Sommaire pour January 2026 de Octane

I HAD A QUICK browse of the 30 or so cars I have owned since my first in 1986 and was surprised to see that only one of them had been designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. That was a 1989 Lancia Delta Integrale 16V that I ran as a company car – the only company car I have ever had – from 1999 when I was editor of another motoring magazine. It was a joyously fractious relationship full of breakdowns, fuel stops and smiles, but this tempestuous marriage lasted only until the first service bill. At that point the ashen-faced accounts department bailed out, the car was sold for a pittance, I opted out of the scheme and spent the cash on a 1966 Lotus Elan S2 as my daily driver.…

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THE FEDERATION OF British Historic Vehicle Clubs has released the results of its huge 2025 survey and the outlook is overwhelmingly positive, though notes of caution are sounded. The survey, which the FBHVC says is the ‘most comprehensive study ever conducted into the UK’s world-leading historic vehicle movement’ and garnered 20,000 responses, found that the classic car industry continues to grow – contributing £7.3billion to the UK economy annually, supporting 34,500 jobs and attracting record numbers of enthusiasts. The key findings were: • The number of historic vehicles registered with the DVLA in the UK has risen to 1,934,178. • The UK is home to an estimated 690,777 historic vehicle owners, and more than 22.7million adults regard historic vehicles as a vital part of Britain’s heritage. • Over 9.7million people…

GORDON-KEEBLE The Gordon GT broke cover at the 1960 Geneva motor show, and took until 1964 to reach (limited) production. It marked the jumping-off point for Giugiaro’s career as a designer: its outline made the leap from sketch intact, a masterwork of balance and proportion. ALFA ROMEO GIULIA SPRINT The ‘step-front’ Giulia Sprint GT of 1963 remains a styling masterclass. Nuccio Bertone envisaged a small-series coachbuilt offering, but showed renderings to Alfa management. They were immediately smitten. BMW 3200 CS This elegant BMW coupé emerged at the Frankfurt show in September 1961. Many of its styling features would filter down to the Munich firm’s more mainstream offerings, such as the angled ‘Hofmeister kink’ at the rear of the C-pillars. ISO A3/L GRIFO Giugiaro was given virtual autonomy in shaping this…

Automotive manufacturers often like to talk about evolution, DNA and lineage as if their products are biological creatures, but as I set foot inside the McLaren Technology Centre – itself a very organic-feeling, living, breathing Norman Foster-designed masterpiece – there’s no denying the familial connection between all the road cars on display. I’m instantly drawn to one of the very first MP4-12Cs, the car that kicked off the McLaren Automotive journey in 2012 and the starting point for all that followed: mid-mounted turbocharged V8, carbonfibre MonoCell structure and a focus on weight-saving. Today is all about celebrating the tenth anniversary of something very important to the company’s development: the LT family. The moniker is short for ‘Longtail’, and the three cars sitting just outside the reception represent the pinnacle of…

Until just after 10pm, it was a normal Saturday night at The Spaniard’s Inn on Hampstead Heath. Glasses clinking, the background radiation of chatter and high spirits, staff dashing to and fro because it was busy, very busy, with a boisterous table of 30 youngsters outside under the awning and the hubbub of a similar number of slightly more mature folk squeezed into the private upstairs dining room. Then, at 10.03 precisely, everything changed. First a slow, heaving whirr followed by a cough, then an uneven bellow, a burst of Gatling Gun rapid fire diminuating into a slow, steady chug to the gasps of a table of surprised revellers. That was followed seconds later by another start-up, higher-pitched, more yappy, a four, and then an unmistakably taut straight-eight, more lumbering…

ONCE I’D FINISHED restoring some metal parts and reupholstering the front and rear seats in my ’68 Mustang GT390, it was at last time to install the new carpets (which I already had ‘in stock’) and fit the seats to complete the interior. There were a few other jobs, too, such as installing the ingenious trapdoor that opens from the boot. The rear seat is a carpeted fold-down affair, its two fabricated steel pieces joined by a chromed piano hinge with the re-upholstered seat frames attached to them. I’d already broken the rear seat panels down (each one is a thin, 20mm-deep box section) to treat some light surface rust and prime the hidden interior surfaces, then built them back up again. A third section forms the rear of the…

