Table of contents for April 2020 in Octane

I’VE ONLY EVER owned one four-wheel-drive car. It was a Lancia Delta Integrale 16V – bought when they still had a bit of almost-new rally god kudos, sold in the midst of that bonkers period when you could barely give them away – so I started pretty much at the top. But in many ways the Integrale was also the bottom. For every memory of mind-boggling on-the-road magic and maximum cool points wherever it was parked – except from my then-girlfriend, who insisted on referring to it as ‘the Nova’, because she was an idiot – there was one of equal agony. No fuel gauge in any car I have ever owned (even the Interceptor!) has sprinted from full to empty as quickly, even making allowance for some very spirited…

27 February – 1March Retro Classics Stuttgart Cars, bikes, commercial vehicles and mountains of automobilia fill 140,000m2 of exhibition space in south-west Germany. As ever, ‘Youngtimer’ modern classics will have a notable presence. retro-classics.de 28-29 February Chester Rally Revival Some stages are open only to entrants, but others can see the pre-1999 rally cars in action at Rednal Circuit in Oswestry. rallyrevival.co.uk 5-7 March Winter Race A field of 70 pre-1977 cars, an expertly plotted route through the Dolomites and some of Europe’s most beautiful mountain scenery, plus snow, snow and more snow. winterace.it 5-7 March Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance Following its debut in 2019, ‘the most stylish motoring event in the Southern Hemisphere’ moves to a swanky new venue: Swifts, one of Australia’s grandest homes. sydneyharbourconcours.com 5-8 March Amelia…

MINI MOTORS WANTED FOR TOP CONCOURS One of the world’s leading concours is planning an innovative class for children’s cars. The Concours of Elegance, which takes place at Hampton Court Palace in September, wants owners of appropriate machines to get in touch and is hunting for everything from pre-war pedal cars to modern petrol and electric cars, whether original or replica, new or old. At the event, a parade of the junior concours cars will be followed by a presentation on the main stage on Sunday 6 September, to take place directly after the presentation of the Concours of Elegance Best of Show trophy. Participants will receive a certificate, a goodie bag, a rosette and can attend an owners’ (children’s) and parents’ tea party. There will be a wide range…

NOMINATIONS are open for the pinnacle of the classic car year, the Historic Motoring Awards presented by Octane. Last year’s event at the spectacular Rosewood Hotel in London was a sell-out, with a not a single spare seat in the house and attendees from around the globe including Australia and the USA. All were hopeful of capturing one of the biggest honours in the motoring world across a wealth of categories ranging from Club of the Year to Car of the Year, the latter, uniquely, voted for by Octane readers. And organisers will be pulling out all the stops for this year’s ceremony – back at the Rosewood on 22 October – because it marks the tenth anniversary of this prestigious event. Anyone is free to nominate contenders in any…

Nearly seven years have passed since I passengered with Hannu Mikkola on a closed-road stage in Bariloche, Patagonia, in a Group B works Audi Quattro A2. The drive celebrated 30 years since Mikkola won the 1983 Marlboro Rally Argentina, and his Drivers’ World Rally Championship victory that same year. The Quattro dominated rallying for seven years, one of the most exciting eras in the history of motorsport before it came to a tragic end. Today’s location is a mountain pass in Austria, at Turracher Höhe, famed for its 23% gradients – it’s one of the steepest roads in the whole of Europe – and as the testing ground for Audi’s Ur-Quattro. That’s the road car, launched at the Geneva motor show on 3 March 1980, pretty much 40 years ago…

On the surface, 1975 was not a good year for Porsche at Le Mans. John Wyer continued to exact his revenge for being ousted from Porsche’s racing plans, Ickx and Bell crossing the line first after 24 hours in Wyer’s Gulf-Mirage GR8, Schuppan and Jaussaud third in another Mirage. Wyer’s cars were split by the Ligier JS2 of Lafosse and Chasseuil, similarly Cosworth DFV-powered, which meant there were no Porsche drivers on the podium. The first Stuttgart car home was the Joest 908, by then long in the tooth, followed by a slew of 3.0-litre RSRs to make up the top ten. But that was little more than clubman’s stuff to the top brass. No, 1975 was not a good year at Le Mans for Porsche. Except that, really, it…

