Sommaire pour September 2023 de Octane

AFTER GRADUATING in industrial design in 1972, Horbury studied at the RCA for a masters in automotive design. His first job was at Chrysler, but it was at Volvo that he really made his name. Appointed design director in 1991, his projects included the TWR partnership C70. In 2002 Horbury moved to lead Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, including Aston Martin and Jaguar as well as Volvo, before becoming executive design director of Ford USA in 2004. He returned to Volvo in 2009 under new owner Geely, rising to oversee design of all the Chinese giant’s brands before settling at Lotus. He died on 29 June.…

I wonder if today’s auto enthusiasts are missing out on a very important part of the whole car experience. As much as I love my McLaren P1, all I can do is drive it. The fact that I can’t access the engine and do basic maintenance on it sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a poser. I don’t in any way consider myself a race-car driver, but I do take pride in the fact that I’m really pretty well-versed in how my machines work. I had something happen the other day that drove this point home to me. My friend David Lee, who is an avid Ferrari collector, brought over his yellow 1971 Ferrari Daytona Spyder for me to drive. David is an extremely generous owner who loves…

Not sure why I have never owned a Japanese car, because I like all things Japanese – the food, style, culture, crafted kitchen knives, and sake. And it’s pretty obvious we have to thank the Japanese for disrupting the auto industries of old, making cars massively better for motorists who want reliable transportation from A to B. In the 1960s, the British car industry was in decline. Lack of investment, myopic management, stroppy workers and unreliable products were becoming the norm as Japan sold its first car in the UK in 1965, a Daihatsu Compagno for £799. Over-priced and with a funny ‘foreign’-sounding name, it wasn’t a good seller: only six were shifted in five years. But it was the harbinger of things to come. With the arrival of Toyota,…

First time out In 1960, three Corvettes were entered by Briggs Cunningham in the GT 5.0-litre class. John Fitch and Bob Grossman drove number 3 to eighth overall and a class win. It set the ball rolling for these cars to be taken seriously at Le Mans. Flat-out record-breaker In 1967 Dick Guldstrand set a new top speed record for the Mulsanne straight, clocking 171.5mph. The record was smashed in 1973 by another Corvette, John Greenwood’s ZL1-powered ‘Stars and Stripes’ car, which hit 215mph. Callaway gets his way In 1994 Corvette tuner Reeves Callaway finally saw one of his cars race at Le Mans. The GT2 C4 ‘SuperNatural’ was quick, but ran out of fuel on lap 142. Callaway returned in 1995, finishing second and third in class. The Corvette…

NOTHING LIKE A proper road trip to act as a deadline. The BMW returned from a full service but needed to go back in for a new water pump. It turned out to be the source of dripping coolant rather than the radiator, which had been my fear. The pump arrived and, while things were in bits at Templeton’s Garage, Stuart Templeton fitted a new cam-belt, tightened the tappets, sorted a couple of weepy oil seals and steam-cleaned the engine block. The car came back looking very healthy indeed and feeling even healthier. I swear Stuart found another few bhp; that straight-six really zings around the upper reaches of the rev-counter now. It arrived back late on a Wednesday evening and I spent the following afternoon cleaning and readying it…

TWO LONG YEARS. I hadn’t driven the Honda much beyond the end of my lane in all that time, save for a few visits to the supermarket. The loss of a loved one last year inevitably pushed everything else aside, and getting out and about in old crates didn’t seem terribly important. Nevertheless, I still felt guilty for not using it more. In early June I finally got together with co-owner Chris Rees for an excursion to Wales aboard The Little Orange Joy Machine. It’s a country we both love; one that is easier to get to from Chez Hezza in Shropshire than Berkshire, which is where Chris schlepped up from on a Friday afternoon. Fortified by an evening of tall tales and a few beers, we awoke the next…

WHEN YOU’RE IN tune with a car, you often feel or hear a minuscule change in its behaviour that raises a red flag. This happened to me while driving my 306 in a bad rain shower. I noticed an extremely faint hesitation while exiting a roundabout: nothing serious, possibly something that had become damp. ‘I’ll monitor it, and see if it happens again…’ I hadn’t noticed anything amiss in the following few weeks, and in the absence of a working Audi A2 (more on that in a future update) the 306 had continued to perform its duties as my daily driver admirably. I took it on a run up to see my dad in Lancashire and, although the drive isn’t the most interesting along the M6, I was planning to…

