Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Octane

This column is being pieced together a few days after I landed back in dear old Blighty. It was weird arriving at Heathrow Terminal 5 on a Saturday morning, only to discover I was the only person waiting at the baggage carousels. I swear, there wasn’t another living soul. Heading back home to West Sussex using only B-roads, just seeing the lushness of the countryside was the best restorative tonic I could ever have asked for. Even the jetlag, something I haven’t experienced for aeons, suddenly didn’t seem so bad. It feels weird travelling again, though. I hadn’t stepped inside an airport since early 2020. However, the desire to reconnect with the world has never been stronger. I cannot wait to head to Goodwood for the Festival of Speed, which…

MY NAME IS OLIVER and I’m nine years old. I started taking photographs in late September 2018 when I borrowed my dad’s Nikon D90 SLR while we were at a motorsport event. It felt good and I enjoyed it, and I now have two cameras and three lenses, thanks to my parents and their support. I’m a complete petrolhead. We follow the British & Midland Hill Climb Championship as a family, and also other race meetings and motorsport events. I also help look after a single-seater race car (an Empire Wraith) during the season and it’s great to be involved. I feel lucky to have such great parents to support me, and great photographer friends that have taken me under their wing, giving me useful advice and treating me like an…

Switzerland was neutral during World War Two. Neutral, but not unaffected. René Niederer, a lawyer in Zurich, was engaged to Matty Kaars Sijpesteyn, but there was a problem. Matty was Dutch, and she lived back home in Holland – which, in 1940, was about to be invaded by Nazi forces. René was the second owner of a 1929 Lancia Lambda, which he had bought in 1937. He resolved to get into his car, drive it to Holland, and whisk Matty back to Switzerland and safety. As a Swiss national driving a Swiss-registered car he was, in theory, safe from capture by the Nazis as he drove through Germany, but he was still stopped several times – especially on the return journey with Matty and a carful of her belongings. With…

‘I collected my XK140 from Twyford Moors on the hottest day of the year, but forgot to turn off the heater control at the back of the engine for the drive home. Phew!’Robert Coucher ‘All the paint has now been stripped off my Lancia Fulvia Zagato – and I rather wish it hadn’t! Underneath is a real patchwork of repairs; not just small sections but big sheets’Harry Metcalfe ‘What started as a slight weep from the thermostat housing on my ’Healey 3000 has evolved into the fitment of a new waterpump – thank heavens for AH Spares and DHL!’Martyn Goddard ‘My Triumph is working hard following the Focus ST170 having a hissy fit and I am told there is plenty of “progress” on the Jensen, though I am yet to…

PERHAPS THE MOST remarkable thing about New York’s Flatiron building is that anyone would actually contemplate erecting a 22-storey building on such an awkward triangular site. Only 6ft wide at its leading edge and 87 feet at the rear, the 285-foot-tall building cleaves its way between two of the Big Apple’s main thoroughfares – Fifth Avenue and Broadway – like the prow of an ocean liner, with the stern abutting East 22nd Street and its prow inching into East 23rd Street. It is also proof that few endeavours divide opinion as much as architecture. When the Flatiron Building was completed in 1902 the professional critics were exceptionally sniffy, variously describing it as ‘a stingy piece of pie’ and ‘unfit to be in the centre of the city’, while the New York…

ZENITH CHRONOMASTER REVIVAL SAFARI The Zenith El Primero movement has had more reincarnations than Dr Who, from an elegant, Pertwee-esque original through to this more Christopher Eccleston offering. The brushed and polished stainless steel of the ref. A384 has been replaced with a micro-blasted titanium case and the classical, tricompax dial is now olive green. A green canvas strap replaces the bracelet, too. Inside, nothing’s changed (thankfully) and there’s the classic El Primero column-wheel chronograph hi-beat movement. It’s a brave move – the original Chronomaster is a horophile Holy of Holies – but the Le Locle watchmaker has pulled it off. £7500, zenith-watches.com CHRISTOPHER WARD SEALANDER SERIES Christopher Ward believes its new three-watch Sealander range finally answers the question of ‘Could there be a go anywhere/do everything wristwatch?’ There’s a…

