Sommaire pour October 2024 de Octane

SO MUCH WATER has passed under the bridge that people tend to forget how adept Ferrari was at building not only big-engined GTs, racing cars and battle-hardened supercars but also joyously driver-friendly, beautifully balanced junior supercars. To be honest, I have always struggled with that moniker but you really need something that bridges the linguistic gap between sports car and supercar as well as embodying those cars that combine the characteristics of both without quite being either. And these Ferraris really fit the bill. The original Ferrari 308 could be launched to 60mph in 6.7sec and topped out at 157mph, so it was no slouch even by today’s standards, but at the same time a BMW 2002 Turbo could challenge it in the sprint. And the 308’s top speed, though it…

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Scotland has an extremely rich history of generating successful racing and rally drivers – Stewart, McRae, Coulthard, Franchitti, McNish, Clark, to name just a few. But when it comes to Scottish racing teams there’s one name that stands out: Ecurie Ecosse. Translated from French, it means ‘Scotland stable’, and while this team put Scotland on the racing map when it won Le Mans in 1956 and 1957 with a Jaguar D-type, the team now focuses on supporting young Scottish drivers. We’re at Goodwood today, joined by not just one, but two Scottish racing drivers. We suspect you are familiar with Gregor Fisken – as well as being the founder of Fiskens Fine Historic Automobiles in London, he happens to be rather a handy driver himself, having raced at Le Mans…

THE AUTOMOBILE CLUB of Great Britain was formed in 1897 as a private social club. The Prince of Wales at the time was a petrolhead and, shortly after, decreed that it should become the ‘Royal Automobile Club’. The organisation grew rapidly and moved to its grand location at 89 Pall Mall in 1911, which was followed by the purchase of Woodcote Park in Epsom in 1913, a palatial estate that boasted 350 acres and two 18-hole golf courses. The idea was to encourage motorists to drive to the country club and enjoy some light recreation. In 1999, the decision of the members of the Royal Automobile Club to sell the roadside assistance arm could have sent it spiralling into ‘golf club’ oblivion. Fortunately, a stalwart team led by Ray Wiltshire…

There’s just something special about the raspy blat of an old Alfa twin-cam on cold start. Nothing else has quite that same aural quality, those first hesitant staccato coughs followed by a rising resonant flatulence as the engine catches and tastes air and fuel sucked in from straight carburettors and pushed out through four curving fingers of pipes. Los Angeles-area car collector Bruce Milner beckons me into a leather seat the colour of Lindt chocolate and we snarl away, pretty much as any vintage four-banging Alfa would snarl away but for the rakish red body and the chrome Z on the side. Why does Alfa Romeo live so large in the beating hearts of enthusiasts? Surely one reason is because none of the other Italian houses have such a deep…

MORGAN-SHAPED NEWS first. After replacing a sticking steering damper (I’d thoroughly recommend this upgrade) and improving the dreadful clutch mechanism, so it now shouldn’t chew through cables every few thousand miles, the 4/4 has at last been doing great service. A 150-mile trip on the back-roads of Norfolk to the coast was wonderful. Plus, I managed to stuff my enormous cricket bag in the passenger footwell for trips to last weekend’s two matches. The Morgan performed perfectly, unlike me with the bat. Definitely room for improvement there. I’m glad there’s been such progress with the Morgan as I haven’t played with the Beetle for two whole years. After a groundup restoration by myself and the Beetle’s co-owner and my close friend, Damon, we’d finally got the very not-original Subaru engine…

IT WASN’T SO much a question as a statement of fact. It was the summer of 2002, a period when the sun was setting on Jem Marsh’s tenure at the helm of the marque he co-founded, and a brief test of the new Marcos TS250 Marcasite had proved enjoyable. On our return to the factory (a Nissen hut) in Westbury, Bradford-on-Avon, the lanky pensioner greeted our arrival with: ‘I trust nothing fell off.’ He then scuttled off to deal with something more important. Marsh often had an adversarial relationship with the media and didn’t exactly mask his distrust. They don’t make motor moguls like Marsh anymore. To be honest, they didn’t make many like him way back when, either. He was defiantly self-directed and this was reflected in the cars…

RM SOTHEBY’S partnered with the inaugural Concours of Elegance Germany for a new auction on the lakeshore of Tegernsee at the end of July, which saw total sales of €15,921,925. One of the headline lots – a 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder – was withdrawn ahead of the sale, leaving a 2010 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss as top-seller at €3,436,250. Taking the second spot in the rankings was a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/6C by Scaglietti, which sold for €2,536,250. Something a little different, perhaps playing to the strength of the German location, was the sale of the first build slot for the upcoming HWA EVO – a Mercedes 190E restomod that pays homage to the 2.5-16 Evo 2 – at €1,310,000. The red, manual (originally a green automatic) 1965 Aston…

