Octane -julkaisun April 2016 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

ANYONE CONCERNED about the direction that classic car values might be taking will have been heartened by the headline result for the 2016 Artcurial Motorcars sale at Rétromobile. The star lot, a 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti, campaigned by Sir Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn amongst others, made €32.07 million (£24.7 million) including the buyer’s premium, a world record amount in sterling and euro currencies. Cue smiling auctioneers and plenty of column inches in newspapers not normally renowned for their classic car coverage. Make no mistake, the Ferrari’s sale was big news. But for the current strength of the US dollar, the ex-works Pierre Bardinon collection 335S Scaglietti would have assumed the mantle of the ‘world’s most expensive car’ (at auction). Even so, at $35.7 million it becomes the world’s…

WHETHER PERCHED on the pit wall clutching stopwatches or sitting in the passenger seat filming her husband’s lines around a circuit prior to a race, Patty McLaren was an integral part of Bruce McLaren Racing. Even after Bruce’s death testing a McLaren M8D in 1970, Patty kept close ties with the company that bears her husband’s name. McLaren’s current CEO, Ron Dennis, was a great admirer. ‘She was especially resolute in the period immediately after Bruce’s accident, inspiring “my boys”, as she used to refer to the men who made up the grief-stricken team, not only to keep McLaren alive but also to make it successful.’ New Zealand-born Patty was also patron of the Women’s Motor Racing Associates Club – affectionately referred to as the Doghouse Owners’ Club – set…

AN INTOXICATING mix of (mostly) temperate winter weather, a world-class hotel and the finest vintage cars turned Palm Beach into Octaneheaven. Owners of some of the rarest and most desirable cars in the world flocked to take them out on public roads for this year’s Cavallino Classic. The Breakers Hotel was the stunning venue for Thursday’s Symposium on three rare Ferraris, their maintenance and restoration. It was a fascinating study into the validity of different restoration approaches, beginning with a very special example of continuous ownership and upkeep in the form of the ex-Sebring 12 Hour 1955 Ferrari Monza of Admiral Phillips, who has owned, maintained and raced the car since 1960. The breathtaking 400 Superamerica Aerodinamico Coupé was used as a concept car by Pininfarina to explore different colours,…

FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE, wider arches, turbos. The specification sounds familiar – but there are four 911s here with it, and only two of them are wearing Turbo badges on their tails. All of Porsche’s Carreras now feature a pair of turbos to add pace without losing efficiency, exemplified here by the new Carrera 4 S and Targa 4. And so the 911 Turbo – and its faster-still Turbo S relation – have lost something of their USP. Once a byword for lunatic performance that demanded heroic reactions, the 911 Turbo has evolved to a point where it’s retained its ability to leave you slack-jawed, but without the intimidation factor. Thank the introduction of four-wheel drive from the 993 onwards. This 991-series Turbo and Turbo S get more power as part of…

THE HURACÁN has got better and better since its launch in 2013. Chassis revisions last year made it more engaging to drive, then came the infinitely more playful rear-wheel-drive LP 580-2. Now Sant’Agata has gone one further by producing this, the new Spyder, which, says Lamborghini, combines the power and dynamic performance of the coupé with the added emotion of open-air motoring. The Spyder does look rather suave. It is instantly identifiable as a member of the Huracán family yet different at the same time. I personally think it looks even better than the coupé, and the way the three-part hood glides gracefully into the rear bodywork in just 17 seconds produces a decent hit of street theatre, never more so than in a place such as Miami beach, where…

Not the only racing Miura THE ONLY RACING MIURA? [Cover feature page 70, Octane153.] Not quite! I raced mine in three Sports Car Club of America races in 1967/68: one at the Savannah, Georgia, road course; another at Montgomery, Alabama, on streets closed for the occasion; and finally at Huntsville Airport in Alabama, where the Howmet gas turbine also ran in the A Sports Racing Class. I retired, thankfully, from the Montgomery race when on the third lap my brake pedal went to the floor; those unvented discs weren’t up to the job. The other two races were more like high-speed tours, as I’d learnt my lesson brake-wise! One other thing: the disappearing oil pressure mentioned in your feature, which showed up in my car on the double-apex 180° turns…