ONE STARTLING THING I have noticed on my travels is that there is no positive correlation between the local environment and the beauty it stimulates. If anything, the opposite. Beautiful places do not always foster beautiful things. Cornwall, for instance. Here you find sublime, natural landscape side-by-side with some of the ugliest architecture on Earth. Same goes, I suppose, for Wales. Bentley makes gorgeous cars in Crewe, a benighted town of crushing mediocrity. And, if we are honest, while Modena is a very fine city, Maranello itself is a dump. If all of Italy were like Maranello, you would wonder what the fuss was about. Or take Epernay, the Champagne capital. The home of Moët & Chandon is a grim and cheerless place. But it is Plymouth that, to exploit…

‘SINCE DRIVING A DC2 INTEGRA FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2017, I KNEW THAT THIS WAS A CAR I NEEDED IN MY LIFE’ Got some front 2000 HONDA INTEGRA TYPE R MATTHEW HAYWARD EDITING THE market section of Octane can be hazardous. Relentless temptation comes from scouring auction catalogues, dealer listings and classifieds, and I’m constantly reminded of the cars I’ve missed out on over the years. That Clio V6 I almost bought for £6000 in 2012 would cost closer to £25,000 today. I’ve come close to buying an Integra Type R several times and prices have doubled. Which is why, when I spotted this one, I decided that 2020 would be the year I made it happen. With a little over 110,000 miles it’s been well-used but properly maintained.…

I KNOW I’M supposed to be the watch bloke around here, but before reader Kieron Maughan of Rockstar Cars got in touch in January I’d never heard of the Autorist watch or its unique winding mechanism. Researching the story turned out to be a fascinating horological rabbit-hole featuring early watch technology, a famous Watch World character and a tale well worth the telling. Kieron sent me a few pictures and mentioned he’d bought the watch from a clock shop in Oundle 15 years ago. Dating from the early 1930s, it’s a piece of classic Art Deco watch design. The small rectangular case, silvered guilloche dial and those Deco numerals would be quite at home in the cabin of a Type 57 Bugatti. But it’s not the design that marks the…

1:12 scale 1957 Ferrari 410 Superamerica By VIP Models Price £387.95 Material Resincast There’s an amazing story behind the one-off Scaglietti-bodied Superamerica, chassis 0671 SA, that inspired this model. Created for long-time Ferrari customer Dr Enrico Wax, the Italian importer of Johnnie Walker whisky, the car was stolen in the USA during the 1970s and its body destroyed. The chassis ended up with a farmer in Oregon. Rescued in 1986 by Hollywood TV mogul Greg Garrison, it was taken back to Maranello and rebodied by four of the Scaglietti workers who’d clothed it originally, working under the direction of Sergio Scaglietti himself. So what we have here is actually a replica of a replica, albeit one with impeccable provenance. The remarkable thing about the model is its value for money,…

RÉTROMOBILE REMAINS one of Europe’s best events for attracting an international audience even after more than 40 years, and once again Artcurial dominated the show’s trio of Paris auctions this year. Top seller was a ’65 Ferrari 275 GTB with a great race history – chassis 6785 – which sold for €2,502,800. Artcurial recorded total sales of €23m, selling 70% of all the cars it offered. Competition cars proved the most popular, among which a beautifully original 1966 Porsche 906 reached €1,730,600 and a 1936 Delahaye 135S made €917,800. As seems traditional for the French auction house, two ex-Johnny Hallyday cars were sold. One was the Ford Mustang GT 390 Coupé GR1 that Hallyday raced to second place at Montlhéry in 1967, thought to be the last surviving Écurie Ford…

