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apprentice restoration Bridgnorth-based Classic Motor Cars Ltd has given eight apprentices the chance to undertake a full nut-and-bolt restoration of a classic car. The team has 14 months to strip, assess and restore a 1955 Lancia Aurelia S4, including all mechanical work and retrimming. The finished car will be used on an Italian classic event in 2017. www.classic-motor-cars.co.uk clark museum fundraiser The Jim Clark Trust has now adopted charitable status as it seeks to raise £1.65m to expand and develop the F1 star’s museum at Duns on the Scottish Borders. As a charity the trust is to apply for £700,000 from The Heritage Lottery Fund: the Scottish Borders Council has already committed £600,000, with the remainder to come from fund-raising events. It hopes to open the refreshed museum in 2018.…

‘FORMULA 1 IS EMBROILED IN YET ANOTHER POWER STRUGGLE, WITH FERRARI AT ITS CENTRE’ WINTER OFFERS racing drivers an opportunity to decompress but, truth be told, there is no off-period. You’re always being called upon to do something, whether it’s to attend a promotional event or, if you’re really lucky, claim some silverware at an awards ‘do’. Christmas comes and goes, the New Year is ushered in and it’s back to work. Before you know it, you’re at the factory having a seat fitting, or shaking down your new steed during the first test of the season. You never switch off, and it’s the same with retired racing drivers if my schedule at the end of 2015 was anything to go by. One minute I was providing a voiceover for…

AT UNIVERSITY, Nick read geography, his brother Giles studied engineering and naval architecture, and both followed careers in corporate finance. In 1995, while they were flight-testing, the family Harvard crashed and killed their father; Nick broke 30 bones. The brothers took over the family vintage aircra restoration business and, in 2002, launched a quality British watch brand. Five years later the fruits of their labour were launched to critical acclaim. The Bremont name was taken from the French farmer who helped them when they were forced to make an emergency landing, due to bad weather and lack of fuel in an old biplane over the Champagne region. Since its inception, the company has prospered from its UK manufacturing base and formed alliances with the military, aviation and motoring worlds, including…

Write to: Octane Letters, Octane Media Ltd, 5 Tower Court, Grchester Road, Wollaston, Northants NN29 7PJ, UK Email: letters@octane-magazine.com. Please include your name, address and a daytime telephone number Octane reserves the right to edit letters for clarity. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Octane magazine NINETY-NINE NOT OUT I READ with interest Theo Jalil’s letter in Octane152 about the omission of the Saab 99 Turbo from the Hot Hatch debate. Octaneis, of course, correct not to include it, as it is not and never was part of that genre. However, I wholly understand Mr Jalil’s frustration at the continuing lack of journalistic coverage of this landmark car. Part of the problem, perhaps, is that it never has fitted into any particular group, has never had obvious direct competitors,…

I AM NOT THE FATHER of the Miura – Bob Wallace is – but I am what I am because of it. I started working for the company in 1968, when I was 19. One day, like many others, I was playing table football at the church managed by Don Pizzi, who created a youth club to keep teenagers off the streets. He had to go to visit his parents in Sant’Agata, a nearby village, and asked if somebody wanted to join him for the journey. For me it was an excuse to do something different so I went with him. Then, passing in front of the new Lamborghini factory, I saw the Menabue truck – for many years the only transporter of all the cars manufactured in what today…

dormobile bedFord c-series ‘We used these quite a lot. They were good motors to come out of, because you could slide the doors open quick and then all pile out and do the business.’ Ford Zephyr ‘They were the best; fast, roomy family cars and very popular. We’d have two parked up so we could put two people in each one. If Old Bill got on top of you, you’d have a chance with a Zephyr.’ rover p4 90 or 100 ‘If you wanted to be inconspicuous in the City, this was the one. Built like a tank and respectable. You could use it as a ramming car as well if you wanted to take out a wages van. Lovely car with an upright gearshift and mahogany dashboard. I even…