WHO WANTS TO be a millionaire? And have flashy flunkies everywhere? Whether or not you agree with Cole Porter’s punchline ‘I don’t, because all I want is you’, surely one of the major perks would be the freedom to enjoy a car like this every day. Aston Engineering’s premises in Derby are just a street or two away from the maelstrom of the city’s ring road, but the DB4 feels on your side from the moment you thread it out between the workshop gates. That’s largely due to the power-assisted steering. The extra power of the 4.7-litre engine is also apparent within the first 100 yards; already you feel confident that this car has what it takes to cut the mustard in modern traffic. It’s a wonderful place from which…

‘The owner knew it was a GTa with many autodelta parts – he had no idea of its famous history’ SOUTH OF THE COTSWOLDS and just through the village of Tiddleywink nestles Castle Combe Circuit. Like so many of its ilk (Goodwood included) it’s a former airfield, and it’s fast and open rather than tight and technical. Today it’s empty bar one car, one car I can hear before I’ve even parked and got out of my old Porsche 944. The Team Slotemaker 1965 Alfa Romeo 1600 GTA Corsa has been let loose and its restorer Max Banks of Alfaholics sounds like he’s thoroughly enjoying himself. I remember Max’s infectious enthusiasm when I bumped into him in the paddock at Laguna Seca during the Monterey Auto Week in 2014. Work…

‘at closer quarters the auctioneer’s stream of sound is even more baffling than it was from 50 metres away’ THE DAY BEGINS with a joke and a warning. ‘A blonde gets pulled over for speeding…’ starts the bus driver over his PA system, on the shuttle between car park and sale room – but I won’t carry on. A minute later he reminds us all that knives over eight inches in length and all pistols are prohibited. And he gets us all to repeat after him which car park we’re in. Then we get to the Westworld showgrounds, where I discover that adult admission to the Barrett-Jackson sale is an eye-watering $75. This seems wrong. But it seems prudent to avoid asking out loud who would pay $75 to watch…

TO UNDERSTAND EL Cord’s car-making philosophy, look no further. Before his takeover, the Duesenberg brothers, August and Fred, were primarily motor sports motivated, winning multiple Indy 500s plus the 1921 French GP, and their understated Model A road cars carried race car influences. Post-takeover, August was out and so was racing, and Fred’s orders were to forget the Model A, build ’em big and powerful and cost be damned. It’s to Fred Duesenberg’s eternal credit that the following Model J and supercharged SJ, despite often carrying the most cumbersome bespoke coachwork ever devised, were among the fastest cars of their time, and of the highest quality. Throughout the collector universe they command vast respect. Yet at anything less than full boogie they tend to feel like what they are, in…

BIG, BRASH, and awash with bulging American muscle, Mecum’s ten-day jamboree (15-24 January) in Kissimmee, Florida, knuckled down to the business of selling cars – lots and lots of ’em – while many people’s attention was focused on Paris and Scottsdale. While Mecum isn’t shy of handling European and Japanese metal, its speciality is Americana, and the overwhelming majority of the nearly 3000 cars on the 2016 docket hailed from Detroit. They included practically every variant of 1960s and 1970s muscle car, from the comparatively commonplace to the exceptionally rare. A er a dip a few years ago in the values of the very rarest muscle cars, the revived popularity of the genre in the US has led to some extreme prices – top dog at the Mecum sale was…

OFFR OADERS ARE all the rage just now, what with the tearful farewell to the Land Rover Defender at the beginning of the year pushing up the prices of all old Land Rovers – and they were already on the steep side. Values of original ‘classic’ Range Rovers have winched themselves up the side of the dam in the past two or three years, while Toyota’s brawny Land Cruisers always seem to have a strong worth, as long as they can pass an MoT and maintain some forward motion. But Mercedes’ G-wagen has fared less well, in spite of off-road ability and road manners to shame a Landy. Perhaps because it wasn’t utilitarian enough to out-farmyard the Defender, and not posh enough to join the Range Rover on the red…

IN THE DAYS WHEN money talked as loudly as a yuppie on a brick phone in a champagne bar, the BMW 635CSi shouted to the rest of the world that you’d arrived. It was a ‘loadsamoney’ totem of its time – yet, as times changed, ‘pre-owned’ 635s came to bear the stigma of a sad loser car as they spiralled down the food chain into the hands of those with hopeless aspirations desperate to impress with a bit of cheap flash. In the land of rusty-wheelarch luxury car limbo, the 635CSi had all the cachet of Del Boy’s Reliant Regal three-wheeler. Foreigners – Europeans and Americans, for example – who are baffled by British class fixations will understand none of this insightful counter-factual commentary. But the point is that a…

