Octane的February 2017目录

SEVENTY YEARS OF FERRARI. It’s not a big birthday – I guess that will happen in five years’ time, or 30 if you can wait that long – but there are celebrations coming all the same. Ferrari has already launched its 70th anniversary special editions, as you may have seen in Octane 162. Our favourite of those is the blue-with-white-stripe F12 Berlinetta that harks back to the Rob Walker team 250 GT SWB raced by Moss. Choosing that livery would demonstrate fine taste indeed. The company is also expected to announce several major events for 2017, including one in Maranello in early autumn, and another around the same time at Silverstone. Watch this space. In the USA, we’ve heard there will be a very special exhibition in LA, starting in…

‘This is not a car at the end of a telephone line, this is a car you can verify exists. You can drive it, race it, have fun’ John Collins of Ferrari dealer Talacrest, describing 250 GTO #3387 that is currently for sale at a rumoured £45 million. ‘Ideally you will have a proven track record in skills including steering, braking and, in particular, accelerating’ From a Mercedes ad in Autosport for a new Formula 1 driver. ‘Hurry up, Jamie, the tide’s coming in!’ Octane art director Mark Sommer to photographer James Lipman, shooting our $10m Ferrari California Spyder cover car on a Thames slipway. ‘We’re delighted to be entrusted with the sale of this astonishing car, literally straight out of the woods’ Worldwide Auctioneers’ Rod Egan, talking about a…

IT USED TO sell new BMWs, Alfas and Porsches. It even raced in F1. Nowadays Hexagon specialises in high-end classic cars, although it is also a Lotus dealer and a used BMW specialist. Now Hexagon Classics has closed its Kensington satellite and refurbished its Finchley showroom, with space for over 70 cars plus the Hexagon Classic Design art gallery and store. ‘It’s the true lifestyle experience I always wanted it to be,’ said founder and chairman Paul Michaels.…

Why use a map at all, when sat-nav exists in every smartphone? That’s easy to answer: you can see the whole detailed picture on a map, you can place yourself spatially in the world, you can build a complete mental image of your route rather than a small-screen snapshot, and you can see at a glance where the interesting diversions might be. So maps and road atlases are great. But what’s really interesting is to compare a new one with its predecessors through the ages. First, there are the roads, forever changing, by-passing, re-routing. Look at, say, a 1960s AA Book of the Road and you’ll see how the A1 chopped through towns, how the A14 had nothing to do with today’s thundering east-west link but was today’s A1198, how…

A LAFERRARI donated from Ferrari’s own collection has sold for $7m at a charity auction held at the Ferrari Finali Mondiali weekend at Daytona International Speedway, Florida. RM Sotheby’s organised the sale and waived its fees for the occasion. That means all $7m will go, via the National Italian American Association’s Earthquake Relief Fund, towards reconstruction in central Italy after 2016’s earthquakes. A ten-minute bidding war brought the highest price yet paid at auction for a 21st-century car. Also auctioned, for $36,000, were official Ferrari F1 racing suits and gloves, one set autographed by Sebastian Vettel, the other by Kimi Raikkonen.…

Cosworth’s era-defining Formula 1 engine is 50 years old this year, with a celebration at Race Retro (24-26 February). No engine has had a longer frontline racing career than this Ford-funded, flat-crank V8, from Formula 1 through endurance racing to turbocharged Indy cars. LOTUS 49 Lotus had exclusive use for the first year, Jim Clark winning first time out at 1967 Dutch GP. MIRAGE GR8 Derek Bell and Jacky Ickx won Le Mans in 1975 despite exhaust-breaking vibrations. McLAREN M23 Nine years from debut, DFV powered James Hunt to a fraught World Championship win. LOTUS 79 Narrow DFV suited ground-effect design, helping Mario Andretti take 1978 title. TYRRELL 011 Michele Alboreto scored last F1 win for DFV, now in 520bhp DFY form, at 1983 Detroit GP.…

