Inhoudsopgave van December 2023 - Octane

THIS MONTH I ticked a major box by driving a freshly restored Lotus Eleven at Goodwood, to my mind feasting on the finest way to enjoy the West Sussex circuit. Sure, it’s a quick track and responds well to a pummelling by brawny V8s and smooth V12s, but the Eleven offers something different, a mellifluous alternative to a hi-po battle of wills by seeming to conjoin with both track and driver instead of fighting them. It was a magical experience and a few weeks later I received a bunch of pictures of the owner enjoying it to the full on the Kilometre Lancé at International St Moritz Automobile Week. I was chuffed to bits. To my mind there is nothing better than a collector who really uses their cars. David Martin…

Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week, 27 September – 1 October The big winner in the Audrain Newport Concours was Fritz Burkard’s spectacular 1938 Delage D8-120 De Villars Roadster (bottom right), which has already scooped the 2022 Concours of Elegance Best of Show and also the 2022 Peninsula Classics Best of the Best Award. The concours at the magnificent The Breakers estate in Newport, Rhode Island, rounded off a week of activities that ranged from a series of seminars starring the likes of Jay Leno and Donald Osborne to a host of other car shows, including The Gathering at Rough Point, a tour for the concours entrants and then a wonderfully astmospheric display of them on a closed public road, Bellevue Avenue, allowing the public to get right up close…

The Historic & Classic Vehicles Alliance is setting out to demystify the sustainable fuels market in the UK with the launch of a new star-based fuel sustainability rating system. Announced by board member Guy Lachlan at the first HCVA Heritage Matters insights day in October, the system will scrutinise the claims and processes involved in the manufacture of synthetic fuels that have been marketed as sustainable in the UK. During his talk at the trade organisation’s first seminar, Lachlan said caution should be exercised with the claims made by some of the manufacturers: ‘We have to manage the confusion in the marketplace, and the various claims of sustainability that are being made. So we’ve decided to launch our transparent, open-source sustainability rating for sustainable liquid fuels. It will help inform…

It’s 4.30am on the Saturday before the Pebble Beach Concours. I’m too excited to sleep as my mind is already at the truck lot where, in 90 minutes, I’m due to come face to face with one of the most beautiful, mysterious and fabled cars in the world. It will not be the first time, and that makes my feverishness all the more intense: my senses have already been kidnapped by the shape and history of the 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK ‘Count Trossi’. The lack of sleep and the early start will soon be entirely forgotten, and I shake off the doziness by reminding myself of the Count Trossi story. The car’s history is somewhat complicated, especially that of its formative years. Chassis 36038, paired with engine 77644, was manufactured without…

For obvious reasons it couldn’t have been called the M1. That name belongs to the seminal mid-engined coupé of 1978, though even that wasn’t M’s first product. The BMW Motorsport story goes back to the delectable 3.0 CSL that was a six-time winner of the European Touring Car Championship between 1973 and 1979, but the first BMW to wear an M badge was actually a somewhat obscure South African-market saloon racer, the 530 MLE of 1976. So, no matter that the M is a suffix rather than a prefix, the clumsily titled BMW 1-series M Coupé (we’ll call it the 1M) is a proper M-car. Or is it? You see, many were those at the time who felt that any BMW worthy of that haloed letter – before or after…

HARRY WESLAKE WAS NOT a man given to mincing his words or withholding an opinion. When asked by William Lyons in 1935 to do some engine work on his latest SS car, he exclaimed: ‘Your car reminds me of an overdressed lady with no brains – there’s nothing under the bonnet!’ Lyons, himself not known for his tact, was not happy and a row ensued. However, Lyons recognised that he needed Weslake’s tuning expertise and, after adjourning to the pub, the pair reconciled and Weslake was hired as a consultant. The SS used a 65bhp six-cylinder sidevalve Standard engine that failed to deliver on the promise implied by the car’s long bonnet and rakish looks. Lyons wanted 90bhp and Weslake said he could deliver at least 95. In only a…