‘ BETTER LOCK yourself in now,’ Emanuele warned me as the tiny Fiat finally crested the hill and started down the other side. ‘Here comes the official top speed test.’ I put on my Serious Journalist face, attached the length of rope that masquerades as a passenger’s door, grasped the grab handle with both hands, and said ‘Go for it’. He floored the throttle and, timidly, the speedo needle crawled past 50, 60, 70km/h, then 75, 78, just twitching across 80 before the levelling road snatched it southward again. That’s 50mph, gravity-assisted. Or 49.7, to be exact. ‘There we are,’ he announced, with a grin and a suitable flourish, ‘Warp Factor Three.’ And I gave him my best thumbs-up before pointing out the obvious: ‘But we still didn’t catch…

‘A great coup in purchasing Minerva was its stock of antique enamel dials, which provided inspiration’ OVER THE YEARS I have liked quite a number of Montblanc watches, just not quite enough to wear one – until I saw the Montblanc 1858 two-subdial chrono. That is not to say that there have not been good watches from Montblanc. The Rieussec, for example, was an interesting watch based upon the design of an early horse race timing device by Nicolas Rieussec dating from the 1820s. It used the principle of a spot of ink dropped onto a rotating enamel calibrated disc to ‘write’ the elapsed time; whence chrono (time) graph (writer). The significance of this system to Montblanc – a pen brand – is obvious and was recalled in the design…

WRITTEN by a professor at the Cologne International School of Design, this doorstep of a hardback marks the 50th anniversary of the German tuner of BMWs. It’s a stylish production – possibly a little too much so at times, since the German/English text is printed in Alpina’s colours of blue and green, respectively, and the latter isn’t the easiest colour to read – but the words have a certain panache that’s survived translation. Like Adler before it, Alpina started out making typewriters; it was the owner’s son, Burkard ‘Bubo’ Bovensiepen, who decided to exploit a niche in the German market for tuning family cars, focusing on the BMW Neue Klasse. The rest, as they say, is history – and Prof Tumminelli tells it well, focusing on the people as well…

HARD ON THE heels of the superb new book about Squire cars (see Octane151) comes this impressive landscape hardback about another esoteric British icon, the Invicta low-chassis. Ironically, in view of the model’s quintessentially English nature – and the fact that the book is only available in English – it’s by a German author. No-one could doubt Herr Riedner’s passion for the subject, which shines through his text and which is complemented by his own fine colour photography of surviving cars, plus numerous archive pictures. It’s clearly been something of a labour of love. Following an overview of the company’s history, 19 S-types are profiled in detail, with shorter histories of other survivors. The close-knit world of Invicta owners, encouraged by club archivist Duncan McGregor, led to a wealth of…

Pint-and-a-halfshaft 1932 AuGtin Geven TONY DRON OLD CARS BREAK DOWN, don’t they? No doubt mine will one day, though I take precautions to avoid unscheduled stops, the latest being a back axle rebuild. It had started to leak SAE140 oil like a colander and, if I set off sharply, there was a worsening ‘clonk’ from free play. As ever, our local club, the Cambridge Austin Seven & Vintage Car Club, met the challenge. Over a beer at our monthly meeting place, The Plough & Fleece in Horningsea, I received an offer of help from fellow member Gerald Walker. In his workshop a few days later, the axle was removed, dismantled and closely inspected. It needed one new halfshaft, which I ordered from A7 Components, and I had already bought the…

NEW MANAGEMENT FOR THE PALACE Motorsport at the Palace is under new management. The annual two-day sprint at Crystal Palace, this year on 29-30 May, will now be run by Live Promotions, organiser of Race Retro and Sywell Classic Pistons & Props, though the Sevenoaks & District Motor Club will continue to look a er the competition element. First used for racing in 1927, Crystal Palace circuit hosted its final international meeting in May 1972, and its last club event in ’74. Sevenoaks & District Motor Club revived sprint meetings there in 1997. Development work halted action again between 2000 and 2010, when Motorsport at the Palace was first held. MASTERS LAUNCHES MINIE NDURO SERIES Masters Historic Racing is to run a series of three-hour mini-enduros. Catering for GT, GTP…