HAMPTON COURT PALACE has proven to be a great long-term location for the Concours of Elegance, and for the past four years also for Gooding & Company’s London Auction. 2024’s auction catalogue is headlined by this selection of Bugattis from the Jack Braam Ruben Collection, some of which featured in Octane 238. This Maastricht-based collection is headlined by the 1935 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante – one of the earliest examples known to exist. Chassis 57252 was built in November 1934 as a first series Grand Raid chassis. While intended initially to feature the roadster coachwork, it left the factory as the third ever Atalante coupé. It’s been restored recently in its original two-tone smoke and sage green colour scheme by Classic Skills of Lommin and is estimated to sell for…

DESIGNED AS a high-performance version of the already impressive 6½ Litre, the Speed Six became the peak of Bentley’s pre-war motorsport arsenal, going on to win at Le Mans in 1929 and 1930. This success in the hands of ‘Bentley Boys’ Woolf Barnato, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin and Glen Kidston may have been the Speed Six’s greatest achievement, but the chassis had a dual purpose. The uprated 180bhp engine was developed because many Bentley customers were fitting large, heavy and luxurious bodies, requiring a more suitable platform than that offered by the previous 147bhp 6½ Litre. Of the many Le Mans replicas that now exist, most were built on the underpinnings of these heavy saloon and limousine-bodied cars. That makes this example offered by Charles Prince Classic Cars special for…

LOOKING BACK AT the history of the SUV, deciding what actually came first can be a bit of a minefield. Cars such as the International Scout, Jeep Wagoneer and, of course, the original Range Rover all played their part in forging the market for the do-it-all vehicles we know and love (or hate) today, but many argue that the XJ-generation Jeep Cherokee was actually the first Sport Utility Vehicle as we know it. Right-hand-drive sales started in 1993, so UK readers would be forgiven for assuming the Cherokee is a 1990s car. It was actually launched in 1984 in the USA and mainland Europe. Co-developed by AMC – Jeep’s parent company at the time – and Renault, this was the off-road manufacturer’s first all-new car since the Wagoneer was launched…

28-31 August Salon Privé Blenheim Palace is again the venue for one of the UK’s premier concours. We’re looking forward to the ‘Legendary Liveries’ class. salonpriveconcours.com 30 August – 1 September The Concours of Elegance Sixty of the world’s finest cars gather at Hampton Court Palace to contest the main concours, which will again be supported by the ladies-only Levitt Concours. concoursofelegance.co.uk 30 August – 1 September Classic-Gala Schwetzingen Special displays at this concours in Schwetzingen, Germany, will include a tribute to Chrysler. concours-delegance.de 30 August – 1 September Dix Mille Tours Circuit Paul Ricard hosts a race meet featuring all nine of the series organised by Peter Auto. peterauto.fr 30 August – 2 September Lime Rock Historic Festival The racing at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut is followed by…

NOMINATIONS FOR THE 2024 International Historic Motoring Awards are open! You can head across to the revamped website right now at historicmotoringawards.co.uk and make sure your favourites (or you!) are considered for a huge range of categories covering the entire classic car world. The much-coveted International Historic Motoring Awards are the most prestigious accolades in the classic car hobby and industry globally and, since they were started in 2011, have become a benchmark for quality. For 2024 the awards’ presenting partner is Lockton, the world’s largest independent insurance brokerage. The process is simple: anyone can nominate for the categories (see right), from which a jury will create a shortlist that will then be considered and adjudicated upon by a panel of well-known judges handpicked for their expertise in those areas.…

Letter of the month AS AN INDUSTRIAL designer I can only say ‘Wow!’ What an incredibly elegant grand tourer the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Riva ‘Serenissima’ Berlinetta featured in Octane 254 is. My first scan of the pictures jogged a memory: I’ve seen that engine before! I did some digging and found some photos that proved the text is correct, that this engine was indeed used in motor torpedo boats. A couple of years ago we visited the Cinque Terre in Italy and went to the maritime museum at La Spezia, ‘Arsenale Militare Marittimo della Spezia’. La Spezia has a natural protected harbour and is the location of one of Italy’s naval bases; there is an adjacent marina for any Octane readers who may be sailors. The museum is…