IF YOU FANCY an alternative to a digital G-Shock but still want a watch that’ll double as a submarine engine mount, what do you get? How about one of these? The ‘alternative G-Shock’ moniker is based firmly in fact: the firm seems keen on giving its products a beasting. So far, Holton Professionals have been mounted on the bow of a round-the-world yacht, tested to 2000m in the Gulf of Mexico on a ROV, run over by a Land Rover Defender (repeatedly) and still come up ticking. The most recent idea was to see if a watch straight out of the box would survive being tied to a couple of bits of rebar and half a kilo of plastic explosive and blown up. That’s enough to leave a 12ft crater behind…

Book of the month Kim: a Biography of M.G. Founder Cecil Kimber JON PRESSNELL, Dalton Watson, £130.50, ISBN 978 1 956309 11 9 Cecil Kimber, known as ‘Kim’, died at the early age of 56. On 4 February 1945 he was in the last coach of an express train leaving Kings Cross that stalled and ran back downhill into another train waiting at the platform. Kimber was one of two fatalities. Nearly 80 years later, attempting to produce an in-depth biography of Kimber was never going to be an easy task. Fortunately, author Jon Pressnell has been a motoring journalist long enough that he was able to interview some of Kimber’s associates before they, too, passed away; and Kimber’s youngest daughter Jean also wrote extensively about her father. The result…

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3-4 October The post-war era created dozens of collaborations between styling houses and series manufactures. Many were one-offs or prototypes, and these typically American-European or British-European ventures regularly ended in failure at the showrooms. The oft-forgotten effect was that many of these ‘boutique’ houses were kept alive in times of scarce resources, and that new production and marketing techniques were learned. This Hudson Italia is a case in point. Bodied in 1954 by Touring and finished in pale cream with red-and-white leather interior, it was the first of 25 constructed and wears serial number IT-10001. It’s powered by Hudson’s twin-carb straight-six, driving the rear wheels via a three-speed overdrive transmission. The car is best described as an older restoration and, although the striking 1950s colours certainly pop, its value will…

IF THE LOTUS 78 provided the evidence that ground effects were about to change the face of F1, then this Lotus 79 is the car that actually delivered on that promise. Colin Chapman found inspiration in the wartime De Havilland Mosquito – which channelled air through wing-mounted radiators to provide additional lift – and in effect inverted that theory to give his cars a significant amount of additional downforce. It was first implemented on the 78, which took third in the 1977 Championship, but the Lotus 79 dominated the following year, with drivers Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson storming away from the competition. This example is chassis 4, the car in which Andretti took the championship at Monza – the same race in which Peterson was involved in a tragic…

26-29 October Auto e Moto d’Epoca Bologna Cars, bikes, parts and automobilia fill Bologna Exhibition Centre. autoemotodepoca.com 27-29 October Algarve Classic Festival Five series run by Masters Historic Racing reach their climax at Portimão Circuit. autodromodoalgarve.com 29 October 70 Years of Matchbox Cruise-In Hosted by the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles, this get-together celebrating the beloved toy-car brand includes a panel discussion featuring Matchbox designers. petersen.org 1-5 November Classic 24 Hour at Daytona Some of the great competition cars of old thunder around Florida’s most famous circuit. hsrrace.com 2-5 November RAC Rally of the Tests The 21st edition of the rally will begin near Scunthorpe and wind north towards Darlington, the crews tackling some 30 special tests and 22 regularity sections along the way. heroevents.eu 5 November Haynes Breakfast Club…

