Sommaire pour October 2023 de Octane

MY EMAIL TRAIL with Anton Raaymakers (above) goes back to 7 November 2019, when I was on the steering committee for the London Concours and, with the rest of the committee’s blessing, nay encouragement, invited the Dutchman to show his remarkable Jensen C-V8 MkIII at the event. He agreed, of course, but we all know what happened shortly afterwards and that is why it was only this June that Anton’s splendid GT finally graced the cricket pitch at the Honourable Artillery Company in the City of London. Anton dressed as James Bond, rather tangentially because Sean Connery owned a C-V8 in real life (rather than on screen), had a brilliant time, charmed absolutely everyone with his endless infectious enthusiasm and took home two major trophies. To put those awards in perspective,…

CLASSIC CAR LOBBY GROUPS have welcomed a Government investigation into the workings of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), which they claim is failing historic motorists. In mid-July, Richard Holden MP announced the independent review of the DVLA as part of a wider Government programme exploring the effectiveness and efficiency of public bodies. It is intended to ensure the DVLA can provide a licensing service to motorists and the public, and will be assessed on four pillars set by the Cabinet Office: efficiency, efficacy, accountability and governance. The move comes after senior members of both the Historic and Classic Vehicles Alliance (HCVA) and Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs met with Holden, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Roads and Local Transport. Federation chairman David Whale and HCVA chair David…

A MOUTHWATERING selection of Le Mans cars at Salon Privé from 30 August to 2 September will continue the global celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the famous 24 Hours race. The cars on show will include Porsche 962 004, which was campaigned by 1983 winners Al Holbert and Vern Schuppan along with ex-F1 star John Watson in the 1985 race, but sadly pulled out with engine issues after 299 laps and 21 hours. It will be joined on the manicured lawns of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire by the 1988 Porsche 962-200, second of the three bespoke 962s campaigned by Richard Lloyd Racing and piloted variously by Octane’s Derek Bell, Tiff Needell and James Weaver. Another star Porsche will be the 1995 Porsche 993 GT2R run by privateer Jean-François Veroux with…

Even though we can’t see it, we can hear it – the unsilenced V12 howl of an Aston Martin DBR9 ringing out across the wide-open spaces of a disused airfield. Eventually the sound fades and the car peels off the test track and back into view, onto the wide runway that leads up to our assembly area, but the driver has no intention of covering those few hundred metres at a gentle cruise. Instead, he buries the throttle again and runs it up through second gear, then third, then fourth. With headlamps ablaze and a rooster-tail of dust being kicked up behind, it’s genuinely an awe-inspiring sight – and that’s to say nothing of the ear-splitting soundtrack. Only after that glorious final burst does the driver back off and bring…

MANY ARE THOSE who’ll tell you that the 1990s were an era of me-too cars, that they all looked the same. Even Car magazine decried the situation, with a cover line on its July 1990 issue that asked ‘Euro-car clones: who’ll put a stop to dead-end design?’ Yet it was also an era rich in oddities and stylistic and technological digression. How about the bike-engined LCC Rocket and Strathcarron SC-5A? De Tomaso’s Guarà? Or perhaps the car you see here: the Panther Solo II. Only 12 were released on an unsuspecting public during 1990, but the headlines had proclaimed it a winner from first sight. ‘Behind the wheel of the most important British sports car since the E-type Jaguar,’ declared Car. ‘Britain’s most exciting new sports car for 25 years,’ hailed…

Few families have done more to record, research and promote the history of a marque than the Conways have with Bugatti. They have become inextricably linked with the Molsheim company in the 60 years since Hugh G Conway published his seminal book Bugatti – Le Pur-Sang des Automobiles. It’s little wonder that his son, also called Hugh, has followed in his footsteps, most recently thanks to his work as chairman of the Bugatti Trust. While most children have at least a period of rebellion against their parents, Hugh Conway insists that he was never tempted to become a devotee of Alfa Romeo or Maserati simply to goad his father. ‘HG’ Conway was an engineer who had a long career in the aerospace industry that took him from Short Brothers to…

1954 DAIMLER CONQUEST PETER BAKER BY MID-FEBRUARY 2023, my participation in the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique with Doris the Daimler was already history, and I was looking forward to another full season of hillclimbing. Winter studded tyres were therefore swapped for something more suitable and on a wet weekend in March we arrived at Loton Park on the Welsh border, eagerly anticipating round one of the Bugatti Owners Club FASSI National Classic Speed Championship. We did rather well, returning home as leaders of the saloon car class; the game, as Sherlock famously once quipped, was afoot. But then, somehow, I got involved with the running of an up-and-coming historic race team. I have spent this summer chasing around Europe as part of Barton Racing (www.barton-racing.com), and downtime has been in short…

