Octane içinde September 2017 için içindekiler tablosu

IT’S BEEN 25 YEARS since Nigel Mansell’s 1992 British Grand Prix victory at Silverstone, which triggered a famous track invasion and spawned the term ‘Mansell mania’. Mansell then claimed the Drivers’ World Championship, and the Williams team the Constructors’ title. It’s also 40 years since Sir Frank Williams founded his eponymous Formula 1 team, one of the most successful of all time. And it’s a joint anniversary that will be celebrated at this year’s Silverstone Classic (28-30 July). There will be a static display of Mansell’s World Championship-winning Williams-Renault FW14B, as well as some full-volume demonstration laps during the lunchbreaks on the Saturday and Sunday. Other Williams Grand Prix cars will be in action during two FIA Masters Historic Formula 1 Race Series rounds, while Williams-developed BTCC Renault Lagunas will…

TV’S ANT ANSTEAD, most recently of Wheeler Dealers and For the Love of Cars fame, has unveiled his latest car project. The new GT, still awaiting an official name, uses Corvette LS3 running gear on a custom-built chassis, all clothed in a glassfibre body made in-house at Anstead’s Hertfordshire-based company Dowsetts Classic Cars. One car has now been completed, and already sold, and there are two more in build. One of those has been pre-sold; the other is designed to be electric-powered and destined for the USA. ‘This is not just another glassfibre car,’ says Dowsetts workshop manager Stewart Imber. ‘There’s a lot of passion in this, and they can be built to the customer’s specification, with air-con, for road, for track – whatever is wanted.’ Each car will sell…

AS PAUL CHUDECKI observed when he drove it for Octane in 2013, Old Nail is the ultimate racing development of a non-silhouette Firenza and the car that forced people to re-evaluate Vauxhall’s straight-laced post-war image. While Baby Bertha is the car forever associated with the great Gerry Marshall, this one, its predecessor, had many more race wins – reckoned to be 59, plus four saloon championships, the last with Bill Dryden in 1975. Remarkably, it has survived in its last-raced form, due to being on static display for most of the time since, in the Vauxhall Heritage and Donington Park museums. Old Nail was first raced as the flat-front ‘Thames TV’ Firenza in 1971 and, bearing in mind that a collective of dealers was funding the team, grew the droop-snoot…

‘THE TEMPTATION TO PUT ON A SHOW COMPETES WITH THE NEED TO PRESERVE IRREPLACEABLE MACHINERY’ EVERY JUNE there’s a Goodwood Festival of Speed. It could so easily become, to an uninformed eye, a re-run of the same stuff, but it miraculously manages every year to be anything but. The anniversaries always help, of course. We’re standing on the left side of Goodwood House, and suddenly ropes cordon off the spur from the hill course to the circle on the house’s forecourt. If you’re planning to walk from one end of the Goodwood garden to the other, perhaps from the Cartier Style et Luxe (special-bodied Astons and Fiat 500s, rare Ferrari 250 interpretations and more) to the historic competition cars paddock, you’ll just have to wait. Because a phalanx of Ferraris…

28-30 July Silverstone Classic ‘Rocking and racing’ are both on the menu again in 2017. This huge gathering (over 1000 cars will line up on the track) allows visitors to watch cars racing into the dusk as bands play; this year’s musical acts include The Bootleg Beatles. silverstoneclassic.com 28-30 July Concours d’Elegance of America Three days of events at the Inn at St John’s in Plymouth, including a Cars and Coffee meeting, culminating in the Concours itself. concoursusa.org 28-30 July CarFest North The ever-popular charity event organised by Chris Evans returns to the 6500-acre estate of Bolesworth Castle in Cheshire. carfest.org 4-6 August Classic Days Schloss Dyck The ‘German Goodwood’ is held at the picture-perfect castle Schloss Dyck, just outside Cologne, and makes room for ‘youngtimers’ as well as top-notch…

AT CHANTILLY Arts & Elegance Richard Mille, the very values and striving for excellence that created the great cars are celebrated alongside the automobiles themselves. The French Ministry for Culture recognises this fusion of values and will be supporting the event for the third year running. There will be workshops and demonstrations of decorative arts such as millinery, flower arranging, table arts and gastronomy – that last one being something the French do so well. There will be works of art and modern sculptures (alongside the stone hounds and stags of the château), and there will be a general celebration of the arts de vivre – that somehow serious yet light-hearted discipline of enjoying and refining all the things that make life worth living. The celebration begins with you: Chantilly…