SCHLOSS BENSBERG, one of Europe’s largest Baroque palaces, is the picturesque setting of the eighth Schloss Bensberg Classics on 1-3 July. With the tagline ‘very important cars only’, the exclusive event near Cologne is marked out by the high quality and rarity of the vehicles that participate in its FIVA A-rated concours d’elegance, and its rallye historiquethrough the Bergisches Land. The judging panel is headed up by ex-Bentley and Bugatti CEO Dr Franz-Josef Paefgen, and past members have included Jacky Ickx, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Chris Bangle and Walter de Silva. They will pick from more than 40 rare cars, including one-offs, prototypes and design studies from 16 competition classes. There’ll be exhibitions marking particular anniversaries, exceptional Michelin-starred cuisine and first-class hospitality as well. www.sbc2016.com…

GOODWOOD MEMBERS’ MEETING 19-20 March Less crowded than the Festival or Revival, this event revisits the best-ever tin-top racing period. New features for 2016 include races for Edwardian cars and two-stroke GP bikes, plus demos from Group 5 sports cars, Ground Effect F1 cars and Super Tourers. grrc.goodwood.com DONINGTON HISTORIC FESTIVAL 30 April – 2 May ‘Eight decades of racing cars’ at one of the UK’s most spectator-friendly tracks. Proper-length historic races for 400 cars from the 1920s to the 1990s, plus further live action including F1 cars, Group B rally cars and historic karts. www.doningtonhistoric.com GRAND PRIX DE MONACO HISTORIQUE 13-15 May Two weeks before Monaco’s modern GP, the famous street circuit is transformed into a temple of 1950s racing. Eight races, from pre-war GP cars to 1973-1976 F1…

WHEN THE BANG CAME it could have heralded something so much worse, what with being in the middle of a motorway tunnel and all. At dusk. With articulated lorries passing either side. In a 1952 MG TD. In Japan. But I had recognised that bang as a blown big end and, with cat-like reflexes, had found the presence of mind to knock the poor old girl out of gear so that everything didn’t lock up and lead to even greater carnage. ‘Is that bad?’ questioned my lady co-driver Jakki Phillips, the decidedly game editor of Tatler’s Hong Kong edition, who had never so much as been in a ‘classic’, much less driven one, until a couple of days before. ‘It could be worse,’ I lied, on the basis that the…

MUD, BLOOD, OIL, goggles, tweed and speed – the fourth running of the Historic Endurance Rally Organisation’s (HERO) Royal Automobile Club 1000 Mile Trial is a barmy British motoring event of the first order. You don’t have to be mad to take part in the oldest 1000 Mile Trial ever, but it certainly helps. Winner of the International Historic Motoring Awards ‘Rally of the Year’ in 2014 and2015, as well as winner of the 2015 FIA ‘FMC Heritage Cup’ award, the RAC 1000 Mile Trial is one of the best events for pre-war motor cars you will ever experience. This grand motoring adventure starts on 11 July with dinner on The Royal Yacht Britannia, Edinburgh, finishing five full-on days later at the RAC’s country clubhouse, Woodcote Park in Surrey, with…

WHILE MANY BMW aficionados have been hoping that the new M2 Coupé is really a modern-day E30 M3, BMW shies away from such comparisons, instead placing the new car on a pedestal with its most recent precursor, the limited-edition 1 Series M Coupé and, for a bit of nostalgia, the BMW 2002 Turbo. Yet a turbo and bulging wheelarches are about all the M2 and its groovy ’70s grandfather have in common. The new car’s development was driven as much by its business case as it was by the search for high performance in a compact package. Nonetheless, the M2 has been the subject of much hyperbole. After all, it borrows the best bits of the M3/M4 twins (high-tech differential, big wheels, components from the straight-six engine) and marries them…

IN ORDER TO distance itself from the ‘in-house’ team responsible for a wide range of 4x4s (Land Rover, naturally), Jaguar has decided its new F-Pace is a ‘practical sports car’ rather than an SUV. But even though we’ve only driven a pre-production 3.0-litre V6 diesel model on boggy ground, it would seem the Jag has got both ‘S’ and ‘U’ covered to an incredibly high degree. Despite its sporty pretensions, the F-Pace is extraordinarily capable off-road. Even by Welsh weather standards, in an astonishingly sodden quarry that JLR uses for 1800 hours of annual engineering development work, the F-Pace found frankly unbelievable levels of traction in grip conditions akin to black ice. It managed to pirouette round a cluster of cones in a balletic drift, before charging along mud-and-gravel tracks…