CONVERSATION WAS conducted at high volume, and with many emphatic gestures. It was a typically chaotic Ferrari press conference, or at least it was until Il Commendatore spoke, held in December 1966, three months after lead driver John Surtees had come close to losing his life following a crash at Mosport Park. Naturally, the identity of the driver who would take his place in F1 in 1966 while Il Grande John recuperated was a hot topic. Enzo talked in hushed tones of an ace wheelman who was the obvious choice. ‘We have, at the present time, a driver-and-a-half,’ he declared, before describing him as being ‘the only complete driver’. The 100-strong assemblage was mystified; even more so when the name of this superstar was revealed. Mike Parkes had earned legendary…

1:8 scale Honda RA272 model by Amalgam At the time of writing it is 60 years to the day since the 1965 Mexican GP, the final event of that year’s F1 season and, indeed, of the 1.5-litre era in Formula 1. It was not the most keenly anticipated race; the Drivers’ title and the Manufacturers’ Championship had long since been wrapped up by Jim Clark and Lotus. But it turned into one for the history books thanks to Richie Ginther, who led every lap in his RA272 to secure a maiden F1 win for Honda – a company, remember, that did not even build road cars until 1963! Ginther’s beautiful mount has now been exactingly modelled by the folks at Amalgam, who were guided by 3D scans of the real…

IF YOU HAVE already read this month’s wonderful celebration of Giugiaro and his many creations, then the Grifo needs no introduction. The package combines coachbuilt Italian bodywork – penned by the great man himself during his time at Bertone – with Giotto Bizzarrini-developed underpinnings, plus power courtesy of a seriously punchy yet reliable small-block Chevrolet V8 engine. The result was one of the most desirable Italian Grand Tourers of their 1960s and ’70s heyday. Two versions of the Grifo were offered initially: the GL300 and GL365. These numbers tallied with each version’s metric horsepower figure, although both utilised the same 5350cc engines, built in the USA and modified in Italy. The GL300, as seen here, retained a single Carter AFB two-barrel carburettor and a lower compression ratio. This eye-catching red…

Royal Bahrain Concours 7-8 November This inaugual event at the Royal Golf Club in Riffa was held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain. It showcased 60 cars, around 40 from the region and 20 from across the globe, plus 300 club cars. The winners were selected by the entrants rather than judges and Best of Show went to the ex-Shah of Iran 1972 Lamborghini Miura SV (right) owned by Dr Khalid M Abdulrahim of Bahrain. After the revoltion in Iran the car disappeared for over a decade before re-emerging in Italy and being restored over three years by Top Motors Salvioli. Fritz Burkard’s striking Boano 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis (top right) show car was another star of…

LEGENDARY CAR DESIGNER Giorgetto Giugiaro has joined the select list of winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award, at the 2025 International Historic Motoring Awards, Presented by Lockton. The 87-year-old Italian icon received the accolade on the day that Octane went to press, in a glitzy ceremony at The Peninsula hotel in London, following an introduction by Aston Martin design guru Marek Reichman. Giugiaro is only the second designer to receive the award; the other was Leonardo Fioravanti, in a roll-call of greats that includes Sir Stirling Moss, Bonneville Speed Week and Tony Dron. The award was the culmination of a gala evening presented by Amanda Stretton to a sold-out room of 400 notables from the global classic car industry. It followed the announcement of Car of the Year, which went…

I WAS PERHAPS about nine or ten years old and we had spent the day at Frensham Pond in Surrey with our neighbours, my father’s Vauxhall 14 following our neighbour’s Standard Vanguard (in two-tone blue and yellow – how cool was that?), when my father’s car broke down right outside The Ace Cafe that you featured in Octane 270. Café Racers seemed to be everywhere, ridden by young guys in leather jackets and accompanied by young ladies who were also all leathered up and looked like film stars. I’ve never seen so many BSAs, Nortons, Ariels, Matchlesses and many other makes. As for the ROARRR – I can still hear it. Then, as we walked into The Ace to use the phone, Elvis Presley was singing All Shook Up on…

Opera is dead. And has been for quite a long time. I don’t care what anybody says about Poulenc and Prokofiev, I cannot be persuaded that any listenable music theatre has been written since Puccini. (His Turandot, unfinished at his death, had its first performance at Milan’s La Scala on 25 April 1926.) Dopo? Niente! Car design is dead, too. I don’t care what anybody says about all that stuff you see on the streets, you cannot convince me that any beautiful cars have been made since Giorgetto Giugiaro’s ItalDesign was sold to Lamborghini Holdings SpA in 2015. (Lamborghini is, of course, a Volkswagen brand and this was a financial device to consolidate German business in Italy.) Opera and cars are art forms at which the Italians always excelled, since…