AS ONE OF the world’s great driving roads, the Route Napoleon has a bit of everything. Sections of tight twisties, crests, dips, incredible wide fast sections, and plenty of sheer drops and jagged rockfaces to focus the mind. The views are spectacular and it’s located a stone’s throw from the French Riviera, the start point for today’s drive. Ushering in the beginning of a new era for Aston Martin, the DB12 is the first all-new model launched under the leadership of Lawrence Stroll. Described as ‘the world’s first super tourer’, it’s aiming to tread the delicate line between luxury brands such as Bentley and Rolls-Royce on one side, and such performance-oriented brands as McLaren and Ferrari on the other. What that means is that the DB12 needs to raise the…

THIS YEAR MARKS the 150th anniversary of the garment that became the most popular item of apparel ever, turning the world indigo blue. On Tuesday 20 May 1873, Jacob W Davis and Levi Strauss & Co of San Francisco were granted US Patent No.139,121 for ‘work pants reinforced with metal rivets’. The following month The Pacific Rural Press, a local San Francisco newspaper, carried a modest ad announcing the granting of the patent, concluding with the statement: ‘Levi Strauss & Co of this city are sole agents for the new manufacture, and will soon place them in the market in large quantities, so that our miners, farmers and workingmen can supply themselves with superior overalls.’ Little could anyone have imagined quite how large those ‘large quantities’ would be. Jewish immigrant…

The name of James Dean is inextricably linked with the Porsche 550 Spyder in which the actor met his untimely death in 1955 at the age of just 24 and in recent years a spate of models of this car has appeared. But there’s also been an element of artistic licence when it comes to model cars associated with James Dean. One such concerns Solido of France: its 1994 ‘Signature Series’ was basically a way of getting more sales out of existing castings by putting a facsimile of a film star’s autograph on the side and packing in a special box. In 1:43 scale there were four in the series: a 1937 Packard (Humphrey Bogart), a 1939 Rolls-Royce (Orson Welles) and a 1950 Buick, available in either pink (Marilyn Monroe)…

£4,907,000 (€5,742,500) 1955 Ferrari 121LM RM Sotheby’s, Le Mans, France. 9 June £4,640,000 (€5,400,000) 2002 Ferrari Enzo Monaco Car Auctions, Monte Carlo, Monaco. 8 June £2,408,000 (CHF 2,760,000) 2020 Bugatti Chiron Bonhams, Cheserex, Switzerland. 18 June £2,016,000 ($2,535,000) 1964 Porsche 904 Carrera GTS Broad Arrow, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 10 June £1,992,500 ($2,500,000) 1967 Porsche 910 Bring a Trailer, online. 8 June £1,927,000 (€2,255,000) 2007 Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 RM Sotheby’s, Le Mans, France. 9 June £1,927,000 (€2,255,000) 1984 Lancia LC2 RM Sotheby’s, Le Mans, France. 9 June £1,705,500 (CHF 1,955,000) 1990 Ferrari F40 Bonhams, Cheserex, Switzerland. 18 June £1,626,500 (€1,885,620) 1968 Porsche 908LH Balsan Enchères, Cherré, France. 29 June £1,326,000 (€1,551,875) 1958 Lister-Jaguar ‘Knobbly’ RM Sotheby’s, Le Mans, France. 9 June…

A few years ago, a masters student at Colgate University in the USA calculated that actors enjoyed an 81% boost in their earnings, on average, after winning an Oscar. The famous golden statuette itself, though, is as good as worthless in most cases: since 1950, Oscar winners have had to sign a contract forbidding them from disposing of a trophy without first offering to sell it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for $1. According to Beatrice Welles, her father didn’t even put that much value on the trophy he won for co-writing Citizen Kane. Orson Welles detested the Hollywood establishment – and the few people he considered talented were often treated viciously, too. When Richard Burton tried to introduce Elizabeth Taylor to Welles, he was…

1958 BMW 501-8 $117,500 The 501 was BMW’s first post-war car, and this V8 version is unusual. Restored about 15 years ago in Europe before being imported to the US, it remains in excellent condition today. hymanltd.com (US) 1968 PORSCHE 912 POA It might not have the power or soundtrack, but this 912 certainly has the style of an early 911. Two fewer cylinders mean it’s lighter too, and this 49k-mile Polo Red example looks very smart. hendonwaymotors.co.uk (UK) 1983 PEUGEOT 504 COUPÉ €18,800 Maybe not quite as pretty as the earlier cars but there’s something very appealing about this ’80s evolution of the French Pininfarina-styled coupé. The brown velour interior is magnificent, too. kenniscars.nl (NL) 1967 MERCEDES-BENZ 250SL AUS $319,995 Just over 5000 of these 250SL Pagodas were built, making…

