Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2022 in Octane

Heveningham Concours returns for its fifth charity motorsport and aviation event on 2-3 July at Heveningham Hall near Halesworth in Suffolk. The unique combination of 50 world-class cars, iconic aeroplanes, garden party atmosphere and country fair kicks off on Friday 1 July with The Heveningham Tour in association with Octane and our sister publication evo, a scenic tour with a difference through the Suffolk countryside. On the Saturday and Sunday, the concours opens to the public, with entrants’ cars carefully showcased on dramatic tiered grass terraces and prizes awarded in three categories – pre-war, post-war and supercar – along with a simultaneous display of classic aeroplanes exhibited on an escarpment within the heart of the parkland. For the car concours, this year’s judges will be chaired by Max Hunt, who…

THE PRESIDENT OF Portugal officially opened the Caramulo Experience Center – an extension of the Museu do Caramulo – on 23 April. Just a kilometre away from the original museum site, the new 2500m² venue serves the Museu, which was shortlisted in the 2021 Historic Motoring Awards, via a classic car workshop and storage for off-display items. However, the Experience Center also boasts its own exhibition area, a huge archive, classic car parts shop, meeting and conference rooms plus a cafeteria. It is also dressed with loads of automobilia and petroliana, from vintage fuel pumps to paintings. Visitors can take a ride in a classic car, while a wide programme of technical and historical seminars and practical sessions is also planned, along with the imminent launch of an apprenticeship scheme.…

Until a few years ago, battery-operated tools weren’t much cop for doing anything heavy-duty. But the upside of everyone buying smartphones and, more recently, electric cars, is that battery technology has moved on apace. Cordless tools are now a genuine alternative to the traditional plug-in mains electric variety. If you’ve ever struggled to keep a power lead out of the way when angle-grinding or cutting a hedge, you’ll find the freedom of movement offered by a cordless tool incredibly liberating. Safer, too, of course. And the easier it is to use a tool, the more inclined you’ll be to pick it up: a cordless tyre inflator makes topping-up the air in car tyres so much less of a chore. More by accident than design, I’ve ended up buying into the…

The day after writing this, I will be seeing my old chum J Mays for lunch. The venue is The Chelsea Arts Club, rightly celebrated for its tolerance of eccentricity. Intrusive gazing, liberality with wine, gambling: all encouraged. The only dress code is that anyone wearing a tie will be under suspicion and served last at its well-worn bar. The worst offence is to use a ’phone. Which is very sensible. What you connect with here is the spirit of rebellion that is natural to artists. Show me one who conforms and I will show you a talentless hack. So it’s a great place to meet J who, to my mind and eye, is one of the most interesting creative players in the end-game of the motor industry. Except J…

THIS YEAR MARKS the 30th anniversary of the Jaguar XJ220’s production debut in 1992, a moon-shot that remains Jaguar’s only production supercar. Talented young designer Nick Hull had been only 24 at the time of the project’s earliest meetings seven years prior, but he played a lead role creating the XJ220’s radical interior and detailing for the finalised exterior design, contributing both to the concept in Jaguar’s design studios and to the production car’s gestation at Tom Walkinshaw Racing. Today Hull welcomes Octane to his home to recount the challenges of bringing such an advanced supercar to production, and to speak more widely on his fascinating career. Hull joined Jaguar in 1984 following an internship at Mercedes, where he drafted ideas for a stylish coupé based on the 190E platform, and…

