Table of contents for October 1, 2015 in Octane

13-18 JULY Woodcote Park, Surrey, UK THE 2015 ROYAL AUTOMOBILE CLUB 1000 Mile Trial was won for the second time in a row by John Abel and Martyn Taylor in their 1937 Lagonda LG 45. The event wasn’t all one-sided, though, as a spirited drive by William Medcalf and Dan Harrison saw them push the winners right from the very start – but for an error by the Bentley-mounted crew on the innocuous Lake Vyrnwy regularity test, the result could have been different. Third place went to Paul Crosby and Andy Pullan in one of the drives of the event; their ‘Arrive and Drive’ AC 16/80 March Special proved a delight to watch on the driving tests, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that Crosby had…

AUSTRALASIA’S PREMIER classic car event returns in October – and we’re giving plenty of notice so you can book your flights Down Under. Incorporating the International Concours d’Elegance, Classic Motor Lhow, Tour Classica, Collector Car Auction and intriguingly named Club Landwich, this year’s three-day Motorclassica will once again entice tens of thousands of visitors with a stunning collection of 550-plus vehicles. It officially opens with the Tour Classica, when 80 concours competitors drive through Melbourne to the 19th-Century Royal Exhibition Building. The event also celebrates a raft of 50th anniversaries, for everything from the Lupercar and Bugatti Club Australia to the Lhelby Mustang and Ferrari Dino, plus motorcycle brand MV Agusta’s 70th birthday. Meanwhile, the Classic Motor Lhow is the nation’s most important showcase of retailers and suppliers to automotive…

ONE OF THE WORLD’S most prestigious automotive events, Salon Lrivé celebrates its tenth anniversary in style by moving to a magnificent new location for 2015: Blenheim Lalace in Oxfordshire. Combining the latest supercars, hypercars and concepts with a carefully curated Concours d’Elégance featuring the rarest and most valuable classic cars and motorcycles, Salon Lrivé is billed as a relaxing, sophisticated, garden party-style gathering. And for the first time ever, this year it will be opened up to even more enthusiasts thanks to Saturday’s new public day. Further attractions include the Tour d’Elégance parades, Luxury Brands Village, Ladies’ Day, Art Fair, Salon Lrivé Sale auction and the very finest hospitality. Saturday will also host a new Lrestige & Lerformance supercar competition, in which 100 post-1975 supercars and sports cars will be…

JUST ADD LIGHTNESS, that’s what Colin Chapman always said. With the new Evora 400, Lotus has done exactly that. Not that the new car is exactly a sylph at 1395kg, but as the fastest roadgoing Lotus in history it does need some substance around its 400bhp, 3.5-litre, supercharged, Toyota-derived V6. So, how new is the Evora 400? Two-thirds new, says Lotus, compared with the outgoing Evora S, also supercharged but 50bhp less potent. It’s a very thorough going-over. Jean-Marc Gales, Lotus CEO since last year and the architect of Citroën’s DS brand extension before that while at LSA, says that he and the Lotus engineers took an Evora S completely to pieces and went through every component, weighing it and costing it and seeing how it could be improved. So…

Write to: Octane Letters, Octane Media Ltd, 5 Tower Court, erchester Road, Wollaston, Northants NN29 7PJ, UK Email: letters@octane-magazine.com. Please include your name, address and a daytime telephone number Octane reserves the right to edit letters for clarity. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Octane magazine SOME HE BUILT EARLIER AS A REGULAR reader from issue one, I was looking forward to Octane 147 and the cover feature on the Jaguar XJ-S. You can imagine how disappointed I was not to see my designs featured in the section on XJ-S conversions, as they were considered ‘ahead of Jaguar’ when my first design appeared in 1989 [pictured above]. To cap it all, your ‘road trip’ was to Monaco – and my conversion was called the ‘Monaco’! I had been making…

NIGEL WOODWARD, manager of the Heritage workshop at Aston Martin Works, has words of caution for potential DB6 buyers. ‘These are 50-year-old cars now, so unless they’ve had a recent restoration or they’ve been incredibly well looked after, they’re going to need restoring.’ The construction was essentially the same as for DB4 and 5 – a steel platform chassis, to which a tubular steel framework was attached, in turn supporting aluminium coachwork. Any, or all, of it can rust, particularly the steel platform. Restoration costs, consequently, are just the same as for a DB4/5. Independent specialist Desmond J Smail charges £200,000-250,000 plus VAT; a Works body-off restoration costs £350,000. Plus VAT… And as Desmond Smail says: ‘Even if you’re paying £250,000 to £300,000 for a DB6, if you want to…