FERRARI 360 APPRECIATION LEADS ITS PEERS PERCENTAGE GROWTH OF AVERAGE HAGERTY PRICE GUIDE VA L UE S. SEPTEMBER 2021 IS 100% The mid-engined V8 supercar has become a large part of Ferrari’s brand identity, but it hasn’t always been that way. Following the Dino, and moving away from a long line of front-engined V12 sports cars and GTs, the 308 series deftly used this layout to usher the prancing pony into the ’80s, and the subsequent F355 and 360 carried the theme across the millennium. Production numbers were high enough to put these models onto streets around the world, but still low enough to impart exclusivity – an equation Ferrari has continued to evolve ever since. As a result, the mid-mounted V8 has turned out to be one of the…

YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD about Audrain. You might have been to its prestigious Motor Week and Concours on the US East Coast, seen its sponsorship of the Goodwood Members’ Meeting or maybe even visited its museum in Newport, Rhode Island. But behind the scenes, there’s so much more. And so many cars! It’s the kind of set-up that needs a tour guide, and who better for that than Audrain CEO Donald Osborne: classic car valuer, writer, presenter and, of course, expert sidekick on Jay Leno’s Garage. We arrive at the museum outside of opening hours, Donald is on his way, and director and curator David de Muzio is on hand to give us a whistlestop history lesson of the museum. It’s housed in a stunning building on one of the main…

‘Early Range Rover history is hand-written but has the advantage of Roger Crathorne being around to unravel it’ Every cloud has a silver lining. Imagine signing up to JLR Classic’s Reborn programme and then suffering the disappointment of being told that your vehicle wasn’t going to happen thanks to the programme winding down during Covid. Then, before you have finished crying over your spilt tilt, they instead offer you a historically important Range Rover Velar, chassis number four no less. JLR already had the car and would restore it to as-new condition, no easy task with these pre-production prototypes on which everything is slightly different. Oh, and the car you were getting also had an experimental V8 in it. This is Octane, so you don’t need to be told which…

I HAVE BEEN cursing the BMW’s hard ride lately. Sure, I could put it down to poor road surfaces, but I was mulling it over (while avoiding some potholes) and figured that the cracked strut mount as well as a split top mount on the other side were likely symptoms of a deeper problem, so fixing the top mount alone wasn’t really the answer. Cue phone calls to a couple of garages for quotes but, without them taking the car apart, it was impossible to know how deep the issue went – and I was reluctant to open a ‘just fix it’ account, in case it turned out to be a bigger issue. My suspicion was that the dampers had given up after 20 years – and even if they…

I DIDN’T MAKE it to Goodwood Festival of Speed this year, though soon after I motored quietly down to Goodwood Circuit for the Veloce Track Day, organised by Peter Neumark and Chris Bucknall of V Group. No crowds and the track entirely to ourselves. School holidays, too, so no traffic, lovely sunshine and my Jaguar cantering down the near-deserted A286 in a suitably relaxed manner. It really feels totally at home in the beautiful South Downs. Arriving at the circuit I was directed to park in the inner paddock and then wandered into the Jackie Stewart Suite, where the track-day participants were gathering for breakfast and a quick briefing. This superb track-day was first run in 2017 to raise money for three charities: Hope For Tomorrow, The Halow Project and…

AS MID-20TH CENTURY Modernist houses go, the so-called Vandamm House, built above the Mount Rushmore National Monument, ranks as one of the most recognised, spectacular and admired. However, much to the disappointment of architecture fans, some of whom tried to find it, it doesn’t exist outside the celluloid of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 masterpiece North by Northwest. Even then, it’s on screen for a mere 14 minutes, with wide shots of the magnificent cliff-top cantilevered exterior lasting only a matter of seconds. It was conceived as a paean to 1950s consumerism and luxury as Hitchcock wanted an ultra-modern contemporary home for one of the movie’s key scenes. In it, the debonair Madison Avenue ad-man hero Cary Grant attempts to rescue the equally sophisticated and elegant undercover FBI agent Eva Marie Saint…

The True Story of the Bugatti EB110 DARIO TRUCCO translated into English by Angela Spence, Minerva, £50, ISBN 978 8 833245 86 7 WHEN A NEW book arrives for review with a covering letter personally signed by Chiara Stanzani, daughter of the late, great engineer Paolo Stanzani – technical director of Lamborghini in its glory years of 1968-75 – you sit up and take notice. In fact, Chiara has been a driving force behind this radical book, which unashamedly sets out to, as she puts it, ‘reconstruct’ the story of her father’s involvement with the EB110 project and to correct what she sees as misinformation from official sources. It opens with a bang, in the form of a letter written by Marcello Gandini – yes, that Gandini – to Bugatti’s…

