Sommaire pour May 2021 de Octane

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF the demise of the Lotus Exige and its platform-sharing siblings may not immediately dawn on everyone, but this is a big deal. A really big deal. If you think about it, Type 14 Elite and M100 aside (and the latter of those is debatable), Lotus has really only traded off two pure road-car platforms since 1962 – yes, just shy of 60 years. First there was the marvellous accidental backbone chassis that started life as a testbed for Rotoflex couplings and went on to see service through the Elans, Eclats, Excels and Esprits etc until it finally bit the dust well into the 21st Century. Hey, if it ain’t broke… While that backbone chassis was hardly new tech even on its introduction – one wonders if Lotus…

With the UK’s vaccination programme in full swing, a ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown in place and, finally, some genuine optimism that this really might be the beginning of the end rather than the end of the beginning, again, here’s a taste of what we have been missing, and our friends on the other side of the Atlantic have been enjoying all the while. Both sets of pictures were taken by our man in California, Evan Klein (read all about his Audi TT in Octane Cars): the first at Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories’ irregular and informal pop-up beach meet, which attracts everything from everyday classics to pricelss exotics, plus super-rarities such as the Lancia Delta S4 Stradale. Even Audi TT designer Freeman Thomas turned up in an early green Porsche 911.…

There’s a technique for folding yourself into an Exige, or so I’ve been told. You can spot a seasoned Lotus owner by how easy they make the process of getting in and out look. In that respect, graceful I am not, yet I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time. We’re on hallowed ground at Hethel, long-term home of Lotus, with the keys to four of the most extreme cars the company has ever built. At a little over 20 years since its 2000 launch, 2021 will also mark the Exige’s final year of production. And as a reinvigorated Lotus heads into an exciting new era with a new platform and new powertrain options, Elise, Exige and Evora production must make way for the future. More on…

It is difficult to describe the Bernina Gran Turismo. The inaugural event was by invitation only, back in September 2014; the first ‘open to the public’ running came a year later. So this is a young event, yet already it is considered one of the greatest in the classic car calendar. As early as 2017, the Bernina Gran Turismo was shortlisted for Motor Sport Event of the Year in Octane’s 2017 Historic Motoring Awards, and it became a finalist for Rally of the Year in 2018. Take part and you’ll be timed; there are winners, too, yet this is not a race as such. Neither is it a rally, nor a touring event. Instead it is a gathering of passionate drivers, and one of its most appealing aspects is the…

THERE ARE FOLK who aspire to walk across the Arctic; others will not rest until they have stood on the summit of Everest, or rowed across the Atlantic. For the man behind Pink Floyd’s drum kit it was always Le Mans. To race at La Sarthe was the pinnacle, a lifelong dream, despite never having raced anything more modern than a Ferrari GTO. Well, you know what they say about drummers… but then, to tackle the ultimate test of man and machine, you do need to get a rhythm going. And he did, winning the Index of Performance and coming second in class at his first attempt in 1979. ‘Given the choice, going to Le Mans is a hell of a lot easier than walking in the Arctic or rowing…

TAMIYA LANCIA DELTA INTEGRALE ROBERT HEFFERON WE LOVE TAMIYA! Well, that’s what we acknowledged in the last issue, anyway, so when Octane was offered a radio-controlled car of its choice, I stepped up because I wanted to make one with my son. I narrowed down the huge range that Tamiya offers to the Lancia Delta Integrale: a favourite of mine and very Octane! It was gearing up to be a quieter than normal Christmas break and I had visions of Baxter and I spending our evenings together, casting aside screens, wearing matching jumpers and drinking hot cocoa. I’d opened the box a few times, glimpsed the transparent shell – still complete with excess moulding flash – and realised 1) the level of involvement this build needed, and 2) that I…

1955 JAGUAR XK140 ROBERT COUCHER WITH THE NEW diaphragm clutch fitted and the timing chain tensioner upgraded, the team at Twyford Moors attended to a few other XK issues while the big six-cylinder lump was out of the car and on an engine stand. One recommendation was to upgrade the standard water pump to that from a Mk2 saloon. This is cast in aluminium, so it’s lighter than the standard mild-steel job, and usefully moves the water pipe away from the distributor. The pipe itself is made of stainless steel rather than the mild stuff and, since the new pump only cost £135 plus £40 for a heater return pipe, it seemed silly not to. Barry Shurman set about reassembling the XK engine with a new head gasket and carefully…