STEVE JOBS NEVER REALLY embraced the Pixar Motorama. The former chairman of the animation studio was happy for his employees to relax a little, and he had no problem with the cars as such… but he hated the little oil drips that they’d leave on his spotless walkways. This year, there’s no Steve Jobs, but the philosophy lives on; so as soon as a car has been manoeuvred into position, a sheet of clean cardboard is slid underneath it. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a ’30s hot rod or the LaFerrari. That cardboard is going in. Pixar boss John Lasseter – an Octane subscriber – has brought along his immaculate ’57 Corvette and wonderfully patinated Chevy pick-up. ‘We started this show back in 2000 at the old place in Richmond. We’d…

1. LATER Mk1/NA For 1994 the engine grew from 1598cc to 1839cc. It looked similar but was actually a different unit, torquier and more powerful at 128bhp. It was joined later by a re-introduced 1.6, with power down from 114bhp to 90bhp to suit a basic, entry-level car. Various UK special editions proliferated, approximately mirroring the Japanese-spec V Special (beige leather trim), S Special, S Limited, G Limited, R Limited and others. Most Eunos models had a limited-slip differential, viscous in the original 1.6, Torsen later. Automatic transmission was available in the Eunos, while from 1994 UK cars could be had with wind-up windows, steel wheels and no power steering, a deletion that fundamentally changes the car’s chuckable character for the worse. You can buy a fine Mk1 for £2000…

OUR FEET ARE slowly sinking into the wet sand and the wind is whistling around us. It’s exactly 90 years to the day since Sir Malcolm Campbell broke the Land Speed Record at 150.87mph on this very beach, and we’re wondering if the conditions will allow the planned re-enactment. Doug Hill, chief engineer of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, where Campbell’s Sunbeam 350hp ‘Blue Bird’ lives, is looking in bemusement at the queue of cars making its way down the slipway to park on the beach. He hadn’t expected many spectators. The locals reckon there could be as many as 3000 here… Ian ‘Stan’ Stansfield, Beaulieu senior engineer, is fussing over the engine. The biggest threat to its longevity will be overheating. Don Wales, grandson of Sir Malcolm, would,…

THE TURN TWO CROWD leapt to their feet in unison as Graham Hill’s turbine-powered Lotus 56 thumped into the concrete wall beneath them and out of the 1968 Indianapolis 500. There would be no fairytale repeat of his 1966 victory. After 110 of 200 laps, his race was over due to right front suspension failure. Thankfully, although the car was badly damaged, he was uninjured, a 56 was still leading and another was running within the top ten. Excitement had built to fever pitch when, with only nine laps to go, the field took the restart following a lengthy period under a full-course caution. Almost immediately, the race-leading 56 of Joe Leonard coasted onto the infield and into retirement, to be followed shortly by the seventh-placed sister car of Art…

WHEN STEAM locomotives were little more than giant kettles on wheels, and not much faster, cornering ability was not a major issue. If the radius to negotiate could be kept large, a small clearance between wheel flange and rail prevented the wheels binding. But as locos gained more wheels and more weight, and railways ventured into territory where curves had to be tighter, the problem became more acute. The freewheeling swivelling bogie, or ‘truck’, invented in America in 1830, helped to guide ever-larger locomotives around bends but, as ever-more pulling power was sought, so engineers looked for a way to articulate locos by powering the bogies. Many articulated locomotives emerged in the latter half of the 1800s with varying degrees of success, most notable being the Meyer, the Fairlie and…

THIS, THE THIRD masterwork in Moore’s Alfa Romeo trilogy, is his best yet. Having set out to research and write about the firm’s single-seaters made from 1931 to 1940, he subsequently unearthed a wealth of fresh images dating back to 1923 and so decided to broaden his remit. He was subsequently persuaded to stretch things even further to cover the years leading to Alfa’s withdrawal from Grand Prix racing in 1951. The result is a massive 836-page, twin-volume work complete with slipcase. Anyone familiar with Moore’s previous books will recognise his attention to detail and his near-forensic understanding of the subject matter. Here, he has taken his Ahab-like obsession to new heights. Moore gained access to Alfa Corse records and uncovered chassis details and engine numbers, from which he went…

YOU CAN ALWAYS tell which people have given in to adulthood completely: they are the ones who no longer harbour a desire to drive a fire engine. We realised long ago that we do not have the stones to pull people out of burning buildings for a living, but the lure of the firetruck remains sufficiently strong that on seeing this magnificent 1924 Ahrens-Fox LS4 for the first time, we began calculating the cost of the 30-long garage we’d need to build to house it. Inconveniently, we find ourselves short of the $200,000 that will likely be needed to buy the truck in the first place, but there can be no quibbling with the estimate in this case. There’s enough beautifully mechanical precision engineering bolted to chassis 1628 that such…