‘MODERN CARS ARE SO FAST, THINGS HAPPEN BEFORE YOU KNOW. IN THE OLD DAYS I COULD EXPLAIN AN ACCIDENT’ The number of times you see on YouTube guys pulling away from meets like Cars & Coffee; they hit the gas, slide sideways and lose control of their hypercar, then say ‘I don’t know what happened.’ Because they don’t. Modern cars are so fast, things happen before you even know. At least in the old days I could explain an accident. You know: ‘The tail started to slide… I tried to correct… and hit a tree.’ Nowadays you can’t use the dog-in-the-road story because someone filmed it on their iPhone. I took my 1960 Daimler Dart out the other day. That has a little 2.5-litre hemi V8; 160-something horsepower. Like the…

‘THE AURELIA IS SO REFINED, I THINK IT IS ACTUALLY A BETTER GT CAR THAN THE BENTLEY CONTINENTAL’ ‘This is all your fault, Robert. You said you wanted to drive my Lancia Aurelia, so here it is. Now let’s get down to Le Castellet in the South of France!’ Earlier in the summer I was invited to ‘kick some tyres’ with my friend Peter, one of the world’s foremost classic car aficionados, who keeps a number of cars at the ‘Pig Farm’ in Switzerland. It’s a discreet building hidden away down a lane, and you’d never know it’s there. The immaculate facility houses a full workshop and a giant lift to move cars between the floors, and it has space for dozens of vehicles. Think Le Mans-winning Alfa 8C Monza,…

‘I THINK I’M GOING TO cut back to just one or two cars,’ I said at the beginning of November. Two weeks later I became the surprisingly proud owner of this 1995 Range Rover P38A – the ‘Mk2’ of the Range Rover world. I’d better explain… Here at Octane we have a muddy stablemate, in the form of Land Rover Monthly. A future issue of that magazine will feature ‘The £1000 Land Rover challenge’, for which it needed volunteers willing to find a usable, MoT’d Landie for a grand or less. Unfortunately I had some kind of involuntary muscle twitch when the idea was suggested, with the result that I bought a P38 unseen on eBay, then collected it in North Wales on a dark, rainy night, on the way…

ANDREW ENGLISH Contributor 1960 Triumph TR3A 1965 Aston Martin DB5 DAVID BURGESS-WISE Contributor 1903 De Dion-Bouton 1911 Pilain 16/20 1926 Delage DISS MARTYN GODDARD Photographer 1963 Triumph TR6SS Trophy 1965 Austin-Healey 3000 MkIII DELWYN MALLETT Contributor 1936 Cord 810 Beverly 1946 Tatra T87 1950 Ford Club Coupe 1952 Porsche 356 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL 1957 Porsche Speedster 1957 Fiat Abarth Sperimentale 1963 Abarth-Simca 1963 Tatra T603 SARAH BRADLEY Contributor 1929 Ford Model A hot rod 1952 Studebaker Champion 1956 Chevrolet 3100 pick-up 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner Various motorbikes MASSIMO DELBÒ Contributor 1967 Mercedes-Benz 230 1972 Fiat 500L 1979/80 Range Rovers 1982 Mercedes-Benz 500SL 1985 Mercedes-Benz 240TD KEEP UP TO DATE Follow the progress of the Octane fleet via Facebook and Twitter www.facebook.com/octanemagazine @octane_magazine…

FOUR STINTS HAVE been required to move my newly bought Range Rover two-door from its old scrapyard home in Belgium to a cosy Italian warehouse. After the purchase I was left with the challenge of transporting a non-running car, and quite a big one at that, from where it had been left stranded in a field about 900km (560 miles) north of its new home. Experience has taught me that, when you buy a car unseen, nothing is worse than leaving it at the seller’s property where anything could happen (and most likely will do). Thanks to the help of two good friends, photographer Dirk de Jager and collector Mihai Negrescu, who both live in Belgium, the Range Rover was soon trailered to a safer environment (Mihai’s mother’s garden). However,…

£2,905,500 (€3,416,000) 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/6C RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £2,572,000 (€3,024,000) 2004 Maserati MC12 RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £876,000 (€1,030,400) 1992 Ferrari F40 RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £857,500 (€1,008,000) 1988 Porsche 959 ‘Komfort’ RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £743,000 (€873,600) 1969 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Berlinetta ‘Plexi’ RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £724,000 (€851.200) 1991 Lancia-Ferrari LC2 Group C RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £648,000 (€761,600) 2005 Porsche Carrera GT RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £639,000 ($800,000) 2004 Porsche Carrera GT Auctions America, Hilton Head, USA. 5 November £628,500 (€739,200) 1969 Ferrari 365 GTC RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy 25-27 November £580,000 ($726,000) 1967 AC Cobra 427 Auctions America, Hilton Head, USA. 5 November…

