Table of contents for April 2019 in Octane

Only a few special cars can claim to define a generation. Fewer still – such as the Beetle and the Mini – entirely transcend such nonsense and skate gracefully across the years like Dorian Gray, without ever ageing or seeming out of place. But how many cars can genuinely be argued to have defined two generations culturally? Just one to my mind, and that is the Lamborghini Countach. This groundbreaking supercar somehow spanned the diametrically opposed worlds of Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man and Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. Incredible. Of course, towards its end in the late 1980s, especially after Horacio Pagani had a go at it, the Countach looked very different from the sharp, unadorned beauty of the LP400, but while all those spoilers on the 25th Anniversary…

oost Alfa that was craned to safety makes a mint Following on from last month’s Miura, a barnfind Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Zagato has been causing all the social media buzz in the past month. Apparently the property of a mechanic who somehow lowered it into an inaccessible garage and then failed to do anything about it for 35 years because of a broken lift, the Italian car made quite a sight as it was plucked to safety. When the mechanic died – intestate – the Alfa came up for sale and caused a furore when it came to auction with an estimate of just a few thousand euros yet sold for €567,000. Yeyer expo in Halifornia LA’s Petersen Automotive Museum has opened a new exhibit featuring ten groundbreaking race…

DAVID SYDORICK’S 2018 Pebble Beach-winning Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Berlinetta has scooped The Peninsula Classics Best of the Best trophy. The Italian beauty was featured in Octane 185 and is the second example of the model to take the top honour at the California concours in a decade, following the success of Jon Shirley’s similar Touring-bodied car in 2008. Pebble Beach victory earned it an automatic Best of the Best entry, which pits the winners of eight leading concours against each other to pick an overall champion. The Superleggera Alfa was up against the cars that won Concours of Elegance (Mercedes-Benz 680 S ‘Boat Tail’ Roadster by Barker), Villa d’Este (Ferrari 335 S Spyder by Scaglietti), The Quail – A Motorsports Gathering (Lancia Aurelia PF200C Spider by Pinin Farina), The…

The Countach’s visual shock factor is alive and well in Rimini on this winter morning. We thought we’d found a quiet spot at the far end of a barren dockland pier but the locals take no time to discover us and now the cameraphones are out in force. But it’s easy to see why it’s drawing a crowd exactly 42 years to the day since this particular LP400 Periscopica left the Lamborghini production line, as it already has me under its spell, too. It’s helped considerably by being painted a very 1970s purple hue (Viola Metallizzato in Lamborghini speak) with a crisp white leather interior, which is exactly how it was spec’d by its original owner, a gentleman named Michael Noss, who is described as being a ‘flamboyant Swedish entrepreneur’…

Today, being universally referred to as the ‘Lotus B team’ might be construed as a bit of a putdown, but in the early-tomid-1960s it was quite the opposite – a great compliment, a badge of honour. Colin Chapman was sweeping all before him. His Team Lotus was young and energetic, having effortlessly made the leap from fragile lower-formula racers to worldbeating (though still fragile) Grand Prix winners. The pace of his progress was unprecedented, from launching Lotus Engineering in 1952 to Stirling Moss’s famous win at Monaco in the Rob Walker Lotus 18 less than a decade later. It is all the more remarkable because Team Lotus, which had split from Lotus Engineering in 1954, hadn’t even built a single-seater until 1958 when it launched an assault first on F2…

These Two Touring-bodied Maserati 3500 GT convertibles are clearly different generations with different personalities, as they spring from points five years apart in the same model line’s career. See them together, and the way the flowing lines of the (red) Series One by Touring Superleggera evolved into the (ivory) Series Two makes sense. But there is a complication. Officially, Touring never made a Maserati 3500 GT Convertible. These cars are unicorns. Of the Series One, all that existed were three prototypes. Of the notional Series Two there were, in total… well, none actually. Until now. Uncomplicating the matter is itself complicated. The simple part first: Touring had a critical connection with the Maserati 3500, a coupé far more important to Maserati than any post-war soft-top. By the mid-1950s, having been…