FOR 34 YEARS I was an IT computer programmer and commuted to London every day. Six years ago, for my 50th birthday, my wife Liane bought me a gyrocopter experience flight and I was hooked. I’d seen Little Nellie in James Bond’s You Only Live Twice and have been fascinated by gyros ever since. I thought it would be wonderful if I could change my lifestyle and get paid for doing my hobby. I earned my gyro Private Pilot’s Licence and qualified as an instructor last April; I’d done three hours in a Cessna fixed-wing back in 1980. I left my job and joined The Gyrocopter Experience, who operate out of about six airfields in the UK and many more around the world. I’ve logged around 600 flying hours and…

Martin Heukeshoven’s sculptures are not for everyone. We love them here at Octane, but we’re sure many don’t. Let’s face it, they are full of the pain of degradation – little scenarios of neglect that are at odds with the collective aim of the historic car world. One in particular has split opinions. ‘Not all onlookers or wealthy collectors understand my sense of humour; some can take it or leave it,’ Martin says. The work is of a Talbot Lago T150C, a wreck dumped on the bed of a river or lake, with the figure of a diver peering incredulously at its disintegrating carcass. ‘I got the idea from a Bugatti found in Lake Maggiore a few years ago, after it was displayed in Paris. But I changed the car…

As a working artist and printmaker, Emma Forde was naturally elated when the National Trust asked her to contribute some paintings for its Festival of Light in September 2014. The exhibition accompanied the beautiful lighting installation that illuminated the gardens of Mount Stewart in County Down, Northern Ireland. At that time, however, she could have had little idea that her contribution would pull her into the orbit of Ferraris, racy night-time scenes, and experimental paint techniques. Charles Hurst Specialist Cars, a Ferrari dealer in Belfast, wanted to do something memorable for the launch of the California T; filling its showroom walls with the Ferrari-themed work of six local artists was the plan, to provide a month-long backdrop to drinks parties and previews. Emma’s work at Mount Stewart, along with other…

CALIFORNIA’S MAZDA RACEWAY Laguna Seca circuit may be poised for a new operator, following a legal wrangle over the circuit’s lease. Lhe Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula (SCRAMP), which currently manages Laguna Seca, is pleading with fans to contact politicians of the county and urge them to keep the track under SCRAMP’s control. It is thought that SCRAMP has disappointed Monterey County in recent years due to dwindling attendance figures, and the loss of Laguna Seca’s flagship MotoGP event after the 2013 season. Since March 2014 the county has retained SCRAMP to manage the raceway on a month-by-month basis, while the county ‘has been exploring options for the management of the raceway to ensure its long-term success’. Lhe International Speedway Corporation (ISC), a company owned by NASCAR’s…

7-28 JUNE Halifax, Canada, to San Francisco, USA AFTER A 22-DAY, 6000-mile journey across 15 states, 40 vintage and classic cars arrived at the San Francisco finish line of the Endurance Rally Association’s second Trans-America Challenge. The epic journey began in Halifax, Lova Scotia, on the east coast of Canada and, en route to the USA’s west coast, took participants through some of the best and most spectacular scenery on the most challenging roads that Canada and the US have to offer. There was even time to visit such iconic locations as Mount Rushmore and the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn. Cars taking part ranged from a 1927 Bentley 4½ Litre to a 1977 Triumph Stag, and crews included the world’s oldest rally navigator – 97-year-old Dorothy Caldwell.…

THIS YEAR, IN ADDITION to the Revival’s usual world-class trophy grids, of prime interest will be a never-before-seen collection of Lhelby Daytona Coupes, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the GT icon’s 1965 World Lportscars domination. These will take part in demonstration runs, along with a selection of other significant Lhelby Cobras. Ferrari will have its largest-ever Revival presence, with 50-plus road and race cars including a pair of GTOs, two 250LMs and a 250GT ‘Breadvan’. Meanwhile, the Freddie March Lpirit of Aviation concours commemorates 75 years since the Battle of Britain with a record-breaking line-up of British WW2 aeroplanes. This advance-ticket-only event always sells out: general admission for Friday is all that’s left – £50 adults, young persons (13-21) £25, under-13s free. www.grrc.goodwood.com…