23-31 JANUARY Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale, USA 27-31 JANUARY Russo & Steele Scottsdale, USA 28 JANUARY Bonhams Scottsdale, USA 28-29 JANUARY RM Sotheby’s Phoenix, USA 29-30 JANUARY Gooding & Co Scottsdale, USA 3 FEBRUARY RM Sotheby’s Paris, France 4 FEBRUARY Bonhams Paris, France 5-6 FEBRUARY Artcurial Paris, France 7 FEBRUARY Charterhouse Shepton Mallett, UK 13 FEBRUARY Coys London, UK 14 FEBRUARY Charterhouse Shepton Mallett, UK 19-21 FEBRUARY Leake Auction Oklahoma City, USA 22 FEBRUARY Shannons Melbourne, Australia 23 FEBRUARY Barons Esher, UK 24 FEBRUARY H&H Castle Donington, UK 26 FEBRUARY Silverstone Auctions Stoneleigh, UK 27 FEBRUARY Morris Leslie Errol, UK 27 FEBRUARY Matthewsons Thornton-le-Dale, UK 28 FEBRUARY Silverstone Auctions Stoneleigh, UK 2 MARCH Brightwells Leominster, UK 3 MARCH DVCA Dorchester, UK 6 MARCH Silverstone Auctions Birmingham, UK 8 MARCH Coys London, UK…

‘The 1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato sold for $14,300,000, which means it now holds the record as the most expensive British car ever sold at auction’ THE RM SOTHEBY’S ‘Driven by Disruption’ sale was a New York City event all the way, with 31 cars displayed on the tenth floor of the Sotheby’s headquarters in Manhattan because, well, why not? We will talk about some of the star lots in a bit, but let’s get this out of the way early on. The ex-Janis Joplin Porsche 356 Cabriolet, driven by Octane editor David Lillywhite in issue 151 and possibly the most headline-grabbing classic car sale of 2015, was a bit about the car and lots and lots about rock-and-roll. When a Jimi Hendrix guitar has sold for a reported…

MIURA MEN When featuring a fabled supercar in its home country, you need the right men for the job. From leD: associate editor Glen Waddington, Italian correspondent Massimo Delbò, P400 owner Manfred Schweri, Valentino Balboni, Italian Lamborghini Club president Andrea Nicoletto and SV owner Andrej Friedman. Turn to pages 48-70. MATTHEW HOWELL Even Matthew is entitled to a break, especially a er being made the Guild of Motoring Writers Photographer of the Year for the second time. In this issue alone he shot Henry Ford’s house (pp82-88), the Lindner Nöcker E-type (pp118-124) and the Miuras. In fact, the only reason he’s not in the top picture is that he was behind the camera… ANDREW ENGLISH If you’re anything like us, you’d probably always been of the belief that getaway drivers…

MARIA TERESA DE FILIPPIS was the first woman ever to compete in a round of the Formula 1 World Championship. Born into wealth in Naples, the Contessawas a keen horsewoman in her youth before turning her attention to motor racing in 1948. She claimed in later years that she had been keen to prove her worth after being goaded into competing by her brothers, who thought she would be out of her depth. She soon proved them wrong, early outings in a Fiat Topolino leading to the purchase of a Giaur, aboard which she accrued several category wins. De Filippis became inextricably linked with Maserati during the 1950s, claiming solid results aboard her A6 GCS, including tenth place overall on the 1955 Giro di Sicilia. She made her debut in…

‘THE DELOREAN IS A THING OF POISONED WONDER: DID EVER A CAR PROMISE SO MUCH, YET ACHIEVE SUCH CALAMITY?’ LIVING AND WORKING in central London, whose busy vices would bring Sodom into disrepute, raises all sorts of thresholds. Excitement, tolerance of crowds, anxiety, expense and fascination, for example. I can walk trance-like past a Ferrari showroom full of shiny treasures without looking up from my smartphone. Although, I confess, a matt black Rolls-Royce Phantom with backlit cursive numberplates did briefly divert my fragile attention the other day. Whatever, the game is continuously being raised. Then last night, strolling home through a quiet Knightsbridge mews, I saw something truly distinctive. It was dark and wet; the distant silhouette was not immediately recognisable, but the stance was impressive and the effect unique.…