NIKON CAMERAS Giugiaro shaped cameras for Nikon over a 15-year period. The F3 arrived in 1979, his first, and Nikon’s third professional single-lens reflex camera body. Each subsequent model featured rounded forms plus a red stripe on the grips. VOIELLO MARILLE Giugiaro stamped his mark on pasta with the Voiello Marille range, which went on sale in 1983. Its success in the trade soon faded because its complex shape resulted in a longer cooking time. ‘Marille’ is a German word for ‘apricot’. TULLIO ABBATE EXCEPTION 70’ The late 1970s saw Giugiaro collaborate with a firm fêted for offshore powerboat racers. The outcome was this 21-metre cabin cruiser, which belatedly arrived in 1989 yet still looked futuristic. COPENHAGEN METRO A collaboration with the AnsaldoBreda rolling stock company led to this automated…

It’s all about the fours: four cylinders, four valves, four camshafts, all conspiring to make Porsche’s 356A Carrera the stuff of dreams. Created at the behest of Ferry Porsche himself, the Carrera’s Type 547 four-cam engine represented the pinnacle of race-bred engineering when launched in 1955. It was the brainchild of Ernst Fuhrmann, who later became chairman of Porsche AG. Fuhrmann had studied engineering at the Vienna Technical University, aptly completing a thesis on the subject of ‘Camshaft drive for the control of high-speed combustion engines’. He was in at the start, joining Porsche Konstruktionen GmbH & Co KG in March 1947, then largely run by Ferry Porsche, son of founding father Ferdinand, out of a converted sawmill at Gmünd in Austria. The company’s first production car – the 356…

A 60-YEAR-OLD car with just over 20,000 miles on the clock, no matter what the marque, is a rare beast. That it had remained in the same ownership all its life is unusual, and that it should survive unmolested is even more so. Finding a Sunbeam Tiger in ‘as it left the factory condition’ seldom, if ever, happens, not least because since the Tiger’s demise in 1967 owners haven’t been able to resist tinkering. If ever there were a car looking for a title of most modified, the Tiger would be a contender. It starts with the wheels and tyres: the standard 4½ x 13in steels, considered by many inadequate for its V8 power unit, are usually jettisoned first. Of the 102 cars attending the Sunbeam Tiger Club’s 60th anniversary…

WITH SUMMER ALMOST over, we at last managed an all-too-short driving holiday, discovering the Val de Loire region of France over seven days in our 2005 Maserati Cambiocorsa. That the Loire is one of the greatest wineproducing areas of the country is, of course, pure coincidence. It rained most of the time. Even so, from our hotel in Amboise we were within easy motoring reach of four châteaux, two vineyards and one motor museum. As to be expected, every street in town also led to a starred restaurant. Having crossed during the day on the Portsmouth to Le Havre ferry, our first night was spent just 40km into the journey at Manoir Les Sous Bois, where, after an aperitif or two with owner Paul, he served us dinner. Next morning,…

IT’S BARELY TWO months since I was gushing over Mazda’s bone-stock 1.6-litre heritage fleet car on these pages, so the idea of replacing that engine with a 3.0-litre V6 (of more than twice the power!) seemed a bit rash. Would its inherent balance and poise be destroyed? A chat with Rocketeer founder Bruce Southey quelled my fears. The MX-5 ticked most boxes on his sports car attribute wishlist, lacking only power and an exotic soundtrack. So, forced induction? A Rover V8? Maybe a Busso V6? Then a colleague suggested a hidden gem of a V6, under the bonnet of a Jaguar S-type. The AJ-30 in question is a Ford unit, originally developed by Porsche and further developed by Cosworth. It produces 230bhp in standard form but, fully rebuilt, blueprinted and…

IF YOU WANT a good visual representation of just how many significant results the RM Sotheby’s Tailored for Speed auction produced, take a look at the top ten auction results on the right-hand side of this page. It’s not unusual to see several results from one auction, especially during a quiet month, but October has been jam-packed and all but two were sold in this exceptional sale. With 42 lots from a single owner, it totalled CHF70m, making it RM Sotheby’s highest-grossing European auction ever. There were several low-volume hypercars in Zurich but low-mileage, limited-production Ferraris were the name of the game, with the biggest seller a 2024 Ferrari Daytona SP3 at CHF5,348,750. A new record was achieved by the 1998 Ferrari 333 SP, a well-raced example, which made HF5,208,125.…

