Innehållsförteckning för February 2021 från Octane

FOR ME, the Ferrari 250 GT Short Wheelbase has always been The One, the single money-no-object car that I would own to do everything from popping to the shops to serious racing. Sure, the GTO is rarer and rawer, but for that reason it suits my needs less well when I am sent out for a pint of milk. Some, including me, would argue that in all its sleek self-assurance rather than big-hipped aggression, the Lusso is better-looking than the SWB, but they are very different cars to drive. Yes, I am aware of how privileged I am to be able to make such a comparison, but the fact is that the SWB is considerably more tactile and agile. At the beginning of my career, I drove a gorgeous blue…

APRIL 2021 14-25 April TVR tour of Spain Costs £3125 for a car and two people including ferries, dinner, bed and breafast at hotels, and exclusive trackday. driveespana.com 15-18 April Gran Premio Terre di Canossa This Italian run takes crews across the Apennines and through some of the country’s most absurdly attractive locations. There’s a ‘culinary itinerary’ to match. granpremioterredicanossa.it 16-18 April La Jolla Concours d’elegance This California seaside concours at La Jolla (hugging the coast north of San Diego) has a location to rival any in the world – and an equally compelling field of cars and motorcyles. Best of Show in 2019 was a 1935 Duesenberg. lajollaconcours.com 16-18 April London Classic Car Show Now in its seventh year, The London Classic Car Show is a key event for…

A SHAKE-UP of Vauxhall’s heritage operation means the public will gain access to the company’s 60-strong heritage fleet for the first time. The move is prompted by the impending sale of Vauxhall’s Griffin House in Luton, meaning the fleet will be moved en masse to a specially converted 8000sq m building at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire . Plant director Mark Noble said: ‘We’re all looking forward to the arrival of these heritage vehicles, some of which have been manufactured here over the last six decades. We’ve made sure that the area that will house the cars is heated, dry and secure, in keeping with the way the collection has been stored in its Luton home for the last 30 years.’ Manor Park Classics in Runcorn has been lined up to showcase…

I DON’T BELIEVE commercial vehicles have been allowed to compete in motor sport since Daniel Richmond and Jan Odor of Downton Engineering ran an A35 van at Wiscombe in the early ’60s, but a chance to run our van at Shelsley Walsh’s Classic Nostalgia meeeting changed that, and was my wife’s maiden outing. Adele has trailed around endless tracks and events providing support and food for us, but after a foray into Historic road rallying two years ago with HERO she wanted to spread her wings. We were offered the chance to run Bluebell – a 1982 Mini 95L – at the Reg Phillips Meeting in August, in a class created just for us. A trip to the hillclimb school on the Tuesday before gave a valuable insight into the…

I VERY MUCH ENJOYED the interview in Octane 211 with Andy Rouse [above]. Andy is probably the most successful owner-driver of all, because he really did design and build his own cars, drove them with great precision, mechanical sympathy and good manners on the track, and often won with speed in reserve: the mark of a great driver. He is also a really nice guy! I was lucky enough to work with Andy on the Touring Car committee and as the Touring Car Coordinator during the 1988-89 seasons. What may be of interest is that the introduction of the 2-litre Touring Car formula was initially not supported by Andy in our committee meetings. He favoured the more practical one-spec RWD tubular chassis/driveline with a V8-spec engine and gearbox, and manufacturers’…

It was Matra that gave Henri Pescarolo his big chance, and he in turn had given it his all since 1965: mentally, physically and very nearly literally. When the wipers packed up at Le Mans in 1968, it was ‘Pesca’, rudely awoken from his slumbers, who dived into the fray and the spray rather than retire: ‘I thought every lap would be my last.’ And it was he who accepted the challenge of sorting its untried low-drag coupé challenger of the following year; his face, arms and torso still bear the scars of that take-off and fiery landing along the Mulsanne Straight. Four months later, burns still tender, he finished fifth in the 1969 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring – yet received no World Championship points for his heroics…

1982 MERCEDESBENZ 500SL MASSIMO DELBÒ COVERING THE 2020 Bernina Gran Turismo in Saint Moritz was the perfect excuse for a drive up to the mountain in my 500SL. It was a real pleasure to make the three-hour drive on a beautiful Autumn day, following the twisty road alongside the lake before climbing the amazing Maloja pass. The 5.0-litre V8 encourages you to be lazy most of the time and leave the gearshift in ‘D’, but Maloja was too much of a temptation and I couldn’t resist playing with the gearbox. Immediately, I was reminded how sporty this refined convertible can be. If you select ‘S’ (which hangs on to each gear for longer, and won’t let the ’box change above third) or ‘L’ (which does the same as ‘S’ but…