AT 11.15 ON a sunny Sunday morning, 3 September 1939, Frank Wootton took a break from mowing his lawn and tuned into the BBC to hear Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain confirm what the nation was dreading: that Britain was ‘now at war with Germany’. The following morning he volunteered himself at the RAF Recruitment Centre in Brighton. A successful commercial artist with a passion for aircraft, Wootton wanted to fly but Air Commodore Harald Peake suggested that he would better serve the effort by putting his artistic skills to use recording the RAF’s participation in the war. Wootton applied to the War Artists Advisory Scheme to become an official war artist but was turned down by Kenneth Clark (later fêted as presenter of the BBC’s acclaimed Civilisation) in what some…

Never mind the quality, check out the price! Although, in fact, this is a very decent replica by any measure, and not just in terms of value for money. Depicting the 1970 Le Mans winner driven by Richard Attwood and Hans Herrmann, it’s a hefty diecast-metal piece that’s nicely finished and has a very acceptable level of detail. There’s a distinct break between the cabin and the tail section that at first suggests the latter may lift off, but in fact it’s merely a join between components and this is what’s known as a ‘kerbside’ model: no opening panels and no trick features other than slightly poseable front wheels. Nevertheless, the car’s striking graphics have been very well applied, and it’s good to see that KK Scale stumped up the…

BONHAMS CELEBRATED its 30th annual sale at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with a healthy £10.65m result, which was headlined by the one-off 2007 Koenigsegg CCGT GT1 Competition. This was one of those ‘what might have been’ cars, built to race at Le Mans but which never got the chance due to a change in the regulations. By far the most valuable car of the auction, it changed hands for £3,319,000. There were no fewer than 27 Aston Martins offered. The ex-Peter Sellers Wrong Arm of the Law DB4 GT (previewed in Octane 242) failed to sell against an estimate of £2.2-2.6m; however, a dismantled 1964 DB5 restoration project did find a buyer at £326,000. Historics sold more than £3.1m at its latest Windsorview Lakes sale, with one of the…

The 670bhp SL65 AMG Black Series was Mercedes’ most powerful model to date when it was launched in 2008. Production was limited to 350, with eight examples coming to the UK, where it was priced at £250,000 – nearly £100k more than a standard SL65. Bonhams laid down a marker early in 2016 at its Goodwood Members’ Meeting sale, achieving £203,100 for a rare right-hand-drive car with 3900 miles and one owner from new. The RM Sotheby’s London sale six months later saw another single-owner example (pictured) with 2360km change hands for £240,800. In the years that followed, the principal auction activity shifted to the US, where the top cars traded at lower levels; a 7800-miler that sold for $174,000 (£135,000) on Bring a Trailer in May 2020 was the…

WITH EVERY PASSING year, the V10-powered Lexus LFA seems to gain greater appreciation. Very expensive and perhaps a little misunderstood when it was launched in 2010, only 500 of this halo model were built. During the early 2000s, the Lexus supercar seemed to be forever just over the horizon, being teased and showcased in concept form at various motor shows. Prototypes were continually spotted testing at the Nürburgring, too. When it was finally launched, it became clear that Toyota had built something incredibly special. At its heart is a 4.8-litre 553bhp V10 engine, co-developed with Yamaha. Widely regarded as one of the finest internal combustion engines ever fitted into a road car, its most impressive stat is being able to rev from idle to its 9000rpm redline in just 0.6…

Ayrton Senna’s former engineer has launched a road-legal ‘Can-Am’ car inspired by the McLaren M1A. The rear-wheel-drive Nichols N1A weighs just 900kg, boasts a naturally aspirated 7.0-litre V8 and a six-speed manual gearbox. Its mastermind is Steve Nichols (interviewed in Octane 178) and the first 15 examples will be an individually numbered series, each celebrating a specific victory of Steve Nichols’ McLaren MP4/4 Formula 1 car. Nichols was made lead designer at McLaren in 1987 masterminding both the MP4/3, which Alain Prost took to three victories, and the all-conquering MP4/4, in which Senna won the first of his three Drivers’ Championships and which triumphed in 15 out of 16 races in the 1988 season. He set up Nichols Cars in 2017 to create a true driver’s car. The result is…