ROBERT COUCHER International editor • 1955 Jaguar XK140 ANDREW ENGLISH Contributor • 1962 Norton Dominator• 1965 Aston Martin DB5• 1967 Triumph GT6 GLEN WADDINGTON Associate editor • 1989 BMW 320i Convertible• 1999 Porsche Boxster SANJAY SEETANAH Advertising director • 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio• 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante MARK DIXON Deputy editor • 1927 Alvis 12/50• 1927 Ford Model T pick-up• 1942 Fordson Model N tractor• 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in• 1966 Ford Mustang 289 JAMES ELLIOTT Editor-in-chief • 1965 Triumph 2.5 PI• 1968 Jensen Interceptor JOHN SIMISTER Contributor • 1936 Singer Nine Sports• 1961 Saab 96• 1972 Rover 2000 TC• 1989 Mazda MX-5 Eunos MATTHEW HOWELL Photographer • 1962 VW Beetle 1600• 1969 VW/Subaru Beetle• 1982 Morgan 4/4 MASSIMO DELBÒ Contributor • 1967 Mercedes-Benz 230• 1972 Fiat…

RUNNING THE ‘SHOEBOX’ Ford around the block to circulate its fluids, I’d almost completed a circuit when my mobile went. Being a law-abiding citizen, I pulled over and switched off the very loud engine before answering the call. Mistake. Call finished, I turned the ignition key. The starter turned, but the engine didn’t. Thinking it was a temporary glitch – my starters are prone to behaving in puzzling ways – I tried a few more times. But it was obvious from the high-speed whirring that the Bendix was not engaging with the flywheel. Since I was only a few hundred yards from home, I made my way there on foot while rehearsing in my head my plea to my very long-suffering wife for yet another tow. (She’s been suffering for more…

‘THIS IS A VERY important car for Octane readers,’ chirruped the chap from JLR when issuing the invitation to the first launch drives of the new, fifth-generation Range Rover. Only the fifth? Yup, pretty incredible when you consider that it has now been in production for well over 50 years. Even more amazing when you think that many people might consider at least a couple of those previous generations superfluous. Is this one, too? We will soon find out… Spurred on by the suggestion that it is our duty to report on it for you, I waded through our last reader survey and quickly ascertained that, yes, the Range Rover is a very important vehicle for Octane readers, a huge number of you owning or aspiring to them. It is…

OK, SO THE WING on the back, BMW Individual Special Fire Orange paint, big, black wheels and so on were going to attract a certain demographic, but still I was a bit bewildered by how many thumbs-up signs came from young lads. And then a neighbour told me that her 14-year-old son knew the M3 GTS from Forza. A computer game, apparently. Something else that might have caught attention is the exhaust note: a ripping, coruscating V8 roar. The E90 (saloon) and E92 (coupé) generation of M3 is the only one that has eschewed a straight-six; it’s also the last of the breed that wasn’t turbocharged. But while many will surely have found the standard car’s 414bhp 4.0-litre V8 to be adequate, there had been precedents for turning up the…

BEING A WATCH person and a car person just seems to go together. Not always, sure, but often enough to be more than a casual correlation. Just visit any car event and you’ll see more than your average day’s quota of interesting wristwear. There’s a definite difference in attitudes to maintenance of cars and watches, though. Take a peek into any glovebox and you can see the difference between those who regard regular oil changes as a holy obligation and those whose creed is a rather looser ‘fix it when it breaks’. Yet even some of those service book saints err closer to heresy when it comes to having their watches looked after. Chatting to Bremont’s Service Centre workshop supervisor Andrew Law, one gets the sense that he regards these people…

MOTOR COVER ART BY ROBERT ROBINSON Today it seems that any vaguely affectionate depiction of American life in the pre-war period must be described as ‘Rockwellian’, but before Norman Rockwell came Robert Robinson, who began producing humorous slice-of-life cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post around 1910. His art was a little less apple-pie than Rockwell’s tended to be and often featured crotchety old men struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world – which perhaps explains why we’ve always been drawn to his work! In 1926 Robinson began contributing to Motor, and his relationship with the magazine continued until his death in 1952. This piece, currently available at The Illustrated Gallery in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, was produced for the cover of the February 1931 issue of Motor, and shows…