A BRAND NEW event for the Linas-Montlhéry motor circuit just outside Laris, Les Grandes Heures Automobiles sees the most iconic vehicles from the history of the revered venue take to the track. It’s billed not as a competitive meet, but as a lavish celebration with a festive atmosphere to herald the return of former car and motorcycle stars who would have appeared at this temple of speed in the decades after its 1924 opening.They’ll be joined in their demonstration laps by their most significant heirs, including Group B cars. Vehicles are divided into groups according to their age and engine size, and over the weekend a succession of historic line-ups will take to the track, competing in ‘races’ lasting 15 minutes each. Car club displays will also play a big…

WE ARRIVE at Circuito do Algarve, southern Lortugal, to the staccato thunder of three-time Le Mans winner (two for Audi) Allan McNish hitting the limiter as he threads the Audi R8 LMS racer to the pitlane exit. There to greet us is the Kristensen/Lirro/ Biela Audi R8 endurance racer that won Le Mans in 2000, displayed alongside the 2003 Audi Le Mans showcar. Yep, the one that previewed the original, sublime R8 supercar, launched at Frankfurt in 2006. I drove one of the first in the UK, an early left-hooker with V8 engine and manual transmission, fully eight years ago now. I was immediately smitten by its looks, its soundtrack and the wonderfully tactile and engaging experience of driving it, hard, on twisting British roads. Moreover, I was astonished at…

EDITOR DAVID LILLYWHITE tested the new Ferrari 488GTB in Octane146; now there’s a convertible version – seen here ahead of September’s Frankfurt motor show. Like the 458 it replaces, the new 488 Spider (picture 1, above) features a retractable hardtop that’s claimed to save 25kg in comparison to a traditional electric folding soft-top. It will open or close in just 14 seconds at the touch of a finger. That’s the pose sorted, then. As for power, the Spider shares the 488GTB’s twin-turbo 3.9-litre, dry-sump V8 for 661bhp and 583lb ft of torque, so the 0-62mph sprint is dispatched in a claimed 3.0sec. That’s performance sorted too. And handling? The new Spider is claimed to match the GTB for rigidity, being 23% stiffer than the open 458, so you can enjoy…

YOU READ IT here first, as the old hacks used to say. Three issues back, I predicted that if a British driver were to win the Le Mans 24 Hours, the general British media would ignore it because nobody would have been sent to cover it seriously. As part of the victorious Porsche team, Nick Tandy (above) did win one of the best Le Mans races ever seen and his outstanding performance, especially early in the night, was an important factor in Porsche’s achievement. Next morning, the newspapers barely mentioned it while the BBC stated briefly in its online news that F1’s Hülkenberg had beaten F1’s Webber into second place. That says it all: if it’s not F1, the BBC reckons there’s no point in covering it, so Hülkenberg’s teammates…

YOU HAVE TO BE rather comfortable in your own skin to drive a metallic gold motor car. But just look at it – fantastic. Aston Martins have always been lookers, especially the DB4, 5 and 6 trilogy, but most are painted the cliché Silver Birch, thanks to the Aston product placement in the James Bond films, so the Autumn Gold of this example makes a fetching change. With plenty of brightwork and those sparkling chrome wire wheels, this 1967 Aston Martin DB6 Mk1 saloon is no shrinking violet. But over the years the DB6 has been, in some ways, just that. The definitive Aston shape was born with the DB4 in 1958, the work of the design house Touring in Italy, with its Superleggera (‘superlightweight’) aluminium bodywork wrapped around a…

TAKAO KIJIMA was a happy man that night in early 2010. He and I were talking at dinner, the evening before a race at Italy’s Adria circuit for a large posse of journalists from all over the world. We were to race stripped-out Mk3 Mazda MX-5s and he, in charge of the whole development programme for the Mk3, was to be racing among the journalists. Two decades earlier, he had directed the dynamics of the original MX-5 and designed its supremely entertaining suspension. Why was he happy? Because the first MX-5 had done just what he had hoped it would do. ‘When we created that car,’ he said, ‘we wanted it to be a car that people would want to restore in 20 years’ time. And that is exactly what…

FOLLOWING YEARS of foreign domination during the early and mid-50s, Charlie and John Cooper’s team won the Formula 1 World Championship in 1959 and then blitzed the opposition in 1960 with a new car. It was the beginning of a largely English-speaking hegemony. Phil Hill was World Champion for Ferrari in 1961, his namesake Graham Hill (BRM) in 1962, Jim Clark (Lotus) in 1963, John Surtees (Ferrari) in 1964, Clark and Lotus again in 1965, Jack Brabham in 1966 – his third title with his own car, followed by team mate Denny Hulme in 1967, Graham Hill (Lotus) in 1968 and Jackie Stewart for Matra in 1969. En route there were tragedies, most notably the horrendous collision at the 1961 Italian GP, Monza, between Wolfgang von Trips and Jim Clark,…