THIS 1969 FERRARI DAYTONA Speciale stands at the crossroads of automotive history. Two major trends were playing out when it was created and, intriguingly, this one-off in many ways signified the end points in both. The story begins in 1966, when the Daytona was conceived – but in Turin and not Ferrari’s home base of Maranello. That’s when 28-year-old stylist Leonardo Fioravanti was in the early years of his meteoric rise in Pininfarina’s design department, and happened upon an unclothed Ferrari chassis for the first time. ‘It was a 330 GTC-GTS,’ he joyfully recalled, ‘and [it] struck me as something really unique.’ That chance encounter sparked a serious creative urge, and soon Fioravanti’s pen was sweeping across the proverbial blank sheet of paper. ‘I wanted to faithfully follow the shape…

‘the LoLa t70 – and therefore the BroadLey t76 – is one of the most charismatic sports cars of aLL time’ IT COULD BE A SCENE plucked straight from the annals of motor sport history. A battered dark-blue-and-gold sports prototype thunders around Daytona’s daunting banked curves, patches of silver tape holding splintered glassfibre in place, scuffs and smears of rubber along its flanks offering more evidence of a violent collision earlier in the weekend. Yet still it pounds onwards, the holler of a 5.0-litre Chevy V8 ricocheting off the vast grandstands as this proud, potent, indefatigable car chases its tail in pursuit of lost time and the chance of victory. It’s one of the defining moments of last November’s Classic 24 Hour at Daytona and the culmination of a dream…

FOR MANY ENTHUSIASTS of American classics, the true tragedy of ACD’s 1937 collapse is what it meant for the groundbreaking, heartbreaking Cord 810. Already rushed to market prematurely in 1936 and untested except by its buyers, the model never even had a chance to re-group before the lights went out. It was a cruel end for the most technologically interesting US car of its generation – even perhaps, in context, the best of any generation. Originally planned as a junior Duesenberg and eventually diverted to replace the obsolete Cord L29, the 810 carried forward Cord’s Harry Miller-derived front-wheel drive, then a worldwide rarity. The 810, however, leapt forward by combining that with independent front suspension, four-speed pre-selector transmission, proper CV joints, full monocoque construction, and a gaggle of other innovative…

‘They must all be exceptionally rare; most of them would have been melted down for reuse’ THIRTY YEARS AGO this year, the era of ‘hot metal’ printing in the national newspaper business came to an abrupt end. Rupert Murdoch forced its demise in a highly unionised Fleet Street by switching to computerised typesetting overnight for The Sun and The Times papers. Some 6000 people lost their jobs. There was uproar and ugly confrontation. But the replacement of the compositors and their black arts at the controls of the typesetting machines with their molten metal output – technology that had been around for almost 100 years – slashed costs so drastically that every other national daily quickly followed suit. Printers at The Guardian even held a mock funeral for their obsolete…

1:8 scale Mercedes SSKL £6350. www.finemodelcars.com SO DETAILED that you can almost smell the hot oil and brakes, this glorious 1:8 scale replica of the Mercedes-Benz SSKL in which Rudolf Caracciola and Wilhelm Sebastian won the 1931 Mille Miglia (the first time a non-Italian had been victorious) is an imposing piece. Lightly weathered and boasting buckled leather straps for the bonnet and fuel can, the Amalgam Fine Model Cars’ SSKL is painstakingly handmade from around 2000 individual components, a process that takes a skilled model-maker in the region of 350 hours to complete. As a consequence the price of this four-wheeled masterpiece is reassuringly expensive. Magazine stool €128.50. www.njuorder.com THE HOCKENHEIMER is described as a storage stool, but really it’s a cunning disguise for your stash of important motoring publications…

WHEN YOU RUN a Mini specialist called Acespeed, you’d better make sure your racer is one of the quickest, right? ‘I bought 72 ACE in 2007 to do Historics as I had come from a Mini racing background, starting off in Mighty Mini and Miglia racing – but Historic racing was what made me tick. I went along to Race Retro that year and Piper Cams had it on its stand. I bought it and we fitted the “72 ACE” numberplate in recognition of our company, which has been around for 30 years. ‘Later I realised this was quite a special car. During a chat with Nick Swi at Swi une, I found out that Richard Longman had built it for European Historic racing in the mid-90s and won the…