IT’S ALWAYS amazing what turns up in people’s garages, but this really is a very special car. Bought in 1964 by the late Alfa historian and archivist Peter Marshall, this 1952 Alfa Romeo 1900 C Sprint Coupé by Touring remained in his possession until his recent passing. Peter is said to have covered a few thousand miles in the car during the late 1960s, before restoring it – and changing the colour from black to the current green – and then keeping it only for occasional use. Clearly it’s now in need of some restoration, because it’s thought to have been stored since around 2007. It’s estimated to sell for £60,000-70,000. doreandrees.com…

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 Buying your issue of Octane – new and old PRINT ISSUE 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 September 2024 to start…

Rallye de Grèce 26 October – 1 November A week of sublime driving in Crete, with stunning scenery and incredible sea views. The rally is open to post-1950 cars with a special GT Rally class for modern sports cars. rallystory.com The Cape 1000 16-20 March 2025 Dubbed South Africa’s most beautiful drive, this 65-car event could have closed its books some time back, but the organisers have held some places back specifically for international entries. The rally covers 1000 miles over four days and five nights of luxury. It starts in Cape Town and takes in Killarney circuit, Bain’s Kloof Pass, Boland Winelands and a host of other attractions all visited via carefully selected, stunning driving roads.  cape1000.com Flying Scotsman 4-6 April 2025 The next running of the popular Scottish…

THE ANNUAL Veloce charity track day at Goodwood was festooned with star drivers and cars – including Derek Bell, Damon Hill, Richard Attwood and Rowan Atkinson – and took the total raised since 2017 to over £1m. The concept is that superstar drivers treat paying customers to three laps of the circuit in priceless cars, each passenger getting at least three rides in different cars with different drivers, as well as being well-fed and watered. Their fees go straight to charity, the principal beneficiaries being Hope for Tomorrow and Halow Project. The event is masterminded by Peter Neumark and V Management’s Chris Bucknall and this year there were 80 guests and 24 cars, ranging from pre-war Alfa Monza and Bentley to Jaguar C-type and XKSS or Ford GT40 MkIII and…

Out of sight, the sound comes to us on the breeze, a tight, urgent bark rising and rising, passing the reach of a normal engine and seeming to escalate, to keen ever harder until the sound is a dizzying wail. A pause… and then the cry resumes, lower in pitch but climbing just as urgently again, building to the same, thrilling crescendo. To we enthusiasts standing in a car park on a Berkshire hilltop, it’s music, a symphony created by eight cylinders in vee and a flat-plane crank. Perhaps Enzo Ferrari didn’t envisage the heights that the V8 would reach. As with the V6 that preceded it, he deemed the V8 unworthy of the Ferrari badge initially. The first car to use it, the square-edged 308 GT4, was a Dino.…

‘There might be flames, you should stand back!’smiles Timo Witt, head of the historical car collection at Audi. We’re at a secret location, a few miles from the company HQ at Ingolstadt, to witness some of the earliest movements of the Auto Union Type 52. The reason for our covert operations? This car was conceptualised in the 1930s though not built. Until now. Octane is here as part of a shakedown; as you read this, you may have seen racing legend Hans-Joachim Stuck drive the car up the hill at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it made its public debut. As I stand, now a few metres from those paired, broad, ovoid, bright-finished and potentially lethal tubes, Herr Stuck has just arrived and will shortly drive the car…

Over the last couple of years, it seemed you could hardly pick up a car magazine without seeing some reference to the Aston Martin Bulldog. It looked like what it was – an outlandish, impossibly wild concept hypercar from another age – and yet on 6 June 2023 it finally realised the 200mph top speed that had been envisioned for it more than 40 years ago. Bulldog’s owner is US collector and philanthropist Phillip Sarofim. Working closely with Richard Gauntlett, who is the son of former Aston Martin company owner Victor Gauntlett and who had spent thousands of hours researching the car and talking with former employees at the Newport Pagnell works, he negotiated its purchase after years of comparative neglect. Highly respected Shropshire restoration company CMC was commissioned to…