Germany gets new top-end event A major new German concours has been announced by the team behind the London Concours and the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court. Thorough Events has teamed up with its Hampton Court sponsor, watch company A. Lange & Söhne, plus auction partner RM Sotheby’s, to launch the six-day Concours of Elegance Germany, which will take place beside Lake Tegernsee in the Bavarian Alps in July 2024. The organisers promise 200 historic vehicles will gather at Gut Kaltenbrunn, 40 minutes’ drive from Munich, for the concours on 26-27 July. The event will be preceded by a four-day tour, and the first day of the concours will be by invitation only and limited to 1200 guests. James Brooks-Ward, Thorough Events CEO, said: ‘Germany has a renowned pedigree…

BY THE TIME I was 15, I’d been to lots of historic trials and race events with my dad, but I’d never spent much time in the workshop. That changed during lockdown, when he and I built an Austin Seven Ulster Rep together. Then I bought an MGB trials car that hadn’t been used for about five years, got it running and did a season’s trialling in it in MCC events, before selling it to put money toward this Peugeot. I’d fancied a ‘classic’ tow car for the Ulster and I was also planning to do some travelling, so I was thinking of either a camper or a van I could convert, but then my dad said: ‘What about a Peugeot 404 pick-up?’ I very quickly fell in love with…

SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS ago, in 1956, the Royal Aero Club said an aircraft could be as economical to operate as a car, and to prove it they staged a ‘race’ between an Auster J4 and a Triumph TR, which each had two seats and 100bhp. A £50 bet was made, which was taken up by the British Automobile Racing Club. In 2021 I set out to try to recreate this ‘race’ by enlisting the help of the Auster Club and the TR Register. I was surprised to learn that Priscilla, aka G-AIJM, still existed and was being restored to airworthy condition. Searching for the two TR3s that took part in the challenge proved more difficult, as neither SVC 368 nor SRW 990 is recorded with the DVLA or the TR Register.…

He was a man of many enterprises, a maverick and a dreamer, a plotter and a schemer. There was a time when the Argentinian émigré Alejandro de Tomaso seemed intent on vacuuming up Italy’s motor industry, or at least those marques not owned by Fiat. Having been a so-so racing driver and an intermittently successful car manufacturer under his own name, he acquired Maserati when it was at its lowest ebb. He then set about turning it around. You could argue that the arrival of a new model would therefore have been cause for marching bands and a tickertape parade, but no. The Kyalami was – and remains – a cuckoo in the nest. In order to understand its place in the marque firmament, first you need to understand Maserati.…

THE LEGEND So many bits have been pilfered from various M3s to build the 1M and its descendants, why not buy the real thing? The original E30 M3 is a very different beast, and even the E36 that supplanted it is rare-groove and collectable. But you’ll find a fantastic E46-generation car (below), with a gloriously charismatic, naturally aspirated 3.2-litre 24-valve straight-six, a sublimely beautiful body and build quality from an era before even BMW was forced to count the pennies. Shall we open the bidding at £15,000? Plenty to choose from, though naturally we’re going to have to forgo the ultimate CSL on this budget. Of course, while six cylinders are the norm for a BMW coupé, there was also that slightly unhinged V8-engined E9x generation – and you can…

1:18 scale 1966 FORD GT40 MKIII By Cult Scale Models Price £198.95 Material Resincast While this gorgeous GT40 is available in several colours, including a fetching gold, the miniature Michigan licence plate on the rear end confirms that this one represents the example now in the Petersen Collection, Los Angeles. One of only seven MkIIIs built – in essence a more ‘civilised’ version of the preceding race cars – it was bought new by Austrian conductor and car collector Herbert von Karajan. It really is a beautiful piece, the flawless metallic blue paint set off by very fine spoked wheels. While none of the panels open – it’s what’s known as a kerbside model – you get a decent view of the detailed interior through its large glass area. The…

DESPITE A SENSE of caution in the market generally, Bonhams’ annual Zoute sale in Belgium was seemingly bigger and better than ever, boasting a record €27,280,497 and 87% sale result. It was headlined by a 1959 Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta TdF (above), which sold for €4.83million, admittedly about €800k below the low estimate. Elsewhere in the sale a 7102km 1994 Bugatti EB110 GT sold for €1,150,000 despite needing full recommissioning. An interesting curio was the 1997 Saab EX prototype, a one-off coupé built for the 50th anniversary of Saab, which realised €74,750. There was plenty of chatter about the Orange Collection ahead of the sale. This set of eight Aston Martins, near enough the model range from 2010, was ordered in a matching orange colour scheme from the factory. Selling individually,…

