Indice dei contenuti per February 2025 in Octane

ONE OF MY earliest and happiest memories of doing this job relates to a Jaguar D-type. I was barely out of my 20s and working for a different magazine (Octane didn’t exist then) when collector Peter Neumark invited me to try his recently purchased example. It was the ex-Jumbo Goddard car, which had been turned into a sort of prototype XKSS by its gung-ho owner. Underneath some interesting roadable modifications, however, lay chassis XKC 402, aka OKV 1, aka the second example that Jaguar produced and one of the three original 1954 Le Mans team cars. In fact, with Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton at the wheel, it was the highest Coventry finisher that year, coming second only to the Pampas Bull and Maurice Trintignant in their Ferrari 375 Plus.…

International Historic Motoring Awards 22 November Nearly 400 of the classic car world’s guiding lights gathered at The Peninsula London for the International Historic Motoring Awards Presented by Lockton. The 16 trophies honoured excellence (see Octane 259 for the winners), culminating in Car of the Year, voted for by you and awarded to Fritz Burkard’s Pebble Beach-winning Bugatti Type 59 (far right, middle), and the Lifetime Achievement award, which went to Sylviane and Patrick Peter (see page 104). Octane contributor Rowan Atkinson (bottom right) welcomed guests, and the evening was hosted by Amanda Stretton. Rally of the Tests 7-10 November The Volvo PV544 crew of Dan Willan and Niall Frost took an astonishing third consecutive win on HERO-ERA’s three-day/one-night, 34-test and 24-regularity, 800-mile rally from Darlington to Windermere via Edinburgh.…

Multiple dates from February to December La Carrera Costa Rica An arrive-and-drive event in one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth, with a schedule that includes a sightseeing flight and a boat trip to the Mogos Islands. rally-rally.com 7-9 March A Novice Trial Based at Hellidon Lakes Hotel in Northamptonshire and the ideal introduction to regularities, driving tests and Tulip books. Training sessions are held on the first two days, and the event concludes with a 65-mile rally. hero-era.com 12-16 March Coppa delle Alpi This regularity rally heads north from Brescia into the mountains of Italy, Switzerland and Austria. Crews in eligible cars will be competing not only for bragging rights, but also for a guaranteed entry in the 2026 Mille Miglia. 1000miglia.it 13-15 March WinteRace A field of…

The former Formula 1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone is selling 69 Grand Prix and F1 cars from the private collection he painstakingly assembled over half a century. Among the single-seaters being sold are Ferraris raced by legendary drivers such as Mike Hawthorn, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher, while Brabham, the marque that helped catapult Ecclestone to the top, is well-represented, too. Many of the Brabhams have never previously been sold and for many the star car will be the one-off Gordon Murray-designed Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B ‘fan car’, which raced only once, victoriously, at the Swedish Grand Prix in Anderstorp, 1978, winning by more than half a minute. Cars being offered include everything from Maserati 250F and ex-Chiron 4/CLT plus a brace of 6CMs to a Lancia-Ferrari D50 replica and 1931 Bugatti…

Jaguar is at death’s door. It doesn’t matter one bit that it’s won Le Mans seven times or that the E-type was once proclaimed the most beautiful car in the world by none other than Enzo Ferrari. Without serious change, it will be gone. The last few years have seen it chasing the mass market, creating good-looking, always competent, often excellent models that nonetheless didn’t sell. You wanted an F-type? Great. But perhaps a 911 would be the safer bet. How about an XE? Why would you, when there’s so much in that market from Audi and BMW. Or an XJ? Wonderful, of course, but too expensive for a car from a tainted brand. Etc… Or maybe you want numbers. In 2023 Jaguar sold 64,241 cars worldwide, of JLR’s total…