LOOKING AT THE numbers, you could say not much has happened since our last visit to the MBCI in September 2015. But a lot has. It’s just that the story’s not about growth. In September the HAGI Mercedes-Benz marque measure peaked at 169.94. With growth only in one month of the last quarter of 2015, the index climbed further, thanks to the December gain, to end the year on 172.99, returning annual growth of 7.57%. However, in January, a month dominated by US auction transactions, the MBCI lost part of that gain, dropping back 3.95% to 166.16. Now the MBCI is marginally adri of where it stood four months ago at the end of September. These aren’t figures market cheerleaders will want to shout about, but they are significant because…

WHEN I’M AT HOME, typically I’m awake at 5 or 6am. I have three kids, so I work out or go through my emails before everyone else gets up. It’s a nice, quiet time. Then I help my wife get the kids ready for school, eat breakfast, that sort of stuff, before I go to my office at Hoonigan Racing Division. It’s about ten minutes away from my home in Park City, Utah, and I drive there in my flat-black Ford Raptor. There I’ll spend a couple of hours in creative meetings with my marketing guys. But if it’s snowing, I’ll get out and try to snowboard on the fresh powder! During the Rallycross season, there’s usually a distinct schedule and timing, with practice and qualifying, the heats, that sort…

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN / PEKING TO PARIS / THE ALPINE TRIAL / RALLY OF THE INCAS Pick any of these fabulous touring events from the Endurance Rally Association, conceived by the ‘godfather of historic rallying’, Philip Young, who sadly left us last year. An experienced team is carrying on his good work, and their next ‘biggie’ is the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge this summer, the sixth running of the event. www.endurorally.com LA COPPA DELLA PERUGINA 6-8 March This three-day event takes its cue from the race of the same name held back in the 1920s, and treats its 100 entrants to some excellent motoring in the beautiful region of Umbria, the ‘green heart of Italy.’ www.coppadellaperugina.com GREAT OCEAN ROAD TOUR 4-10 April (other dates available) An opportunity to drive…

‘It was the memory of Hillerman’s wonderful descriptions of the desert that prompted a recent road trip to the USA’s dustiest region’ BACK IN 1996, I was sitting at a bar in Taos, New Mexico, talking about crime fiction with Automobile editor David E Davis Jr. He said: ‘You love the high desert landscape of the Southwest? I’ll send you a Tony Hillerman book.’ A few weeks later, two paperbacks arrived with Native American symbols on the covers. They were the first two books in Hillerman’s series of Navajo mysteries, The Blessing Way and Dance Hall of the Dead. Who could resist a read with these cover notes? ‘Navajo tribal police discover a corpse with a mouthful of sand, a crime scene without clues or tracks! Lt Joe Leaphorn must…

SO YOU’VE SEEN THE HILLCLIMB, the rally stage, the circuit, the airfield. Maybe you’ve cheered on the horses at the racecourse, played a round on one of the two golf courses, had lunch at The Kennels or wandered around the Sculpture Park. But have you really seen Goodwood? All 12,000 acres of it? It’s easy to forget not only the vastness of the Goodwood Estate, but how varied it is. Until recently much of it was closed to the public, but last year Goodwood added to its driving experiences – track days, skid pan sessions, hot laps of the circuit – with an off-road experience in BMW X5s that covers the farmland, chalk pits and ancient woodland of the Sussex estate. It’s all satisfyingly gritty and adventurous, but of course…

If, a er reading this supplement, you are inspired to venture across the Irish Sea, you’ll be in good company. Sir Malcolm Campbell took part in the 1928 International Tourist Trophy race at Ulster, as did famous Bentley boy Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, at the wheel of a Bugatti. Birkin returned in 1930 with a lightweight Mercedes-Benz, and again in 1931 piloting an Alfa 8C 2300. Riley racer Freddie Dixon won the RAC Tourist Trophy at the Ards circuit, and Mike Hawthorn achieved success at the Leinster Trophy in Wicklow 1935. During the World War 2, my uncle spent four years with the Canadian Air Force based in Ireland, picking up an accent that never le him. Later, back on the mainland, he used to speak of ‘modering’. This meant,…

ONE OF THE CLASSIC car world’s most ebullient characters, Stanley Mann, has died following a fall in his workshop on 4 February. Described by his close friend Philip Strickland of Benjafield’s Racing Club as ‘a big, warm-hearted, generous family man’, Mann was globally renowned for his deep love of vintage Bentleys, selling, restoring and racing them. And above all, enjoying them to the full. Stanley Mann was born in April 1945 and began his career as a professional photographer. But he became smitten by the Bentley marque after he had the opportunity to restore a 3 Litre model; he soon binned the photographic career and set up a vintage Bentley operation behind his parents’ butcher’s shop in Edgware, North London. As the business grew, he later moved to a farm…

