Octane November 2021

IT WILL COME as no surprise that, being obsessed with cars, the Octane team spends plenty of time discussing the motors we would like to snap up while we still can, preferably when they are right at the bottom of their ‘depreciation curve’. Of course, all too often such discussions end with an internet search and the realisation that prices have bounced and we have already missed the boat. Possibly even more often, furious activity is followed by a cooling-off period and then it all turns out to have been a flight of fancy anyway. We are all guilty of this, though associate editor Glen Waddington is in a different league – it is a very good thing he isn’t so fickle in real life – and I’ll bet plenty of…

DAVID BURGESS-WISE ‘Pebble Beach had a watershed year: two post-war cars in the final line-up for the first time since the event took on its present form in the 1950s. It was a real cliff-hanger; happily, true elegance won the day!’ It’s back – and so is Octane’s unbroken record of featuring the winner. See the Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahn-Kurier on pages 112-118. RUSSELL HAYES ‘It was a unique moment, projecting these David Brown dropheads – DB2 and Lagonda – back in time at Hanworth Park House. For one day, we had the key to Aston Martin Lagonda’s secret garden, the last trace of the Feltham era.’ Find out all about the company’s forgotten former home on pages 96-104. DOMINIC JAMES ‘What a treat to live in an age when you can take…

Best of Show at the 2021 Salon Privé Concours d’Elégance presented by Aviva was a 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Cabriolet A (bottom right), which will now be a contender for the Peninsula Classics Best of the Best Award. The 16th running of the event at Blenheim Palace on 1-5 September newly encompassed almost a full week of activities and included an impressive Jaguar E-type 60th anniversary display (won by the Lindner-Nöcker Low-Drag Lightweight). Another highlight was a celebration of 90 years of Pininfarina (held over from 2020 due to Covid) which was won by a 1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Spider. The event has also built a reputation as a launchpad for new cars and attracted debuts from Touring Superleggera, Hispano-Suiza and Automobili Pininfarina among others. New for this year was…

25 September VSCC Prescott Long Course The VSCC’s final speed event of the year is a proper workout on the 1031m long course at Prescott. vscc.co.uk 25 September Rallyday Cars slide around track and field at Castle Combe, where special guests include Jimmy McRae, Gwyndaf Evans and Nicky Grist. rallyday.com 26 September – 4 October Trans-Iberica Pre-1980 cars motor through Portugal’s wine region and into Spain, following a 1950km route. destination-rally.com 29 September – 3 October The Pyrenees 1000 Rally 1000km regularity rally with crews starting and finishing in Pamplona, Spain, but crossing into France for a stint, spending the night in Pau. bespokerallies.com 29 September – 4 October The Derek Bell Tour The Octane columnist leads 20 cars along the French Riviera and through Provence, before heading towards Saint-Tropez…

NOWHERE COULD be more typically England than Yorkshire. Its lush, green landscape is recognised the world over. So it’s strange, then, that a successful family tourist attraction based in this county was originally built to house foreigners who didn’t want to be there. Well, most of them, anyway. Back in 1942, a makeshift camp was erected in fields near Malton. This was to be the home of the first batch of 250 Italian prisoners of war. They seemed to settle well and were generous with their agricultural labours, helping to grow food vital for the country. They were, on the whole, friendly young people and were accepted, if not welcomed. Yorkshire must have seemed like paradise to them after the war-ravaged deserts of North Africa. German PoWs arrived later and, though…

WITH JAGUAR CLASSIC’S Lightweight E-type, XKSS and D-type continuations now completed, the first of a new run of revived C-types has been unveiled. Car ‘zero’ – as seen here – was revealed to the public at the Concours of Elegance. It has just successfully undergone more than 1000 miles of test and development driving, enabling final sign-off for at least eight (and a maximum of 16) production-spec C-type continuations to be produced. They will be priced somewhere between £1,000,000 and £2,000,000 each. This launch marks the 70th anniversary of the C-type’s triumphant debut at the Le Mans 24 Hours, which cemented Jaguar’s place in the top tier of racing for many years. The Continuations will be built to the 1953 Le Mans specifications, with full Dunlop disc braking system and…