IT ALL BEGAN WITH a cucumber. In May 1932 Manfred von Brauchitsch appeared at the AVUS circuit with a radical, streamlined Mercedes-Benz SSKL. In the rush to finish the car it was left unpainted – and the very first ‘Silver Arrow’ was born. Quickly nicknamed ‘the Cucumber’ in reference to its body shape, it had a 12mph top speed advantage over the regular SSKL – but it was soon obsolete. Grand Prix racing introduced a 750kg maximum weight in 1934, so a team led by Dr Hans Nibel created the W25, its new 3.4-litre alcohol-fuelled straight-eight delivering 100bhp more than the contemporary Alfas. So legend has it, the cars were 1kg overweight at the Nürburgring, and team manager Alfred Neubauer had his mechanics scrape the paint off them to save…

In the years I’ve been tracking and commenting on the values of classic cars, that term has changed dramatically. The first UK Hagerty Price Guide back in 2012 listed just 82 models (less than 7% of the total) first built in 1980 or newer, and the most ‘modern’ car was unveiled in 1996. Things have changed: 1980-and-newer cars now account for a third of the latest Guide, and there are 266 first built since the turn of the 21st Century. Although the age of what’s considered a classic has altered, the factors that define it as such haven’t. And the R53 Mini Cooper S JCW, Volkswagen Polo G40 and Toyota Yaris GRMN all fit the bill. Each comes from a manufacturer that has had its performance stars in the past,…

TIME REALLY DOES FLY. When I bought a 1978 Range Rover as a project for my newborn child Cesare in January 2016, I imagined I’d have plenty of time to get it ready for his 18th birthday. My idea was to hand the car to him when he’s ten and have a good eight years working together to restore it. I’m not late yet but that first step is getting close and I’m far from ready. I’d dreamed of having a classic Range Rover in my garage since I was 14, around 1983-1984, and a short journey with a schoolmate whose mother was driving a Masai Red three-door. To put this into perspective, keep in mind that my family cars had been a 1969 Fiat 500L (stolen in 1983) and…

RALLYE PRESCOTT 2024, in early November, was to be my season-closing hillclimb in Doris. Unusual, in fact unique, in that it includes a series of six runs equally split between daytime and after dark. Also – and equally rare, for once – the fair county of Gloucestershire wasn’t engulfed in heavy rain, which raised the question: could I, or more importantly Doris, break her existing course time of 72.55 seconds? The answer was yes. And no. First practice, and the exit clock flashed up 72.38 seconds. It was game on. But then, on run two, I ran out of talent and half-spun the regal, heavyweight Daimler when entering Ettore’s hairpin, something that takes some doing, believe me. My time was recorded not in seconds, but in days! Then came run…

THIS YEAR MARKS the 70th anniversary of the American-style hamburger making its debut on the British culinary stage, when the first Wimpy Bar opened in the Lyons Corner House on London’s Coventry Street. Britain was still suffering the privations inflicted by World War Two: it was not until July 1954 that meat became the final item to come off rationing and it was goodbye to Spam fritters. Before the end of that year the directors of J Lyons & Co, the giant of high street catering since 1894, had decided on an experiment to attract younger customers and obtained a licence from Wimpy Grills of Chicago to use its name. The first Wimpy Bar was a counter service section within the more formal table service restaurant. It was an immediate…

Spy Octane The Vehicles of James Bond Volume 1 MATTHEW FIELD and AJAY CHOWDHURY, Porter Press International, £99, ISBN 978 1 913089 85 6 Just when you think you’ve read everything that could possibly be written about the cars used in the Bond movies, along comes this doorstop of a hardback, running to nearly 420 pages and absolutely stuffed with never-before-seen images. And then you find out that this is merely the first of a planned three volumes. Mind truly blown. Part of the explanation for such mammoth coverage is that, as the subhead to the book’s title clarifies, it actually profiles all the ‘vehicles’ used in the first seven Bond movies, not just the cars. So that includes boats, aircraft, submarines, moon buggies… the whole gamut of cool machinery.…