1988 MOTO GUZZI V65TT HARRY METCALFE I’M FAST DISCOVERING that motorbikes are annoyingly collectable. Why? Well, they’re generally way cheaper than equivalent classic cars and they don’t take up as much space, meaning you don’t need to have a one-in, one-out policy before tucking another example away in the garage. Bikes are also much easier things to assess because very little is hidden behind bodywork and rust is almost non-existent, too, since 99.9% of them only get used on sunny days. So that partly explains why bike number 18 arrived in the garage a few weeks ago: a Moto Guzzi V65TT. Now, even to someone who thinks they know their bikes, this is an oddball rarity. I’d never seen a V65TT in the metal before but the idea of a…

IT IS SURPRISINGLY easy to resurrect an old watch company, in theory at least. There are all sorts of names gathering dust in the archives, just waiting to be plucked from the shelves to add the halo of heritage to a cheap movement and a mass-produced case. Don Cochrane, the founder and owner of Vertex, is a rather different sort of resurrection watchmaker. For a start, he has the ancestry to back his claim. He’s the great-grandson of Claude Lyons, who started the Dreadnought Watch Company (which eventually became Vertex) in 1916 with £1000 he’d borrowed from his father-in-law. One suspects he’d no more put a nasty movement in a knock-off case than use the wrong oil in his R1200GS BMW. Dreadnought supplied military watches during WW1, so it was…

1:18 scale The coming year marks the 60th anniversary of the launch of the E-type, and Bangladeshi model maker KK Scale has got in early on the celebrations by releasing a very reasonably priced large-scale diecast of the Roadster, the early so-called ‘flat floor’ model with tombstone-shaped seats. It would be unreasonable to expect perfection for less than 90 quid but KK Scale has made a very fair stab at it. The wire-spoked wheels look particularly good at this price point – even if the tyres appear a little wider than the original car’s – and the faired-in headlights have been neatly modelled, while the interior includes a convincing dashboard. A nice touch is that the front wheels can be turned slightly, and the steering wheel moves accordingly. Our sample…

THE AUCTION WORLD seems to be generally well-adjusted to coronavirus restrictions, after nearly a year of getting to grips with online sales and livestreams. Some auction houses have adapted better to the ‘new normal’ than others, though, and Artcurial – managing a €2,007,505 and 57% result for its rescheduled Automobiles sur les Champs sale – felt the effects of local and international restrictions. The top-selling car, and easily the most interesting, was a two-owner 1960 AC Ace Bristol (above), which had been with its most recent custodian, a friend of the first owner, since 1970. Presented in rough but incredibly original condition, it attracted plenty of attention and sold for €369,520. A very early UK-market Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing failed to sell on the day, although we understand that a post-sale…

The template for the modern-day four-wheel-drive performance car started here. A revolutionary ‘Ferguson Formula 4WD’ set-up and Dunlop Maxaret anti-lock braking system elevated the stylish Interceptor – with a slightly elongated wheelbase – into a spectacularly capable GT. With only 320 FFs produced from 1966 to ’71, the auction market rarely sees more than two or three change hands each year. Silverstone Auctions topped the results this July when it sold a recently restored 1971 MkII, believed to be one of only three supplied in Pimpernel Red (right), for £90,000 at its live-online Silverstone Classic sale. A 1968 MkI that was hammered away for £78,400 at Historics in 2015 failed to find a buyer three years later at Bonhams’ Goodwood FoS sale, where it was offered with a guide of…

TRACING THE HISTORY of any pre-war car can be fascinating. Gaining an understanding of how a car has managed to survive the ravages of time is not only handy for practical reasons – such as knowing what parts have been replaced or upgraded – but a good story also enriches the experience of owning and driving these wonderful time capsules. This 1924 Bentley 3 Litre Open Tourer, which is presented by DM Historics, started life as a longchassis four-seater in April 1924. The early history is not entirely documented, but some photographs suggest it was in the city of Derry on VE Day, and later documents place it in Sutton Coldfield and Coventry. Its most interesting years started in 1962, when ‘Chassis 589’ was bought by Robert Ward of Sutton…