This is fainTly embarrassing. I’m hustling the V8 Range Rover as fast as is comfortable up a twisting mountain road, chasing the Defender 110 turbodiesel that’s leading our convoy through north-eastern Spain. In my mirrors I can see sunlight glinting off the worn alloy of a 1948 Land Rover, and I gradually realise that the 70-year-old vehicle is not only holding station but actually gaining ground. In theory this shouldn’t be happening, but the reality is one I’ll become very used to over the next few days. We’re on our way to the Land Rover 70th Anniversary party at Les Comes, not far from Barcelona. Here, over a long weekend, off-road enthusiasts from all over Europe are gathering at a sprawling country estate to test themselves and their vehicles over…

It all started when we were preparing for the Octane Tour to the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court last autumn. Mark Dixon announced that he would be doing it in a lovely new Bentley, not his Mustang because it wasn’t in good enough condition. This took me aback because Mark’s Mustang is a minter compared to either of my current classics. Maybe Mark was just saying that to warn me off using the Jensen – until then it had never crossed my mind not to – and potentially embarrassing us in front of our readers. Or maybe not, but either way it really made me aware of the depressing state of my cars and their unsuitability for ‘official’ occasions. Those frilly-knicker arches and all the other bodily shortcomings were…

It’s been a few months since I last wrote an update on my Baur Cabriolet, but it has been in regular use and pretty much my everyday car. Since I bought it in August 2015 I have added around 10,000 mies to the 106,748 it showed then, even though it spent most of 2016 being restored. It’s certainly getting more use than it had with the previous owner. Post-restoration snags carried on into 2018. We had to get the boot repainted because it was patchy in places, and the rear quarter panels started to show signs of rusting, as did a small area around the rear quarter windows. The battery support plate came away altogether and had to be bolted back into place. Maybe they didn’t get rid of all…

Well, the new year began with a reminder that the 944’s MoT was due. Of course, I was a bit thrown because it had been out of action for half of 2018, after it lunched its ignition system and wiring loom last February, but it had been back on the road for a month at that point. In my head, it had come back from its repairs last summer with a fresh ticket. No matter, as only one (easily surmountable) problem stood between it and legality and that was the intermittent nature of the windscreen washer. My mate Stuart (proprietor of Templeton’s Garage, www.templetonsgarage.co.uk, near my Northamptonshire home) sorted it, granted the ticket and tackled a couple of snags that came to light after all the electrical work last year.…

Been a Bit of a fan of the latest MX-5 since it was launched in 2016. It marks a return to form: shorter, lighter, more focused, yet also less retro in vibe. Take a look: it’s a modern two-seat roadster, looking over its shoulder only in terms of being that bit fitter, rather than trying to ape some golden-era Brit, or even itself. In music terms, it’s left the Oasis years behind. I was a fan of the original too. The picture, far right, shows one of the very earliest MX-5s imported into the UK, a Mariner Blue 1.6 on a G-plate that belonged to my wife when I met her. Some of you might even have seen it in a Practical Classics buying guide back in 2000. It was…

It seems that those who are inclined to accumulate more than one classic car are also prone to gathering the odd bit of age-related ephemera to add atmosphere to their motor house. Enamel advertising signs are especially favoured. I’m one of the Octane contributors old enough to recall corner stores and tobacconists that were still cluttered with enamel plating. For me, Tizer, with Superman-style 3-D lettering, remains ‘The Appetizer’, Players still ‘Please’ and Gold Flake will always belong to the (what today looks quaintly punctuated) Wills’s company. ‘SHOPKEEPERS WERE PAID A FEE, AND FAÇADES DISAPPEARED UNDER A CARAPACE OF MULTI-COLOURED ENAMEL’ Vitreous or porcelain enamelling, the process of fusing powdered coloured glass to some sort of base by applying a very high temperature, can be used on anything that will…