WHAT TO PAY At the very top end, expect to pay around £55,000 for an immaculate, low-mileage car. Generally speaking, though, you can find very tidy, extremely usable examples around £30,000-45,000. You may find something in need of work from around £20,000. Most are red, green or black, though a small number were sold in yellow, blue or purple. Expect to pay a small premium for these. WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR The outer panels don’t rust, but they can crack, so check them carefully, especially if they have been repaired. The monocoque was galvanised at the factory, so corrosion is not a huge problem. Door mechanisms are easily adjusted, and their belts are cheap to replace. Engines and gearboxes are very strong and easy to maintain. An M3 LSD…

ROBERT COUCHER ‘Maybe it’s just the association with the ever-so-delightful Japanese actress and Bond Girl, Akiko Wakabayashi, that I have always been smitten by the enigmatic Toyota 2000GT. I thought it was to do with the way the wing mirrors followed the line of her exotic eye make-up. I now know more.’ Read more of Robert’s thoughts on pages 56-64. OLIVER BROOKWELL ‘I found the Iso Rivolta really interesting. I’d never heard of one before and something about a V8-powered Italian muscle car is just cool. I really liked the lines of the body, and the lacquered, ageing paintwork really suits the car and tells a story.’ Oliver’s photography accompanies James Elliott’s words on pages 84-92. STEVE SUTCLIFFE ‘The notion of space is very different at the southernmost tip of Chile, where…

Well, the past month or so has passed by in a blur, and it was all about Le Mans. This being the centenary year, we all hoped it would be a memorable race rather than just a procession. We got what we wanted and more. As I have mentioned more than once, I am proud to be a Ferrari old boy, having made my debut in Formula 1 and in the 24 Hours with The Reds. Have to say, I honestly didn’t expect a Ferrari to win outright, though. I had been asked during the run-up for my thoughts and I reckoned it would be Toyota’s race unless something unexpected happened. Toyota had had the monopoly in the previous five races, after all. But no. Instead, the AF Corserun Hypercar…

Mountney Classic is part of the Mountney Group, which is based in Banbury and has been established nearly 50 years. It encompasses a host of brands and covers, not just modern and classic steering wheels and bosses, but also a wealth of other high-quality interior and exterior accessories, such as gearknobs, mirrors, horn pushes, fuel fillers and much more. To find out more, visit www.mountneyclassic.co.uk or call +44 (0)1295 270770.…

ABOUT 16 MILES east of Stuttgart lies the town of Schorndorf. It’s picturesque yet unremarkable, typical of what is now a wine-producing area, with the old market square surrounded by quaint, half-timbered buildings, and a gently bustling feel as Baden-Württembergers go about their shopping or take some shelter from the spring sun at one of the many coffee shops and bars. One single building is of particular note, and that’s the birthplace of a visionary: Gottlieb Daimler. When the engineering company started by Daimler in 1890 merged with that of Karl Benz in 1926, the foundations were laid for the modern car manufacturer we now know as Mercedes-Benz. ‘This is where it started. A protestant need to survive in a poor area,’ says Marcus Breitschwerdt, head of Mercedes-Benz Heritage, as…

ROBERT COUCHER International editor ● 1955 Jaguar XK140 ANDREW ENGLISH Contributor ● 1962 Norton Dominator● 1965 Aston Martin DB5● 1967 Triumph GT6● 1972 Moto Guzzi V7 Sport GLEN WADDINGTON Associate editor ● 1989 BMW 320i Convertible● 1999 Porsche Boxster SANJAY SEETANAH Advertising director ● 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio● 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante● 2007 Mercedes-Benz SLK200 MARK DIXON Deputy editor ● 1927 Alvis 12/50● 1927 Ford Model T pick-up● 1942 Fordson Model N tractor● 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in JAMES ELLIOTT Editor-in-chief ● 1965 Triumph 2.5 PI● 1968 Jensen Interceptor● 1969 Lotus Elan S4 ROBERT HEFFERON Art editor ● 2004 BMW Z4 3.0i JOHN SIMISTER Contributor ● 1960 Singer Gazelle conv● 1961 Saab 96● 1972 Rover 2000TC● 1989 Mazda MX-5 Eunos MATTHEW HOWELL Photographer ● 1962 VW Beetle…

