Modern Classics Magazine March 2020

Sports car makers are in a tricky place right now. With the world warming they have an ethical (as well as legal) duty to produce cleaner and more efficient models that have to thrill. The problem is we don't want clean if it means characterless. Sports car thrust has to have a sonorous and thrilling soundtrack. It has to lift you from the daily drudge every time you flex your right foot. Imagine one of the UK's fleeting moments of fair weather, when that big match on the TV leaves roads empty. It's an ideal scenario for fun, yet your motive companion turns out to be a wheezing four-pot. Porsche's Cayman was at the eye of this enthusiast-generated storm a few years ago when its super sweet six-cylinder dropped a couple of…

JOHN-JOE VOLLANS EDITOR Is finally seeing sense and making steps to sell the cars that don’t see much of the road. Which would be most of them, then... NATHAN CHADWICK ASSISTANT EDITOR Found a rare Alfa 166 3.2 but was put off by clutch/ cambelt needs, leaky interior and the fact he’d have to fetch it from Devon. SIMON RUSSELL ART EDITOR Off all month, so we showed we missed him by keeping the dust off the many Magnus Walker portraits he has on his desk. JETHRO BOVINGDON COLUMNIST The Bentley Continental GT isn’t known for the tail-out theatrics Jethro so loves, but our man got the new V8 model to play... TIFF NEEDELL COLUMNIST Grainy YouTube footage of Jacky Ickx in Porsche 956 got Tiff all misty eyed about his escapades at Spa Francorchamps. LEWIS KINGSTON MARKETS EXPERT Wandering the streets of London, he happened across…

Oops, he’s done it again To his credit, JJ’s form for turning around cheap Jags into saleable cars is quite good. However, this X Type diesel seems to have a fuel pump fault, one which could prove expensive... What it says on the tin You see all sorts of strange things at Southampton docks, but other than the cars this took the biscuit. It’s a remote-control, mobile rock crusher that can polish off 750 metric tons per hour... Grass is always greener Nathan stumbled on this E39 on the way back from the Peaks. We haven’t seen JJ’s for a while as it’s unecomonical to run too often. Has it been reclaimed by the earth, like this one? (NO! ed) Stereotype proved right... Nathan’s 156 celebrated its new clutch (three times the cost of the car...) by…

MARK RICCIONI PHOTOGRAPHER Enjoyed his trip to the peaks with our six-cylinder coupes, taking the edge off his occasionally working V12 S-Class, Skyline GTR, BMW M635 CSi and many more. JONATHAN JACOB PHOTOGRAPHER Estate cars aren’t the easiest to make sexy, but Jonathan did. It helps to shoot them in the glorious location of Grimsthope Castle – thanks to the staff. TIM HARVEY RACING DRIVER His 1993 season piloting the Renault 19 16v may have garnered just the one victory, but Tim remembers piloting the yellow machine with some fondness. WILL BEAUMONT WRITER While JJ and Nathan tiptoed around the Peaks (it was very slippery), Will was peerlessly graceful. The Renault 19 16V wasn’t as tail happy, but he still enjoyed it.…

A rare chance to catch sight of several roadgoing Group B machines was just one of many reasons why the first Bicester Sunday Scramble of 2020 proved so successful. With fewer than 350 Porsche 959s built and only 200 Peugeot 205 T16s made, having two in the same place can't be a common occurrence. It wasn't all about motorsport – we loved the mixture of bone fide collector classics rubbing shoulders with modified machines. Then there were the club stands, with extensive support from the Porsche Club GB and the BMW Car Club GB. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Bicester events is the chance to peek into the workshops across the site, with everything from hypercars to competition legends lurking in vintage air base buildings. Then there's the car park – relatively good…

For the past few years a sense of continuity seems to have persisted at Autosport International but 2020 felt revitalised with some new and exciting content. An area dedicated to virtual racing gave show goers the chance to test their skill (or lack thereof in my case ed.) in disciplines as diverse as rallying and NASCAR. The engineering hall marked its third decade this year by continuing to offer a fascinating insight into the thriving motorsport industry here and internationally. It's a good news industry story that's seemingly under-reported elsewhere.…