‘I was shown a 1:1 model of the chassis and given a deadline of 20 days to finish it!’ WITH THE MIURA I’ve been very lucky, because everything with that car was about being in the right place at the right time. I didn’t graduate; I’m the result of my passion for cars and the Liceo Artistico [secondary art school], where I developed my design skill – even if my wish has always been to design the mechanical part of a car – and then I immediately went to work. Just after the Turin show, Gian Paolo Dallara and Paolo Stanzani, captained by Ferruccio himself, came to Grugliasco [home of Bertone]; the verbal agreement between Ferruccio Lamborghini and Nuccio Bertone had already been made and they had come to see…

THERE ARE two Holy Grails in the Miura religion. Both of them have been Octanecover cars – although one of these sacred objects is an exact replica of the original, which was destroyed in 1972. The written-off example was the Jota, a pet project of development engineer Bob Wallace, who wanted to build a lighter, more powerful Miura. Contrary to myth, it was never intended for racing: ‘[Ferruccio] maybe let me build it just to keep me happy,’ Bob told Octanein issue 38. The Jota was 350kg lighter than a Miura and had a souped-up V12 producing ‘400 and change’ horsepower, according to Bob. It also featured an ankle-slicing front spoiler, seen in the picture (right), in an attempt to reduce the notorious front-end lift. Sadly, the car was destroyed…

THIS IS WHERE Henry Ford lived and died. It’s the house that he designed and built, funded by the then-recent success of the Model T, and it’s where he and wife Clara entertained guests such as Thomas Edison and naturalist John Burroughs. As such, it’s one of the most important houses in the history of the world’s industrialisation. So you might be surprised to hear that the roof has leaked for years, ornate chandeliers have been replaced by fluorescent strip lighting, the swimming pool filled in, son Edsel’s personal bowling alley stacked high with old documents and magazines, and the bedroom in which Henry passed away used as an office. How could this be? Henry’s great-grandson Edsel II wondered the same, and it’s largely thanks to him that the house,…

‘The book stows in a beautifully weighted drawer, which pops out in a smooth action’ LEGENDARY PHOTOGRAPHER Terry O’Neill (below) probably gets painful twinges of overuse from his shutter finger. Now his whole hand must be aching after signing all 1000 copies of the new book Bond And Beyond. Terry, of course, has been firing and flashing at presidents and pop stars for six decades. His epoch-making images hang in galleries and collections worldwide, and he’s photographed everyone prominent you can possibly think of, from Amy Winehouse to Nelson Mandela. Little surprise, then, that he’s been a fixture on the set of James Bond movies, from the classic Connery era right up to the recent Spectre with Daniel Craig. It’s taken a long time for Terry’s Bond images to be…

THE AUTHOR states in his introduction: ‘[This book] isn’t the first to recount how Ford triumphed at Le Mans’. As he goes on to explain, it’s not a detailed history of the GT40, either, but instead attempts to weave together ‘the people, the politics, the technology and the racing’ that culminated in Ford’s humiliation of Ferrari in the 24 Hours. And it succeeds: the text is pacey yet authoritative, and benefits from a crisp and attractive layout that just draws you in. Even without the words, this book would be worth buying for Dave Friedman’s superb pictures, which are used generously large. They’re mostly black-and-white but include some great colour shots, too, from the 1966 and ’67 races. If you buy just one GT40 book, make it this one.…

THIS LITTLE HARDBACK is a modern production – but it could easily fit into our ‘Collector’s Book’ category, above, because it’s such a beautiful object. Travels With A Jaguar was originally published in 1954 and is a lighthearted account of an American family’s tour of Europe in their MkVII saloon; German Jaguar enthusiast Meier-Siem was so entranced by it, when given a rare copy as a present a few years ago, that he set out to research the people involved and reprint the original book. He has done a fabulous job and the reprint, on creamy paper with all the 1950s cartoons superbly reproduced, is quite gorgeous. Only available (in German or English) from www.jaguartravels.com, it would, in fact, make an excellent present……