SOMETIMES IT’S the more obscure racing cars that have the best stories. The EJS Coventry Climax special – subject of a full feature in Octane 87 – was a surprisingly advanced alternative to the Lotuses, Tojeiros and Coopers of the 1950s. Edwin Joseph Snusher spent two years developing it from scratch. His unique design of front suspension combined an upper semi-elliptic leaf spring with a lower helical spring, while the rear used a De Dion axle with two parallel tubes. The EJS showed racing promise at Crystal Palace and Brands Hatch but, as was often the way with racers, the engine and gearbox were later sold and the car was left unloved for 45 years. It was discovered and bought by Sherwood Restorations, which fitted a period-correct Coventry Climax 1100…

IF THERE’S ONE thing you learn as you get older, it’s that there’s no accounting for nostalgia. Trucks might not be glamorous or exciting, but they have been an intrinsic part of US culture and everyday life since the end of World War Two. Even if you weren’t there, that makes old pick-ups very cool. Launched in 1948, Ford’s F-series offered eight different chassis variants, from the small F-1 to the ‘Big Job’ F-7 and F-8. Power came from an in-line six or a V8, both of them flatheads, and all were equipped with manual transmissions. The smaller F-1 and F-2 models proved an instant hit with farmers. The first F-series wasn’t without its shortcomings, but the second generation – the one we would recommend you seek out today –…

MAYBE IT’S SOMETHING in the water, or the lack thereof, but the state of Arizona offers up many classic car sights right out in the open with nary a protective building or rooftop in sight. The desert climate provides an arid environment that inhibits rust, so owners think nothing of keeping classics outdoors. While millions of visitors come to Arizona each year to see a colossal hole in the ground (aka the Grand Canyon), classic-car fans also have plenty to keep them entertained. During a nine-hour, 580-mile road-trip spread out over a few days, they can experience a wealth of seemingly random classic automotive sights, along with Arizona’s beautiful scenery. Start your quest on America’s Mother Road: Route 66. Most people come to Petrified Forest National Park for the magnificent…

ANDREAS MOHRINGER’S 1958 Ferrari 335S Spyder Scaglietti has been officially declared the Peninsula Classics Best of the Best at a glitzy gala ceremony in Paris. The Ferrari qualified for the accolade by taking top honours at the 2019 Cavallino Classic in Florida, one of a raft of key global concours events whose winners automatically go forward for Best of the Best consideration. The finalists were then judged by a panel of experts, including Henry Ford III, Jay Leno and Nick Mason, after which the reveal was made following a star-studded dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Paris. In taking the award, the Ferrari vanquished fierce competition from a 1948 Figoni et Falaschi Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Coupé (winner, Salon Privé 2019), a 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahn-Kurier (Amelia Island), a 1950…

THE PIONEERS It’s hard to imagine a world without four-wheel drive, and in one form or another it has been around since the dawn of motoring. Ferdinand Porsche dabbled with a four-wheel-drive hybrid electric Lohner-Porsche in 1900, but perhaps more influential was the 1903 Spyker 60hp (pictured left) that was powered by an 8.7-litre straight-six. Only one example was built, and it went on to complete the Peking to Paris rally in 1907. We see the Quattro as a pioneer of four-wheel-drive technology in motor sport, but engineers had experimented with the concept over many previous decades. Their ideas led to promising, if often unreliable, outings in F1 during the 1960s and 1970s, but the most successful four-wheel-drive racing pioneer was Harry Miller. He raced four-wheel-drive cars of his own…

Let’s be honest. When the call came from Richard Thorne I was (a) too distracted with hammering the keyboard on another job to really catch what he was saying, and (b) too vain, as the savvy professional motoring journo I am, to admit an almost total bewilderment on the subject of works Rover P6 rally cars. ‘Uh, Richard, bad phone signal. What was that again?’ Knowing me quite well enough to spot the dodge, he simply carried on. ‘We’re selling it for a regular client, it’s from the 1966 Monte Carlo Rally team, and I think it could make rather a good story.’ Indeed, it would lead me into a little-known chapter of the grand old British automaker’s history, and that of an exceptional driver vastly under-appreciated outside his native…