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BMW’s E24 M6 – or M635CSi as it was in virtually all territories outside of North America – was a genuine Grand Tourer, but the S38B35 dualoverhead-cam six-cylinder engine that powered it in the US (European M635CSis had the M88/3) was from an out-and-out sports car, the rare and desirable BMW M1. With a body originally sourced from coachbuilder Karmann, the M6 was also only available as a coupé. And this is one of just 1767 US-market examples, all built between 1987 and 1989. Options include a factory power sunroof, power seats, BBS TRX RS wheels, and a Nakamichi stereo head unit. Although the M1 was the first M-badged car, the 3.0 CSL was the spiritual grandfather of the popular series. As a result, the BMW M-series cars usually have…

THE BILLING OF ‘Supercars on Sunset’ says it all. Bonhams is preparing its latest sale in LA next month, focusing on what it calls ‘the classics of tomorrow’. Built as a roadgoing supercar, the Saleen S7 was fast. It formed the perfect basis for a very successful racing car, developed in partnership with Ray Mallock Ltd in the UK (based very close to Octane’s former offices!). It took on the American and European Le Mans Series, scoring some impressive results. Bonhams is offering this 2007 road car, one of three uprated to S7-LM specification, featuring an aggressive aerodynamic package, with power boosted to 1000bhp and having a theoretical top speed of 248mph. It’s not subtle, but there’s a refreshing honesty to its race-bred wings and vents. Showing a mere 300…

GLANCE AT THIS revolutionary car today, and it’s hard to believe that it’s more than 50 years old. Launched in 1967, the Ro80 didn’t merely look like a car of the future but, thanks to its peculiar rotary engine, it sounded like a spaceship, too. NSU had a small-scale but relatively long history of vehicle production in Neckarsulm, Germany, that dated back to 1901. During the 1950s, after the introduction of the four-cylinder Prinz, the company started to experiment with rotary engines. NSU owned the rights to the design, and formed a partnership with Citroën and Mazda to co-develop them for mass-production. In order to prove the concept could work on a larger scale beyond small, lightweight sports cars, NSU needed to think bigger. What followed was one of the…

9-11 April Oldtimer Show Five hundred vehicles spanning a century of automotive progress are displayed at the Hungarian Railway Museum in Budapest, among them some Eastern European rarities scarcely known to the average car enthusiast. oldtimershow.hu 10 April VSCC Exmoor Trial Exmoor’s thick forests and muddy fields will provide challenges and laughs in equal measure, assuming the event can take place. The VSCC plans to confirm one way or the other a month ahead of time. vscc.co.uk 10-14 April Copperstate 1000 Crews in pre-1974 sports and touring cars enjoy 1000 miles of dreamy desert roads as they motor through Arizona and beyond, following a new route each year. mensartscouncil.com 15-18 April Gran Premio Terre di Canossa Italy has more than its share of great regularity rallies, and this one takes…

CANCER HAS CLAIMED a legend of rallying. Mikkola, born in Finland, became the WRC World Champion in 1983, during the Group B era and driving for Audi as the Quattro rose to pre-eminence in the sport. He was runner-up on three other occasions, and won 18 WRC rounds. He won his home country’s 1000 Lakes Rally no fewer than seven times, a record shared with fellow Finn Marcus Grönholm. While many remember the Flying Finn for his Quattro exploits, he made his name in the tail-sliding world of the Ford Escort. He began his career on local events in Finland, driving Volvos; his first 1000 Lakes success came in 1968, driving an Escort Twin Cam. With codriver Gunnar Palm, Mikkola won the London to Mexico World Cup Rally in 1970,…

LOTUS HAS DONE amazing things with the Elise chassis over the past 25 years, pushing it far beyond its intended lifespan, thanks to the platform’s extremely solid architecture and some seriously talented engineers who kept it on the boil. However, 2021 will mark the end of the road for this legend. Thanks to the increasing support of Chinese parent company Geely, the Norfolk-based sports car manufacturer finally has in place the necessary funding to lead the charge into its electrified future. The fully electric Evija hypercar might seem like a million miles away from the lightweight, simple Lotus formula that we associate with the brand, but it lays the groundwork for the look and vision that will filter down into its future sports cars. Although very little of that future…