THERE’S SO MUCH you could say about this car, but F1 fans of a certain age won’t need to be reminded of its significance. In 1991, McLaren’s MP4/6 not only became the last ever V12 manual-transmission F1 car to win a World Championship title, it was also the car that delivered Ayrton Senna his third and final Drivers’ Championship. More than that, this car – MP4/6-1 – was responsible for one of the most incredible victories of his career, in his home race at Interlagos. After Senna led from the start, his gearbox progressively failed, leaving the car stuck in sixth during the closing laps. Through sheer force of will, he wrestled the car to the flag, taking a deeply emotional win in front of 70,000 fans. Exhausted and cramping,…

29 November VSCC Winter Driving Tests Bicester Motion hosts the VSCC’s final event of the year, which sees entrants attempt car-control challenges in conditions often not conducive to precision driving! vscc.co.uk 30 November Scramblers Assembly Members of Bicester Motion’s Scramblers club gather for the last time in 2025. bicestermotion.com 30 November New Forest VW Santa Run Organised in aid of the children’s cancer and haematology unit at Southampton General Hospital, the Santa Run sees classic and custom Volkswagens – many covered in Christmas decorations – assemble at Beaulieu before travelling in convoy to the hospital to drop off presents. beaulieu.co.uk 30 November – 4 December 1000 Miglia Experience UAE Landmark cars will follow a 1600km route through the United Arab Emirates and into neighbouring Oman. 1000miglia.it 4-7 December Sebring Pistons…

THE SUNBEAM 1000HP, the first car to achieve a Land Speed Record of 200mph, has added a prestigious new date to its itinerary when it heads to the USA to mark the centenary of its finest hour by re-enacting it on Daytona Beach. Known as ‘The Slug’, the Sunbeam – currently being restored to run again, one of its two 22.4-litre Matabele V12 aero engines having been fired up for the first time in decades at Beaulieu’s International Autojumble in September – is also to take centre stage in a special class at next year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance. The appearance puts pressure on the National Motor Museum’s small team to finish its restoration (three years so far), which will return Henry Segrave’s British engineering icon to Florida in…

WHY SUBSCRIBE TO OCTANE NOW? •  Pay just £1.66* each for your first three issues • All subscriptions now include access to the magazine archive via the Octane digital app • Never miss an issue • Money-back guarantee – cancel and we will refund your remaining issues • Unique subscriber-only covers Please note our updated website (below). Order and manage your subscriptions online, or call our helpline on +44 (0)20 3966 6695 octane-magazine.com/subscribe *3-issue trial offer also available outside the UK. See website for details SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND NEVER MISS AN ISSUE!…

WELCOME TO Octane’s celebration of Giorgetto Giugiaro, the Italian designer whose genius has straddled 60 years (and counting) and who recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Historic Motoring Awards. Over the next 29 pages, you will read a brand new, in-depth interview with the man himself, conducted in his native Italian for added detail and insight. Then there is our overview of his talent through four benchmark cars that demonstrate the breadth and significance of his canon, from people’s car to glamorous GT. Our resident design guru Stephen Bayley assesses the cultural, historical and design significance of the Fiat Panda, 105-series Alfa, Lotus Esprit and Iso Grifo. With a back catalogue as packed as Giugiaro’s, we could not just focus on four cars, so we outline all his…

ONE OF ONE has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Something made just for you, to fit your life, to your spec, so you can go about your day knowing there’s nothing out there that’ll match it. There are plenty of people who’ll offer you a car specced to the nines, but more often than not it’ll be one of some. That, for Niels van Roij Design, won’t do. This 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche shooting brake is the firm’s latest completed work. It started life as a Corniche Coupé lovingly called Henry. Its current owner inherited it from their uncle and has fond memories of the car – it has been part of their life for decades – but they wanted to leave their mark on it and turn it…