2004 Ford Shelby Cobra Concept Mecum Auctions, Monterey, USA 12-14 August, mecum.com ‘Project Daisy’ was built as a running and driving modern-day Cobra successor, which had the blessing and involvement of Carroll Shelby himself. Under the bonnet sits a 6.4-litre 605bhp aluminium V10 engine, and the chassis of the car is a modern bonded and welded aluminium spaceframe. It has been restored to running condition and, strangely for a concept car, it is fully ‘titled and plated for the road’. Truly one of a kind. 1965 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe Worldwide Auctioneers, Pacific Grove, USA 12 August, worldwideauctioneers.com Although not an original Daytona Coupe, ‘CSX 2469’ was built on an original Cobra chassis by Cobra expert Mike McCluskey in the late 1990s. Carroll Shelby wanted this for his personal use,…

DAVE SHEPHERD ‘With its hood down, long bonnet and its imposing front three-quarter presence, I’d like to imagine the Lancia swiftly navigating the twisty roads of the Amalfi coast in the late 1920s, heading towards a saucy weekend liaison on the island of Capri.’ See Shep’s photographs of the Lancia Lambda with John Simister’s story, pages 82-90. MATTHIAS TECHAU ‘To meet the father of Porsche’s flat-six, which made the 911 the icon it is today, is enough to make anyone star-struck. Yet this legend of engineering was one of the most modest people I’ve ever met. Sadly, he passed away eight months after our meeting. It was an honour to talk with him.’ Hans Mezger’s final interview: pages 120-124. MAX SERRA ‘I like to see new projects that preserve the great traditions…

I was a fan of the original Honda Insight. It was no stranger to Octane; Mark Dixon was a long-term owner. Launched in 1999 as a two-seat mini-coupé, it promised 65mpg and spritely sprinting from its revvy 1.0-litre triple with integrated electrical assistance, and it truly looked – and felt – like the future. But when I first drove a hybrid in 2007, something felt wrong. It was a second-generation Toyota Prius, a bit bigger than 1997’s original, aimed at the family car market. There was no magic: its ride was brittle, the engine coarse, especially as it strained against a CVT belt-drive. If this was the future, I wasn’t looking forward to it. Same went for the second-gen Insight: more seats, less fun. And when I wrote a group…

Here’s a good pub quiz trivia question: what was the last car or van to be sold with opening quarterlight windows? Until the late 1970s, many vehicles had them. In the States they were known as vent windows, because that’s exactly what they did: they allowed ventilation in a controllable way. Crack open a quarterlight just a little and you enjoyed a gentle, quiet breeze, with no buffeting; but if you were scorching across the Sahara, you could flip the glass all the way round and duct a blast of refreshing air onto your face. Back in the days when smoking was a lot more common, quarterlights were especially useful because, with the glass opened an inch or so, cigarette ash could be discreetly tapped outside while on the move.…

In Tate Britain there is a splendidly ugly 1862 painting called The Last Days in the Old Home, by Robert Braithwaite Martineau. It’s High Victorian moralising at its most mawkish: Sir Charles Pulleyne’s reprobate behaviour has ruined his family. His wife and children look on appalled as bailiffs remove their possessions. Our unrepentant hero raises a glass of fizz. In the dark days of The Great War, French poet and diplomat Paul Claudel said: ‘Gentlemen, in the brief moment afforded us between calamity and catastrophe, we may as well enjoy a glass of Champagne.’ Despite this talk of Champagne, I have had the sobering experience of studying Ferrari’s recent catwalk show: four words I never thought I would write. Perhaps seized by the existential futility of long-term R&D for new…

Whether any of the generations of Golf GTI counts as the greatest hot hatch ever is not a question I’m about to answer. More than one of them have certainly been contenders, and the closely related Golf Mk7 R of recent years was one of the very best of its era. While some other pretenders to the crown have been French (Peugeot 205 GTI, Renault 5 GT Turbo, Clio Williams, Renaultsport Megane R26R…), their fire has shone brightly yet briefly. But one thing is for definite: no hot hatch has survived in such strength for so many generations as the Golf GTI. Eight, in fact. And they’re all gathered here. One of the first cars I ever drove was a Mk1 GTI. It was three decades ago, I was 17,…