AGAINST A BACKDROP of generally lower pricing across the market in January, the MBCI declined 3.29% month-on-month. It lost half the gains it had made in a strong December, when it bounced up by 6.90%. Conveniently, that places the MBCI at an index level of 200.01, which simply means its value has doubled since its inception at 100 at the end of 2011. However, this is not the first time the MBCI has been there. The 200 mark was first breached in June 2017 (201.57) and revisited on several occasions since as the market oscillated either side of a peak of 207.88 achieved in May 2018. This is the new normal, not just for Mercedes but for an overall market that has been trending sideways for close to two years.…

few car makers could ever complete with Facel Vega when it came to effortless style, whatever the cost. These exceptionally expensive French automobiles were the favoured choice of the rich and famous, from movie stars to racing drivers. That wasn’t to be the fate of this Facel II project, offered with an estimate of £130,000-165,000 at Historics at Brooklands’s next sale. Only 180 Facel IIs were built, and this is one of just 26 original right-hand-drive versions. Its history is somewhat unusual: after making its debut at the 1963 London Motor Show, it was sold through racer Roy Salvadori’s dealership by Southern Organs, a company that would later become involved in a high-profile hire purchase scam during the 1970s. Its next owner, a Mr Jon Wilson, also had issues with…

rip-snorting American muscle cars were few and far between during the 1980s. Most V8-powered once-legends could barely wheeze past 200bhp thanks to anti-smog equipment, but Buick’s GNX – the biggest, baddest muscle car of the era – made over 300bhp with only 3.8 litres and six cylinders. It was like nothing the USA had ever seen before. Buick’s 1978 A-body and subsequent 1981 G-body Regal did things differently from their ancestors. They were designed around a V6, and compactness followed. Buick’s solution to making the most of this tighter packaging was to add boost. The technology might have been in its infancy, but bolting a turbocharger to the Regal soon gave it a reputation for tyre-smoking fun. NASCAR success then led to a limited-edition Grand National model in 1982. It…

AmeliA islAnd ConCours d’elegAnCe 7-10 March. Florida, USA ameliaconcours.org retro ClAssiCs stuttgArt 7-10 March. Stuttgart, Germany retro-classics.de British CArs & lifestyle 9-10 March. Rosmalen, Netherlands britishbest.nl greAt oCeAn roAd tour 18-24 March. Melbourne, Australia classiccartour.com.au CopperstAte 1000 30 March – 3 April. Arizona, USA mensartscouncil.com oldtimer show 5-7 April. Budapest, Hungary oldtimershow.hu the flying sCotsmAn 5-7 April. Windermere to Gleneagles, UK endurorally.com goodwood memBers’ meeting 6-7 April. West Sussex, UK goodwood.com rAllye trAnsmAroC 6-12 April. Marrakesh, Morocco zaniroli.com teChno-ClAssiCA essen 10-14 April. Essen, Germany siha.de grAn premio terre di CAnossA 11-14 April. Salsomaggiore Terme to Reggio Emilia, Italy granpremioterredicanossa.it trAns-himAlAyAn Adventure 21 April – 16 May. Chengdu, China to Kathmandu, Nepal, via Tibet rallyround.co.uk pAris AmsterdAm 2019 24-27 April. France to Netherlands thetrial.nl london to lisBon 26 April – 5…

It’s almost a quarter of a century since Michael Schumacher finished second in the 1994 Barcelona Grand Prix – despite being stuck in fifth gear for the majority of the race. Some have compared to that epic drive Daniel Ricciardo’s overdue victory at Monaco last May, when he won – from pole – after losing both power and his seventh and eighth gear ratios. For the record, Vettel was runner-up, Hamilton third. The top three retained their running order from the off. This meant that, while overtaking was off the menu as it so often is on the tight streets of the principality, no-one who was there will forget the tense atmosphere as Ricciardo completed lap after flawless lap, keeping Vettel at bay despite his power disadvantage. Come the end,…

7-10 March Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance World-class classics will gather in Florida and, as ever, there will be some superbly strange machinery on show, too: among the classes to look forward to is one dedicated to custom-bodied VW Beetles. ameliaconcours.org 7-10 March Retro Classics Stuttgart Cars, bikes, commercials and mountains of automobilia fill 140,000m2 of exhibition space in south-west Germany. No major event has more readily embraced the Youngtimer scene, and modern classics will there in numbers. retro-classics.de 8-10 March Philip Island Classic The Southern Hemisphere’s largest Historic meet, held on Philip Island with Touring Cars, sports cars, single-seaters and more. vhrr.com 9-10 March British Cars & Lifestyle The Dutch town of Rosmalen welcomes British classics. For better or worse, the event also features some of our (allegedly) more comestible…