Silverstone Auctions, UK, 12-13 November. £95,625 That seems a low price for a 1973 Rolls-Royce Corniche with just 26,000 miles, full history and one-family ownership. Posh brand, low production… price rises can’t be far away. RM Sotheby’s, Italy, 25-27 November. €117,600 A very ambitious restoration project, sold on a bill of sale only. This 1971 Maserati Ghibli SS would have been a parts car a few years ago, but today’s values suggest post-resto profit. Leake Auction Company, USA, 18-20 November. $76,500 Competition is strong for ‘pagoda’ Mercedes SLs among top-tier collectors, and this very well-restored 1966 230SL with manual gearbox will seem quite cheap in a year or two.…

CHARLII MAGII ‘Photographing the Atalanta at Bicester Heritage was a pleasure, especially the chance to shoot static images in such a charismatic location. But it wasn’t until we got the car rolling that all that curvy bodywork came to life.’ See Charlie’s beautiful images, and read Mark Dixon’s story of this brand-new old car, on pages 142-150. JOHAN DILLIN ‘I had driven Le Mans for countless laps, downshifting all the way to first for Mulsanne… in my dreams. Driving the same cars as Boutsen, McNish, Paul Newman and Manuel Reuter turned out to be so much better in reality then I had imagined – though in my dream I was faster.’ Read all about the Porsche 962 and 911 GT1 Evo on pages 94-104 . SIMON ALDRIDGI ‘Spending…

National Historic Vehicle Register Act proposed for US Michigan senator Gary Peters has introduced legislation to document details of cars important to US history, the records to be kept in the Library of Congress. Cars included so far include the Buick Y-Job, the first production Chevrolet Camaro and Ronald Reagan’s 1962 Jeep CJ-6. Giugiario’s creations on show in new Turin exhibition Prolific designer Giorgetto Giugiaro’s life and work are being celebrated in Italy’s National Automobile Museum until 26 February. Included are early sketches and caricatures, styling models, concept cars, production cars and the story of ItalDesign. Continuation Costin added to Lister’s list at £295,000 Following the company’s run of Knobblys, Lister Engineering is to make a series of the low-drag car that was the last product of the original Lister…

Collecting the Motoring Event of the Year award at the IHMA for the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, Peter Foubister proudly waved his other recent prize – a Blue Peter badge – to great applause. Hours later, he passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly. For the previous six years, the popular ‘Foubs’ had been motoring secretary of the Royal Automobile Club, but he was even better known for his long stint on the influential weekly Autosport. He started as rally editor in 1980 and became editor in 1988, credited with increasing the popularity and authority of the publication, and turning its annual awards into an important season-end dinner attended by the great and the good of motor racing. As part of this, Peter introduced the McLaren Autosport Young Driver of…

Les Leston’s aftermarket steering wheels were intended to bring a touch of the racetrack to your everyday motoring, or else be part of the ‘tuning’ of the car you commuted in Monday-to-Friday and campaigned at the weekend. With a one-piece aluminium frame and three slender spokes, they were certainly lighter than the circles of plastic-clad iron that were standard on most affordable 1960s cars. Whether they made the instruments easier to monitor, or their rims’ gentle serration was an aid to grip, or they made you a better high-performance driver, are all debatable. What’s beyond doubt, though, is that their sparing design and the lustre of the mahogany resin-bonded on to the rim made you much prouder of your car. They could be fitted to everything from a humble Standard…

Wealthy car collectors Some high net worth individuals keep a low profile for their car collections, and are likely not to have taken part in the survey. But their financial activity in the historic car industry is considerable, so the FBHVC consulted with industry experts who have estimated the expenditure of 200 ‘high net worth’ collectors and 2000 ‘slightly less wealthy’ ones. The first group was judged to have spent a total of £32m on maintenance and £16.8m on storage, the second group £150m and £72m respectively. The combined total of £270.8m for this ‘direct expenditure’ represents a significant chunk of the UK’s £1.4bn direct-expenditure total. Condition – a subjective matter The survey reports that 65% of historic vehicles are in either concours or very good condition. This suggests a…