PURCHASED NEW BY the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Arthur Miller, this beautifully patinated 1961 Land Rover Series IIA 88-inch Hardtop has remained in the care of his family since his passing in 2005. Miller bought the Series IIA – which still wears its factory-registered UK plate – while he was married to Marilyn Monroe, and kept it at their Roxbury, Connecticut home for tasks on the property and for runs into town. Today it’s presented in gloriously characterful condition. The stories this car could tell! It will require recommissioning before returning to the road and Bonhams estimates that it will sell for $60,000-80,000. cars.bonhams.com…

I DIDN’T IMAGINE I’d work for this company. When I was young I thought I’d be a vet, I was completely focused on animals. I wanted to move to Canada and build a farm. My mother and father divorced when I was four and so I didn’t know my father well. He tempted me to Zagato by saying ‘If you come and work with me, we’ll get to know each other.’ That’s why I came to work here, but when you become part of this company you get an illness I call Zagatoness. You start being involved in the history of each model; you discover a passion you didn’t know you had. I learned how to drive at the company with the Zagato ZELE [an electric microcar] in 1972 when…

1 January Brooklands New Year’s Day Classic Gathering The UK’s biggest New Year’s Day meet, with over 1000 classic cars, live music and a barbecue. brooklandsmuseum.com 1 January Vintage Stony Despite the name, this event in Stony Stratford, Bucks, attracts mid-century and modern classics as well as vintage cars and bikes. Vehicles start leaving at 2pm, so don’t roll out of bed too late! vintagestony.co.uk 5 January Bicester Heritage January Scramble Bicester Heritage’s first Scramble of 2025 is set to include ‘Class of the Field’, a display of interesting vintage tractors. bicesterheritage.co.uk 9-12 January Autosport International The motorsport show returns to Birmingham’s NEC, where the main attraction will be a huge display celebrating 75 years of F1. autosportinternational.com 11-12 January VSCC Measham Rally The VSCC’s famously testing overnight navigation rally,…

19 January – 2 February Sri Lanka Classic Twenty-five crews motor around beautiful Sri Lanka, a 1700km route taking them clockwise from Waikkal to Colombo via national parks that are home to elephants and leopards. destination-rally.com 5 February – 1 March New Zealand Two-Island Tour Crews will start in Auckland and explore the North Island first – including, for fans of the Lord of the Rings, the famous ‘Hobbiton’ film set. On day 11 they’ll catch a boat to the wilder South Island, where time will be made for whale-watching trips and flights over the spectacular Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. sceniccartours.com 28 February – 19 March Royal Rajasthan A drive around India’s largest state, known for its tiger reserves and for the Thar Desert, over 60% of which lies…

A HUGE CENTENARY celebration for a once-famous Buckinghamshire hillclimb has already attracted a roll call of significant pre-war cars, especially Aston Martins. They will gather at Aston Hill in Aston Clinton on 17 May to honour the event that gave Aston Martin its name after victory at the venue. In addition to three surviving Aston Martins that competed in the original events on Aston Hill from 1904 to 1925, participants are set to include a 1914 Vauxhall A Type, 1914 Rover 12hp, 1914 and 1919 Singer 10hps, 1921 Vauxhall 30-98, 1921 Bentley TT, 1924 Alvis DB SA 12/40 and Super Sports, 1925 Bugatti T35, 1925 Morris Oxford and 1925 Austin Seven, as well as 1921 Sprint Sunbeam, 1923 Triumph Ricardo and 1923 Dot-Bradshaw motorcycles. In period, the Herts County Auto…