I HAVE TO admit that my neighbour had a point when she complained about the weeds growing in front of my barn on our shared driveway. I actually rather like weeds – and the bees certainly liked these ones – but they have got a bit out of control. They’d had months and months to grow tall because the last time the Model T was out of the barn was nearly a year ago, when I used it to recover some dead tree for firewood (Octane 234). The car – which has a coil-and-distributor conversion – wasn’t running at all well and the advance/retard lever had to be pulled down much further than usual to make it work. It felt as though the timing had somehow massively slipped. House renovations…

‘An intermittent engine cut-out on the Moto Guzzi V7 Sport was caused by a broken electrical wire, which would reconnect only if you pushed it down’Andrew English ‘I’ve fancied owning a vintage coupé for some time, so the recent chance to buy a 1924 Sunbeam 14/40 DHC couldn’t be resisted!’David Burgess-Wise ‘The Boxster has come back from a service and MoT with new brakes and a new suspension arm. It drives great – but the bank account has taken a bit of a battering’Glen Waddington ‘Triumph’s stripped and the brilliant James Godfrey-Dunne is finding out all kinds of things about the bodywork. Are you familiar with the phrase “sills on sills”?’James Elliott Contact Vintage Tyres on +44 (0)1590 431051 vintagetyres.com…

THE GREAT BRITISH Car Journey museum opened in 2021 and, when it recently extended an opportunity to visit, I jumped at the chance. I mean, where else do you get to drive the exhibits? Founder Richard Usher showed me around, his Birmingham-born enthusiasm evident as he introduced me to many of the 130-strong collection, from Austin Seven and Morris Minor via Ford Escort and Cortina to Vauxhall Cavalier and more. I treated myself to a bit of nostalgia by sitting in a BL Princess, not dissimilar to the one my dad had when I was an impressionable four-year-old. It felt like a step up from a Cortina, back in 1978. Talking of dad’s car, the museum’s USP is its Drive Dad’s Car experience, which visitors can book before being handed…

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26 July H&H, Buxton, UK 26-29 July Mecum, Harrisburg, USA 28 July SWVA, Poole, UK 29 July Barons, Southampton, UK 30 July Hampson, Oulton Park, UK Silverstone Auctions, Old Warden Park, UK (motorcycles) 2 August Brightwells, online 4 August Silverstone Auctions, Broadway, UK 12-13 August Mathewsons, online 15-22 August Shannons, online 17-18 August Broad Arrow Auctions, Monterey, USA 17-19 August Mecum, Monterey, USA RM Sotheby’s, Monterey, USA 18 August Bonhams, Carmel, USA 18-19 August Gooding & Company, Pebble Beach, USA 19 August Cheffins, Harrogate, UK 19-20 August ACA, King’s Lynn, UK 25-26 August Silverstone Auctions, Silverstone, UK 26 August Barons, Southampton, UK 26-27 August Lucky Collector Car Auctions, Tacoma, USA 31 August – 2 September Worldwide Auctioneers, Auburn, USA 1 September Gooding & Company, London, UK 1-2 September Mathewsons, online…

SPECTATORS AT THIS year’s Le Mans Classic were treated to a true spectacle as 71 vintage Bentleys from the Benjafields Racing Club descended on the Circuit de la Sarthe. The occasion was a special centenary race to celebrate the marque’s rich heritage intertwined with that of Le Mans. In true Bentley Boys style, the Le Mans experience wasn’t just confined to the track, but was accompanied by a flurry of activity that took the club from the UK to Le Mans and back again. Following a celebratory lunch, HRH Prince Michael of Kent flagged the cars away from London’s Royal Automobile Club. The convoy of Bentleys then dashed across the Sussex countryside towards an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Caen, via a supper stop at Cowdray House. The following day, residents…

HUNGARIAN emigré János Ódor, who passed away in early July, came to the UK in 1956 and joined Daniel and Bunty Richmond’s Downton Engineering before going solo and setting up Janspeed in 1962. Initially he specialised in Mini performance parts but soon branched out into other British marques, his exhausts and turbos becoming the bedrock of the company. Similarly lucrative was the race and rally prep the company specialised in, starting with Leyland and ending up with the contract to run Nissan’s works entries, which included his own son Kieth. Kieth died in a Super Tourenwagen Cup accident at Avus in 1995, aged just 33.…