Throughout the 1970s, the Porsche 911 defined motorsport’s GT category. It was the perfect weapon for privateers – quick, reliable, and constantly being updated thanks to Porsche’s unwavering commitment to its competition programme. As a result, it became nearubiquitous. At the 1971 Le Mans 24 Hours, for example, six of the 12 classified finishers were 911s, and it was the same story all over the world. Wherever there was a GT class, 911s would be there in strength. If you ask anybody to picture one now, they’re most likely to conjure an image of a 2.7 RS or one of the RSRs. Before those, however, and in the midst of Porsche’s domination of Group 5 racing with its 917, came the S/T. In the early 1970s, these cars laid the…

Akangaroo hop, accompanied by a detonation of sound. The hotted-up flathead V8 sounds angry; a prior briefing had outlined the car’s predilection for thermal radiation, a problem in period, and even the later addition of a cooling fan only does so much. To keep it happy, you need to be moving at quite a lick. Except we’re inching our way along kidney-rattling cobblestones. And roadworks lie ahead. Joy. Once past the men wearing hi-vis jackets and looks of bewilderment, all doubts that this was a bad idea dissolve in floods of adrenaline. The road ahead is now paved with smooth asphalt, and poor impulse control prompts a less-thangentle prod of the throttle pedal. What follows is the rush of excitement, the absolute surrender that occurs when you get behind the…

2021 JAGUAR XF AND F-PACE MARK DIXON WE’RE ALL rushing headlong into an electric automotive future, it seems, with Jaguar recently announcing that it will offer an exclusively electric line-up from 2025. Despite that, and possibly because of it, there seems quite an appetite for traditional petrol- and diesel-engined cars at the moment – such as the three featured here, which have been heavily revised for 2021: the XF 300PS petrol saloon, XF Sportbrake 204PS diesel, and F-Pace 400PS petrol. Apart from their internal-combustion engines – all variants of JLR’s Ingenium unit – what links this trio is their brand new interior styling. The three cars share effectively the same cabin design, and it improves hugely on what went before, with a premium feel (at last!) thanks to high levels…

NOTWITHSTANDING A looming global conflict, the ultimately fatal injuries suffered by Thomas Murray Jamieson at Brooklands in May 1938 set British motor racing back a decade. That he was spectating rather than participating at the International Trophy made his loss all the more difficult to bear. Stocky, shy and unassuming, the Londonborn Anglo-Scot had been a brilliant scholar at Regent Street Polytechnic before emerging from London University with a glut of diplomas and medals, as well as a BSc in engineering. He joined the Green Engine Company in 1925, but fled to Amherst Villiers Superchargers in 1928 and thereafter would be at the heart of most things good and ambitious about pre-war British racing. Murray Jamieson designed the crank and rods for Sir Henry Birkin’s supercharged 4½-litre single-seater Bentley, and…

Take a look at the Ferrari Challenge drivers’ gallery on the company’s website and you’ll notice that a good proportion of entrants are not going to see their 30s or even 40s again. That’s because the Challenge is aimed at owners who want to test themselves and their cars in competition – and both time and money tend to be in shorter supply when you’re young. Nevertheless, the demand is clearly there because the Challenge has been run since 1993 and more than 1000 drivers have taken part. Their latest weapon is the 488 Challenge Evo, and BBR’s beautiful handbuilt replica depicts the actual car from Ferrari’s publicity photos. Only 200 models will be made, each mounted on an individually numbered and leather-trimmed base. It’s not easy to make out…

AGAINST A PRE-SALE estimate of £5-7million, the furious bidding stalled at £4million for what was described as a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ 1937 Bugatti Type 57S. We previewed this car, which features coachwork by Corsica of London, in Octane 213. It had been preserved in the workshop of its late owner, Bugattiloving engineer Bill Turnbull, since 1969. All of the six cars offered in this sale were sold, including a pre-sale deal on the 1965 Ferrari 275 GTS for an undisclosed sum. The 1960 Aston Martin DB4 GT was another project in need of restoration, but it sold for a strong final price of £1,975,000. RM Sotheby’s held its Paris auction at around the time that Rétromobile would have happened during an ordinary year. Conducted live online and over the phone –…