TBC February Winter Challenge France hero-era.com 17 February – 8 March New Zealand Road Classic A wonderful discovery of nature at its best. From the lakes and volcanic activities of the North Island to the mountain roads, the ocean drive and the fjords of the South Island. Some of the most amazing scenic and winding roads in the world will be experienced by just 25 cars. destination-rally.com 25-26 February Per Ardua Ad Infinitum Wales hero-era.com 12 March HERO Challenge 1 hero-era.com 25-27 March Rally the Globe Generations Rally rallytheglobe.com TBC April A Novice Trial For less experienced crews. hero-era.com TBC April Flying Scotsman hero-era.com 21-30 April London to Lisbon hero-era.com 24 April – 5 May Carrera Espana rallytheglobe.com 28 April – 26 May Trans Africa Rally From Cape Town to…

A wave of uncertainty has washed over enthusiasts with the news that the UK Government is to bring forward its ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles to 2030. Even though the plan has been well-known for some time, moving the deadline from 2035 (which will remain the cut-off for hybrids) brought the impending ban into sharp relief. While clearly indicating that the Government has no intention of curbing the existence of private motor vehicles as a sector, it sends worrying signals to owners of petrol and diesel cars, especially those not yet classified as historic, to add to mounting fears about future availability of fuel and other factors. Responding to the news, the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs stated that it would not get involved…

HEALEY DESIGN great Gerry Coker passed away on 13 November. Renowned primarily for shaping the original and gorgeous Healey 100 that caused a sensation at the 1952 Earls Court motor show, he did much more at Healey and also had a 30-year career in the USA that often goes unrecognised. The young engineer was apprenticed into the Rootes Group in 1939 and moved to join Donald Healey in 1950, starting on the Nash-Healey. He came up with the styling for the Healey 100 in 1950, created the streamliner that topped 192mph at Bonneville in 1954, and laid the foundations for the Sprite (though without the Frogeye lights) before emigrating to America in 1957. Coker joined Chrysler, then moved to Ford where he designed the dual-action station wagon tailgate, staying until…

Gordon Murray has said that he regrets not driving home in the McLaren F1 GTR that won the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours. Having initially been against the conversion of his roadgoing design into a racer, he’d watched as it took victory on the marque’s debut at La Sarthe. Three of the other GTRs crossed the line third, fourth and fifth, and helped to usher in a competitive new period of GT racing that would eventually include Porsche and Mercedes-Benz. But while driving back to the UK in a front-running Le Mans car would have been a great publicity coup in 1995, it wouldn’t have raised so much as an eyebrow in the early 1960s. At that time, it was commonplace for cars to be driven to and from events,…

In the early days of motor racing, competitive events were frequently held in towns. On the streets. Few of these survived safety-related regulation changes, however, with the notable exception of the Monaco Grand Prix, held for the first time in 1929. Yet there was another city race, described by drivers of the era as more difficult than Monaco and born just one year later. And it was in Poland. That mystery race was held in Lwów, then the third largest city in the country. Poland had regained independence in 1918, in part thanks to the efforts of the American president Woodrow Wilson, and it immediately had to defend itself, as some neighbours failed to respect the reemergence of the Polish state after 123 years. The City of Lwów was in…

If you were young, in love with cars, dreaming of speed and with a little money to spare as the 1960s drew to a close in the USA, your fantasy on wheels was a muscle car. But maybe your tastebuds had been piqued after Lee Iacocca of Ford spotted a niche in the market for something homegrown to take on the European sports cars from the likes of MG, Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Alfa Romeo, and filled it with the Mustang. It was an instant hit when it was launched in 1964, and led to the ‘pony car’ movement when rival manufacturers responded – but pony cars were nothing like as powerful as muscle cars to begin with. Muscle cars had their origins in the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, immortalised…

2020 BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT V8 MARK DIXON IT SEEMED FITTING that, on the day we photographed the veteran Georges Richard that’s also featured in this issue, our transport to the car’s home in Cheshire should be a Bentley Continental GT. The county is the spiritual home of Premier League footballers and, if ever a car was associated with that moneyed lifestyle, it’s the ‘Conti’. At least, it used to be. But times change and the Continental has transcended such associations to become the car it was intended to be from the very beginning: a gorgeous GT of unparallelled luxury and performance. Almost too much performance, in fact, if you specify the range-topping W12 model, which was the only option when the car was launched back in 2003. But a revised…