I WAS VERY EXCITED to see a Wanderer motorcycle in the Vilnius Auto Museum collection featured in Octane 258. My great-grandfather Johann Baptist Winklhofer co-founded Wanderer in 1885 with his business partner Adolf Jaenicke (whose sister Johanna he also married), and I have a very similar 1939 Wanderer with a 97cc 2.3hp two-stroke Sachs engine [pictured above]. Wanderer was one of the four founding car companies of Auto Union during the Great Depression, together with Horch, Audi and DKW. It was headquartered in Chemnitz, Saxony, and stopped operating at the end of World War Two. Audi is the only survivor of the former Auto Union, and still has as its logo the famous four rings that originally represented the four car brands. Starting with the assembly of British-licensed Rover bicycles –…

It is always difficult to write about the Alfa Romeo 8C. I mean, where do you begin? There were simply so many gifted people involved with the birth of one of the most perfect, advanced, sophisticated cars in history. Yet perhaps one stands above the others: Vittorio Jano, legally Viktor János, the technical father of the 8C. Of Hungarian origin and born in 1891 in San Giorgio Canavese, a small village near Turin, he joined STAR (Società Torinese Automobili Rapid) in 1909, a long-forgotten car manufacturer that employed 500 at its height. The young Jano spent his evenings studying at a mechanical design school and, on gaining his diploma two years later, was hired by FIAT’s Giulio Cesare Cappa, the genius behind the Fiat 509 who went on to develop…

After more than 40 years, Sylviane and Patrick Peter have handed over the reins of their business to new owners. The timing coincides with their recent ‘Lifetime Achievement’ accolade, and a trophy handed to them at this year’s International Historic Motoring Awards. Just ahead of that, Octane joins them at their Paris home, and immediately learns something surprising about Patrick. As a child, growing up in the Paris area and spending his holidays in Brittany, he wasn’t particularly interested in cars. ‘I had some model cars, but I preferred sailing boats,’ he recalls with a wry smile. But then comes full disclosure. ‘I fondly remember the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the early 1960s with Ferrari, Ford and so on, and we would watch it all night. But I…

THERE’S MORE TO Ric Wood Motorsport than meets the eye. It occupies a former dance hall in Stockport, to the south-east of Manchester, a characterful town that’s been up and coming for long enough that some might say it’s finally arrived. Yet considering all the snarling race-spec Ford Capris that have passed through its narrow openings onto the kerbside, not to mention the flame-throwing Skyline GT-Rs, for a moment I wonder if I’m standing in the right street. I need not worry. Once inside, it’s truly a different world. For a start, there are three floors crammed into space for two within this building – and three businesses, too, if you count Ric’s CNC Heads and Weslake operations as well as RWM. The resulting ceiling heights in places are more…

REGRETS? I’VE HAD a few, and most are around the cars and motorcycles I’ve let go over the years. I’m not sure if I’ve just added to the regret list, because I’ve sold my beloved Subaru. So why did it go? Perversely, it had become much less beloved since it was spruced up and retired from everyday use. I bought it in 2015 after a long search for what would be my third Impreza. It had to be largely unmodified and original, and with a bit of provenance to set it aside from other Subarus. So when I found this early pre-facelift wagon, with 80,000 miles, three previous owners and bundles of paperwork for around £2000, I had to have it. Best of all, it was one of the early…

HE FOUND RISK a life-affirming activity. Gary Gabelich existed at the raggedy edge, and was never happier than when flirting with a challenge in which the price of failure was death. The Californian of Croation extraction embodied the maxim ‘when in doubt, flat out’. Nevertheless, it isn’t easy deciphering the actual from the apocryphal, given the breadth of his escapades. For example, he competed in his first drag race aged 15 and topped 300mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats before he was 20. And by anecdotal, of course, we mean hearsay. What is known is that this charismatic speed-freak wasn’t happy in his first job, steering a Volkswagen Transporter as a delivery driver for a drugstore. He craved excitement, and subsequently joined North American Aviation – in the mail room.…