DAVID LILLYWHITE Editor 1971 MGB GT 1971 Saab 96 1973 Citroën SM 1976 Zip Shadow Kart 1996 Subaru Prodrive Impreza ROBERT COUCHER International editor 1937 Bentley 4¼ 1955 Jaguar XK140 1973 Porsche 911S 2.4 Targa 1991 Range Rover Vogue GEOFF LOVE Publishing director 1989 Maserati Biturbo MARK DIXON Deputy editor 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in 1963 Ford Galaxie Country Sedan 1964 Chevrolet Greenbrier 1970 Lamborghini Espada 1989/91 Land Rover Discoverys 2001 Honda Insight SANJAY SEETANAH Advertising director 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante GLEN WADDINGTON Associate editor 1983 Porsche 944 1989 BMW 320i Convertible TONY DRON Test driver 1932 Austin Seven ANDREW ENGLISH Contributor 1960 Triumph TR3A 1965 Aston Martin DB5 JOHN SIMISTER Contributor 1934 Singer Nine Le Mans 1961 Saab 96 1968 Sunbeam Stiletto…

BETTER THAN ADVERTISED Silverstone Auctions, Stoneleigh, UK 28 Gebruary Many would warn you off the MGA Twin-Cam; Timemagazine judged it one of the 50 worst cars of all time, and not without justification. The 1.6-litre engine was a delight when on song, but frequently sang all the wrong notes, and disastrously poor reliability meant that buyers were found for just 2111 cars. Many of the Twin-Cam’s wrinkles have been ironed out over the years, however, and this well-sorted 1958 ex-works car (£70,000-80,000), is very appealing. The first works Twin-Cam to race in an international event, it finished 10th overall on the tough 1958 Liège-Rome-Liège Rally – which should be of some reassurance to those still wary of that infamous engine. www.silverstoneauctions.com WAR MACHINE Artcurial, Paris, Grance 5-6 Gebruary One of…

W ELL, 2016 has barely begun and already we’re staring down the barrel of a potential new record price for a car at auction in the form of the former Bardinon/ Collins/Moss/von Trips/Hawthorn etc etc ex-works Ferrari 335S that Artcurial is tipping to fetch up to €32 million ($34 million) when it comes under the hammer at Rétromobile. Ordinarily, and on its own, ‘$4 million’ looks like a lot of money. But for those who dwell in the mad world of uber-priced classic Ferraris, the difference between $34 million for this 335S and the current auction price record of $38.1 million for the 1962 GTO sold by Bonhams 18 months ago is (relatively) insignificant. Artcurial is probably being cautious in its estimate while remaining quietly confident that this year’s Paris…

MECUM, AUSTIN, TEXAS 12 DECEMBER This 1959 Mercedes-Benz 190SL, in grey with maroon interior, is an older restoration: let’s call it a more than presentable driver. It sold for $115,500, the new normal for 190SLs that fall between better-than-new and neglected rust tubs. Anyone who has torn one of these apart for restoration can tell you they don’t go back together like Lego. In reality ‘small car, big restoration costs’ are the watchwords. RM SOTHEBY’S, NEW YORK 10 DECEMBER The bar is always set high at a sale of this calibre, and this 1954 Siata 208S sold for $1,650,000. Not an inexpensive car by any means, and it was among the more interesting offerings. With coachwork by Motto from a Giovanni Michelotti design, these were rare when new and always…

OCTANEMERCHANDISE Suffering from the winter blues? From prints to magazine binders, Octanemight have just what you need to make yourself feel better. See www.octane-magazine.com. BUY OR SELL CLASSICS ONLINE Want to buy a classic car? Got a classic car to sell? Just fancy browsing classic cars for sale in your lunch hour? Satisfy all your cravings at www.classicand performancecar.com. ONE FOR BOND FANS Look out for the current issue of Octane’s sister magazine Vantage, with a cover story that celebrates the relationship between Aston Martin and James Bond – including the DB10 from the new film Spectre. SUBSCRIBE TO OCTANE Have Octanedelivered hot off the press – or read the digital edition on your iPad, PC or laptop. See our special offer (pages 152-153) or search for ‘Octanemagazine’ in your…