DONALD HAYTER was born in 1926 in Maidenhead, Berkshire. His father Edgar was a police inspector, and mother Amy worked in a munitions factory. He was educated at Abingdon Grammar School, where he gained a scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford; however, with the country at war, he decided on an apprenticeship in aircraft design with the Pressed Steel Company in Cowley, where he was involved with several aircraft projects, including the Lancaster bomber. Post-war, Pressed Steel reverted to car panel work and Don had his first brush with MG. Working from a scale model, he was tasked with producing engineering drawings of door panels for the forthcoming Magnette ZA. Designed by Gerald Palmer, it was a first for MG, being of monocoque construction – something Don would revisit with the…

It’s tragically appropriate that this phenomenal book, documenting the life and career of Brian Joscelyne, arrived within days of his death (see our obituary on page 42). Small comfort that it’s a worthy memorial to a man who, as author David Tremayne sums up, ‘never felt the need to push himself forward into the spotlight, who was content just being there, absorbing the atmosphere’. And atmosphere is what this book gives us in spades. Brian was not a professional photographer – he worked for the family estate agency business as a surveyor – but he was a fixture at Europe’s race circuits from the 1950s through to the ’70s, and his glorious Kodachromes have been given the full works here by Palawan Press in one of its trademark doorstep-sized luxury…

TRADITIONALLY, WE TEND to think of these gorgeous 250 Boanos as road-biased GT cars, and that’s exactly what they were built to be. Occasionally, however, Carrozzeria Boano would switch from steel to alloy, and produce a leaner, race-ready coupé. RM Sotheby’s will offer one of these 14 Ferrari 250 GT Alloy Coupés by Boano in January’s Arizona auction. Chassis 0613 GT was completed in late January 1957, before being shipped to Luigi Chinetti’s New York dealership. It was then sold to George Arents, a tobacco tycoon and one of Chinetti’s financial backers. He raced the car once, before selling it to future Le Mans winner Bob Grossman. It was not long before he moved it on to acquaintance Len Potter, although the two would later register for the fifth annual…

THERE WAS UPROAR within certain automotive enthusiast circles when Ford announced that the Puma was going to be revived in the form of ‘yet another small crossover’. As it turns out, the new Puma is seemingly an excellent car, which manages to tap into the current mood of car buyers – exactly what the original did so well back in 1997. It might have been based on the unassuming Mk4 Fiesta’s underpinnings, but some clever tweaking – including stiffer springs and thicker anti-roll bars – gave it a cracking chassis set-up. Unlike the Fiesta, the Puma got a 1.7-litre version of the Yamaha-developed Zetec SE engine. This rev-happy 16-valve VCT (variable cam timing) engine put out a healthy 123bhp and 116lb ft, and was connected to a snappy five-speed manual…

21-24 January Cavallino Classic Known as a Ferrari gathering, this Palm Beach event also features a concours open to other marques and action at Palm Beach International Raceway. cavallinoclassic.com 30 January – 3 February Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique There will be no ‘concentration leg’ for this event in 2021, meaning that crews will start from Monte Carlo rather than from a selection of cities around Europe. The challenge will be as formidable as ever, however, with regularity sections, freezing weather and 1000m-plus peaks standing between crews and the finish line. acm.mc 5-6 February Per Ardua Ad Infinitum Competitive one-and-a-half-day event. Starting at lunchtime on the Friday and going into the evening. heroevents.eu 7-11 February Winter Challenge to Monte Carlo Pre-1986 cars tackle a 2000km route that winds from Troyes, two hours…

6 JUNE 1944. A pivotal day in world history and one that must never be forgotten. It was a day when thousands of Allied troops took the war to Germany. Had the day gone badly, the future didn’t bear thinking about. The D-Day Story Museum in Southsea, on the Hampshire seafront, is hard to miss thanks to its magnificent new attraction, Landing Craft Tank 7074 ship (LCT7074). Standing outside the entrance, it is claimed to be the last surviving LCT from D-Day. Built in Hebburn, it went first to Great Yarmouth, where the crew practised landings, before moving to Felixstowe. There, it took on board ten tanks of the 7th Armoured Division and nine of those tanks made it ashore in Normandy as part of the D-Day landings. These LCTs…