The CounTaCh has always been a ‘Marmite car’ – a car you either love or hate, but could never ignore. So, while you might expect that its dramatic looks would have always made it desirable, the reality is rather different. When I was in the auction business about 20 years ago, I remember struggling to sell a dark-blue LP400S for £27,000. The Countach has had a similar progression value-wise as the Miura – which for many years was looked down on as a ‘nightclub owner’s car’. The situation now is very different. The LP400 Periscopica, the original and purest model, is the one people covet, with the earliest 1974 versions – which had more magnesium parts – being the most desirable. The highest price paid at auction for any Countach…

‘Café 247. In The MIddle of nowhere’. 32866 Old Woman Springs Road, California, certainly lives up to the slogan – the classic roadside diner features walls smothered in hubcaps and oily automobilia from the golden age of American muscle cars. Hayden the waiter runs through a lunchtime menu of ‘the best damn burgers in the state’ – I’d recommend the Jalapeno Pepper – as truck after truck grinds through the gears outside. A women’s wrestling match is being screened on the television and a postcard of Donald (Trump not Duck) is pinned to the front desk. Even the Wikipedia entry struggles to give downtown Lucerne Valley a decent recommendation, which perhaps makes this an odd place for a minor epiphany, but let me explain. This year is the 50th anniversary…

It seems that my last Octane Cars, in which I revealed my plans to junk my Beetle’s original air-cooled flat-four in favour of a water-cooled Subaru flat-four, has caused a bit of a Marmite reaction. Most people seem to like the idea, with comments ranging from ‘Nice idea’ to ‘Why didn’t I do that?’ But there have been a few that have – how do I put this? – taken the idea as an attack on their VW passion. I’ve been asked, or told: ‘Why do you insist on building a mongrel?’ ‘Do you not have any good VW engine builders in the UK?’ and ‘It won’t be a proper Volkswagen, will it?’ Well, I hear what you are saying, but here are my reasons for the transplant. I already…

I belIeve that, no matter how old you are, a day when you learn something is a good one. So I should have been very happy when I discovered something I hadn’t known before about my Fintail. But truth is that, instead, my feelings are a little mixed. Since I bought the car as a restoration project in February 2005, and during the following years of work, I’ve been puzzled by the right rear light because the cluster – a single unit – had a reversing-light lens that was a very strange amber colour. It was too dark to be the ‘right’ white that was shining on the left side, and too orange to be the all-red American-spec unit. The good quality of the part and the way it was…

Most launches take place in sunny climes, with journalists from all over the world invited to drive on perfect roads with perfect backdrops. Well, why wouldn’t you? You might remember that Octane first tested the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door four issues ago at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas. Meanwhile, the Mercedes-AMG A35 was launched against the sun-drenched Mediterranean in Majorca. They represent the upper end and entry level of Mercedes-AMG’s range respectively. And for the UK launch, Mercedes got them together in the wilds of Scotland. In January. Yes, the sea glinted distantly through the murk on occasion, but so did snow in the Cairngorms. Which is reassuring when you have this 63 S GT 4-door’s 630bhp under your foot. But you also have four-wheel drive. And rear-wheel…

One Of the best replies to a pesky television interviewer came out of Bathurst. During the running of the annual Touring Car race, a competitor crashed off the road and his car ended up sitting on its tail against a wall, its nose pointing at the sky. The TV presenter raced to the driver as he climbed down from his car, thrust a microphone in his face and asked if there was something wrong with the car to have caused the crash. The driver gave him a long look and replied: ‘Yeah. It was outta control.’ The Bathurst circuit is better known as Mount Panorama, which says it all. This very tricky track is home to the annual 1000km race, but it’s also a public road which can be driven…