IF YOU’D BEEN in the bar of ’t Goude Hooft on The Hague’s Dagelijkse Groenmarkt in early 1657, you might have spotted scientist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens and his friend, the clockmaker Salomon Coster, hunched over their tankards in earnest discussion, the table strewn with sketches and beer-stained calculations. On Christmas Day in 1656, Huygens had conceived the idea of a pendulum clock, he needed a top-flight clockmaker to make it for him and that man was Coster. Neither knew it, but Coster’s clock would lead to the discovery of one of horology’s most fascinating phenomena: resonance. Imagine two tuning forks of the same pitch on a wooden board. Sound one and the other starts to resonate thanks to the energy transmitted through the wood. It works with pendulums and…

By 1915 Henry Ford had managed to cut the price of the Model T to $390, making car ownership a realistic prospect for millions of Americans. He wasn’t the only one attempting to bring personal motor transport to the people, though, and if you were prepared to do without luxuries such as luggage space and a roof and a seat, the Autoped Company of New York could get you on the road for just $100. The 155cc Autoped was the first mass-producedd motor scooter, and it was designed to be so intuitive to use that it could be ridden by a child – or even by a woman, as the adverts were at pains to indicate. Pushing the steering column forwards engaged the clutch; pulling back disengaged the clutch and…

Ferrari limited production of its fourth ‘halo’ car to 399, before building a final 400th as a gift for Pope John Paul II. Launched in 2002 at around $650,000, the Enzo is one of few cars that have always commanded a premium. An indication of where low-mileage cars sat in 2013 came at Gooding & Co’s Scottsdale sale, when a US-spec example with 2250 miles went for $1,485,000 (£1,184,000). A significant uptick over the next few years saw one (pictured) with similar mileage sold by Mecum for $3,300,000 (£2,631,000) in 2016. Gooding broke the $4m mark six years later at Pebble Beach, its 2700-miler in Grigio Titanio changing hands for $4,130,000 (£3,293,000), while Mecum raised the bar in 2024 when the same car made $4,510,000 (£3,596,000). The Pope’s Enzo holds…

BUYING YOUR ISSUE OF OCTANE – NEW AND OLD Print issues 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. You can order the latest magazine or a back issue, delivered direct to your door, by visiting octane-magazine.com Digital issues Download the Octane Magazine app on Android or Apple and you will be able to enjoy the new issue. Alternatively you can source the digital edition via either Zinio or Readly. Subscribe You can find superb offers on print and digital at octane.co.uk/subscribe. Order before 17 January 2025 to start with issue 261. Problems with your subscription? Please email customerservice@octane-magazine.com…

THE SALE OF an estimated $100million of cars from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is to futureproof the facility and refocus it on its core purpose, according to IMSM president Joe Hale. The news comes following the announcement of the sale of the ex-Fangio and Moss Mercedes W196R streamliner that was donated to the museum in 1965. Turn to page 110 for Octane’s unique access to the incredible car that will be sold by RM Sotheby’s on 1 February. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that the media lens focuses on the Mercedes, given the column inches devoted to the €135m raised when the Uhlenhaut Coupé was sold in 2022, yet the streamliner is just one of a stellar line-up to go under the hammer in Paris during Rétromobile week and in Florida…

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Porsche has been at the sharp end of turbo technology since its inception, and this year has marked the 50th anniversary of its first turbocharged road car, the 911 Turbo (or ‘930’ in Porschespeak). Launched at the end of 1974, it became a legend in its own right and laid a path for future models to follow. Right now we’re in Stuttgart to celebrate its legacy, driving in a convoy of Turbo models from those five decades to meet some of the people who built that legend. Just being behind the wheel of an early 930, straight out of Porsche’s own collection, is an incredible privilege. One of the first 30 off the production line, it’s beautifully preserved, features the original 3.0-litre engine and four-speed transmission, and intimidates immediately with…