MAYBE IT’S too early to examine such a figure as Junior Johnson. Maybe, this close to his passing, he deserves the grace of obituary, not the parsing of biography. But it isn’t often that an entire generation expires with quite such definition, such a pronounced click, as what we knew and what we were flip to something else. And I think that for many a motorsport-besotted American boomer, especially those of the life I came from – the struggling Appalachian farmers, the Southern rural poor and small-town working class, that one-time core of the NASCAR faithful – the click lands with a gut-wrenching finality. Yet it was a voice entirely alien to this scene that brought Robert Glenn Johnson Junior to the larger world, just as his driving career was…

Book of the month RUF BART LENAERTS & LIES DE MOL, Waft publishing, €280 from waft.be You’ll know the Yellowbird, obviously, otherwise known as the CTR (‘Group C Turbo, Ruf’). Twenty-nine scratch-built by Alois Ruf between 1987 and 1996, all based on G-series 3.2 Carreras (lighter and more aerodynamic than Porsche’s own 930 Turbo), then fitted with lighter aluminium panels, low-drag aero, and – most importantly – a 3.4-litre twin-turbo version of the Carrera engine and Ruf’s own five-speed transmission. An instant legend. But did you know how far back Ruf Porsches date? Or the sheer variety of them? Or the fact that they’re not all turbo-nutter wheels for speed freaks? Yellowbird and friends is one volume of this large-format slipcased pairing, and we’ll return to its contents shortly: it’s…

DAVE KINNEY’S CAR OF THE MONTH WHILE EVEN YOUR grandma is likely to know what a 300SL Gullwing is, it takes a much more discerning collector to know and understand the other sporting 300 models such as this 300SC. It was a late-1955, fuel-injected update to the 300S and the first Mercedes with Hydrovac power brakes. The six-cylinder engine with Bosch direct fuel injection had an 8.55.1 compression ratio and developed a claimed 175bhp. Production of the 300SC was over by early 1958 after just 200 cars, all hand-built, of which 98 were coupés, 53 were roadsters and 49 were cabriolets. This black with black leather example, coming out of 40-plus years with a single owner, was previously owned by a factory-trained marque specialist who continued to care for the…

Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, 3000 square miles of mountainous paradise with incredibly complicated istory and a population of fewer than half a million, set like a diamond in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. Corsica, also home of some of the most thrilling and spectacular driving roads not only in Europe, but the whole world. Why? Well, the island may be barely 100 miles long and 50 wide, but squeezed into that landmass are more than 120 peaks of over 2000m (for reference, Ben Nevis is 1345m above sea level). In fact, two-thirds of the island is mountainous and 20% of it is forest, the natural habitats of rallying. And while this topography obviously dictates much up and down and twisty – it is quipped by locals that the…

IT’S FAIR TO SAY that Rally the Globe has had a meteor-like impact on the world of Historic rallying. AsGreat Escapes went to print, the not-for-profit company harnessing the experience of some of the most well-travelled and well-versed people in the industry (for example, rally director and five-times World Rally Championship winning co-driver Fred Gallagher) had completed just one event, the Classic Iberia. Yet that ten-day rally from Santander to Vilamoura via Rioja, Porto and Cascais had been hailed a huge success, with over 30 crews ranging from Gavin and Diana Henderson’s Bentley 3/4½ to Andrew Laing and Ian Milne’s 1974 Datsun 240Z taking part. The next Rally the Globe events on the 2020 calendar are the 3600km Southern Cross Safari through Kenya and Tanzania (15 February to 5 March)…

THIS ODYSSEY IS RUN by one of the most experienced teams in the business: Rally Round’s events certainly don’t lack ambition, even for those after a challenge. Bhutan, New Zealand, Japan and Tibet have all been visited and traversed by the company, which follows the mantra that vintage and classic rallying should be exciting and enjoyable rather than just a test of endurance. Now it’s breaking new ground in setting up the first British rally to visit Ethiopia, in the horn of Africa. The Ethiopian Adventure, taking place in November 2021, is the latest rally to be launched and another first for a UK organiser. It boasts a spectacular route that incorporates the Blue Nile, the castles in Gondar, the Simien Mountains, and Lake Tana to name a few. Rally…