Supercars behind closed doors A stunning exhibition has been opened at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles despite the museum being closed due to the pandemic. ‘Supercars: A Century of Spectacle and Speed’ comprises around 30 vehicles highlighting watersheds in roadgoing speed. It opens with the ex-Phil Hill 1913 Mercer Type 35-J Raceabout and closes with a 2005 Maserati MC12, but includes a range of seductive speed merchants from XKSS and Shelby Cobra 427 to Lamborghini Miura P400 and Countach 5000QV. Star of the show is a papaya orange LM-spec 1998 McLaren F1. Having the Maserati as the cut-off point was prompted by the fact that the record-shattering Bugattis that followed kicked off an entirely new ballgame – one scheduled to be the subject of its own exhibition. More info…

THE RACER, PHOTOGRAPHER and surveyor Brian Joscelyne (on left, with Paul Frère) was indoctrinated early into the joys of motoring by his father, and his first daily driver at the age of 20 was an Aston Martin 15/98. Having joined the family land agency in Braintree, Essex, he moved on to an Aston Martin DB3 and started racing. Next was a DB3S and Joscelyne became an Aston Martin Owners’ Club stalwart both on and off track, a life member at just 32. He secured drives of some impressive mounts, including the ex-Camoradi Maserati T61 ‘Birdcage’, and co-founded Dorset Racing Associates with Tony Birchenhough, enjoying much success using Chevrons and Lolas. His races included three runs at Le Mans, but he was rarely seen without his trusty SLRs (or later video…

SO, WE KNOW the ‘250’ in the name refers to the approximate capacity of a single cylinder in Colombo’s 3.0-litre V12, and here I’m going to namecheck the majority of the front-engined 250 racers – the S, MM, Monza and Testarossa – before moving on to Ferrari’s first realistic attempt at a road car: the 250 Europa. Only that used a 3.0-litre version of the Lampredi Formula 1 engine. Still, there followed the Europa GT (correctly Colombo-equipped), the rare-groove Boano and Ellena (coachbuilt by Boano, succeeded by Ellena), the GT Berlinetta ‘Tour de France’ (predecessor of the SWB) and the associated Cabriolet Pinin Farina Series I, as well as Scaglietti’s cool California Spyder, in original, retrospectively titled LWB form. But the SWB’s real contemporaries kicked off with a car that…

‘THE JR WAS A MORE SHAPELY AND SERIOUS MACHINE THAN THE J2X, WITH A LONGER NOSE AND TAIL’ Alan Allard, aged 84, is a proud father. A proud son, too. He’s standing next to a legacy of both roles, Allard JR chassis number JR3408. ‘Lloyd [Alan’s son] made practically all of it apart from the body,’ he’s saying. ‘He’s worked so hard. It’s an amazing achievement.’ And what would Sydney [Alan’s father] have thought? After all, he led the first lap of 1953’s Le Mans 24 Hours in a near-identical JR, one of the Allard marque’s highest-profile flashes of fame. If there is a heaven, Sydney is probably looking down from it through his signature round-lensed spectacles, delighted that his legacy has had a second coming. The dark green Allard…

Good grief, this is tricky. Driving a Georges Richard that’s 120 years old is like rubbing your head while patting your tummy, and working a set of organ pedals at the same time. But it’s clearly possible, because this veteran has taken part in most of the London to Brighton Runs since 1949, the year it was rescued from dereliction in a Welsh border town. It’s been with the Fowler family since 1982 and driven by many family members; while Rodney Fowler, today’s paterfamilias, is the main keeper, his daughter Helen has shared drives on the Brighton Run for 30 years and has spent hours researching its history. And what a history! The Fowler family’s car is almost certainly one of two Georges Richards that competed on the 1000 Miles…

1965 TRIUMPH 2.5PI JAMES ELLIOTT IT’S FUNNY HOW the subconscious works. I should have realised as soon as I started prepping the Triumph in the autumn, to make sure everything worked as it should, that what I was really doing was readying it for daily driver duties when my ex-Practical Classics 2002 Volvo C70 bit the dust. To be fair to the Volvo, it was a right old trouper that represented trouble-free – and literally free (or even profitable) – motoring over two years, and it was the best motorway car I have ever been in, let alone owned. None of that amounted to a hill of beans to the MoT tester, though, and its failure at the start of November was sufficiently catastrophic structurally to mark its instant demise.…