1992 Subaru BRAT Anglia Car Auctions, King’s Lynn, UK 11-12 June, angliacarauctions.co.uk The Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter, shortened to BRAT, was Subaru’s baby pick-up truck. Strangely, it was never sold in Japan, but it quickly became a cult car around the world – particularly in the US and Australia. This 40,000-mile UK-market car has survived in almost unbelievably good condition, given that most were used and abused as farm vehicles. It’s estimated to sell for £8000-10,000. 1965 Sunbeam Tiger Mk2 prototype Dore & Rees, Frome, Somerset, UK 18 June, doreandrees.com Well-known among marque enthusiasts, this is one of the prototype Mk2 Tigers built by Jensen to accommodate the larger, more powerful 289ci Ford V8 engine. It has been restored and was converted early in its life to right-hand drive, but…

MASSIMO DELBÒ ‘It was my first time driving a Bugatti Type 13, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. So exhilarating, though it came at a price: after sliding it around on a dirt road, even though my head was covered by a leather helmet, I’m still finding mud in my ears.’ Legend of the Bugatti Brescia: pages 112-120. MARC SONNERY ‘When they were new my father had Citroën SM company cars, but Heuliez’s SM Espace was in another realm: that of dream cars. I was seven when it premiered and it instantly became my fantasy to drive it. Doing so 50 years later was surreal, yet the Espace did not disappoint at all.’ Open-top Citroën SM: pages 68-76. DAVID ROSCOE-RUTTER ‘I loved the Toyota Century: it felt…

SUBMARINES in a car magazine? Well, many of us are interested in all things mechanical, and submarines can have an appropriate connection. Examples? A London bus engine powered X-class midget submarines, and underwater craft had hybrid power long before cars did. The Royal Navy Submarine Museum is set amid the impressive naval establishment at Gosport, alongside Portsmouth. It was established 40 years ago and has developed in stages, including the Holland 1 building, opened in 2001, followed by the spectacular £3m John Fieldhouse Building, which houses the modern visitors’ centre. More projects are planned. It’s logical to start at the Holland 1 Gallery. The futuristic vessel itself, the Royal Navy’s first submarine, was launched in 1901. It was powered by a petrol engine, or by an electric motor when submerged.…

Tony Brooks b.1932 THE LAST SURVIVING Formula 1 winner of the 1950s and one of the greatest talents to drive in the shadow of Sir Stirling Moss, Brooks never shied away from that fact, once telling Octane’s editor: ‘I was honoured to be “number two” to the greatest there has ever been.’ Quite. However, Brooks’ modesty and natural charm belied a fierce competitor with huge talent. Born in Cheshire, he followed in his father’s footsteps by training as a dentist. He started racing in his mother’s Healey Silverstone in the early 1950s and his rise was meteoric, notably becoming the first Brit to pilot a British car to a post-war International victory when he triumphed on his F1 debut in a Connaught in the non-championship Syracuse race. Two years later, he…

There are tremendous advantages to living in Southern California, and the weather is only one of them. Los Angeles has often been called the car capital of America, not because of any manufacturing prowess but simply because this is the place from which so much of North America’s car culture emanates. It’s said that when Lee Iacocca was developing the logo for the Ford Mustang, he told the designers: ‘Turn the horse around the other way. I want it facing west because that’s where all the ideas for this car came from.’ Here in Burbank, Los Angeles, where my garage is located, hot-rodders and speed freaks have been hanging out since the 1930s. It’s like a Mecca for them. To my mind that’s because Lockheed Martin and a lot of…

How do you define a classic car? This has exercised governments, insurance companies, collectors, journalists, racing and rally organisers and owners for decades. Some suggest that classic cars should have chrome bumpers. Well, maybe, but more modern classics don’t, and neither did all older ones! How about rarity? Indeed, things produced in small numbers are more collectable than mass-produced ones, but who really wants a Zil? Conversely, every watch collector wants a Rolex ‘Paul Newman’, and his personal 1968 Daytona sold in New York for a smidge under $18million in 2017. The irony is that the early Daytona is rare because it was a sales flop. Enthusiasts preferred gold Rolexes. So how about round headlamps as a definition? Classic cars from the 1950s until the 1970s were built around standard…