There are surprising loyalties at work with engine oil, be it to a brand or even a colour. Not for nothing is Comma Classic 20-50 green, like Duckhams used to be. There’s a lot of misunderstanding, too. Some say you should use oil as close as possible to what was used in your classic car’s engine originally, perhaps a basic 20W/50 without much in the way of additives. Others will tell you to use the most modern synthetic oil you can, with the low viscosity and squeaky-cleanliness needed for today’s thrashed repmobiles. Well, finding an oil exactly like oils were 40, 50, 80 years ago is hard. Good thing too. Engines coked up and wore out much more quickly then, and the oils were a major reason why. Newer oil…

‘YOU DON’T STOP FIGHTING UNTIL THE CHEQUERED FLAG DESCENDS. TO BE CHAMPION, YOU NEED TO BE RUTHLESS’ The 2017 Formula 1 World Championship is over and, as the dust settles after a heated battle for the drivers’ title, debate is still raging over whether the best man won. It all rather depends on your definition of ‘best’. As the fanboys are wont to say, Lewis Hamilton is the faster of the two Mercedes stars – or, rather, he is most of the time, but there was little in it between him and team-mate Nico Rosberg over the course of a season. The German had reliability on his side and topped the points’ table for most of the year. What’s more, he didn’t choke when it mattered at the Abu Dhabi…

1. Four-wheeled vehicles are not my only passion. I collect 1930s and ’40s American motorbikes, including this desirable and rare 1930 four-cylinder 1300cc Henderson KJ Streamline. It sits among the Bentleys in the workshop. 2. Bentleys don’t really wear mascots other than the flying B and the occasional Lalique Spirit of the Wind, but this one is destined to adorn one of my cars. It’s called The Aviator and has a bobbing porcelain head and spinning propeller, and was created by John Hassall during the 1920s. 3. My uncle Bill Moss was a prolific post-war VSCC entrant and winner. In the ERA Remus he won countless trophies at hillclimbs and circuits all over Britain in the 1950s and ’60s. He became a works driver for Marcos and even had a…

Brough repurchased one of his own cars before World War Two. WH 7238 was a 1935 8-Cylinder Drophead with nearly 78,000 miles on it. When his factories began supplying parts for the war effort, George Brough decided that speed was of the essence, and that he needed appropriate transport for delivering crankshafts to factories in Crewe, Glasgow and Bristol. WH 7238 was conscripted for the job. Brough converted the handsome body to a pick-up configuration by removing the rear seats and installing a wooden freight platform that could carry Merlin crankshafts at high speed between cities. To cope with the extra weight of such a load, stronger road springs and a lower ratio rear axle were fitted, and WH 7238 became a C-licence goods carrier. Packed tight, the car could…

1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 One of the first cars Teague contributed to on joining GM as an apprentice. He’d previously worked on a pre-Henry J economy car for Kaiser. 1963 AMC Rambler After moving to American Motors in 1959, Teague influenced the look of the Rambler, and went on to design the sleek Ambassador. 1968 AMX-GT Teague developed many show cars and concepts at American Motors, and this was one of the most striking, influencing the look of later models. 1975 AMC Pacer Not always taken seriously nowadays, but at the time a very forward-looking design, with its cab-forward layout and large glass area. 1983 Jeep Cherokee XJ Last Teague design to enter production, built until 2001 (2005 in China), and so outlasting the man himself. One of the best…

DAVID LILLYWHITE Editor 1971 MGB GT 1971 Saab 96 1973 Citroën SM 1976 Zip Shadow Kart 1995 Range Rover 4.6 HSE 1996 Subaru Prodrive Impreza ROBERT COUCHER International editor 1937 Bentley 4¼ 1955 Jaguar XK140 1973 Porsche 911S 2.4 Targa 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC 1991 Range Rover Vogue MARK DIXON Deputy editor 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in 1963 Ford Galaxie Country Sedan 1964 Chevrolet Greenbrier 1970 Lamborghini Espada 1989/91 Land Rover Discoverys 2001 Honda Insight SANJAY SEETANAH Advertising director 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante GLEN WADDINGTON Associate editor 1983 Porsche 944 1989 BMW 320i Convertible MARK SOMMER Art Director 1968 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1300 Saloon JOHN SIMISTER Contributor 1934 Singer Nine Le Mans 1961 Saab 96 1965 Rover 2000 1968 Sunbeam Stiletto TONY DRON…