2020 RBW ROADSTER MARK DIXON IT LOOKS LIKE an MGB, but it’s electric, it has all-round independent suspension and it’s registered as a brand-new car. So, naturally, the first question Octane wants to ask Peter Swain, the man behind it, is: why is your company called RBW? ‘Those are the initials of my three children, Rosie, Becky and Wes,’ laughs Peter. His response is disarmingly charming but you’d be wrong to imagine that RBW is some kind of cutesy cottage industry. Yes, it’s a small business but it’s in bed with one of the biggest names in the EV market, Continental Engineering Services, which is part of the €44bn Continental Group. Peter himself has a background in electronics, but a life change saw him switch to classic car restoration. That…

2020 PORSCHE TAYCAN TURBO S GLEN WADDINGTON NOT VERY MUCH can prepare you for the sensation of gathering speed in a Porsche Taycan. Maybe if you’re used to the Ludicrous mode in a Tesla (which is, er, quicker still), or perhaps if you’re a time-served jet-fighter pilot. But if you’ve grown up on a diet of petrol-powered roadgoing Porsches, the game hasn’t just moved on, it’s been picked up and dropped into next week. And that’s how you’ll feel, wondering how you got there. Porsche didn’t benchmark the Tesla, nor anything else electric. While the Taycan is battery-powered, chief engineer Stefan Weckbach chose the 911 as its limbo bar. Which is brave, given that all those batteries (plus four seats and four doors) mean it weighs 2.3 tonnes. It’s nearly…

AN ARMY MARCHES on its stomach,’ Napoleon once observed. He had good reason, lack of food having forced him to retreat from Moscow after his disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia, losing 400,000 of his half-million force in the process. Perhaps if he’d had Spam to feed his troops, world history would have been quite different. Some 150 years later there was no doubt in the mind of Nikita Khrushchev that without Spam the Russian Army would not have defeated Hitler’s invaders. Spam is an acquired taste: Hawaiians love it, Koreans love it, my mum loved it but my cat won’t touch it. I discovered my cat’s aversion when I bought a tin of Spam to turn into a pinhole camera. I loved the idea of building a Spam Cam. Having…

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DAVE KINNEY’S USA ROUND-UP Bring a Trailer, online auction 18 November Based on the Volvo 122, the 123GT was the most powerful rally-inspired version of the Amazon family, in effect a saloon with the sportier P1800’s 1.8-litre engine. Goodies included Recaro seats, a small dash-mounted tachometer and other performance improvements, including a four-speed transmission with a Laycock de Normanville overdrive. Although the total build number of 1500 is often quoted, the real number is thought to be a bit more. It was only ever available as a two-door coupé as seen here, and this particular dark green example with tan vinyl seats was actually a Canadian-market 123GT, meaning it was assembled in Nova Scotia. The GT wasn’t officially sold in the US. The 122 series, also known as the Amazon,…

THE COMBINATION of Italian-styled bodywork over Aston Martin underpinnings is hardly unusual, but such cars actually bodied by the Italians is a surprisingly rare occurrence. Here we have one of the earliest of an exclusive club: a 1954 Bertone-bodied DB2/4. One of two convertibles built by Bertone, it was penned by freelancer Giovanni Michelotti (its sibling was the Franco Scaglione-styled DB2/4 Spider) and exported when new to the USA, where it was sold via British Motor Car Distributors of California. Originally owned by San Francisco Opera member, Edith Field, the Aston was entered in the 1955 Pebble Beach Concours, and took third in class. It’s a well-documented example, which was last restored while living in the UK during 2006. It has since returned to the US, and is offered in…

I TEND TO get up at about 7am. The first things I do are put a coffee on the stove – I have one coffee a day and it’s a proper coffee – and feed the dog and cat. Work starts at about 9am and is five miles away in a couple of lovely old Essex barns that I rent outside Saffron Walden. Thanks in part to all the publicity this year over our restoration of the first production Land Rover, JUE 477, we are busier than ever. Having been brought up in a proper old-car and bike family in Hertfordshire – my dad was into three-wheeler Morgans and Flat Tank Harleys – my destiny was inescapable. I bought my first motorbike, a Maserati, before I was in double figures…