‘WHAT REALLY INTERESTS me is the positivity and energy, and the encouragement for new things,’ says Peter Wallman of RM Sotheby’s of the Middle East. It is an area of the world where everything is new – from empty deserts to atmosphere-scraping skylines – and where almost anything is perceived as possible, achievable and attainable. All the more remarkable is its rise to prominence in only a few decades. The region has long had a love of supercars and SUVs, but the classic car movement is on the rise there, too. This passion is being fed by events, auctions and clubs catering not only to those who hail from the Middle East, but the growing number of ex-pats drawn by favourable tax rates, low crime and sunny weather. ‘Very high-profile…

THE CARD READ ‘Aston Martin DB6 Mk1’ and I was delighted. There were similarly broad smiles all round as people opened their envelopes and discovered what they would be driving for the day, ranging from a Lynx Eventer to Gullwing Merc and Miura. A couple of minutes of instruction from an owner or an expert and off they went. ‘Have you driven a car like this before?’ I heard one owner ask a pair in an mint E-type. When they answered no, he didn’t flinch – more of a man than I’ll ever be. Welcome to the unique Hope Classic Rally. The concept is simple: individuals and organisations (I spotted a good few cars and a crew from Jaguar Classic) loan cars for the day to paying participants and guests,…

WHAT COMES to mind when someone says ‘Apple Watch’? Something with silicon insides that goes bleep to tell you HR just emailed? That’s just soooo square, man – this is an Apple Watch. And not only does it pre-date the naggy, bleepy, disposable wrist computers by nearly 50 years, this one never needs a software update, is easily repaired (and will be as long as there are watchmakers) and tells one heck of a story that links Apple, The Beatles, the Clerkenwell watch industry, Swatch and a ’60s socialite. It doesn’t get much cooler. If you spent any time in Clerkenwell before it turned into Posh Flats Central, you’ll have spotted the watch shops. Even as recently as 2002 you could wander down the Charterhouse Square end of Clerkenwell Road…

Lego Technic McLaren P1 Lego’s latest 1:8-scale model car is its most complex yet, with features including a working seven-speed gearbox operated by tiny paddles, a V8 engine with moving pistons, an adjustable rear wing, and spring-loaded butterfly doors. The combined rear axle, gearbox and engine assembly in particular looks a proper challenge to put together; for the sake of your sanity you’ll want to follow the two (!) thick instruction books carefully to avoid ending up with a mystery, leftover gear wheel… £389.99. lego.com Oakley Pitchman R Marc Márquez sunglasses The great Marc Márquez hasn’t had much to smile about in recent seasons – his pursuit of a seventh MotoGP crown has been frustrating and frequently very painful – but he must be pleased with these new sunglasses, made…

Long-time readers of Octane might recall Richard Heseltine’s profile of stunt pilot and former racing driver Vic Norman from issue 150. Vic was photographed at the HQ of his aerobatics team, standing in front of his highly original 1913 Flying Merkel Model Seventy-One, the motorcycle he calls ‘my favourite machine out of everything mechanical I’ve ever owned’. High praise from a man whose garage once housed cars including a Jaguar D-type, a Ferrari 250 GTO and an ex-Fangio Maserati 250F. Vic acquired the bike in 1998 from stuntman Bud Ekins, who stood in for Steve McQueen on Th e Great Escape when it came time to film the scene in which McQueen’s character jumps a motorcycle over a barbed-wire fence while being pursued by Nazis. Ekins, too, was very fond…

Lancia’s homologation special was designed to compete in international rallies, which it did with great success, notching up 18 World Rally victories and the manufacturers’ title in 1974, ’75 and ’76. Powered by a Ferrari 2.4-litre V6 engine from the Dino 246, it’s estimated around 492 Stradales were built by the time production ceased in 1975. Good cars with average mileages that had either been refurbished at some point, or were in largely original condition, were making in the region of £300,000 at auction in 2013. RM Sotheby’s indicated where the collector-grade examples were a year later when it sold a one-owner Stratos with only 4476km for $660,000 (£514,500) at Monterey, setting an auction record that still stands. RM’s Villa Erba sale in 2015 saw an unrestored car (pictured) fetch…

APPARENTLY MY first ever word was ‘car’! No doubt most of my earliest memories involve cars, and I was brought up surrounded by them. My dad was a director of a restoration company, specialising in Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Mum drove us around in a split-screen Morris Minor Convertible, and the annual Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club rallies were a family affair. When I was 11 I started working at the same firm on Saturday mornings, making tea and, eventually, being let loose on coachwork restoration. My skills as a panel-beater were non-existent, but I did enjoy interior trimming. Very generously, I was allowed to work one day a week alongside some ex-Aston Martin trimmers, based in Newport Pagnell, and they were quick to point out that I wasn’t really cut out for…