WITHOUT GETTING INTO the intricate discussions surrounding continuation cars, and just how they fit into our world, it’s fair to say that the AC Cobra MkIV has rightfully taken its place in Cobra history. Thanks to the efforts of Cobra enthusiast Brian Angliss, who bought much of the old tooling, Autokraft was formed in the early 1980s. Based on the later MkIII-spec cars, the MkIV came with improved suspension and brakes. And with permission to use the AC name, the Cobra was officially back! Offered here by Cobra specialist Redline Engineering UK is one of the later ‘Lightweight’ cars, built in the UK at Brooklands, and first registered on 1 January 1990. The lightweight specification includes a lightened chassis, MkIII-type aluminium body, a 340bhp stage-three smallblock 302ci Ford V8 engine,…

PORSCHE RSK Testing the peak of Porsche’s racing Spyder prowess Issue 216 on sale 28 April PLUS Cadillac Sixteen, America’s multi-cylinder Art Deco masterpiece Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus 72 goes under the spotlight Supercharged works MG: on the road in the legendary Cream Cracker Unique Lancia Delta Integrale S driven (Contents may be subject to change) Have Octane delivered to your door Buying the new issue of Octane PRINT ISSUE Octane is available at the usual branches of UK shops, such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and independents, as well as WH Smith high street and travel. Or you can order a copy of the latest magazine to be delivered direct to your door by visiting magsdirect.co.uk and searching for ‘Octane’. DIGITAL ISSUES Download the Octane Magazine app on Android or Apple…

THIS IS TRULY one of the world’s great museums. First, here are some facts from the Australian War Memorial that will give an insight into why the place was built and why Australians consider it an essential part of their lives to visit it. Add to that thousands of foreign visitors and you have a top attraction. Australia has always rallied to ‘the call of the Empire’ as far back as the Boer War, where over 500 Australians lost their lives. World War One saw 61,600 fail to return home, and in World War Two 39,655, or 10% of the number that enlisted, died. Nearly 1000 more were killed in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Many had never heard of the places where they would die, either in battle or from…

Porsches and Queens Porsche has been revealed as the first of the ‘Great Marques’ classes at the London Concours (londonconcours.co.uk) on 8-10 June. A display at the Honourable Artillery Company will feature 12 cars from 1948 to the present day, including 911 930 Turbo, ’55 Porsche 356 T1A GS Carrera Coupé, lightweight 911 2.7 RS, and 959. The event shifts to a three-day format in 2021, with VIP Preview Day, Style Edition and Supercar Day. Because the Royals haven’t been in the news much lately, London Concours’ sister event, the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court (3-5 September), has announced its 95-car line-up will honour the Queen’s 95th birthday. Established in 2012 to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the event will chart the development of British cars in her lifetime,…

AS A JUNIOR DOCTOR, I first came across a Reliant Scimitar while working at Hillingdon Hospital, near Heathrow. I visited a classic car showroom and fell for a burgundy Scimitar GTE, with its V6 engine and elegant Tom Karen design. That car, with tan leather trim and relaxed auto gearbox, transported me around a series of hospital posts until I made the mistake of trusting it to an ‘expert’. They fitted a new (wrong spec) fuel pump, left it running outside, the pump spurted petrol over the engine bay and it caught fire! I had to have another, and this 1978 Scimitar GTE SE6a has been my daily car for the past 30 years in and around my South London GP practice. It has always been garaged, is utterly reliable…

YOUR FEATURE about Tom Peck’s Ferrari 750 Monza (Octane 214) ignited an idea of such brilliance that I am still reeling from the seismic effect it would have on my own basic collection. Now, Mr Peck is clearly a man of substantial means. I cannot even start to comprehend the expense and logistics involved in importing Tuscan stone all the way to California to create what has to be one of the finest garages on Earth. How wonderful would it be to have such a creation at my humble home in East Sussex? At this point, an idea struck me. It would be silly to import Tuscan stone to Sussex, especially when the cars to be concealed within its walls hail from Coventry and Birmingham. I keep a trio of…

Jay Leno’s 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II has the pounding heart of a Spitfire. It looks like an exquisite piece of jewellery made of polished obsidian and sterling silver. That, and the nicest parts of an oil refinery. The proportions are obscene, the acreage from cockpit to headlights alone enough to deserve its own Waitrose. It’s clearly a hot rod, what with those huge tubes spilling lewdly from the engine cowl down to the gaping flues jutting from under the running boards. Even so, it’s pure Roller forward of the firewall. All 27 litres of it. America’s foremost late-night comedian seems taken aback by my first question. ‘Why?’ he snaps, his blue eyes cranked open in startled dismay. ‘What kind of question is that?’ A dumb one, perhaps, because this car…