IT’S ALWAYS GOOD to set yourself a hard deadline, and the Type R-themed Scramblers Assembly at Bicester Heritage at the end of March was mine. Bringing the Integra out of hibernation this year required a few issues to be dealt with, the most pressing of which was a knocking front driveshaft. After doing some research online, it seemed like a relatively straightforward job. Thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly, it was an inexpensive part at around £50. With that ordered, I turned my attention to the thing that had really soured my previous final few days on the road with the Type R: a sticky starter motor. I can only surmise that these rarely fail, as finding a good-quality new item proved far trickier (and far more expensive at about £300) than…

‘I seem to have a compelling need to buy a car at the moment, but have so far escaped financially unscathed. A bargain Lotus Excel at auction came closest’James Elliott ‘The 1986 Alfa Spider Quadrifoglio that was sitting in my back yard has found a new owner – she fell in love with it and is very happy’Evan Klein ‘My 1936 Singer is back together but didn’t make it to Brooklands, owing to pace improved but still feeble. Overhauling the distributor has fixed it’John Simister ‘Been doing some film work with the Ford Model T in a George Clooney movie – and the man himself was directing! Hopefully I can say more when the movie comes out’Mark Dixon…

IT IS INCREDIBLE to think that the Mini Marcos was first launched in the mid-1960s, and its concept is slightly older if you factor in its inspiration the DART. The DART was the brainchild of narcoleptic test pilot and racing driver – yes, it was exactly as dangerous as it sounds; he had to be prodded awake on the Goodwood startline – Dizzy Addicott (hence Dizzy Addicott Racing Team), and was a one-off glassfibre monocoque racer housing Mini running gear and subframes. Based on a crashed van, it was built for Addicott by Paul Emery (of Emeryson fame) and spawned both the Mini Jem and the Mini Marcos, of which about 1500 have been built. Jem Marsh sold his kit on-and-off from 1965 to 1996; then Rory McMath’s Marcos Heritage…

£1,290,500 ($1,682,000) 2005 Porsche Carrera GT Bring a Trailer, online 11 April £1,229,500 ($1,603,125) 2022 Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae Coupé RM Sotheby’s, Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy. 19-21 April £1,181,400 ($1,540,000) 2020 Ford GT Carbon Series Barrett-Jackson, Palm Beach, USA. 7-9 April £1,097,000 ($1,430,000) 2018 Ford GT ’67 Heritage Edition Barrett-Jackson, Palm Beach, USA. 7-9 April £1,076,000 ($1,411,000) 2019 McLaren Senna Bring a Trailer, online. 1 April £823,500 ($1,080,000) 2019 Ford GT Bring a Trailer, online. 4 April £681,000 ($875,000) 1965 Shelby Mustang GT350R Bring a Trailer, online. 22 April £677,000 ($860,000) 1987 Lamborghini Countach 5000 QV Bring a Trailer, online. 25 April £647,000 ($845,000) 2012 Lexus LFA Bring a Trailer, online. 20 April £588,500 ($772,000) 2021 Ferrari SF90 Stradale Bring a Trailer, online. 3 April…

On 16 December 1773, protesters boarded three ships at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston and dumped the cargo of tea – all 92,000lb of it – into the sea, an act that led to the American Revolutionary War. The ships were American, but the tea they had carried from London to Boston belonged to the East India Company, which might as well have been a department of the British Government: the Tea Act of 1773 had been designed to gift the EIC an advantage over both smugglers and America’s legitimate tea importers. It should be noted that the Act made tea cheaper for drinkers across the pond, but it also called for a tax to be paid by American buyers, which riled those who argued it was unconstitutional for the British…