A date with the Old Lady 1971 ROVER P5B COUPÉ MARK DIXON DO YOU EVER have that startling realisation that an event in your own past is closer to something that happened a really, really long time ago than it is to the present day? I’ve just worked out that more time has elapsed since I first photographed this Rover P5B for a classic car magazine than between that day and when the Rover was a brand-new car. In other words, I’ve known this classic Rover for more than half of its 50-year lifespan. Doesn’t seem possible! Back in 1995, I did a cover shoot for a now-extinct magazine called Popular Classics, featuring three Rover P5s. I remember it well: we took the cars to a local beauty spot a…

‘LIKE MANY HOROPHILES WITH PETROL IN THEIR VEINS, ENGEL SEES THE LINK BETWEEN THE TWO AS A LOVE OF MECHANICAL COMPLICATION’ I MANAGED TO catch up with the Mercedes-AMG driver and IWC Ambassador Maro Engel just a couple of weeks before his drive at this year’s Nürburgring 24 Hours. Engel’s no stranger to the ’Ring: in 2020 he drove his stock Mercedes-AMG GT to a new record for the fastest series production car on the circuit. Given the speeds he reached – 300km/h on the straights – it’s remarkable that he looked as relaxed behind the wheel then as he does now, when he’s just chatting about watches. Start talking to him and it’s quickly obvious he’s something of a watchhead. It’s not even 9am and already he’s been on…

‘Motorama’ was the name that General Motors gave to its annual exhibition of new concept vehicles in the 1950s, and it may well have inspired the ‘Sportorama’ sports car set from Payton Products, one of many American companies making plastic toys in the early 1950s. Payton’s toy vehicles are like many others of the period, though rather larger in size: the sports cars range from 6½ to 8½ inches in length. They could be bought individually bagged for just 49 cents, but the Sportorama set had its own brightly coloured box with the four cars positioned on a tray inside. For the collector today, what really sets this foursome apart is the inspired choice of subjects. Helpfully, the box identifies what they are. There’s a Jaguar XK Roadster and the…

£2,508,0001969 Ford GT40Gooding & Co, online.11-18 June £1,942,000 (¤2,255,000)1966 Ferrari 275 GTBRM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy.15 June £1,770,000 (CHF 2,255,000)1954 Rolls-Royce Phantom IVLimousine ‘Princess Margaret’ by HJ MullinerRM Sotheby’s, Eschen, Liechtenstein. 19 June £1,554,500 (¤1,805,000)2000 Ferrari 550 GT1RM Sotheby’s, Milan, Italy.15 June £1,240,000 (CHF 1,580,000)1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom IISpecial Brougham by BrewsterRM Sotheby’s, Eschen, Liechtenstein. 19 June £1,135,500 ($1,567,500)2015 McLaren P1Barrett-Jackson, Las Vegas, USA. 17-19 June £1,052,500 (CHF 1,340,348)1963 Ferrari 250 GT LussoBonhams, Cheserex, Switzerland. 20 June £965,000 ($1,341,000)1935 Duesenberg Model JNConvertible Sedan by RollstonBring a Trailer, online. 25 June £957,500 (CHF 1,220,000)1958 Bentley S1 ContinentalDrophead Coupé by Park WardRM Sotheby’s, Eschen, Liechtenstein. 19 June £948,500 (CHF 1,207,500)2014 McLaren P1Bonhams, Cheserex, Switzerland. 20 June…

At the age of 15, Henry McCarty was left to fend for himself in Silver City, New Mexico. His mother had died of tuberculosis and his stepfather, evidently not troubled by a sense of duty, had cut and run. A year later McCarty was arrested for theft but, instead of taking his medicine, he escaped from jail and became an outlaw, travelling under the alias William H Bonney. Billy the Kid was born. The many knockabout Westerns featuring the Kid have obscured the miserable reality of his life, but most people know how it ended. After killing nine men for reasons ranging from self-preservation to spite, the Kid was tracked down by Sheriff Pat Garrett on 14 July 1881 and shot – with this gun. That he died by…