IF WORDS AREN’T ENOUGH, then the actions of British and American enthusiasts surely are: Rétromobile attracts them to Paris in remarkable numbers, despite the show’s relatively small size and its strongly Gallic nature. Still, Rétromobile is now the biggest it’s been for years, taking over a second hall for 2016, and continuing to regain the charm that it was so well known for during the 1980s and ’90s. What brings the charm? It’s not the venue, which is your typical modern exhibition hall in a not particularly attractive area of Paris: it’s the quirky nature of some of the exhibits. Most noticeable this year was the huge and wonderful two-tone blue 1955 Pathé-Marconi mobile TV studio, designed by Philippe Charbonneaux and built on a Panhard chassis to follow the Tour…

Donington Historic Festival 30 April – 2 May Donington, UK THE DONINGTON HISTORIC Festival promises something really special for May Bank Holiday break, with grids of 400-plus historic racing cars across 17 events, open-access paddocks, live rally and karting action plus a huge display of road classics. Celebrations include 80 years since Dick Seaman/ Hans Ruesch’s 1936 Donington GP win. The HGPCA Nuvolari Trophy will mark the anniversary, featuring pre-1950 Grand Prix and Voiturette cars. From early Bentleys, Bugattis and Frazer Nashes, through 1950s and ’60s sports and GT machines, to Touring Cars such as Ford Capris, Rover TWR Vitesses and XJS Jaguars, there’s something for everyone. The new Pre-80 Endurance Series mixes sports-racing, GT and Touring Cars, while the ‘1000km’ race recreates the early-1970s sports prototype battles – a…

IT’S A BIG ’UN, is the annual Techno-Classica Essen. Germany traditionally kicks off its classic calendar with this massive exposition of vintage, classic and prestige cars, motorcycles and motorsport – in fact, all things automotive and interesting. Annual attendance of 190,000-plus proves that the tried-and-tested, and extremely slick, formula still hits the spot in this, the event’s 28th running. It’s even been reliably described as ‘the world’s largest classic car show’. Spread throughout 20 halls and display areas, the traditionally vast array of classic specialists is complemented by impressive showcases from many of the world’s major car marques, which are keen to celebrate their own heritage. There are more than 2500 collector’s vehicles for sale, as well, from the exotic to the everyday. Hands-on classics owners and restorers are likely…

THE GAME HAS CHANGED. The combined might of the LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder has seen to that. Developed with huge resources, head-spinningly complex hybrid systems and drawing on F1-spec simulators and massive engineering departments, these three extraordinary cars have taken Bugatti Veyron-style performance and wrapped it up with startling agility and excitement. They define the new ‘hypercar’ genre. How can tiny independent manufacturers like Pagani respond? The obvious answer might be more of everything… Power, wings, good old-fashioned outrageousness. But Pagani is cleverer than that. The company plays its own game. A game defined by lightweight materials, construction that’s as much art as engineering, and a sense of the bespoke that must be almost hypnotic should you have the funds to indulge. And quietly, behind closed doors,…

ONE OF FORD’S stated aims with the new Focus RS is that it should satisfy professional drivers, flatter ordinary ones, and make every driver feel they’re a bit better than they are. Ken Block (you know, the guy whose Gymkhanatyre-shredding, donut-popping, crazy-precision driving videos started to go viral a few years ago; see page 274) was hired as a consultant to a team based in Europe yet headed mainly by men from Ford’s homeland. An American-engineered hot hatch? One fettled by the Head Hoonigan himself? Hmm. First impressions are good. Gone is the harsh ride and intimidating demeanour of the 2009 front-drive five-cylinder three-door. In its place is a calmer-looking five-door, offering clues via its high-mounted rear wing, low-profile 19s, splitters and gaping front air intakes: like teaming a Hugo…

‘WE SAT IN THE PADDOCK (ACTUALLY BIRMINGHAM’S VEGETABLE MARKET), ONLY TO BE TOLD OUR RACE WAS CANCELLED’ PICTURE A NIGHTCLUB owner and, like me, you might imagine a tough nut with a sharp line in sarcastic wit. Certainly a type not to be crossed. So when I first set eyes on Birmingham nightclub owner Martin Hone, 40 years ago, I was rather taken aback. He resembled my idea of a Presbyterian minister, friendly but earnest – and he was indeed a man on a mission. Martin was set on bringing an F1 Grand Prix to the streets of Birmingham, even though there’d never been a motor race on closed public roads in mainland Britain and any such thing was, in fact, illegal. Martin needed action at the highest political level.…