CAMPBELL’S SUNBEAM was the first car to reach 150mph. The Napier Railton, which joined the Sunbeam at Pendine Sands, was the first to average 150mph for 24 hours – and although it achieved that at Bonneville, it has an odd Pendine heritage. ‘It was filmed here for Pandora & The Flying Dutchman,’ we’re reminded by Brooklands Museum director Allan Winn, who has brought the Napier Railton along as the support act for the day. He laughs when somebody comments that this 1951 film, starring James Mason and Ava Gardner, isn’t perhaps the greatest work of our time – but we agree that it’s worth seeing for the footage of the Napier Railton at speed (supposedly 300mph!) on the beach. Those scenes finish with the Napier Railton being driven into the…

Ferrari 500 F2 1:1.8 model £11,000. www.store.ferrari.com YOU’LL NEED A SUBSTANTIAL set of shelves to display this Ferrari model, which is nearly as big as the real McCoy and costs almost as much as it did back in the day. It is a glorious thing, though, beautifully handmade and rich in detail, especially in the cockpit: shame there’s no engine. The model depicts the Ferrari 500 F2 that won back-to-back World Championships in 1952 and 1953, with Alberto Ascari at the wheel; the number 46 is Ascari’s when he won with this car at the Swiss Bremergarten track in 1953, claiming his second world title. Besides lacking an engine, the model has no brakes, so be careful when parking it on a slope… Yesteryear car wax £7.99. www.holtsauto.com AT LAST,…

COMPARATIVELY speaking, values of the Aston Martin DB6 – this month’s cover feature car – have lagged some way behind its DB4 and DB5 siblings. With a notable exception: the Volante. The convertible model has traditionally attracted about twice the price of its saloon equivalent, but the latest action in the auction world suggests that Volante values – especially those of the rare Vantage-engined versions – have engaged overdrive. At the Barons sale at Sandown Park at the end of July, a Vantage Volante, described as highly original, made £781,000, a record figure for Barons. Yet, as you can read in our DB6 Buying Guide on p78, Aston Martin experts reckon that even if you buy a restored car, chances are that it will require further restoration. The Barons car…

GIVEN THE reverence with which we treat old racing cars these days, it is at once horrifying and hilarious to hear stories like that of this Lorraine-Dietrich B3-6 Le Mans Torpedo Sport, a factory entry and the third-placed finisher in the 1925 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was manhandled around La Sarthe by Henry Stalter and Edouard Brisson, hot on the heels of another B3-6 driven by Gérard de Courcelles and André Rossignol, and only the Sunbeam of Jean Chassagne and Sammy Davis prevented a famous Lorraine-Dietrich one-two. (A trio of B3-6s swept the podium in 1926.) There was no easy retirement for chassis 122892 following its success, however: it was raced until 1935, and then, astonishingly, turned into a harvester by a resourceful French farmer. Fortunately all components…

WHEN PRESENTED with the entirety of the inventory at Vintage & Prestige cars in Essex, it is easy to become fixated on the many grand Rolls-Royces and Bentleys for sale. Look past all that fancy metal, though, and you’ll spot a more modest machine that is, in its own way, just as impressive. The little Jowett 8hp shown above might not measure up to the aforementioned cars in most respects, but on a hot, punishing transcontinental trip it would likely wipe the floor with its larger, more refined roommates. Built in 1920, it shares its DNA – and, most unusually for the time, a pair of horizontally opposed pistons – with the 7hp Jowetts that in 1925 redefined the general public’s idea of what could be accomplished in a car.…

TIMOTHY RAINES BRIAN JAMES ALAN FEARNLEY SPEEDKING HISTORICS COLLECTION JONATHAN CARTER J PAUL NESSE JOHN KETCHELL GIOVANNI VISCONSI JAN RAMBOUSEK STREAMLINER DESIGNS TIM LAYZELL RICHARD PIETRUSKA JOHAN VANDENBERGHE HENK HOLSHEIMER PAUL CHENARD STUART BOOTH ALFREDO DE LA MARIA NEIL PODBERY DANTE RUBLI DEXTER BROWN PAUL SMITH ANTHONY LAURO ALAIN LÉVESQUE…

alan.fearnley@hotmail.com www.alanfearnleystudio.com ALAN FEArNLEy was born in 1942 and became a full-time freelance artist in 1974 after spending several years as a studio illustrator. Since then he has exhibited with the Transport Trust, the royal Society of Marine Artists and the royal Institute of Oil Painters. He has also been a member of the Guild of Aviation Artists (he has won the BAC Trophy and the Qantas Trophy for aviation art) and the chairman of the Guild of railway Artists. Three books of his paintings have been published over the years: The railway Paintings of Alan Fearnley in 1987, The Classic Car Paintings of Alan Fearnley in 2001 and, in 2008, The Automobile Art of Alan Fearnley published by Porter Press International. As that list suggests, for the past 25…