CHANGE IS AFOOT at Lotus, though the launch of the hugely impressive new Emira feels more like a major segue than the end of an era. It’s purely petrol-powered (no hybrids) and steers with hydraulic (rather than feel-killing electric) assistance, both of which will surely delight driving enthusiasts. And it’s still built in a big shed at Hethel, near Norwich, where Lotus production has mostly trickled along since 1966. Yet those production processes have been tightened to suit big-league sports car customers, thanks to a £100m investment at the factory and the considerable backing and parts-sourcing expertise of Chinese parent company Geely. At a stroke, the number of cars built here will triple, from around 1600 of the old Elise, Exige and Evora trio (which die at the end of…

You might remember Octane’s recent story on the Chrysler Turbine (issue 217), of which there are only two in private hands. I consider it to be one of the seminal cars of the post-war era. It was a car I lusted after, seeing it at the World’s Fair in New York back in 1964. I finally got to drive one about 25 years ago at the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit. A friend of mine named Frank Kleptz managed to buy one from the big Harrah’s auction back in the mid-80s. It was not a running car at the time. Before Chrysler sent them to museums and institutions, they made all the engines inoperable. They couldn’t sell them for tax reasons, so the rest were crushed. Over the years I…

Game-changer. Now there’s something to get into a lather about when it comes to cars, especially in the pub! They have evolved at breakneck speed during the 135 years that have passed since Karl Benz launched his Benz Patent Motorwagen in 1886. He filed patent number 37435 in January of that year, which is widely regarded as the birth certificate of the first petrol-powered car. With just one horsepower (later rising to 1½), it was a three-wheeler steered by a tiller and I have to admit that I’ve driven an exact replica, in Argentina of all places. The steering was a bit woolly but the power delivery was remarkably smooth thanks to the huge horizontal flywheel, and it could manage 10mph, which was really pushing the envelope. ‘IN THE MID-1970S…

YOU MIGHT think of these as the gentleman racer’s alternative. The faster four-wheel-drive Golf traces its history back to the rare-groove Mk2 Rallye of 1988, a box-arched homologation special with a supercharged G60 engine, developed to take on the Lancia Delta Integrale. Just 5000 were handbuilt in Belgium, with power increased to 158bhp, and only 70 came to the UK. If you want areally rare Golf Mk2, best to seek out the Golf G60 Limited, which lives up to its name as only 71 were built in total. Gone is the wide-boy G60 body, in its place the standard shell and even a plain old single-headlamp grille. Only blue pinstriping and blacked-out tail-lights give away that it wraps a 207bhp 16-valve version of the G60 engine. Europeans got a supercharged…

HANS MEZGER WAS the holy father of Porsche engines. He was behind the development of both the 911’s air-cooled flat-six and the flat-12 that powered the 917 to legendary victories at Le Mans. He introduced the Porsche Turbo to the racetrack and later into series production; it was his TAG Turbo engine that made Lauda and Prost Formula 1 World Champions. His was a glittering career, and he remained a keen Porsche ambassador well beyond his retirement in 1993, 37 years after joining the company. Mezger died in June 2020, just a few months after celebrating his 90th birthday at a party thrown by Porsche, where he’d been surrounded by friends, family and former colleagues. In this abridged extract from Turbo: Hans Mezger, edition 2020 he gives his final interview,…

ROBERT COUCHER International editor • 1955 Jaguar XK140 ANDREW ENGLISH Contributor • 1960 Triumph TR3A • 1962 Norton Dominator • 1965 Aston Martin DB5 GLEN WADDINGTON Associate editor • 1989 BMW 320i Convertible SANJAY SEETANAH Advertising director • 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio • 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante MARK DIXON Deputy editor • 1927 Alvis 12/50 • 1927 Ford Model T pick-up • 1942 Fordson Model N tractor • 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in • 1966 Ford Mustang 289 • 1994 Range Rover 4.0 JAMES ELLIOTT Editor-in-chief • 1965 Triumph 2.5 PI • 1968 Jensen Interceptor JOHN SIMISTER Contributor • 1961 Saab 96 • 1972 Rover 2000 TC • 1989 Mazda MX-5 Eunos RICHARD HESELTINE Contributor • 1966 Moretti 850 Sportiva • 1971 Honda Z600 MASSIMO DELBÒ Contributor…