‘BETTER THAN money in the bank’. The old saying beloved of dodgy traders seeking to persuade dubious punters to part with their cash has, amazingly, become true of most classic cars in recent years. There’s no doubt that the current economic situation has helped keep our hobby buoyant but, of course, rising values are a double-edged sword. As with the property market, it’s all very well if you’re some way up the ladder; very frustrating if you’re just putting a foot on the bottom rung. But even if you will never be able to afford a classic like the DB4 Series 1 pictured here – and that goes for the Octaneteam – then you can take some small comfort in knowing that high prices are keeping specialists and parts suppliers…

THE WORKSHOPS are as spotless as expected. The design offices are hushed and efficient. The machine shop is simply awe-inspiring. But it’s the unexpected that always shines, isn’t it… In a warehouse out the back, mostly stacked with anonymous crates, is a floor-to-ceiling rack of old F1 cars. It’s breathtaking. Here’s a 1997 Williams Renault FW19, a 2003 Williams BMW FW25, a 2009 Williams Toyota FW31 – and just being wheeled in is Mansell’s 1992 Williams Renault FW14B. Wow! A mass of blue, white and yellow, each car differentiated from the next by some crucial detail in a spoiler, an air duct, a winglet. You know how it is in F1. This could have been where Williams F1 cars went to die, and certainly they’ve been hibernating here for some…

‘The enThusiasT in me hopes ThaT The surge of inTeresT in warbirds is abouT more Than money’ BY THE 1930s, the British Government had realised the RAF could no longer rely on lightly updated biplanes with design origins in 1918. Ramsay McDonald’s Air Ministry issued specification F7/30 in 1931, calling for a 250mph fighter equipped with four machine guns, and Reginald Mitchell, chief designer at Vickers-Supermarine, set about developing the company’s tender, based on his victorious Schneider Trophy seaplanes. Most of the country’s major aircraft manufacturers tendered their specifications and Hawker’s chief designer Sydney Camm began work on an updated version of his elegant biplane fighter, the Fury. The Ministry would issue two more specifications in 1934, by which time Rolls-Royce had already begun development of the V12 engine that…

E L CORD ENVISIONED Auburn as a volume-selling, entry-level premium marque. The Speedster was its ‘personal luxury’ offering: rakishly styled, moderately priced, a car for those on their way up in the world to park outside the office window. With sufficient performance to commendably quicken the pulse (relative to its time and circumstances, anyway), the Speedster sold well, too, until the economy tanked, and this, the later Gordon Buehrigdesigned 851 (labelled 852 a er 1935), is certainly among the sexiest automobiles built by mankind, anywhere, anytime – 1930s France not excluded. Cord himself would be considered a lion of the American Golden Age if this were the only machine ever to have le his factory gates. Oddly enough for the mid-market entry, this 1935 Model 851 is actually more enjoyable…

‘The Ektra incorporated a range of features well in advance of cameras from Leitz and Zeiss’ IT’S A REMARKABLE fact that America, with its vast manufacturing capability and pursuit of market domination in all areas, made only one attempt to build a world-class 35mm rangefinder camera system – and it was a failure, albeit a magnificent one. George Eastman brought photography to the masses in 1889 when he introduced celluloid film and a ‘return to vendor’ processing service. ‘Kodaks’ were soon selling in the millions across the world. Eastman’s film was 70mm wide. Prolific inventor Thomas Edison, when working on his moving picture Kinetoscope, slit the Kodak film down the middle and glued the pieces end to end to make his 35mm movie film, which rapidly became the industry standard.…

If you’re the sort of person who loves to read books about Porsche 911s, this one is guaranteed to have you craving a very particular version of it. snodgrass has dedicated this beautiful 406-page book (hardcover, plus slipcase) to the impact-bumper 911 2.7 Carrera with mechanical fuel injection, built from 1974 to ’76. Why is it special? A crucial question. rightly, snodgrass has identified the car that came after the legendary (there really is no more appropriate adjective) and increasingly valuable 1973 Carrera rs 2.7. the 2.7 MfI hasn’t been on the collector radar in anything like the same way, though it performs just like the rs. Admittedly it’s rare, yet it’s still a 911 that the merely wealthy (rather than mega-rich) can afford. that situation may change once collectors…