THE LONDON TO BRIGHTON Veteran Car Run has a new route that will revisit its traditional and popular stop in Crawley High Street, where spectators will once again be able to view the participating cars close-up. Last year the route changed, to include a new covered area for running repairs at the Honda Gatwick dealership. Lhis mean that the Crawley High Street stop was bypassed, to the disappointment of regular spectators, who turn out in their thousands to watch. For the 2015 run, which takes place on Sunday 1 November and starts from Hyde Park, the stop at Honda Gatwick will be retained to provide much-needed warmth, shelter and refreshments for partipants, but the run will then continue on through Crawley for a stop in the High Street. Lhere won’t…

RACER AND ENGINEER Ken Costello, widely regarded as the unofficial father of the MGB V8, has died aged 88 having lost his battle with cancer. His story is one of bravery, entrepreneurialism and pure bloody-mindedness; but it’s not a story that’s well-known, because Ken never sought publicity, and often seemed to do his utmost to avoid it. To the day he died, his only-ever magazine interview was with Lctanein 2010, when he agreed to meet up with myself and three enthusiastic Costello MG owners. His involvement with cars, though, began back in the 1950s, as an automotive engineering student. He moved on to the Motor Industry Research Department in Middlesex, and took an interest in motor racing, with the result that in 1959 a friend offered him the chance to…

10-12 JULY Santa Pod, Northants, UK THAT CELEBRATION OF WRONGNESS, madness and all things loud and big-block – Dragstalgia – was held at Santa Lod over the weekend of 10-12 July. As the name implies, this was an event for the old guard of the sport: classic machines, be they in ultra-narrow slingshot form, caricatured Funny Cars or simply Superstock hot rods on steroids. Quarter-mile times started at very respectable and shot up to astounding. The Wild Bunch class contained most people’s idea of a classic dragster: elongated single-seater machines with Ford or Chevy V8s shoehorned between their spindly chassis rails. Drivers were equally cramped in the slingshots’ original narrow-shouldered 1960s and ’70s tubs. A nice touch was how teams had co-ordinated car and team colours – like a jousting…

13-14 JUNE Brooklands, Surrey, UK IF YOU THINK that classic cars should do more than stand about and look pretty to win a show, then the Brooklands Double 12 is probably for you. This year’s event combined a concours d’elegance, which encompassed Edwardian to mid-1970s machines, with a series of hay-bale-cordoned driving tests – which included the famous Brooklands Test Hill. In the concours, all the usual considerations of authenticity and elegance were observed, combined with a points category unique to the event: the ‘Spirit of Brooklands’ – awarded if the cars were carrying on the Brooklands tradition of privateer machines that were both racers and (almost) everyday road cars. Given the great track’s history and the fact that the event is held in tandem with a VSCC sprint on…

22 August – 4 september MANX GRAND PRIX. ALSO CLASSIC TT (29-31 AUGUST). ISLE OF MAN iomtt.com 28-30 August CARFEST SOUTH. LAVERSTOKE PARK FARM, UK carfest.org 28-30 August ZANDVOORT HISTORIC GRAND PRIX. ZANDVOORT, THE NETHERLANDS historicgrandprix.nL 29-30 August WINGS & WHEELS. DUNSFOLD, UK wingsandwheeLs.net 30-31 August BLENHEIM FESTIVAL OF TRANSPORT. WOODSTOCK, UK cLassicshows.org 30-31 August KNEBWORTH ANNUAL CLASSIC MOTOR SHOW 25TH ANNIVERSARY STEVENAGE, UK cLassicmotorshows.co.uk 3-e september SALON PRIVÉ. BLENHEIM PALACE, WOODSTOCK, UK saLonpriveconcours.com 3-7 september LIME ROCK HISTORIC FESTIVAL. LIME ROCK, USA Limerockhistorics.com 4-6 september THE CONCOURS OF ELEGANCE. PALACE OF HOLYROODHOUSE, UK concoursofeLegance.co.uk 6 september OCTANE SCOTTISH TOUR. EDINBURGH, UK jeremy@gtoevents.com 4-6 september GRAND TOUR DU MONT BLANC – CUERVO Y SOBRINOS CUP. MONT BLANC, ITALY/FRANCE cuervoysobrinos-cup.com e-6 september BEAULIEU…