IN AN AGE of professional drivers, Giampiero Moretti was known as the ‘last of the gentleman racers’. Born in 1940 into a wealthy Milanese family that owned a large pharmaceutical business, he was a 21-year-old student of political science at the University of Padua when he started competing in local races and hillclimbs in a Lancia Appia Zagato. The event that changed Moretti’s life occurred early in his racing career when a friend made a special steering wheel for him. At the time the ‘wood-rim’ still reigned supreme among racers, and the ‘boy racers’. Nardi in Italy started producing its aluminium- and wood-rimmed steering wheels in 1951, and in the UK Victor Derrington patented a similar aftermarket laminated and riveted wood-rim in 1953… with a leather-covered rim also available to…

LONDON WATCH auction houses: fusty rooms, more tweed than Daylesford’s car park and hammer prices that would get you a decent house. That might have been true 20 years ago, but less so today. Now you’re more likely to find specialists keen to share their knowledge and the tweed count is way down (still a few red trews, mind). You don’t have to do a deal at a crossroads to pick up interesting watches either. Look at this Omega Dynamic that went for just £637 at Bonhams in its May ‘Watches and Wristwatches’ sale. The Dynamic is still daftly undervalued for a watch that, in its day, was so innovative. For a start, if you’ve ever spent hours on your knees looking for a spring bar that’s sprung for freedom, you’ll…

28-31 July Mecum, Orlando, USA 28 July – 4 August RM Sotheby’s, online, global 30 July Silverstone Auctions, Silverstone, UK (motorcycles) SWVA, Poole, UK 31 July – 1 August Silverstone Auctions, Silverstone, UK 5 August Brightwells, online, UK 11 August H&H, online, UK 11-13 August Russo & Steele, Monterey, USA 12-14 August Mecum, Monterey, USA 13 August Bonhams, Carmel, USA 13-14 August Gooding & Company, Pebble Beach, USA RM Sotheby’s, Monterey, USA 20-21 August Mathewsons, online, UK 21 August Cheffins, Harrogate, UK 28-29 August Anglia Car Auctions, King’s Lynn, UK 30 August Aguttes, Paris, France 31 August – 7 September Shannons, online, Australia 2-5 September RM Auctions, Auburn, USA 3-4 September Worldwide Auctioneers, Auburn, USA 4-5 September Bonhams, Beaulieu, UK Silver Auctions, Sun Valley, USA 8 September H&H, Duxford, UK…

2003 JAGUAR X-TYPE SCV8 POA The last racer built by Touring Car legend Andy Rouse, for the ill-fated SCV8 series, it’s offered by Alan Strachan of specialist AWS CNC. An interesting insight into what might have been. cncmotorsport.com (UK) 1982 FIAT X1/9 VERSIONE $38,000 One of 300 Versione special editions, built to mark Bertone’s takeover of the model in the USA. With one previous owner and 9000 miles, it’s a fantastic (if expensive) example of the breed. lbilimited.com (US) 1997 AUDI S6 AVANT QUATTRO €13,850 The best kind of Audi: fast, understated and practical. Fitted with the rarer and more powerful 4.2-litre V8, electronic diff lock and sports seats, it’s been serviced and is ready to go. carrosso.nl (NL) 1998 SUBARU IMPREZA WRX $59,995 AUS Beautifully preserved example of the…

WHAT TO PAY Feeling brave? £1500-2000 should get you into a very rough project car. You’ll need closer to £5000-6000 for a decent running car, while a mint example can cost upwards of £10,000 today. Originality isn’t necessarily a big deal, but condition and usability are what buyers want. Expect to pay a slight premium for a very original early car, or late 750 model. WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR Early engines are tricky to rebuild due to poor parts supply, so many have been upgraded to the later 747cc unit. It’s the easiest way to keep a car on the road but, if the larger engine has been fitted, make sure it was done to a high standard. If the steering feels vague, then it’s most likely a worn…