TRY TO SAY the surname without saying Corvette afterwards: that’s how synonymous this American golf equipment heir became with his record-breaking GM-based speed machines. Even as a youngster Callaway – who died on 11 July this year – pursued speed and was very active in karting. When his racing career didn’t take off, he started modifying European cars with some success before GM came knocking and Connecticut-based Callaway took on the mantle of being its unofficial official tuning arm. His twin-turbo Corvettes were an instant hit, far exceeding GM’s expectations, and taking the top speed fight to the Europeans when ‘Sledgehammer’ topped 250mph. A legend was born.…

DAVID BROWN’S DREAM of winning Le Mans finally came true in 1959, with Carroll Shelby crossing the line to achieve Aston Martin’s first and only outright triumph there. The DB3S had been a worthy warm-up act, but the DBR1 finally toppled Ferrari. Work on this ultimate Aston started in 1955, to keep in line with the changing regulations following that year’s Le Mans disaster. Designed and engineered almost entirely by Ted Cutting – Aston’s chief racing car designer from 1955 – the DBR1 was a radical change in direction from its predecessor. Based around a new strong and lightweight perimeter spaceframe, the DBR1 weighed in at just over 800kg. It was powered by a 3.0-litre evolution of the DB3S’s straight-six, but with a new 95º twin-plug cylinder head and dry-sump…

The year is 2476, and Earth has been devastated by pollution and the collapse of civilisation. Into the wasteland rides a streamlined, six-wheeled vehicle called Ark II, with a biblically named crew of scientists: Jonah, the captain; Ruth, Samuel, and Adam. Their mission is to locate the last traces of humanity, and to attempt to bring them out of the new Dark Ages. Oh, and by the way, Adam is a talking chimpanzee. That last piece of information is a hint as to the reality of the fiction. Ark IIwas the title of a 1976 low-budget American TV series for youngsters, with what now seems a prescient eco theme. Mostly filmed on the Paramount Ranch studio facility in California, it ran for just one season of 15 episodes and is…

2023 VW GOLF R ESTATE GLEN WADDINGTON IT’S SIGNIFICANT THAT the pictures on this page were taken in Derbyshire’s Peak District. In July. An unseasonably chill, moist and blowy Saturday in July. At an altitude of 350m. For context, that’s about 50% higher than the very highest point in my home county of Northamptonshire, and well over halfway to the top of Kinder Scout, the highest Peak in the District. I’m inappropriately dressed in shorts, but no matter. This is very much an all-weather, all-season car. More evidence of its all-rounder nature? VW’s own website mentions ‘0-62mph in 4.9sec’ and ‘luggage capacity of 1642l’ in the same sentence. It’s four-wheel-drive, features torque vectoring, and a seven-speed, flappy-paddle, dual-clutch transmission commands the 316bhp max thrust of its 2.0-litre turbo four. All…

YEARS BEFORE SEXY lingerie parties courtesy of Ann Summers, housewives were gathering in their homes to have fun buying items with no discernible erotic appeal – Tupperware. Now, after 77 years of partying, the fun has gone out of the brand and it is facing bankruptcy. It may only be polyethylene food containers but in its day Tupperware was revolutionary, gaining a place in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and providing income for women confined to home by the social mores of the day. On its introduction Time magazine gave Tupperware a rave review, commenting that the new plastic containers could ‘withstand almost anything’. House Beautiful was equally fulsome in its praise, impressed by the ‘simplistic yet chic’ design, describing it as ‘fine art for 39…

LOTUS-CLIMAX MODEL BY CORGI MODEL CLUB A couple of years ago Corgi’s owner, Hornby, heeded calls to play the hits and granted the Corgi Model Club a licence to reproduce some of the most popular toys of the 1960s, among them the miniature of Jim Clark’s championship-winning Lotus 25 F1 car. Almost a million examples were made between 1964 and 1968, and the model will no doubt be a hot seller again this year as Lotus marks its 75th anniversary. The Club’s reissue is a faithful one, even replicating the discrepancy between the race number shown on the original box artwork (taken from Clark’s 1963 British GP car) and the number on the model itself (as worn by Clark’s Lotus for the ’64 race). £31.99 (£22.99 for Corgi Model Club…

THIS YEAR HAS been pretty amazing for the sheer quality and quantity of genuine Le Mans-competing cars being offered at auction, and it certainly isn’t over yet. This fantastic 1971 Martini-Porsche RSR Coupé finished fourth overall, and is heading to Bonhams’ upcoming Goodwood Revival sale. The RSR was Porsche’s answer to increasingly competitive sports prototype racing in the early 1970s. Rather than building a bespoke racer, Porsche focused on developing the proven 911 platform into the ultimate version of the Carrera RS 2.7 road car. In order not to embarrass the customer teams running in the production class, it developed the RSR for its works activities in the prototype class. The formula consisted of a 2.8-litre engine, new glassfibre bumpers – including a front air intake for the oil cooler…