IN NOVEMBER the leaves turn golden and my Triumph Trophy motorbike requires its annual MoT. It was a crisp dry Sunday morning when I pushed it outside my garage, first to pump up the tyres, and then check the lights and the oil level. After a quick battery boost, the twin fired up on the fourth kick after following the priming and pre-start procedure. I took an early-morning ride around Camden Town as a shakedown. Traffic was light, all the better as the Triumph has right-foot gearchange and drum brakes. Add hand signals and no mirrors, and the usually crowded streets are quite challenging. The lack of mirrors was addressed on my return, when I fitted a classic stainless steel bar-end mirror by Halcyon Classic parts, a belated birthday present.…

THE LAST few months have been pretty stressful. Not only have I moved house, but I’ve also moved garage and workshop – and the former was a walk in the park compared with having to find a new home for 20 years of accumulated motoring junk! I was fortunate, therefore, to stumble upon a cheap ’n’ cheerful (well, cheap anyway) industrial unit for rent only 15 minutes away from my new place. For £250 a month I’ll have space to store and work on up to five vehicles. That’s fewer than I actually own, of course, but it’s a start. First occupant of the new man-cave was the Chevy Greenbrier van. Although it has stood idle for at least a year, after I’d fitted a charged battery it fired up…

‘BEATLE BOOTS WERE FRANTICALLY ASSEMBLED DURING THE WEEK AND DISPENSED ON SATURDAYS’ BECOMING AN art student was bad enough but my very Welsh dad finally despaired of his son becoming a rugby international when in 1962 I clip-clopped into the house in a pair of high-heeled ankle boots. This was not a Jason Perry-like gesture to assert my feminine side but a tribal affiliation, aligning myself with my heroes, the most anti-establishment band of the day – the Rolling Stones. They might have been dubbed ‘Beatle Boots’ by the media but they were soon adopted by every emerging ‘beat’ band of the day and in my part of Modland, west of London, the Stones were the band. While a student at Twickenham College, I found myself sandwiched between those seminal…

‘THE TOP TWO SELLERS WERE POST-MILLENNIAL, A 2015 PORSCHE 918 SPYDER AND A 2006 FORD GT. IT’S A RECURRING THEME’ DAVE KINNEY Sale of the month? That would be the Duemila Ruote (2000 Wheels) event held at Fiera Milano by RM Sotheby’s, alongside the Milano Auto Classica. Duemila Ruote wasn’t announced until late in the year and it quickly generated huge publicity. As an add-on to the RM Sotheby’s schedule, it was an ‘all hands on deck’ effort to pull off what was effectively a three-day fire sale with over 30 hours of live auction time. Close to €50m was achieved for the 633 cars on offer, all without reserve so all sold. The catalogue, in the form of a tabloid newspaper on newsprint-quality stock, was another first for RM…

6-15 January Mecum, Kissimmee, USA 14-22 January Barrett-Jackson, Scottsdale, USA 18 January Worldwide Auctioneers, Scottsdale, USA 18-22 January Russo & Steele, Scottsdale, USA 19 January Bonhams, Scottsdale, USA 19-20 January RM Sotheby’s, Phoenix, USA 20-21 January Gooding & Co, Scottsdale, USA 28 January Anglia Car Auctions, King’s Lynn, UK 25-28 January Mecum, Las Vegas, USA 26 January Bonhams, Las Vegas, USA 27 January SWVA, Poole, UK 5 February Charterhouse Shepton Mallet, UK 8 February RM Sotheby’s, Paris, France 9 February Bonhams, Paris, France 10 February Artcurial, Paris, France 11 February The Finest, Boca Raton, USA 12 February Charterhouse Shepton Mallet, UK 17-18 February Mecum, Los Angeles, USA 24-26 February Leake Auction, Oklahoma City, USA 24-26 February Silverstone Auctions, Stoneleigh, UK 2 March DVCA, Dorchester, UK 4 March Historics at Brooklands,…