1921 FORD MODEL T £12,500 Little is known about this T’s life prior to its UK import in 1993, but it was in fine fettle then and has been kept in good working order since. With recent work by Tuckett Brothers, it looks like great value. juliensumner.com (UK) 2008 FERRARI F430 $198,500 The first owner of this F430 decided against Rosso Corsa in favour of this spectacularly ’70s Marrone with tan leather and Daytona-style black seat inserts. Challenge-style wheels, too. hymanltd.com (US) 1990 DE TOMASO PANTERA GT5-S, €198,500 Just like the later Countach models, the Panteras got wilder as the 1980s progressed. This low-mileage German-market car has the wide rear ’arches but no rear wing. speed8classics.com (BE) 1954 LANCIA AURELIA B20 POA Sold new by Shields Motor Co of Melbourne,…

WHAT TO PAY Larger and more plentiful SE6/a/b projects can still be found for under £1000, and £2500 will get you a solid runner. Spend £5000-8000 and you’ll get one of the best. Rarity makes the smaller and prettier SE5 and SE5a models harder to track down, and slightly more expensive. Middlebridge cars are highly sought-after. Pay £20,000 and more for the best, although average examples are less than £10k. WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR Both the early Essex V6 and later Cologne units are tough and unstressed, so if looked after should give a long life. Usual checks appy, as well as a close look at the general health of the fuel system – especially on little-used cars. A noisy diff most likely means a rebuild is needed, as…

Blessed with fine weather, the inaugural Salon Privé London event was a huge success at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, attracting some 16,000 visitors. Boasting an innovative Concours de Vente and a wealth of mouthwatering dealer cars that could be bought off the showfield, there were awards, too, The Classic Motor Hub’s 1954 Osca MT4 (bottom right) taking the Prix d’Honneur. The Chelsea Pensioners showed great interest in the event and declared Warren Kennedy’s 1954 Austin-Healey 100 their favourite, while the People’s Choice Award went to a 2004 Ferrari Enzo. As well as the dealer cars for sale, there was an abundance of food and drink, a luxury retail village and a host of launches. The event also raised £120,000 for the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.…

I am really intrigued by how this year’s Formula 1 campaign is unspooling. Ross Brawn used to say that a change of regulations should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a chore. It offers teams and designers the chance to outsmart their rivals in a way that is generally not possible, given that most cars are near-identical in terms of packaging. The regulations ensure as much. You will never see a modernist version of, say, the Tyrrell P34 six-wheeler or a Brabham ‘Fan Car’. A change of rules ensures a fresh start even if the parameters are tight. The ‘perfect’ design has yet to be arrived at. All of which would explain why so much head-scratching is going on up and down the pitlane; why some teams don’t understand…

‘Glen Waddington? Of Octane magazine?’ I hear this as I’m about to leave the ‘boss’s seat’ in the back of the Toyota Century. We’ve pulled up outside one of Manchester’s premier hotels, and the concierge is making his way across the dark and shiny marbled forecourt. Perhaps he’d spotted the flagstaff on the front bumper (though we weren’t sporting a pennant at the time), or maybe it was the regal bearing of this long yet simple-looking car. But then he frowns and suddenly it doesn’t look anymore as though he’s about to open my rear nearside passenger door. No, it turns out he’s not happy with where we’ve parked. Then I make out the immortal words: ‘Never heard of him.’ Whatever. The point is that he was anticipating the emergence…

THE PORSCHE 930 has fascinated me since I was a kid. I first learned about them from an architect friend of my parents, who was a regular visitor to our house in the ’70s. On one occasion he was extolling the virtues of the then just-announced 911 Turbo to my dad and I was enthralled by what he was saying: all this ‘free’ extra power just from putting a turbine in the exhaust! How was that even possible? That’s why I’ve always been intrigued by the Porsche 930. It looks so good, too, with its fat arches and whale-tail protector. I first owned a 930 a few years ago, a 1989 car. Much as I admired it I didn’t exactly fall in love with it, especially when I compared it…