THE MOST MEMORABLE feature of the Ferrari 575 Superamerica has to be its folding glass roof. Fioravanti developed the unique mechanism, which pivoted from the rear and rotated through 180º from closed to open in a matter of a few seconds. But what happens if you love the roof yet don’t quite have the £250k sitting around? Say hello to the Wind. In need of a clever roof for its new compact two-seater, and with a small budget, Renault bought the rights to use this same Fioravanti roof mechanism. Renault introduced two key changes: the roof was made from composite rather than glass, and it would sit under a cover when in the closed position. Importantly, this stopped the roof filling with water if caught in a rainstorm, which is a…

30 August – 2 September Salon Privé Spectacular Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire hosts one of the UK’s premier concours, following which the entries will be joined by a curated group of club cars. Classes this time honour Lamborghini and McLaren anniversaries, plus the Porsche 956. salonpriveconcours.com 1-3 September The Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace Seventy of the world’s finest cars assemble at Hampton Court Palace. Special features include a display of iconic Le Mans racers. concoursofelegance.co.uk 2 September RADwood UK A celebration of ’80s and ’90s cars and culture, held at Bicester Heritage. Visitors are encouraged to dress in period style! radwood.com 2-3 September Beaulieu International Autojumble The enormous sale of motoring bits and bobs returns. beaulieu.co.uk 3 September Brooklands American Day Brooklands opens its gates to US-built…

Pearl Collection heads for Hampton READERS WILL be able to see some of the stars of Octane in the metal as this year’s Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court (1-3 September, concoursofelegance.co.uk) showcases cars from Fritz Burkard’s Pearl Collection. As well as the 1897 Prinetti & Stucchi Tricycle, ex-King Leopold III of Belgium Bugatti Type 59 and 2022 Bugatti Centodieci, the display will include 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza, 1939 Maserati 4CL Monoposto ‘Works’, 1936 Bugatti T57S Atalante (above), a Park Ward-bodied 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental and the Abarth ‘La Principessa’. Explaining the impulses behind the eclectic selection, Burkard said: ‘We at the Pearl Collection love quirky and unusual models. We show them, we race them and we use them.’ Other concours themes include no fewer than ten…

BEFORE THE ARRIVAL of the more famous four-wheel-drive versions, the HF Turbo was top of the Lancia Delta range. Today, finding one in pristine condition is even harder than finding the equivalent Integrale Evo. Although the ultimate Delta for me, like everyone else, will always be the rally-winning Integrale, I am having so much fun with this light, agile and nimble HF Turbo. It is mechanically simpler, it is lightweight, fast, the interior (with its Alcantara-trimmed Recaros) looks and feels very similar, and – even more importantly – I did not have to sell my house to own one. It may even turn out to be a good investment, too. That was not my main reason for buying it, but it’s not a bad perspective after all the money I…

AS AN MG owner myself, I read the articles on Goldie Gardner and his MG TC in Octane 242 with great interest, and I keenly await John Mayhead’s new book to go with my copy of Gardner’s 1951 autobiography Magic MPH that already sits on my bookshelf. However, there was one part of Goldie’s story that I don’t think was mentioned in either article, and that was his ‘honeymoon car’, a superb 1939 MG Tickford WA, registration EOY 672 [pictured above, with Goldie and his then-fiancée Una in 1940]. I had the pleasure of talking with the WA’s current owner, Colin Gosney, this July. Colin has owned it since 1979 and is President of the Yeovil Car Club, so the WA has featured in many local events over the last…

The Maserati 450S is a legend among 1950s racing cars. As readers might recall from Octane 238, it was notoriously a handful to drive, and part of its appeal is undoubtedly its rarity – only 11 were built (including a prototype) before regulations made it obsolete. While several examples were raced successfully, one 450S is memorable for its uniqueness, and that’s the car you see here, the only Berlinetta: the infamous 450S Costin Zagato. It was Stirling Moss himself who suggested to Maserati at some point in early 1957 that a coupé with refined aerodynamics would be the ultimate weapon at Le Mans, ensuring a blistering top speed. Needless to say, he had the ear of the Orsi family (which owned the marque) and of chief engineer Giulio Alfieri, so…