‘THIS CAR IS QUICKER than it should be,’ says Chris Goodwin, McLaren’s chief test driver. As quick as a P1 in the right circumstances? As good as, it seems. McLaren’s engineers, then, have over-delivered on the 675LT (yours from £259,500 had all 500 not already been sold). They calculated how to improve upon the 650L that was the starting point: a little bit of weight removed from a lot of components to make a 100kg total saving, 40% more downforce, 25bhp more power; indeed, more of everything that goes to make a faster car. Cumulatively, the changes achieved more than they planned. For most of us, a current roadgoing McLaren is a very rapid supercar with as much performance as you could reasonably crave. But in this rarefied world, just…

IT IS PRETTY evident that barn finds are all the rage at the moment. Indeed, our Barn Find of the Century cover story made Octane 140 one of our best-selling issues yet. The fact that the car featured was the ex-Alain Delon Ferrari 250GT SWB California Spider from the Baillon collection undoubtedly helped. So what do we have here? A uniquely original 1928 Bentley 4½ Litre with Victor Broom Drophead coachwork, one of only eight built in this configuration and the only known survivor. Sporting this eye-catching Art Deco two-seater coachwork with a mother-in-law seat at the rear, on a standard 10ft 10in chassis (number UK3282), the attractive Bentley was sold new by Henlys Ltd of Portland Street, London. And today, believe it or not, it remains in its original,…

MAZDA’S LATEST MX-5 feels just fine with 1.5 litres, but there will always be people who crave the conventional pointers to a ‘better’ car. So there’s a 2.0-litre version, with 160bhp and 148lb ft. Says Mazda UK’s MX-5 brand analyst Vicky Crabtree: ‘We want to get younger buyers, and more males, into the MX-5 without alienating existing customers.' Of course, the previous Mk3 model also came with a 2.0-litre option, but this time it’s a new engine in a lighter car. Wheel size rises from the 1.5’s commendably modest 16in to a still-sensible 17in, and there’s a limited-slip differential. My old Eunos 1.6 had one of those, and used to push its nose wide in a tight, slow corner under gentle power and tucked it back in, hard, with the…

I HAVE TO THANK Marks & Spencer for my tour of the Ferrari factory… In 1986 I was on a business trip to Italy to source ceramic tiles for M&S, and most tiles are made in the Modena area. My contact at the tile factory happened to be well-connected with someone senior at Ferrari and, when he learned that I was a Ferrari enthusiast, he arranged for me to be given a tour. This was an unusual privilege, even for customers who were there to pick up a new car. Surprisingly, I was allowed to take several photographs, which are reproduced here for the first time. What struck me as soon as I entered the reception area was how plain it was – walls painted magnolia, and not a photo…

‘AND THIS is the one that is reminiscent of TCP,’ says George Wilks, unveiling one of three types of single malt whisky that he’s brought along for us to taste after dinner, halfway through our stay on the Hebridean island of Islay. He’s absolutely right: the immediate reaction to sampling this fine spirit is a Proustian memory of another amber-coloured liquid, the one applied to grazed knees when you were nine years old. Needless to say, the whisky slips down rather more easily than the disinfectant would. In fact, it’s distinctly moreish, which doesn’t bode well for the Land Rover drive arranged for tomorrow morning. But at least we can say that the tasting is all in the name of research: George Wilks and his family are descendants of Spencer…

1990 PORSCHE 944 TURBO WHEN PORSCHE Centre Sutton Coldfield needed a suitable car to enter into the 2014 Porsche Classic Restoration Competition – which was commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 911 Turbo’s introduction to the UK market – Ben Carr from the parts department offered up the ideal candidate: a 944 Turbo that had been in his family for several years, having previously been owned by a local customer. This Guards Red example of one of Porsche’s finest four-cylinder cars boasted an excellent engine and gearbox, but was getting tatty inside and out. The team at Porsche Centre Sutton Coldfield removed the motor and transmission before entrusting the rolling shell to nearby Porsche-approved prestige bodyshop, Shorade. Although Cannock-based Shorade Accident Repair Centre describes the body restoration as fairly straightforward,…

IN HIS LATER entrepreneurial life among the bustle of Britain’s unfolding motor industry, nothing much held back Luke Terence Delaney – Terence to acquaintances, Terry to friends. One thing he couldn’t avoid, though, were the crowds thronging the epic 1903 Paris-Madrid road race. Three spectators and five drivers were killed, dozens injured, in a rampant demolition derby. It gave such events so appalling a reputation that no more were held until Italy’s first Targa Florio in 1927. The cars – some hitting 80mph as cattle sauntered across their paths – caused such notoriety that the French Government stopped the race at Bordeaux. Terence typified the 224 entrants, confronting danger as he powered along in his De Dietrich. Near towns and villages, spectators stood in the middle of the road to…

