto industry.…

This elegant, classically styled men’s timepiece features a quartz movement inside a stainless steel 42mm case, and a stunning blue galvanic dial with appliqué indexes and date window, protected by a sapphire crystal. It is water resistant to 5atm and supplied on a black calf leather strap with an alligator grain finish. Raymond Weil is one of a handful of Swiss watchmakers that remain in family hands. The Toccata name reflects the Weil family’s interest in music, which has led to many of the watch collections bearing musically themed names. RAYMOND-WEIL.COM…

ANYONE WHO actually attended the 1961 and 1962 RAC Tourist Trophy races at Goodwood will probably remember them for two things. The first is that the 1961 race saw Stirling Moss score his seventh and last TT win, in the Rob Walker-liveried Ferrari 250 GT Short Wheelbase Berlinetta, while in 1962 it was a new-generation Ferrari 250 GTO that won outright – that time in UDT Laystall’s ‘British Grazing Green’ livery, and driven by Innes Ireland. The second is that in both years British hopes of defending the flag against those darned Italian Ferraris were represented by the privately entered but quasi-works Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato Coupés belonging to Essex poultry entrepreneur John Ogier, and run under his Essex Racing Stable banner. His twin-sister cars of 1961 were road…

BEING TAUGHT how to drive a Lotus very quickly on Lotus’s test track by a Lotus Formula 1 driver. As educational opportunities go, it’s a pretty special one. The Lotus Driving Academy is a series of increasingly challenging driving courses on the Lotus test track behind the factory in Hethel, Norfolk. If you like, you can do almost the whole lot in a weekend and gain your ‘Lotus Licence’ – ideal preparation for a full-on racing course. Lotus’s track is not a racetrack, although it is built to FIA standards of safety. It used to be part of an airfield, and while its surface of concrete and tarmacadam was entertaining to drive on, it was getting a bit tired. So Dave Minter, one of the key engineers of the original…

I SIGNED OFF last month’s Octane Cars with the hope that all the road salt remaining from our recent (and elongated) winter would have disappeared. But who could have guessed that a fortnight later we’d be basking in temperatures in the mid-20s Celsius? I try not to be paranoid about using old cars in bad weather but, until three years ago, the Mustang had lived all its life in California, so it has absolutely zilch in the way of rust protection – unless you count the flaking underseal in the wheelarches, which is now a perfect water trap. Therefore, the arrival of a dry spell was perfectly timed, because it meant I could give the ’Stang a worry-free shakedown run on a road trip to the rock ’n’ roll destination…

CRUISING UP THE M40 motorway the other day in my XK, I was passed by a grey Jaguar Mk2 moving fast, followed by a lovely metallic blue E-type. So I clipped in behind and we motored at a good pace towards Oxford, before pulling off at the motorway services to refuel. The E-type Jaguar driver shouted over: ‘Your XK is running well!’ I responded that his E-type was also looking nicely sorted. ‘Yes, it’s an Eagle, number 11,’ he said as he came over. ‘I’m Salman, by the way,’ he added, proffering his hand. It took me a second to realise who he was – Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Crown Prince of Bahrain and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Bahrain Defence Force. I stuttered something out…

THE IMPETUOUS PART of me couldn’t wait to get stuck in and start undoing the modifications made to the Cossie since I’d run it as a long-termer on Performance Car magazine, way back in 1986-87. I’m currently halfway through a 1968 Mustang restoration, however, so the grown-up side was urging ‘do it later’. You can guess which alter-ego won. The engine modifications are part of D990’s history and began with the second owner, Brodie Brittain Racing, in late 1987. It’s what Sierra Cosworths were designed for, in a way, but it’s not what I want. My mission is to restore the characteristics engineered into the Sierra by Ford Special Vehicle Engineering in the 1980s. What helped that along was an annoying top-end rattle. The Ford Cosworth YBB is known to…

Enzo Ferrari LUCA DAL MONTE, David Bull, £35, ISBN 978 1 935007 28 9 What can there be left to say about Enzo Ferrari? An awful lot, it turns out. Luca Dal Monte’s 954-page biography is the product of more than a decade of research and, while it does not reveal a different Enzo, it paints a clearer picture of a complicated man than any book before it. Dal Monte’s determination to record the details – all of them – makes this a major achievement: a full account of a life made up, like all lives, not of several major events but of a million tiny moments. CB Buying & Maintaining A Modern Traditional Morgan DAVID WELLINGS, Crowood, £25, ISBN 978 1 78500 377 6 No need to be confused…

PRECIOUS REVIVAL There has been a resurgence of the pocket watch this year, with brands such as IWC and Montblanc presenting contemporary updates. You could also step back in time with a 50mm Cartier pocket watch with yellow gold Roman chapter ring and a manual wound movement housed in a precious Lapis Lazuli case, dating back to the 1970s. This particular example is available for £8428.55 at 1stdibs. TANGERINE DREAM Coral dials are exceedingly rare, so an 18k yellow-gold 35.5mm Rolex Day-Date with bright orange dial is the find of a lifetime. Last winter, one sold at Phillips for CHF68,750. A similar model is known to collectors as a Rolex ‘Gulda’, acquiring the moniker after eccentric Austrian pianist and composer Friederich Gulda, who often wore his sunshine-bright gold Day-Date on…

WITH NEW CEO Georges Kern at the helm of Breitling, things are changing for the Swiss house. The new boss, who previously held the top job at IWC, has pledged to make more of the brand’s rich ties with aviation, focusing on pilot watches and on-board instruments from the 1930s and ’40s. This mighty 50mm ‘Super 8’ watch, with notched bidirectional and rotating bezel, is a nod to one such vintage piece that would originally have been strapped to the thighs of WW2 bomber pilots. Unusually, the prominent screw-locked crown is positioned on the left side of the case – it was designed this way to allow for easy adjustment during a flight. While the Super 8 is not a chronograph, a red triangular pointer on the inside flange of…

TAG HEUER MONACO BAMFORD George Bamford has been customising luxury watches in his own unique rock ’n’ roll style since 2003 – creating special editions for clients who want a more personalised take on classic models. On the Bamford website, you can ‘build your own’ version by adding coloured minute-markers, hands, and even dial coatings. Last year, Bamford was officially welcomed into the LVMH fold: TAG Heuer’s CEO, Jean-Claude Biver, signed him up as the marque’s official customisation partner. The fruit of this union is this black Monaco with featherweight carbon case and aqua-blue highlights, Bamford’s signature colour. £6600 GYROGRAFF DRIVE 48MM The dials on three new GyroGraffs suggest that the wearer is ‘driving time’ by featuring two hands on a steering wheel, so it’s like looking into an arty,…

‘The success to me of the furniture,’ says Thomas Molesworth expert Terry Winchell, ‘is that it can go anywhere.’ He has presumably never visited flat-pack suburbia, where Molesworth’s cowboy-kitsch creations would stick out like a new gunslinger in the saloon. In its proper place, though, which is to say the American West, it has an undeniable charm. Back in the 1930s and ’40s, Molesworth was commissioned to kit out hotels and private homes in his signature style. Imagine an Old-West-themed version of a Tiki bar and you’re pretty much there. It was good stuff, though – all made by hand, and designed with the flair of a man who was forced to abandon his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. And it is seriously collectable, as evidenced by the…