Built as a limited-run evolution special by Tickford, just 500 examples of the ultimate 1980s fast Ford were produced. All were right-hand drive, with colour choice being the only option for buyers: 392 were delivered in black, 56 in white and 52 were Moonstone Blue. Silverstone Auctions (now Iconic Auctioneers) tested new levels for RS500s at auction in November 2015, hammering away a white 13,961-miler for £90,000. It was back making headlines in 2017, achieving a record £114,750 for a three-owner car showing less than 11,000 miles. ‘E297 GHO’ (pictured, right) gives a good indication of the model’s trajectory, having changed hands at auction three times over the past seven years. In 2016 it made £75,900 at CCA, then £112,500 in 2018 at Silverstone, before CCA resold it in 2020…

OF ALL THE Lotus racers, the Mark IX is visually one of the most interesting. As a forerunner to the successful Eleven, it featured an aluminium body designed by Frank Costin and an evolution of the spaceframe chassis first used on the Mark VI. Although a few power units were offered, this was the first Lotus designed from the outset to accept the ubiquitous Coventry Climax FWA. Around 30 were built, of which the car offered here is No. 2. Both this car, and car No. 1, were shipped straight to the USA where they would compete in the 1955 Sebring 12 Hours. They were competing for the class lead when this car left the circuit and smashed its sump, forcing its withdrawal from the event. Original owner Bobby Burns…

To take advantage of this month’s special offer and get three issues of Octane for £5, either visit octane.co.uk/subscribe or call +44 (0)330 333 9491 and quote code DOCT23 Buying your issue of Octane – new and old PRINT ISSUE 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 magsdirect.co.uk and searching for ‘Octane’. 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 (order…

CONFIDENCE. That’s the bedrock of any transaction involving something that maintains a value over time. Whether it is a bottle of rare single malt whisky, a Rolex or shares in a company, all but the most laissez-faire buyers will be mindful not just that the purchase price is appropriate, but also that the value won’t immediately plummet once the wrapping has come off. Cars, especially classic and collector vehicles, are no different. As the UK Hagerty Price Guide editor, you’d expect me to say that car values are important. One of the main reasons we publish the Guide and update it quarterly is to give enthusiasts a modicum of confidence when they’re buying, selling, or just valuing their own cars. But this summer, Hagerty’s team tracking sales through dealers, auctions…

THE HISTORIC MOTORING AWARDS has welcomed aboard a fabulous new title sponsor in Chubb. The insurer brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the prestigious international awards ceremony, which will take place at London’s swish Dorchester Hotel on Wednesday 15 November. Chubb’s head of personal risk services, Stephen Vaughan, said: ‘Chubb is thrilled to be gold sponsor of this year’s Historic Motoring Awards. We pride ourselves as being expert insurers of classic cars and have been widely recognised by car collectors for the exceptional standard of service and claims handling we offer them. Over the years we’ve built a global network of experts who protect, restore and are as passionate about the provenance of these fine and beautiful cars as we are. It’s why the owners of some of the…

Remember the days before smartphones and social media? The days when people read magazines and tore out pictures they liked or unpicked a centre-spread poster to stick on their walls? Athena prints and other posters were all the rage, with Farrah Fawcett the best-seller in 1976, followed closely by the famous ‘tennis girl’. You know the one. As for young car types, the way we expressed our enthusiasm for a particular marque was by having a car poster on the bedroom wall. It seems impossibly simple and old-fashioned these days, as seemingly everyone has thousands of clips on their phones with fast cars indulging in all sorts of silly antics, often ending in a crash. But back then, ‘poster cars’ were an important barometer of what was cool and desirable…