Masetati Bota 1:18 BY BBR-TOPMARQUES PRICE £183.95 MATERIAL Resincast QUALITY VALUE ITALIAN company BBR makes an eclectic range of 1:18 models in its TopMarques series: the current offerings include such odd bedfellows as a Lancia Thema 8.32 and a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee. But we thoroughly approve of this particular subject. Mounted on a non-detachable base – not easily detachable, anyhow – it’s a gorgeous rendition of a 1974 Bora, the Giugiarostyled and V8-powered supercar from Modena. There’s a lot of bright metal trim on a Bora, which has been represented by etched parts on the model; if we’re being hyper-critical, some of it appears a little two-dimensional as a result (notably the wiper arms). But this is really nit-picking, for the overall appearance is superb. Limited to 500 examples,…

THE MOST CHARGSMATGC hero of the big screen – ever – is not James Bond. Or Indiana Jones. Or Han Solo, or Robin Hood, or Spartacus. It is Matthew McConaughey’s irrepressible Dirk Pitt, the chief protagonist of Sahara, a film described by Rotten Tomatoes as ‘a mindless adventure flick with a preposterous plot’, as though those were not good things. In the course of the movie (too ridiculously convoluted to summarise here, but it involves a search for the wreck of a Civil War ironclad carrying Confederate gold), our treasure-hunting marine archaeologist commandeers boats, jeeps, camels, a plane and, fittingly, a machine conceived by Gabriel Voisin – architect, engineer, inventor, ladykiller par excellence, and the most charismatic car manufacturer the world has known. That red 1936 Avions Voisin (‘Avwonn Vossahn’,…

WHEN PRESTON TUCKER’S dream of building a car of his own design died, it was not the fault of his product. The streamlined Tucker 48 was an exciting machine, even a er initial attempts at production had forced certain concessions to practicality to be made. Full of unusual safety features including its directional ‘Cyclops’ headlamp, and powered by a rear-mounted helicopter engine making 372lb G of torque, it was quite something. Not a compelling enough proposition, however, to survive a perfect storm of PR disasters and government investigations into Tucker’s business practices: by 1950 Tucker Corp had been declared bankrupt and forced to sell off its assets. Among those were chassis 1052 and the other parts that would eventually be assembled into the car pictured below, the ‘52nd of 51’…

WHAT DOES THE MOB boss who has everything buy himself? Well, in the case of Californian gangster Joe Cerrito, he rings up a salesman from the newly created Continental division of Ford and orders a Deep Bronze Metallic Continental MkII, to be picked up from the factory in person. One hesitates to wonder by what means the aforementioned Mr Cerrito (who also owned Lincoln and Mercury dealerships) acquired the money to pay for his luxury coupe, because in 1956 when equipped with optional air conditioning the elegant Continental cost $10,430, as much as a contemporary Rolls-Royce. Still, Mr Cerrito’s gain was Ford’s loss – the company reputedly threw away $1000 on every Continental MkII produced, happy to do so on the proviso that the European-influenced land yacht boosted the prestige…

SUCH WAS THE SUCCESS of last year’s inaugural modern-day Chateau Impney Hill Climb that the motor sport extravaganza is now set to be established as an annual fixture. The event, which takes place at the historical Chateau Impney country house hotel near Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire, is staged in celebration of the speed trials that ran up the venue’s picturesque driveway between 1957 and 1967. The 2016 event is scheduled for the weekend of 9-10 July, and will see around 200 competitors in pre-1967 cars attempt to beat the clock – not to mention 2015’s fastest time, set by Jack Woodhouse’s Lotus 20/22. Approved by the MSA, the challenging, 1000-yard hill climb course is twice the length of the original. A concours d’elegance complements the motor sport action. It’s been…

AMELIA ISLAND CONCOURS D’ELEGANCE 11-13 March Is there anything better than a concours in the autumn California breeze? Maybe one in the Florida spring sunshine… The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance celebrates its tenth year in 2016, with the star attraction this time being the swoopy but sadly stillborn Shelby/De Tomaso P70 Can-Am car. There’s auction action courtesy of RM Sotheby’s, Gooding & Co and Bonhams, too. www.ameliaconcours.org BRITISH CARS & LIFESTYLE 12-13 March The Netherlands’ major annual event for British car enthusiasts attracts more than 200 exhibitors, and Anglophiles from all across Europe. www.britishbest.nl TECHNO CLASSICA ESSEN 6-10 April With over 1250 exhibitors from 30 nations, among them most of the major manufacturers, Techno Classica is among the biggest car shows in the world. There’s too much to see (and…