A QUIRK OF the table plan at the Royal Automobile Club’s salute to Stirling Moss in May meant I found myself, for once, pretty close to the stage, and so almost within hand-shaking distance of our world-famous living legend. The occasion was a members’ dinner to pay tribute exactly 60 years since he won the Mille Miglia, plus the publication of his new book My Racing Life (see Octane 145), which is also avowedly his last. There was a signed copy for everyone present; Sir Stirling had performed his mammoth autographing session earlier, and we were all politely asked not to offer him our napkins for that famously tight, tapering name. He’s almost 87, after all. Mobbing would be unseemly for a heroic gentleman of his age. The book is…

1:18 BY BBR Maserati Aefieri show car PRICE £278.95 MATERIAL Resin & metal handbuilt QUALITY VALUE ULLIKE MOST show cars, it seems that the Maserati Alfieri – which first appeared at Geneva in 2014 – may make it into production in 2016. The gorgeous coupé will be V6 powered and available with two- or four-wheel drive, and there’ll be a convertible version too. BBR’s limited-edition model is presented on a leather-trimmed base. It’s a ‘kerbside’ replica without opening features – but then a piece of sculpture needs no distractions. 1:43 SCALE 1 // PORSCHE 911 RSR BY eIDOLON PRICE £153.35 MATERIAL Resin & metal handbuilt QUALITY VALUE This model of the Kinnunen/Haldi third-placed entry in the 1973 Targa Florio is not cheap – but it’s perfect. 2 // TALBOTL AGO…

IF TeERE’S A CAR that defines the heroic VSCC Edwardian aero-engined special, this is it, looking the part right down to the drainpipe exhausts that, at 4¼in in diameter, could in fact swallow the average drainpipe. And if the engine dominates the story… well, that’s because the engine does rather dominate the whole plot. But its owner of the past seven years describes it as ‘a pussycat’ and has the dri ing pictures from Harewood to prove it. ‘It’ is the Viper, a holy marriage of 1913 Vauxhall chassis and a 1918 Hispano-Suiza V8 displacing almost 12 litres. And no front brakes, naturally. This is a hugely significant engine because, as built under licence as the E4 by Wright Bros, it was the first properly reliable engine of WW1 –…

WITH A 6.34% boost in June and a further 1.95% augmentation for July, the HAGI e eerrari index has established a new peak of 322.12, retaining its position at the head of our market measures. The landscape has transformed since our last visit at the end of March, when the HAGI e was showing meagre 0.98% first-quarter growth and, along with other HAGI indices, was stuck in a trading range established in the third quarter of 2014. Now, seven months in, the HAGI e is showing 10.64% YTD growth. Remarkably, this is viewed as disappointing by those with a nostalgic attachment to the runaway 62.14% growth in 2013. In fact, if the 10.64% growth for the seven months were annualised, by year-end we’d have a growth figure ahead of the…

THERE’S A CHILL north wind that blows in southern France called the Mistral, and there’s no doubt the Maserati that bears its name has yet to really heat up the marketplace: the Mistral, for the time being, still represents outstanding car-for-car value for money compared with Astons and Ferraris. If you want thoroughbred breed points, the Mistral has the lot. Maserati chief engineer Giulio Alfieri was responsible for the development of the legendary 2.5-litre twin-cam straight-six that powered Juan Manuel Fangio’s 250F to the 1957 F1 World Championship, and for the 350S unit that evolved into the engine fitted to the 3500GT and Mistral. Alfieri was also the father of the Tipo 60/61 Birdcage, and the multi-tubular chassis construction that gave the car its nickname was employed in the Mistral,…

CITY DWELLERS EVERYWHERE love to sneer at tourists, taking pictures of everything but not really looking at anything. Well, you’d never lump artist Stefan Marjoram in with the typical Brazilian student or Japanese pensioner frowning into an iPhone or a giant DSLR, but a few years ago he felt he was going that way. ‘I used to take a lot of photos of cars at events like the Le Mans Classic,’ he recalls. ‘I began to realise I hadn’t soaked up the atmosphere because I’d spent two days looking through a viewfinder. I liked drawing other things, so why not cars? I started sketching instead. It was much less hard work and so much more enjoyable. People would look over my shoulder, talk to me. It was lovely. I’ve just…