‘I HATCHED THIS CRAZY PLAN TO PUT IT BACK INTO PRODUCTION AS A BRAND-NEW ELECTRIC SCOOTER’ WE’RE GOING TO re-launch the Čezeta at the Prague Motor Show in March 2017, after three years’ development, and everything’s on track for that. Right now, I have all the parts for it laid out on a huge table at my 300-year-old farmhouse deep in the Czech countryside. It’s where we work on the prototypes and update the technical specification. I run this whole thing. I’m 49 and I’ve never been a mornings person. My wife is always up at 7.30am, an hour before me, to ride her horse. We also have a flat in the centre of Prague, near our Čezeta shop, which is on the equivalent of Oxford Street. People here are…

William Medcalf, specialist in vintage Bentleys and friend of Octane, is planning a series of Saturday gatherings at his Sussex showroom and workshops (see www.vintagebentley.com). And you are invited to the first. It kicks off at 9am with free tea and coffee. The RAC Club’s new Pit Stop Lorry, on its début event, will be on hand with the Club’s chef and a tasty breakfast menu. Tours of the Medcalf garage will feature historic Bentleys along with a hot-rod racer or two, then at noon participants will depart to Brooklands for discounted entry, an exclusive look at the newly uncovered Finishing Straight (last seen in 1940) and lunch in the café. Please email saffron_wright@dennis.co.uk by 4 January to confirm attendance.…

BICESTER HERITAGE, the historic motoring and aviation ‘village’ based on an increasingly restored former RAF air base, has added a major new facility to its portfolio: an auction venue. It’s a partnership with Brightwells, the Leominster-based auction house founded in 1846 and selling classic cars for the past 12 years. Brightwells has run sales at several venues other than its Leominster home, but this is the first time it has set up a permanent satellite operation, to be run from Bicester Heritage’s Guard House. Three sales are planned for 2017: the inaugural Classic & Vintage sale on 5 April, a sale coinciding with the Flywheel Festival on 5 July, and an autumn sale on 25 October. ‘As a business with such strong family values and a heritage of 170 years,…

‘FORGET THAT BACHARACH SONG OF DIONNE WARWICK’S, IN WHICH SHE GOES “LA IS A GREAT BIG FREEWAY”. IT IS NOT’ Roads do not, I think, get proper attention in this magazine. I mean to say, it’s not much use having a fine car if you do not have fine roads to drive it on. And none is finer than the amazing three-deck interchange of Interstate-405 and Interstate-10 at Mar Vista, California, especially when seen from the air. This, the junction of the Santa Monica and San Diego Freeways, is a marvel of 1960s optimism and heroic concrete engineering. It was completed in 1964, the year The Beach Boys released Fun, Fun, Fun, where fun was correctly identified with expressionistic use of daddy’s Ford Thunderbird. By the lights of ’64, this…

‘There’s substance to Colombo’s V12 as well as glamour: muscular, tuneful, handsome – and it’s a tough old thing’ WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE Ferrari? The answer is probably influenced by your age, but for this writer it has to be one from the 1960s. Narrowing that thought leads to a 250 GT (maybe in open form, such as our California Spyder cover car), maybe a 275 GTB, or perhaps a 250 LM endurance racer. You can reduce that list to one car if you like, but the thick thread that joins them is that all are powered by a version of Gioachino Colombo’s V12 engine. Ferrari has made several families of V12 over the decades, but the lodestone of the breed has to be this one. Its lifespan, from 1946 to…

FROM THE 1960s to the 1990s there were few collectors more synonymous with the finest historic sports cars than Nigel Dawes. Most were high-performance or racing-orientated, though, unlike many collectors, he insisted that they be road usable as well as visual pleasures. A silversmith by trade, and a highly accomplished model maker, Nigel bought the Jaguar SS100 3½ Litre that his elder brother, Howard, had acquired in 1955 – further fuelling a passion that began when his father owned only the second Ferrari in England. But Nigel’s collecting bug really took hold in the mid-1960s, when he spotted an Aston Martin DB3S Coupé – one of only three built – for sale in Manchester. Fortunately for Nigel, the family home, which he shares with wife Rosemary, is Birtsmorton Court in…