Leafy Surrey on a chilly winter’s day is a very different environment from the sun-scorched Highveld of South Africa. In the village of Cobham, down a small lane, you’ll find a functional-looking red-brick building. Drawing closer, you cannot fail to notice through the large showroom windows a number of gleaming cars of elegant persuasion. Yes, this is the hallowed home of RS Williams Ltd, one of the world’s pre-eminent Aston Martin specialists. Amid the dark green, silver and deep blue Astons, a bright yellow Capri is unavoidably eyecatching. The game is given away by the Perana badges on each flank, V8 badges front and rear, and purposeful twin exhausts. It’s something of a Holy Grail. Neil Thompson has been with RS Williams for decades and was responsible for running Lord…

Homage? Not really. Toolroom copy? Nope. Facsimile? Hmm. Evocation, recreation, refashioning? None quite right. Reimagination, restomod? Lord no. Continuation? That doesn’t cut it either. I reel off the now-myriad names for replicas, so many added since Jenks kept it so nice and simple, but none quite hits the spot for Tom King of Bell Sport & Classic. Well go on then, you tell me, Tom. ‘We have agonised over it, believe me, but we can’t get it quite right. The closest we can get is “remastered” because it covers the passion and focus, but even that’s not absolutely spot on… and David Brown Automotive probably has the copyright on that anyway.’ What is proving so difficult to describe is a Ferrari 330 LMB born out of a 330 GT and…

EARLY IN 1950, the renowned Life magazine combat photographer David Douglas Duncan was in Japan on assignment when the Korean War broke out. One evening, fellow Life photographer, the Japanese Jun Miki, asked if he could take Duncan’s picture. Observing that the light was so low that it would be useless, Duncan nevertheless agreed and Miki pressed his shutter release. The next day, and much to Duncan’s amazement, Miki showed him a perfect print of the shot. When Duncan asked what make of lens Miki had used, he was equally surprised that the name Nikkor meant nothing to him. Miki offered to take Duncan to the Nippon Kogaku KK factory to examine the lenses for himself, which resulted in Duncan buying a complete set of Nikkor lenses to fit his…

Book of the month Allard, the Complete Story ALAN ALLARD and LANCE COLE, The Crowood Press, £40, ISBN 978 1 7850 0559 6 As journalists we are usually pretty sceptical about anything that has a big bold claim such as ‘complete’ in the title, meaning the book in question then has to work extra hard to pass the additional scrutiny and live up to its extravagant billing. To be brutal, most don’t and those that do tend to be megabucks limited editions coming in diamondencrusted slipcases, or niche labours of love with limited commercial appeal… or interest. So, all things being relative, a £40 hardback numbering fewer than 250 pages has an awful lot of work to do to win over this cynical and grizzled hack. Luckily it is off…

OFTEN OVERLOOKED, the HWM racing team played a huge part in the UK’s assault on the international racing scene following World War Two. HW Motors was an Aston Martin dealer by day, run by John Heath and George Abecassis. The team didn’t have huge budgets but raced competitively, and often gave young drivers their first shot at racing. 1950 was a big year for the team, when it entered three cars in 19 British and Continental meetings. This HWM Alta Jaguar, offered by Silverstone Auctions, is one of the four works cars (plus an extra chassis) built for that season – driven by Abecassis, Heath and a young upstart called Stirling Moss. Designed and built by HWM, it features a custom twin-tube chassis, wishbone front suspension, and a transverse leaf…

I WAS WEANED ON PETROL. My father is in the motor trade and I was a tomboy as a child, often making mud tracks to race my Matchbox cars or drawing cars in DT at school. I rode a Honda MT50 trials bike as soon as I was old enough, and I can remember standing in ditches watching the RAC Rally with dad. It was inevitable that I’d end up doing something with cars or bikes for a living. I’ve worked in automotive PR for 25 years, been self-employed for 17, and worked from home for ten of those. I get up at 6.30am. Currently I’m doing a 500-mile walking challenge for Cotswold Dogs & Cats Home, so I’m pounding the pavements every morning. I can’t get out of bed…