CANDYLAB WOODIE REDUX No space for a classic American station wagon? You’ll need only a seven-inch spot to park this delightful Woodie Redux, made from solid beech and featuring a magnetically attached surfboard. $34.99. candylabtoys.com BAMFORD MAYFAIR DATE The obvious update to the Mayfair is in its name, but Bamford has also sharpened the 40mm case and changed dial, bezel, insert and crown. A chameleon watch that can look dapper or dramatic. £500. bamfordlondon.com DUCATI MIG-RR ELECTRIC MOUNTAIN BIKE A bit more DIY than most Ducatis, this, but only a bit. A Shimano Steps E8000 motor offers three levels of smooth assistance, while the battery has a theoretical range of 100km and charges to 80% in under three hours – so if you ever find yourself pedalling the 22.5kg MIG-RR…

The sound of a four-cam Ferrari V12 is not one you forget in a hurry. Our Italian correspondent Massimo Delbò certainly didn’t, after more than 800km behind the wheel of this Grigio Argento 275 GTB/4 during last year’s Modena Cento Ore. Taking in some of Italy’s most spectacular roads, cities and historic race circuits, it was the perfect environment for this classic Ferrari – which is now on the market. Visually almost indistinguishable from the earlier ‘long-nose’ 275 GTB, the updated four-cam version of Ferrari’s flagship GT was introduced in 1966. The engine kept the same capacity but gained twin-cam cylinder heads, dry-sump lubrication and six Weber carburettors. It wasn’t built to go racing but that didn’t stop people trying. As you would expect, it’s more than up to a…

Life is busy. Even retirement doesn’t seem to slow people down. That often means precious little time for family, and even less quality time between the individuals in that family because there are so many other distractions, so many other voices, clamouring for attention. Then, all too soon, the kids are gone and you don’t see them at all. This simple complaint was the foundation stone of a series of booming relationship-based rallies for motoring enthusiasts. First they (re)united fathers and sons. Now they celebrate the special bond between dads and daughters, giving them superb time together while exploring some of Europe’s most spectacular roads. It has been a bold venture, because tours and events have traditionally cast their nets as wide as possible to ensure plentiful entries, economies of…

Graham Eason left a marketing career to set up Great Escape Cars in the Midlands in 2006. How many cars did you start off with? Just two: an Alfa Romeo Spider and a Jensen Interceptor. A hobby or lifestyle business can operate successfully with so few cars, but to be a structured business with overheads you need between ten and 20 cars at one site. A successful fleet needs cars that casual car enthusiasts want to drive – and cars that are easy to maintain, with a good parts supply. How many are on the fleet now? Twenty, from Morris Minors to supercharged Jaguar XKRs and all points in-between. At one point I had 60; struggling to hire out a fleet that large came with a great deal…

Open a windOw these days – in your home, your office, your internet browser – and angry voices will tell you that we no longer enjoy freedom in the UK. In one narrow sense, they are right: the freedom of the road is now as distant a memory as the ‘golden age’ of Empire. The experience of driving in the UK has largely been replaced by the experience of waiting, heavy traffic fouling up our highways. Little wonder, then, that places on the Icelandic Saga (5-13 September) are filling up fast. Iceland is both beautiful and sparsely populated, a driver’s delight, and the route for this year’s Saga promises to deliver generous helpings of spectacular scenery and splendid isolation. Crews will gather in the capital, Reykjavik, to be issued with…

‘Eight days, 3000km, five racetracks and some of the world’s best driving roads for sports cars built between 1950 and 1975.’ That is a pretty compelling pitch, assuming you own a sports car built between 1950 and 1975, yet we’d argue the organisers of the GT Classic South Africa are still selling it a bit short. Scheduled for 1-9 November, the Classic is a day longer than that blurb suggests, 1 November given over to scrutineering and, more importantly, the welcome dinner. And it actually features six tracks, if you include the private circuit at Franschhoek Motor Museum. There’s a hillclimb in Knysna, too, adding another motorsport experience. The other five are Kyalami, Zwartkops Raceway, Phakisa Freeway, Aldo Scribante and Killarney, and the route from the first to the last…

Ordinarily a new organiser of rallies would start out small – a modest event here to gauge interest, another there to figure out what works and what doesn’t. There is nothing ordinary, though, about the recently established outfit Rally the Globe, which has already announced a series of adventures that will take crews right around the world between May 2020 and June 2021. Behind the business are some seriously experienced folk, including Fred Gallagher, past co-driver to WRC giants including Henri Toivonen, Björn Waldegård and Ari Vatanen, and latterly the director of endurance events on six continents. The word ‘business’ is perhaps misleading, because Rally the Globe is run as a not-for-profit club. Membership is by invitation to enthusiasts who show the necessary sportsmanship, sense of humour and selflessness, and…