AS I MENTIONED last time, the XK was suffering a misfire at high engine speeds. So on a sunny day I hopped in and motored down to Jaguar specialist Twyford Moors, a lovely run to Clanfield in Hampshire. I’d forewarned Ian and the team about the Jaguar’s ailment so they had the requisite parts at the ready. Twyford Moors does exquisite, full nut-and-bolt restorations and engine rebuilds on XKs all the time so, after a quick test drive, Ian unhesitatingly recommended a 123Ignition electronic distributor and Flame-Thrower coil. He also muttered about my steering. Hey, I have a sporty, solid-mounted steering rack fitted, which makes the steering sharp and accurate, if a bit harsh. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to feel like…? A few days later Harry called and said…

BRAKES! BRAKES! BRAKES! More trouble with brakes! Apologies for the exclamation marks but brakes cause me more trouble than any other mechanical failings in my fleet. Lack of use is almost certainly the reason why they all-too-frequently stick or, in extreme cases, seize solid (I never leave handbrakes on, by the way, in case you are wondering). In my last report on the Abarth-Simca I lamented that the rear brake calipers had seized. After removing them from the car for a session of ‘winding’ the pistons in and out, they were once again functioning – but, much to my frustration, not for long. After another month the brakes were again stuck. So, after being worked on in less-than-ideal conditions, the calipers have once more been liberated from their discs. The…

YOU’D THINK a 17ft 6in station wagon wouldn’t be easy to ignore, but that’s what I’ve managed to do over the last year or so. The poor old Galaxie has been languishing in a corner of my workshop while attention was diverted to other, more Land Rover-shaped projects. But I hope that situation is about to change. Yes, my New Year’s Resolution is to get the Galaxie usable in time for next summer. In theory, it doesn’t actually need a lot doing. In practice, I suspect the job list will require me to use both sides of the paper. Structurally, all is good. The car had lived all its life in Alabama until it was imported into the UK a couple of years ago, and the only body repairs needed…

‘AT $11 MILLION, IT MAKES THE FERRARI 250 GTO SEEM LIKE EXCEPTIONAL VALUE FOR MONEY’ THIS YEAR I WAS honoured once more to be invited to join the jury of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in my role as token Brit. Actually I feel rather flattered that I represent our country in this way – and it gives me a chance to catch up with some of the titans of the watch industry, including the great Aurel Bacs, who moonlights as chairman of the jury, but whose day job is that of king of the watch auction. Aurel makes history on a regular basis and the weekend after the Grand Prix he was at it again, shifting a 1518 for a whisker over $11 million at the weekend watch…

Until this early Veloce release came out in the mid-1990s, there had been virtually nothing published about Lola. As a result, it sold well from the day it was launched – and it is still in great demand as a collector’s book, because there is still not much written about the marque. John Starkey is more usually associated with works about Porsche but, whereas his books on the 911 RS and RSR are controversial in some quarters, no-one seems to have a bad word to say about his Lola history. With its clear layout, decent size and plentiful illustrations, this is one of the books on which Veloce built its reputation. Starkey went on to write a second volume covering Lola’s later period, but it never sold as well and…

For its first release of the New Year in 1961, Meccano brought out a Dinky model that was perfectly suited to the winter season: a snow plough. This was marketed as part of the Dinky Supertoys series, which the company dubbed the ‘big brothers’ of Dinky Toys because they were based on larger commercial vehicles, often with some kind of moving or operating features. In the case of the snow plough, an existing Guy Warrior chassis was adapted to carry a large blade at the front, which could be raised or lowered. The model was finished in a striking two-tone yellow-and-black colour scheme on both the cab and the snow blade, although a rarer variant exists on which the blade is painted silver. One clue as to why Dinky chose…

Mecum’s Las Vegas motorcycle auction on 25-28 January is headlined, inevitably, by antique rarities and rumbling V-twins, but there’s room in Sin City for an impressive variety of two-wheeled treasures, as evidenced by the beautiful 1959 Fuji Rabbit S-601 set to be offered at no reserve. Although ‘the Cadillac of scooters’ is largely unknown in the UK, having never been sold on these shores, it is considered a landmark design, the ultimate iteration of a machine that is credited, along with the equally tamely named Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon, for getting post-war Japan moving. The Rabbit, like the Silver Pigeon, was influenced by the Powell scooters used by American troops during World War Two. Models were for the most part cheap and cheerful transportation, but the 200cc S-601 offered a cushier…