AS PART OF the week-long Southport Festival of Speed this March, Sir Henry Segrave’s 4.0-litre Sunbeam Tiger is set to return to the Merseyside beach on which it set a Land Speed Record of 152.33mph on 16 March 1926. And on the 90th anniversary of its heroic feat, the recordbreaker will be joined by the sole surviving Sunbeam Cub, an example of which Segrave drove to win the 1925 Kop Hill Climb. As well as hosting the newly restored Tiger’s first return to the sands on which it once ran in anger, the Southport Festival of Speed will be putting on various other events in the week running from Saturday 12 March. A re-enactment of Segrave’s runs over a measured mile is due to take place on the Wednesday, with…

‘IF PERFORMANCE CHIPS WORK, WHY DON’T MANUFACTURERS OFFER THEM INSTEAD OF GIVING THEM TO THE AFTERMARKET?’ I’M ALWAYS AMUSED by the extras that supercar manufacturers offer. Whether it’s the McLaren P1 or the Porsche 918, they come with a standard sound system. Or you can order the premium sound system. If you’re paying half a million pounds for the car, why wouldn’t they just give it to you in the first place? Does anyone ever say ‘No, no, I want the crappy sound system’? When I bought my McLaren F1 it came with air conditioning. But if you wanted the good air conditioning it was another 25 grand. It was an upgrade. And I thought, well, why are you offering me crappy air conditioning in the first place? It makes…

‘FANGING THOUGH THE COLS AND SWITCHBACK CORNERS, THE MIURA MORPHED INTO A GO-KART. A SUPERCAR INDEED’ THE FABULOUS Lamborghini Miura. The first supercar! That gorgeous piece of automotive art styled by young maestro Marcello Gandini, with those seductive Gina Lollobrigida headlamp eyelashes and buxomly curved hips accompanied by the most glorious V12 soundtrack ever to hit tarmac. Hmm, don’t want to put a dampener on things… but for years I remained unconvinced. The rotund Enzo Ferrari must almost have split his trousers leaping into his diminutive Fiat 500 and roaring down to the works to bollock his engineers who were working on the traditional front-engined 365 GTB/4 Daytona when he first saw the wildly futuristic Miura at the 1966 Geneva motor show. Actually I exaggerate – Il Commendatore had little…

THE RED VW GOLF GTI on the cover of Octane151 with the Peugeot 205 GTI was identical to the car in which I learned to drive as a teenager. I’ll never forget my many attempts, aged 14, to tame the excitedly revving engine while finding the biting point on the clutch in some remote parking lot. In winter, my late father, who was a medical specialist, fitted the Golf with studded winter tyres to reach his patients on snowy and icy mountain roads. Once, he bet his Jaguar XJS-owning friend that he could drive the Golf up the Black Run of our local ski resort, a er hours. And he almost succeeded. A er I earned my driving licence and le for university, my dad generously donated to me the…

‘We all agreed that the final version had to stay exactly as it was, because the shape was, simply, perfect. The Miura was bellissima’ WHEN IN 1963, aged 27, I started at Lamborghini, I had one year of experience at Ferrari and one at Maserati. The first car I worked on, in my new role as chief designer, was the 350GT, a beautiful car but it was not enough to win Ferruccio Lamborghini’s personal challenge with Ferrari. We designed the quad-cam engine before Ferrari, and independent rear suspension too, but in Sant’Agata we all knew we needed something really special. This is the reason why we went on exploring new, extreme, technical solutions. The Ford GT40, with its mid-mounted V8 engine, showed us the road to the future and we…

I STARTED WORK AT Lamborghini when I was still a student and the company was very new, with only ten or 12 employees. It was my tutor at university who suggested I should work there, but after my first day of work with Ferruccio in person I wasn’t sure there would be a second day. My teacher pushed me to return for a second, more sedate, day with Dallara, which is when I found out what I could do and I decided to stay. One of my early tasks was to transform the Bizzarrinidesigned engine – a racing unit that would have been impossible to manufacture in series and to use on the open road – into the Lamborghini engine we would install in the 350 and the 400. The…

IS THERE A MORE seductive recipe than the front-engined V12 GT? More practical and less showy than a mid-engined supercar, yet more exotic and enthralling than a fast luxury saloon, this suave, silken breed has captured the essence of four-wheeled wanderlust for more than half a century. Of those created in the post-millennial era, Ferrari’s 575M and Aston Martin’s Vanquish S are the high watermark: modern classics that combine potency, refinement and presence with perfectly pitched usability and understatement. Both were bitter rivals in their prime, yet the route by which each came to be is quite different. As successor to the 550 Maranello, the 575 built upon Ferrari’s rekindling of the front-engined formula by offering subtly evolved styling, a useful increase in performance from a modestly enlarged engine and…