The ongoing struggle for supremacy between supercharging and turbocharging stretches back nearly 100 years. When one route to increased performance has taken a technological step forward, the other has then superseded it just a few years later. Sometimes it’s seemed as though car makers have woken up one morning and decided, after a gap of years, simply to start making the other option because the, er, wind has changed. Generally, though, it is the turbo-supercharger (to give it its full name) that has become the ubiquitous fitment in the latter days of the internal combustion engine. The supercharger’s key advantage is its instant response from being driven directly by the crankshaft, which has been eroded by increasingly sophisticated technology for exhaust-driven compressors. In return, the flaw of the supercharger –…

FOR YEARS, FRIENDS, colleagues and even family members would occasionally ask ‘Do you still own that Celica?’ It’s a question I’ve got good at dodging, a bit like ‘How many cars do you actually own?’ The answer to the first one, I’m happy to report, is ‘Yes’, although I was surprised to work out that I have owned this car since 2012. Bought when I was a fresh-faced staff writer at evo magazine, it was a temptingly cheap way into something seriously quick and cool. I really fancied an Impreza, but the less obvious Celica was considerably cheaper to insure – a big deal for me then. This example was far from perfect: the red paint was starting to fade, it had an overly loud exhaust, and it didn’t like…

AS WE HEAD rapidly towards the New Year, it’s indicative of the modern world’s increasingly full calendar that the auctions don’t seem to have slowed down since the summer. RM Sotheby’s, in particular, has been incredibly busy this month, holding three interesting sales. Its Dubai auction is a relative newcomer on the scene. Sales totalled $27.9million with a reasonable 71% sell-through rate. More modern supercars and hypercars are at home here, demonstrated by the ferocity with which the bids rose on the 2014 Pagani Zonda LM Roadster. This one-off, swansong Zonda eventually sold for $11,086,250 – an auction record for the Zonda and for the Pagani marque as a whole. Next up was the 2017 Pagani Huayra BC Coupé, of which 20 were built. This one benefited from ‘Pacchetto Tempesta’…

MORE THAN 100 cars from the Academy of Art University Automobile Museum will be offered for sale by Broad Arrow Auctions in February, as the organisation makes space to modernise the contents of the collection for a new generation of design students. Leading the sale is the matching-numbers 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing, in an unusual shade of Strawberry Red Metallic. It’s an older restoration by specialist Hjeltness Restorations, and is offered with an estimate of $1.2-1.5million. Sitting alongside it is a terrific 1937 Squire 1½-Litre Corsica Drophead Coupé. Presented in beautifully restored condition, it has previously appeared at Pebble Beach, and has also picked up an award at Amelia Island. We’re also quite taken by the 1931 Invicta S-Type 4½-Litre Low Chassis Fixed Head Coupé ‘Sea-Bear’ (top right) – the…

IF YOU HAVE ever had the pleasure of driving a Lancia Fulvia, you’ll know just how special these little front-wheel-drive treasures are. If you’ve ever owned one, though, you’ll appreciate just how much care and attention they require to keep in fine fettle. In truth, while the old stereotype of Lancias rusting for fun is somewhat tiresome, it’s not entirely inaccurate for UK cars. This delightful example on offer from Percival Motor Company is apparently that rare thing: a Fulvia that has not required any repairs to its underside. Having spent most of its life in Italy, it came to the UK ‘a few years ago’ and is showing an odometer reading of only 25,000km. It’s a late 1974 Monte Carlo special edition, built to celebrate the HF’s 1972 victory…

THE HISTORY OF Citroën is in many ways a tale of how not to run a car company. Still, we should be thankful that it was allowed to run free for as long as it did, because it created one of the most unusual yet compelling grand tourers of all time: the SM. Space Age styling and technology make this GT timeless, and, with prices relatively sensible, an SM is still an extremely attractive package – especially if you appreciate cars from the more unusual end of the automotive spectrum. Riding a wave of success from the DS and 2CV and looking to expand, Citroën over-extended itself by buying out several smaller car-makers. Panhard and Berliet were swallowed up, but it was Citroën’s purchase of Italian manufacturer Maserati in 1968…