Cavallino Classic 23-27 January The 28th Ferrari concours took place at Florida’s Palm Beach amid inclement weather – the sun did shine, but there was also a lot of rain. The event has expanded to embrace historic racing at Palm Beach International Raceway and a supplementary concours for other marques. Octane’s favourite car? This NART 512 BBLM. Photo: Jerry Wyszatycki bathurst 12 hours 3 february There are few venues as spectacular as Mount Panorama in new south Wales, australia. This descendant of the Bathurst 500 was won by the Campbell/olsen/ Werner Porsche 911 gT3. the measham rally, 19 january Unconventional even by VScc standards, this night rally is considered something of a rite of passage. a full moon at least offered some assistance to close to 50 crews ranging from…

It hardly happens now when almost anyone can buy a new car on a PCP, but in the early 1960s many motorists drove ancient cars and maintained them themselves. Two magazines, Car Mechanics and Practical Motorist,revealed a world of money-saving ruses. ‘I know someone with two identical cars,’ wrote a columnist, ‘and if one needs work he just swaps the number plates to the other. Is this legal? After all, he can only drive one at a time.’ (It wasn’t.) There were photo-strip features on how to mend with glassfibre or filler things you really shouldn’t, such as chassis legs, or how to buy a luxury car for £200 – a Humber Super Snipe, perhaps, or a Jaguar MkVII. Cars were reckoned to be doing well if they had reached…

six carburettors? Now, why would you do that, instead of using a trio of twin-chokes? ‘It’s the Italians,’ says Tony Ludovico, himself second-generation English but who has run cars from his father’s homeland all his life. ‘They like to make things confusing.’ When the Alfa 6 executive sedan, the first car to use the legendary Busso V6, was facelifted in 1983 following its 1979 launch, it received L-Jetronic fuel injection… except for the new tax-break 135bhp two-litre version, of which Tony’s is the only one in the UK. That carried on with the six single Dell’Ortos, packed like sardines in the vee. Why? Why not? It does imbue the creamy V6 with a deliciously crisp top note, though Tony admits that with just 130lb ft delivered at a rather high…

THE INSTALLATION of electric motors in ‘classic’ cars has become of some interest recently. However, the number of classic cars on the road compared with modern machinery is negligible and, equally importantly, they are no longer in routine use. Let’s look at the bogeyman, CO2, and a few figures to put it all in perspective. The atmosphere contains around 3,000,000,000,000 (three trillion) tonnes of CO2 and the oceans 132,000,000,000,000 (132 trillion tonnes) of dissolved CO2 – the figures varying slightly depending on the source. Although these amounts are unimaginably huge, CO2 forms only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere. There are currently just over 400 molecules of CO2 in a million of all the other gases – a mere 0.04% – and so CO2 is considered to be a trace…

Europe was still relatively peaceful in 1935. Yes, tension between countries was on the rise, with Italy’s Mussolini looking for territory in Africa, England defending the Treaty of Versailles, and Hitler’s power growing in Germany. Yet there was one topic on which the leading nations of Europe could agree – and that was motor racing, which was universally seen as a window in which to promote technical excellence. That year, the 29th Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France was held at Montlhéry on 23 June. It was fully 500km in length and run as part of the European Championship, back then the most prestigious in the racing car world. Rudolf Caracciola won, driving his Mercedes-Benz W25 (chassis no 109975/7), an almost unbeatable car that had been created specially for…

January 1992, 10 o’clock in the evening of the preview day for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and I was working on my report in a room in the downtown Westin Hotel when the phone rang. It was Tom Kowaleski, product PR chief at Chrysler Corporation. ‘Ray, Bob Lutz promised you a drive in the Viper. Can you be at the Chelsea Proving Ground at 7.30 tomorrow morning?’ Looking out at the falling snow, and knowing that Chelsea was 60 miles away, I hesitated only momentarily. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll be there.’ Which is how I came to have my first drive in a Dodge Viper RT/10, at up to 140mph, sometimes sideways, in the dark, on ice. This was not as hazardous as it sounds, as…