ANOTHER YEAR OF BMW ownership and another MoT. It sailed through again, though it was noted that the tyres are getting on a bit. Plenty of tread left but they could do with replacing, so that’s one for the list of things that are going to cost money. The BMW has officially been living at my lock-up a couple of miles from home and seems to be surviving fine – I check on it every time I’m passing. Obviously I’ve been enjoying the honeymoon period with my Boxster, but it was never meant to be a case of running only one of the cars at a time. And a gorgeous early spring day for the Alpina and M5 photoshoot that featured in the last issue was a great excuse to…

BIZZARRINI 5300GT Corsas don’t come up for sale too often. The situation is even rarer in the case of chassis no.0222, which won its class at Le Mans in 1965. Yet you can now buy yourself one of 24 perfect copies of it. This is ‘Car Zero’, the prototype, the first realisation of the reborn Bizzarrini marque’s 5300GT Corsa Revival. In a bid to relaunch the name before revealing a range of supercars, Bizzarrini is aiming to re-establish the significance of its past with those whose memory or historical knowledge of it is hazy. ‘The intention is to bring it back to greatness. The 5300GT is the start,’ says the company’s COO Richard Quinlan. The name was bought in 2018 by Pegasus Brands, a group owned by Rezam Alroumi, former…

OUTSIDE: raw carbon panels, track-oriented ‘gooseneck’ wing, front splitter, massive gold-painted wheels. Inside: roll-cage, five-point harness, Race-Tex dash covering – plus a rev-counter redlined at 9000rpm. And our playground involves not a track but the sinuous B-roads that snake across the North Pennines in County Durham. Gulp. But then I’m assured that the ground clearance is as per the ‘standard’ GT4 (a car our sister title evo referred to as an ‘all-time great’) and that the front splitter is added to a regular bumper. I’m also reminded that Andreas Preuninger, basically Mr 911 GT3, the guy at Porsche who’s in charge of all its most focused cars, developed this one as much for fun on the road as on the track. We have a few years to go before mandatory…

GHIA L6.4 by Corgi In October 1963, hardly anyone had heard of a Ghia L6.4, but by Christmas just about every schoolboy in Britain knew what this exotic looked like – thanks to a Corgi model that really did live up to the maker’s claim that it was ‘the greatest yet!’ Corgi’s replica featured opening doors, bonnet and boot, tipping seats, jewelled headlights, sprung suspension and plated bumpers; and Corgi’s chief designer, Marcel van Cleemput, proudly claimed that this was the first time all the gimmicks had appeared together on one diecast model. A neat touch was the addition of a Corgi dog on the rear parcel shelf. Children loved the Ghia toy, and more than a million were sold in two years. The consequences for the toy car market…

25 May – 1 June RM Sotheby’s, online 27 May Barons, Southampton, UK 28 May Oldtimer Galerie, Lucerne, Switzerland Silverstone Auctions, Sywell, UK 4 June Silverstone Auctions, Sywell, UK 4-5 June Lucky Collector Car Auction, Tacoma, USA 9 June DVCA, online 9-11 June Mecum, Tulsa, USA 11-12 June Anglia Car Auctions, King’s Lynn, UK 17-18 June Mathewsons, online 18 June Classic Car Auctions, Leamington Spa, UK Silver Auctions, Coeur d’Alene, USA 21 June Osenat, Fontainebleau, France 22 June Brightwells, online H&H, Duxford, UK 23 June Brightwells, online 24 June Barons, Southampton, UK Bonhams, Goodwood, UK 26 June Aguttes, Paris, France 30 June – 2 July Barrett-Jackson, Las Vegas, USA 2 July Artcurial, Le Mans, France Dorotheum, Vösendorf, Austria 3 July Bonhams, Gstaad, Switzerland 6 July Charterhouse, Sparkford, UK 6-9 July…