‘FIVE THOUSAND AND TWELVE HOURS. That’s over 200 24-hour days. Or 125 of typical 9am to 5pm working weeks. That’s how long it took to restore the bodywork of the Lindner Nöcker. Not the entire car. Just its bodywork.’ Recognise those words? Regular readers might recall editor David Lillywhite’s story of the restoration of the unique factory-built Jaguar E-type Low-Drag Lightweight from issue 104 – that’s fully four years ago now. The story was about far more than simply cleaning up and reassembling old parts and we’ll come back to a brief, potted history shortly. Since that moment when all the work finally came to an end, as the owner of the Lindner Nöcker E-type and founder of Classic Motor Cars Ltd, which restored it, Peter Neumark has been busy…

THE TREASURE TROVE of vehicles stashed away by French haulage contractor Roger Baillon and unearthed in 2014 was one of the greatest collection of barnfinds ever, and the so-called ‘Baillon Ferrari’ 250GT California Spider has passed into legend. This book is an album of artfully shot photos of the vehicles as they were found; it’s both engrossing and depressing at the same time, because the total decay of many fabulous cars is revealed in all its garish rustiness. The contrast between oxidated metal and lush green foliage is stark – but it helps you understand why many vehicles have been bought as ‘works of art’ rather than restoration projects.…

INCREDIBLE TO LEARN that the author had just turned 23 when the first edition of this work was published in 1986; almost as amazing is the fact that the third edition is also three times the size of that original. Bentley, The Vintage Years now comprises three substantial hardbacks and is unlikely to be superseded as the definitive resource on vintage Bentleys, Clare Hay having exhausted every potential avenue of research – just 10% of cars built remain in obscurity. Vols I and II contain about 1000 pages of pre-war photos of the various Bentley models, plus motor sport; Vol III has some 500 pages of chassis histories… It’s a staggering achievement.…

Ford Thunderbird by Lanard Toys LANARD TOYS is not a very well-known name among model car collectors. It started operations in Hong Kong in 1978 and today it mainly produces plastic action figures for boys, and dolls and ponies for girls. In the late 1980s, however, Lanard made some plastic cars. They were each about seven inches long and included a Jaguar XJ220, Volkswagen New Beetle, Dodge Viper and 1949 Mercury with a rather lurid plated metallic finish. Among them, this model of a 1956 Ford Thunderbird stands out. Although frequently modelled in diecast metal and plastic over the years, replicas of this car haven’t always had correct proportions, but the Lanard Toys offering is remarkably realistic. It’s complete with whitewall tyres, two-tone upholstery and a ‘Continental kit’ spare…

IN THIS PICTURE A seasonal speciality Plum Pudding Sporting Trial, Head Down, UK. 28 December While we and most of the UK spent 28 December eating turkey sandwiches and Quality Street in dangerous quantities, some two dozen entrants were to be found blasting away the Christmas cobwebs on the annual Plum Pudding Trial. David and Lesley-Ann Methley didn’t trouble the top of the leaderboard (Paul Price was first overall by a good margin), but their Bank Holiday was, we can safely say, spent far more productively than ours.…

BONHAMS, LONDON 16 DECEMBER The two-millionth Defender, which symbolised the end of the 68-year production run of the ‘classic’ Land Rover, was always going to sell for serious money. Gven so, few could have predicted that this one-off, assembled at the factory by a variety of ‘names’ ranging from Bear Grylls to Virginia McKenna (and even Bonhams boss Robert Brooks himself), would find a home for £400,000. It went to a Qatari bidder. H&H, WORCESTERSHIRE 9 DECEMBER ‘Radical’ seems a fair way to describe this 1959 Austin A35 that had been brilliantly (and no doubt expensively) converted to a drag racer. It was powered by 4.6 litres of Ford Mustang V8. The £12,320 selling price seemed like a snip for such a well-built one-off – which also appeared to be…