He built His career at Ford in the ’70s and ’80s overseeing the Sierra Cosworth, Fiesta Mk2 and Cargo truck. Then he transformed the fortunes of Renault in the ’90s and beyond with the Twingo, Scénic and cult-hero Avantime. But perhaps the biggest achievement of Anglo-Frenchman Patrick le Quément has been to elevate car design within the industry’s hierarchies, to the point where it is now the biggest differentiator between products. Thanks to his trailblazing, design chiefs such as himself have gone on to become vice-presidents, sitting on the boards of management as the equals of engineers, product planners and others. Le Quément remembers the ways things were, at his first job for French marque Simca in 1966: ‘Where I began, it was called a styling department. You could count…

We’ve had a number of lovely sunny and dry days this winter, so the Jaguar is out and about. Last month editor Elliott reported on driving his Jensen and I joined him with the XK on that trip to our advertising offices in Maidenhead, a fast and warming stretch down the M4 motorway. The ‘day at the office’ included lunch at the excellent Crown pub in Bray, owned by Heston Blumenthal, the celebrity chef. Very tasty grub. Otherwise the Jaguar continues to earn its keep as my regular driver. I took it along to Peter Bradfield’s showroom in Reece Mews, Kensington, the other day, where Peter had his smart Invicta S-Type out on the cobbles for a fettle. The car – which can be seen behind my Jaguar, at top…

Look at the badge. ‘Cinqueporte’, it says, in exactly the same script as that on the saloon version of Maserati’s largest car, which denotes a door count of four, rather than five. The car you see here, though, has an extra door because it’s an estate car. You didn’t think Maserati made one of those, and you would be right. Five doors are meant to be the province of the Levante SUV. But here it is, the Cinqueporte, looking every centimetre a Maserati factory production. Maybe it’s a limited-run project from an Italian coachbuilder, then. There’s form here: in 2009 Carrozzeria Touring built four ‘Bellagio Fastbacks’ based on the previous-generation Quattroporte, lushly trimmed and featuring an upswept rear side window. One particular British aficionado was miffed that he missed the…

Black & Gold The Story of the John Player Specials JOHNNy tipler, Coterie press, £49.95, iSBN 978 1 902351 63 6 During the media launch of this book – see the news pages in this issue – Coterie Press publisher William Taylor explained that any misgivings he might have had about the viability of a book dedicated to the John Player Specials were allayed when, in his adopted home of Colorado, USA, he met a young man with a black-and-gold liveried tribute car. It was then, he said, that he realised just how universally loved the JPS cars were. It’s certainly true that, even if you are not particularly a motorsport fan, if you’re over a certain age you’ll remember the Corgi Toys model cars – the gift set of…

By KK Scale Price £94.95 Material Diecast For a car of which only ten examples were made, the 275 NART Spyder has had an influence out of all proportion to its production run – not least thanks to a certain Terence Steven McQueen, who loved his automotiveco-starin The Thomas Crown Affair somuch that he bought one. Today, a NART Spyder is one of the most expensive Ferraris you could (attempt to) own, but KK Scale’s big 1:18-scale diecast is reassuringly inexpensive – check out the prices of the 1:43 resincast models, below. That doesn’t mean it’s toy-like, however. There are no opening panels but you get a well-modelled interior and a decent representation of the deep-dish Borrani wires, while the Plexiglas cowls over the headlights are superbly fine. The icing…

Barely 24 hours after the stunning Pebble Beach-winning 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Berlinetta captured the 2018 Peninsula Best of the Best award at Rétromobile, Artcurial sold this red 1939 example for €16,745,600. Artcurial’s flagship sale ran from 8 to 10 February and recorded total sales of €42m, an increase of 31% over 2018. The four Belgian barn-find Bugattis featured in Octane’s lead news story last month sold for close to €1m combined, the 1937 Bugatti Type 57 Cabriolet by Graber making €500,600. Other highlights included the 1971 Porsche 916 prototype at €953,600 and a 2009 Mercedes SLR McLaren Stirling Moss Edition at a surprising €2,617,000. The first batch of cars from RM Sotheby’s Youngtimer Collection stirred up considerable interest, but it was the 1987 Ferrari F40 LM that really…