THE MIDLAND Automobile Club will be pushing the boat out this year to mark the tenth running of its Classic Nostalgia festival at Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb on 20-21 June. The hillclimb’s annual flagship classic event is a firm favourite on the competition calendar, combining non-stop action on the famous hill, plus spectacular themed vehicle displays, celebrity drivers, parades, visiting car clubs, trade stands and live bands. This year Classic Nostalgia will celebrate the Swinging Sixties via the decade’s seachange in popular music, fashion, technology and, of course, its welter of iconically cool cars. The weekend will feature a mouthwatering display of legendary 1960s historic race cars, as well as demos, motor racing legends, a themed racing class, Group B rally cars and a special Made in Britain display. The…

Rétromobile 5-9 February The growth of the commercial side of this Paris event continues unabated – virtually all A-list dealers now show there – but it has still retained an essence of the weird and wonderful that made it such a chic must-do showpiece under the guidance of the late Marc Nicolosi and François Melcion. Visitors just have to work a little harder to find the gems than they did in 1976. Star displays in 2020 included a magnificent range of Tatras, from 1897 Präsident replica to 1998 700 – in the aerial walkway (ie, the corridor) between halls that nowadays regularly offers a show highlight – plus a wealth of tractors, and bonkers ASI-Bertone concepts from Volvo Tundra (the inspiration for the Citroën BX) to Lamborghini Genesis V12 people-carrier…

THE CAR LED TO the business, the business enhances the car. Richard Rimmer bought this 1925 Tourer from the US 12 years ago, which led the rocket instrumentation engineer to work on Model Ts and start his own business, with an MoD mentality for work standards. Mostly, it’s just because he likes the car. ‘I’d sold my house to buy a 964 RS, which I still own, and I’d started on Beetles, but you get to an age when you want an old car. Austin Sevens were a bit small, so I wanted something bigger. I’d imagined that Ts were £30,000 or so, but then I discovered they were affordable. ‘Model T Haven in Kansas has about two acres of junk and cars for sale. This one was restored in…

THANKS FOR an excellent cover feature in Octane 201 comparing the 1960s E-type and the 911, including some exceptionally good photography. And a great issue too, seemingly tailored to my personal ’50s/’60s nostalgia, with references to Bayko model buildings, the Eagle comic, Timex watches and the Sharknose Ferraris. Steeped in the national pride commonly felt in the 1950s and early ’60s, as an 11-year-old petrolhead I was thrilled by the E-type on its launch. But, six years later, the second car I drove after passing my test was a 356, and that was even more of a motoring lifetime high point. I have since lived alongside the development of the 356’s successor and been astounded to see that the 911 has mostly managed to retain the purity of its original…

While the cognoscenti dribble over GTOs and Testa Rossas, it seems that one of the prettiest, most glorious and most honoured of all Ferraris is destined to languish in their shadows. One has to wonder how such a fate has befallen majestic cars that clearly deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those titans, yet never are. Seriously, how could you not go weak-kneed at the thought of a Ferrari 750 Monza? Of course, it’s well-known that Ferrari fans have always struggled when the Maranello marque strays from its V12 heartland (they still do), but that is no reason for the spectacular four-cylinder sports racers that burst onto the scene in the 1950s to be quite so under-appreciated. Aurelio Lampredi’s engine may not have the resonance, power or…

Aston Martin versus Bugatti: the Definitive Showdown. That could be the taster line for an ultimate hypercar face-off, Aston Martin Valkyrie head-to-head with Bugatti Chiron. Later, perhaps. But not now, and certainly not 95 years ago. That’s when the same two marques locked horns – so many fast-car magazine clichés, must rein them in – at the Aston Clinton hillclimb, from which Lionel Martin took the first part of his sports-car company’s name. And that is where we are today, with the actual Aston that came second in the Herts Automobile and Aero Club’s 1924 hillclimb (even though the hill is in Bucks, just). Lionel Martin’s own Cloverleaf model, so named for its two-plus-one seating arrangement, won the day but survived no more than another decade. The similar car bought…