LOOKING BACK, it seems like fate. I was on my way to view a classic car that was coming up for sale at an auction when the automatic gearbox in my 2006 Volvo XC70 began to overheat and slip. It’s done this once before, nine years ago, which led to a gearbox-out rebuild and a £2000 bill. I turned around, limped back home and hired a cheap car so I could still get to the auction next day. For some time now – ever since selling my 1966 Mustang early in 2023 – I’ve missed not having a really usable classic. Which got me thinking: could I run a classic as my everyday car and dispense altogether with a ‘modern’? The Volvo, to me, definitely falls into the ‘modern’ category…

AND SO ANOTHER classic car season comes to a close. I recently took the XK out to gatecrash the 96 Club gathering in Chesham Place, Belgravia, which is always extremely enjoyable but is just a trundle up the road as part of my Tour de Chelsea. The run down to Hampton Court Palace in early September for the Concours of Elegance gets the Jaguar’s juices properly warmed through with a fast blast along the A3. I thought this year’s concours was superb, helped by lovely sunny weather and a great crowd of Octane friends, including Peter Wallman and Richard Charlesworth doing the commentating. I met two Octane readers with their Aston Martin DB6 (actually, the wife’s DB6) in the car park before I even set foot in the Palace gardens. I…

ONE OF THE perks of this job is seeing the newest and most exciting cars before the public. So I was understandably excited when Maserati emailed ‘Private Preview – New Model Reveal.’ ‘What’s coming embodies the true spirit of our sports cars,’ it promised. ‘Performance, intelligence and evolution in its [sic] purest form.’ My anticipation was sky high, but the word ‘evolution’ proved to be closest to the mark. When the Maserati MCPura was unveiled over the summer, it looked rather like the five-year-old MC20. The familiarity continues underneath: the 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 with its F1-inspired pre-chamber ignition is unchanged, as is the Dallara-developed carbonfibre tub. Outputs stay at 621bhp and 538lb ft, with 0-62mph in 2.9sec and a 202mph top speed. Accordingly, the technical briefing in Tuscany is brisk.…

DESPITE BEING largely derided by the US Army Air Corps and rejected as unsuitable by the RAF, the P-39 ended World War Two with the highest enemy kill tally of any US fighter. In February 1937, recognising that its ‘pursuit planes’ were falling behind in development and were slower even than its own bombers, the United States Army Air Corps issued a directive for a new highaltitude interceptor. Power should come from the V-1710 Allison 28-litre supercharged V12 engine, with an additional General Electric turbocharger to endow it with high-altitude performance and a level flight speed of at least 360mph (marginally faster than the first Spitfire or Messerschmitt Bf 109.) Also specified was a tricycle undercarriage, then unusual in the fighter world, as well as a cannon as the main…

Aston Martin The Entire Story Sometimes a book deserves this slot just because it does exactly what it says on the tin – or, more accurately, the cover. That’s the case with Aston Martin – The Entire Story, which is a straightforward account of one of the UK’s most, er, storied car manufacturers. There are no great revelations to be found here, just a well-written and comprehensive history that covers all the bases. That said, the particular value of this retreading of familiar ground lies with the second of the two slipcased volumes, which spans the 1980s to the present day. The 21st Century has seen Aston Martin develop a remarkably complex model range, with new cars seemingly appearing every few months. The author does a fine job of profiling…

IT’S FUNNY HOW some car colours phase in and out of fashion, but one constant seems to hold true: not very many people specify purple cars straight from the factory. And while there are just a handful of DB4s finished in this shade of Roman Purple, this happens to be the sole Series IV Vantage. That wonderful deep hue was refinished in 2022 as part of a major overhaul, but because this is such a well cared-for example – a single owner from 1969 to 2021 – the patinated leather upholstery remains original. In a world where unique factory colours and paint-to-sample Porsches seem to be in vogue, this might just be one of the most desirable non-GT DB4s out there. H&H has suggested a £375,000-425,000 estimate. handh.co.uk Also Look…

IF ONLY LOTUS hadn’t launched the groundbreaking Elise, the Renault Sport Spider might have stood a chance. Alas, the genius of the gamechanging two-seat roadster from Norfolk left this considerably more expensive and compromised Spider standing. Which is a real shame because – like most of Renault’s more extreme creations – what it lacked in polish and practicality, it made up for with bucketfuls of drama. Renault first dabbled with the idea of a two-seater speedster in 1990 with the Laguna concept, which soon evolved into project W94 – the Spider. Making its first public appearance at the 1995 Geneva motor show, it was a real chance for RenaultSport – born out of the ashes of Alpine in Dieppe – to build a low-volume, race-ready sports car. Racing car chassis…