‘I hated the colour, really didn’t like it at all – when the sun comes up, it burns your eyes.’ These are the words of Anton Raaymakers, Dutch owner of a Jensen C-V8 that has been hoovering up concours trophies since 2019. ‘It was my wife Lianda who said “If you are doing it properly like you say you are, you have to go back to the original paint.”’ Thank heavens she insisted, not only because this gleaming Jensen C-V8 looks so much more vibrant in California Sage than the dull blue it was when Raaymakers bought it in 2015, but because it also shores up my theory that concours-winning green is ‘a thing’. I said it last year when I was privileged to help show Christie Chiltern-Hunt’s beautiful Bell Sport…

THE PROBLEM WITH our photo location for the Brubaker Box on the previous pages is that we kept getting distracted by our surroundings – which, when you think about it, is quite a statement. We shot the Brubaker in the huge open-air yard next to the Yanks Air Museum in Chino, California, where projects and parts bask in the dry sun, awaiting a new lease of life. With more than 200 aircraft in its collection, the Yanks Air Museum has plenty to keep itself occupied. Founded by enthusiast Charles Nichols in 1973, it’s dedicated to the history of American aviation, spanning a timeline that ranges from the 1903 Wright Flyer (a replica of which is in the museum) to the F16 Fighting Falcon jet fighter. ‘The collection consists almost entirely…

1998 ASTON MARTIN DB7 VOLANTE SANJAY SEETANAH MY DB7 REACHED the age of 25 this year, so it seemed appropriate to join Aston Martin when celebrating the marque’s 110th Anniversary at the British Grand Prix. I took along my Octane colleague Marcus Ross, who grew up being taxied around in his dad’s DB2/4 Mk III and later in life ran Bonhams’ Aston Martin Sales. It isn’t often you get the chance to be at the British Grand Prix, let alone be invited to drive around the hallowed track on the Grand Prix weekend itself, and on this special occasion we were able to celebrate with so many other enthusiasts! On arrival at Aston Martin Racing’s brand new facilities at Silverstone, we were given our passes. My car was number 31…

1924 SUNBEAM 14/40 DAVID BURGESS-WISE SADLY, A SPELL in hospital has made me realise that my days of hand-cranking obdurate engines and hefting trailers are behind me, so I must look for new homes for the De Dion and Pilain. The chance to buy a more practical 1924 Sunbeam 14/40 coupé to celebrate a significant birthday couldn’t be resisted, particularly since the price was right and all the major jobs had been taken care of, including club-like button-quilted leather upholstery in cabin and dickey seat. Not that I can visualise any of my acquaintances having the gymnastic skills needed to actually climb into the dickey. The Sunbeam is a perfect foil for the 1926 Delage DISS, having an identical engine capacity at 2121cc and a powerful electric starter. It also…

Book of the month Tyrrell: the Story of the Tyrrell Racing Organisation RICHARD JENKINS, Evro Publishing, £90, ISBN 978 1 910505 67 0 Towards the end of this book, there’s a mention of a Tyrrell employee called John Lucas, who had worked for team founder Ken Tyrrell for decades as a truck-driver and who was badly injured while crossing a road. As another employee recalls: ‘John… lost the use of his arm, so he could never work again. Ken arranged for him to live in a bungalow on the site… Ken looked after John and always saw that he was all right.’ This recollection sums up the family atmosphere that prevailed at Tyrrell from its inception in Formula Junior in 1960 to its sad demise in 1998, when it was…

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At first glance you might not notice, but this is actually a convertible, pictured here with its removable factory hardtop in place. It’s a pretty rare spec, being one of only 5875 convertibles built for the 1992 model year but, far more unusually (especially for a US car), it was specified as a manual, its 5.7-litre LT1 V8 pouring power to the tarmac via a six-speed gearbox. In attractive Black Rose metallic over Arctic White leather, it also features a white vinyl hood, air-conditioning, 17in ‘Sawblade’ alloy wheels, power-adjustable sport seats and Bose stereo. Including those options, the list price for this car was $43,909 when new – and it’s been driven only 7000 miles since. The fourth generation of Chevrolet’s Corvette (known as C4) was produced from 1983 to…

IN THE PURSUIT of realism Martin Scorsese, director of The Wolf of Wall Street, opted to crash a genuine 25th Anniversary Lamborghini Countach. Given that the 2013 film went on to make $392million, and it was one of the most memorable scenes, that sum was arguably good value. Few cars represent the period of automotive excess of the late 1980s quite like this Bianco Polo Countach Anniversary. It’s exactly why it was chosen as the perfect car for Jordan Belfort, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the film and real-life high-flying financier. The US-spec Anniversary is unmistakable, meshing the early sleek Gandini Countach lines with Horacio Pagani’s final restyle – topped off by the huge federal-spec front bumper. Two genuine cars of a similar spec were used for filming, and RM Sotheby’s…