Should you need a reminder of how unprepared Europe was for the horrors of trench warfare in World War One, take a look at the tyres on this 1911 De Dion lorry. They are solid rubber, narrow as razor blades and devoid of tread. Even on a good tarmac surface their grip is minimal; they would have been worse than useless in the muddy battlefields of the Western Front. Yet this particular lorry must have seen some pretty dreadful conditions in 1914-1918. It was sold to the French Army and is believed to have been used as a supply truck between its home base of Troyes and the frontline at Verdun. Even if it didn’t venture as far as the Front itself – there was a staging post at Bar-le-Duc,…

‘FOR MANY THE 50p WAS A STEP TOO FAR, HERALDING SURRENDER TO METRICIST ENEMIES ACROSS THE CHANNEL’ IT TOOK several thousand years of coin-minting before anyone struck one with seven sides. There had been round coins, square coins, triangular coins, twelve-sided coins, coins with holes in and coins that looked much like a partly chewed Pontefract cake, but it was not until October 1969 that the heptagon coin arrived – and it was British. It was no ordinary seven-sided shape at that, being an equilateral-curve heptagon based on Reuleaux polygons that, despite its ‘pointy bits’, produced a shape of constant width – think of the rotor in a Wankel engine. This was not a mathematical phenomenon familiar to the Royal Mint until it was brought to its attention by Hugh…

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DAVID GOODING always said that it would take ‘an exceptional group of cars’ for his auction house to hold a sale outside the USA. And that is exactly what we have here. Gooding & Company will hold a one-off auction at the prestigious Somerset House in London on 1 April, offering 16 extremely special cars all taken from a single collection. British cars are a dominant theme, leading with an Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, a DB3S and a pre-war Ulster. Among the Bentley contingent is an R-Type Continental Fastback, a 4¼ Litre Cabriolet and a 3 Litre Speed Model Sports Tourer, while the Vauxhall 30-98 OE-Type Wensum and the Rolls-Royce 40/50hp Silver Ghost Alpine Eagle Tourer remain two of the greatest pre-war British cars ever built. No collection of…

IS THERE ANYTHING cooler? This epic fleet of Martini-liveried Lancias race and rally cars is one of the most impressive collections of its kind, and it belongs to entrepreneur and racing driver John Campion. Octane first featured Campion and his Lancias back in 2017, shortly after the Delta S4 Corsa took best-in-show at Amelia Island. It’s hard to know where to start with these six cars, but the 1988 Lancia Delta HF Integrale 8V Group A is arguably the most significant. This is the works Martini in which Miki Biasion won both the Rallye de Portugal and the Olympus Rally in 1988, his Championship-winning year. It amassed 36 stage victories, too. There are two Group B Lancias: a Delta S4 Corsa and the earlier 037 Rally Evo 2. The S4…

WITH MOST of the world seemingly conquered, the only real challenges left are in how you go about reconquering it. And in a time when even its most inhospitable corners are regularly visited by Historic endurance rallies – to the point that in some places the sight of a vintage Bentley or Grand Prix Itala speeding through in a cloud of dust must be nearly as frequent as that of any modern – even that is hardly groundbreaking. So, what to do to keep things fresh, intriguing and, well, challenging? The Adventurists decided the answer was to downsize and go back to basics. With a mission statement to ‘make life less boring’ they realised that toughness is all relative: if the tools and equipment are available that make something comparatively…

HERO’S BIENNIAL Scottish Malts Classic Regularity sets off for the 17th time on 20 April. The five-day event, known universally as ‘The Malts’, is considered by many to be the premier event north of the border, with an enviable social side that keeps competitors coming back year after (every other) year. Setting off on 20 April, this year’s event will start and finish at the world famous Gleneagles Hotel and the route will include two nights on the breathtaking Isle of Mull – second-largest of the Inner Hebrides and destination for many a sixth form geology fieldtrip – and another two in the renowned ski resort of Aviemore. During almost 1000 miles of driving, crews will also drive through some of the Highlands’ most spectacular scenery, see both Loch Lomond…