THIS DE TOMASO Pantera was one of two at this RM Sotheby’s sale and one of the first examples built. Early cars such as this have push-button door handles and were built by Carrozzeria Vignale. It was very well restored in its original Grabber Blue, with lots of add-on performance bits under the engine cover and very non-standard wheels. The Pantera replaced the Mangusta, and Ford couldn’t help noticing its use of a Dearborn V8. Magic of some sort happened, and Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury Division became the Pantera’s US importer. Few of the dealers knew what to do with the fast, sexy, Italian creature they had adopted, most of them seeing it as more trouble than it was worth. There were lots of stories of selling a Pantera on Friday, only…

One Of the most significant Formula 1 cars of modern times is to be offered by Bonhams at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed auction: Nigel Mansell’s 1992 championship-winning Williams FW14B. Not only was ‘Red Five’ the most technically-advanced F1 car of its era, but it also dominated the season in a way no other single F1 car has ever quite managed. With team budgets spiralling out of control, unprecedented technological advancement and some interesting tactics, the early 1990s was an exciting, if ultimately unsustainable, period for Formula 1. The 1992 season was a particularly interesting one. The Adrian Newey-designed Williams, fitted with fully active hydraulic suspension, a six-speed semi-automatic transmission and a traction control system, was light-years ahead of the pack. McLaren had similar technology but simply couldn’t keep…

Songwriters are often curiously reluctant to take credit for their best work (at least, until it’s time to divide up the royalties), as if such an admission of talent or, worse, hard graft might somehow diminish the music. David Gilmour is not an ‘It came to me in a dream, man’ sort of bloke, but we had to smile when he said in a recent interview that certain Pink Floyd songs just ‘fell out’ of certain guitars. The truth is that he turned those guitars upside down and shook them until something good came out, and none was shaken more vigorously, or for longer, than the 1969 Fender Stratocaster known as ‘The Black Strat’. Gilmour bought it from Manny’s Music in New York in 1970 and it featured ‘on most…

FIVE LITRES OF brake fluid, eight litres of engine oil, 200g grease, 500ml WD40, two litres of brake cleaner, three alternators, one clutch cable, three wheel bearings, two memory lapses (not mine!), one exhaust clamp, six fuses, 40 cable ties, heaven knows how much wine and beer, and that was just in Greece. I laughed so much I ached, I nearly cried, and I met, I hope, more friends for life.This is a summaryof what the Tour du Peloponnese 2018 meant to me. Everyone goes back to this addictive event – some entrants have completed all five and I wouldn’t miss it for the world – and once again the TdP was a life-affirming experience. Especially as for the 2018 event on 31 September to 7 October, I decided to…

from the pyramids of Giza and the Sahara desert to gorillas in the mist and the Serengeti, with amazing hospitality in between, a trans-Africa adventure offers a unique blend of classic travelling thrills. Naturally they’re all very easy to experience when you have the keys to a modern four-wheel-drive, or you sign up for an organised overland rally. For a truly memorable experience, though, nothing beats attempting the marathon unaided in a classic car – especially when you opt for a 60-year-old Morris Minor, one of the most-loved classics of all time. The journey is even more fulfilling when your efforts are in aid of charity, as Kiwi Laura Morrison discovered when she drove from Aberdeen in Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa to raise funds for New Zealand’s Cancer…

EvEry yEar towards the end of May, classic car enthusiasts flock to Cernobbio, a little town on the shore of Italy’s Lake Como, to attend the reliably fabulous Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. That’s entirely understandable. Much less understandable is the fact that so many fly in immediately before the show and leave immediately afterwards, spurning the opportunity to enjoy some of Europe’s prettiest roads. It is easy to forget, but Tyrol and the Dolomites are just half a day’s motoring away from the Italian Lakes. Northern Italy is hardly the Australian outback, so it is perfectly possible to explore those ribbons of tarmac solo, but local knowledge is the difference between a good route and a great one. There are few who know the region’s roads (and restaurants) better than…