Of all the many forms of motoring art, surely the most unfairly overlooked – and the most appealing to the true nerd – is the cutaway or technical drawing. Not skeleton drawings, or the annotated drawings perfected by Bob Freeman, but the humble cutaway. A production line of artists churned these drawings out week after week for the big-selling UK magazines such as The Motor and The Autocar, so much so that their names became very familiar with readers even if they weren’t quite sure why. Let us remind you of just a few: Vic Berris, Lawrence Watts, Roy Haynes and John Fisher. Like court drawings, there was a noble simplicity and restraint to what these artists created, evoking shape, form and depth all with minimal shading, whether they were…

Architecture and car design are inextricable, although the styles employed rarely leak from one discipline to the next. True, the architecture critic Jonathan Meades once morosely described Robert Opron’s Citroën CX as ‘the last Gothic car’. And Thomas Ingenlath’s Polestars look, from some angles, like a John Pawson sketch for a minimalist bathroom in Tokyo. But I am wondering whether there may be something else, something more fundamental, in the urge to make both buildings and machines. Something that operates at a pre-intellectual, perhaps even genetic level. And this is how I came to be thinking about Harry Ricardo (1885-1974), whose academic study of flamepaths in enclosed vessels led to an understanding of the composition of petrol that, in turn, led to ‘octane’ categorisation. Octane? A useful word! And here…

ON MY WAY BACK from taking the Fiat in for its ‘MoT’ test, which in Italy has to be performed every two years, it developed a problem. It felt as though it was being starved of fuel, even though the tank was half-full. Whenever I floored the throttle, the engine would die. I pulled into a layby and checked the tank (fine) but, when I looked in the engine bay, I noticed that the fuel filter was half-empty. I thought the fuel pump must be faulty, and I had a spare with me, but, since the MoT centre is less than two miles from home, I hadn’t brought any tools! After the engine had cooled down, I poured some water over the fuel pump and the engine restarted – only…

TWO JUDGING CLASSES caught my attention when the invitation to the London Concours arrived. One was ‘Make Green Great Again’ and the other was ‘Wildcards’ – basically a sweeper class for anything the organisers want to invite but don’t have a suitable class for. Like my Lancia Fulvia Zagato, perhaps. Then, for the Green class, how about my (unique) green Jaguar V12 XJC? I sent in the details requested by the organisers and a few weeks later received a ‘yes’ to both cars being there. The next job was working out how to get two cars to and from The Honourable Artillery Company HQ, deep in the City of London, for the three-day event. Obviously, I could drive one of them into London but, to make logistics easier, I decided…

CIELO, THE ITALIAN word for sky (or heaven), seems like an appropriate name for this, the open-topped version of the Maserati MC20. Although we’re in Berkshire to drive the entire Maserati range – including the all-new Grecale – this incredible supercar has really stolen the show. As it lacks many of the overstyled external features of other supercars, you might actually call the MC20’s looks understated in the company of rivals. Having said that, chopping the roof off has certainly ramped up the glamour to new heights. Maserati’s first supercar since the epic MC12 is based around a carbonfibre monocoque tub developed by Dallara, and the Cielo has been beefed-up in key areas to account for the new roof aperture. The retractable roof mechanism is pretty clever, too – the…

1933 Packard Special ‘Chitty’ H&H Classics, Buxton, Derbyshire, UK 26 July, handh.co.uk This Chitty Chitty Bang Bang evocation was put together in 2018, using a genuine pre-war chassis and six-cylinder 5.0-litre Studebaker engine. The owner wanted to build the most authentic replica of Chitty – to suit the period setting of the film. The body was designed to replicate the original, but also improved in several areas. Offered with the reg FLY 539, it’s estimated to make £160,000-180,000. 2006 Alpina Roadster S Brightwells, Leominster, Herefordshire, UK 29 July, brightwells.com Unlike the majority of Alpina’s products, this Z4-based Roadster S was fitted with a manual gearbox from the factory. Combined with an enlarged, handbuilt 3.3-litre straight-six producing 296bhp, this transformed Z4 is a real animal! Showing 153,988 miles, it has clearly…