Weighing in at less than half a tonne (officially), propelled by a repurposed lightweight off-the-shelf firepump engine and clothed in a ground-hugging, air-cheating body from master aerodynamicist Frank Costin, in the entire history of Lotus it’s the Eleven that has best encapsulated the Chapman mantra of ‘simplify, then add lightness’. Maybe the 25 took it to an even higher level, but… The Eleven’s success is reflected in the fact that some 270 were made, which was a huge number of top-tier sports racers to shift (largely for privateers) in just a couple of years towards the end of the 1950s – when Lotus was still finding its feet. That, in part, is due to the fact that ‘simple’ did not mean ‘old tech’. Quite the opposite. The Eleven was the…

FOR THE FRIENDS of Mike Hawthorn, it was a trackday we never dared hope we’d see. Despite growing up a continent away and in NASCAR culture, at the age of 13 I found a book in my school library with a photo of young John Michael Hawthorn rushing down a long straight in an F1 Ferrari at a place called Reims, France, in 1953, the year of my birth. His head was rolled back and his teeth were bared in that particular manner of his, and my life changed forever. Little wonder, then, that I chose Mike’s old haunts around his Farnham hometown as my first UK explorations, even before Stonehenge or Big Ben. Or that I would later meet a delightful gentleman beside the Riley Ulster Imp that started…

IAN FLEMING’S PROSE is dense with detail. For example, in Casino Royale, James Bond doesn’t just say: ‘Ooh, I dunno. What are you having?’ Instead, Fleming has him precision-order: ‘Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?’ Fleming uses levels of detail to build his characters and make them live. The author was as fussy about Bond’s watches as he was everything else. In his second book, Live and Let Die, he has the spy wear a ‘Rolex Oyster Perpetual’. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service there’s more detail with ‘a heavy Rolex Oyster Perpetual on an expanding metal bracelet’. There’s plenty of evidence that Fleming drew on…

…AS LONG AS it’s white! From an aesthetic point of view, a single-marque, single-colour collection of this magnitude – 56 Porsche sports cars – looks rather spectacular. Of those 56, almost all are finished in various shades of white (one is a red 356), but it’s not only the sea of colour that makes them special: these are some of the best examples of the breed. According to RM Sotheby’s, which has been charged with selling The White Collection in its entirety, the crown jewel is the 2015 Porsche 918 ‘Weissach’ Spyder. It was delivered to the collection new, in paint-to-sample Grand Prix White with blue leather, with almost $100k of optional Porsche Exclusive tailoring. With a mere 12 miles, it has an estimate of $2.5-3m. If you’re interested in…

EUROPEANS MIGHT FIND the idea of the Chevy Corvair being described as a compact car amusing, but this really was GM’s attempt at an economy-class motor. In many ways groundbreaking for the US market, it was an interesting package: a rear-mounted, air-cooled flat-six engine, monocoque construction and independent suspension. The first Corvair four-door sedans were launched in 1959, powered by an 80bhp, 2.3-litre version of the flat-six engine with a three-speed manual or two-speed automatic transmission. These were fairly basic cars, with little equipment – in-line with the economy-class goals for the model. A coupe body followed in 1960, and a plusher Monza version arrived later that year. Much of the car changed and developed over the next year, with various mechanical improvements brought in – such as a four-speed…

GROWING UP IN rural Northern Ireland, where there wasn’t really a bus service, meant having a car was about freedom; even today I cannot think about existing without one. I learned to drive in a TK Bedford when I was 14. My dad, who had his own business delivering coal, taught me so I could move his lorry around our yard, it was one of my chores. When I turned 17, I had four or five lessons with an instructor before I passed and was officially out on the road. My go-to vehicle is the Ranger Raptor but the first car I owned was a very basic Ford Fiesta Popular with a choke and no radio. When I finished school I did a big road trip around Scotland with a…