Considering Richard Mille’s personal passion for motor sport, it’s no surprise that the watches he and his team create are inspired by extreme conditions, offering high performance in any circumstance. Durability, exact tolerances, and efficient energy transfer, along with aerospace materials, components and technologies, are recurring themes. The latest additions to the range – the RM 11-03 (flyback chronograph) and the RM 50-03 (tourbillon split-second chronograph) – take the technology a stage further. The RM 11-03 is a refresh of an RM stalwart. The now-iconic tonneau shape with curved bezel remains, but, behind the glass, the maker has gone for yet more extreme ‘skeletonisation’ of the movement with a lightening of all bridges and movement parts to show off better the workings of the watch. Motor sport references are there…

YOU MIGHT BE thinking this new Bentley is another weighty boulevardier, perhaps boasting ludicrous power, but still essentially that same brutish, loveable yet flawed rogue that has done so much for the marque over the last 14 years. Giventhetacked-ondisguiseofthisdevelopment car, which apes the hunched look of the current GT, that’s understandable. In fact, this is an all-new, leaner, sleeker car underneath. ‘Luxury and performance’ is engineering chief Rolf Frech’s view of what constitutes a Bentley. The former is maintained, the latter dramatically increased – the improvement facilitated by the fact that this new car is based on VW’s MSB platform, first used by the new Porsche Panamera (but with 200mm chopped from the wheelbase). Catch the new GT in profile and you’ll see that the front wheels have been pushed…

‘IT’S EASY TO MONSTER EVERY CHANGE, THE ’BOX SELECTING WITH A SATISFYING CLACK’ This is absolutely not rallying country. It’s not San Morini, Monte Carlo or even Kielder. This is Florida. And the locals’ jaws are collectively dropping as their ears are assaulted with a blast of pure Lancia. This is absolutely one of the best days I’ve ever had with cars and car enthusiasts. So we’re with Irish-born Florida resident John Campion, a go-getting rally nut whose formative years were spent spectating on the infamous rally stages of Killarney, Ireland. The cars we’ve chosen from his collection – and you’ll see the full extent of the choice a few pages on – were the 1988 World Rally Championship-winning Delta Integrale, 1983 Group B 037 and 1981 Le Mans class-winning…

 There’s a wartime story concerning this remarkable Rolls-Royce Phantom III that bears repeating. Its long-term chauffeur Percy Parker was flagged down by a policeman in London’s East End and accused of exceeding the speed limit. The constable was reaching for his notebook when the rear window was wound down and a Kansan voice sharply informed the policeman: ‘Nobody ever won a war at 30mph.’ It was Five-Star General Dwight D Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Europe, for once not being driven by the delicious Kay Summersby. Suitably chastised, the constable waved the Phantom on its way. Eisenhower was not to be this Rolls-Royce’s only famous wartime associate. ‘This Phantom III had a body like no other. Tests showed that wind resistance was reduced by 15%’ The Mulliner-bodied Phantom…

IT SITS LONG, low, menacing but silent, this Bristol-Siddeley Proteus gas-turbine engine slung between the four giant, thin-tyred, shrouded wheels that transmit its 4100 shaft-horsepower. Readers of a certain age will remember the Corgi model of Donald Campbell’s CN7 – Campbell Norris 7, Ken Norris being the designer – with its slippery body built by Motor Panels of Coventry. The model lacked the tailfin, and represented the machine as driven at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1960 with crossed British and US flags on the nose (although the models sometimes had a pair of Union flags). This run ended in disaster as a gust of wind tipped CN7 into a somersault. Campbell’s team rebuilt the Bluebird in time for another attempt in 1962, this time at Lake Eyre in South…

 EARLIER THIS YEAR Monopoly traditionalists were dismayed after three of the game’s tokens were replaced. Selected from a list of 64 contenders by an online vote, the results proved divisive and puzzling. Out are such favourites as the boot, the wheelbarrow and the thimble, replaced by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a daffy-looking duck and a penguin. ‘IN A TIME OF FINANCIAL UNCERTAINTY, PLAYERS COULD ENJOY THE ILLUSION OF BEING PROPERTY MILLIONAIRES WITHOUT RISKING A CENT’ Despite the apparently benign nature of the world’s most popular board game, controversy is not new to Monopoly, litigation for plagiarism commencing shortly after its introduction. Charles Darrow was a domestic heater salesman in Philadelphia when, in 1933 and down on his luck, he decided to produce his own version of a ‘homemade’ board game that…

Mille Miglia Portraits LEONARDO ACERBI, Giorgio Nada Editore, £60, ISBN 978 88 7911 673 2 With room here for only a few lines of copy, there is no hope of doing justice to a book that contains hundreds of pictures of the Mille Miglia, many of them worth more than the proverbial 1000 words. Most are drawn from the archive of the late Alberto Sorlini, the official photographer of the Mille Miglia between 1947 and 1957. His shots are complemented by a selection of pre-war pictures from other snappers, making this a complete photographic history of the world’s most famous road race. Somewhat disorientatingly the pictures jump backwards and forwards through time, but their impact is not lessened. Page after page of narrow, crowd-lined roads, battered cars and blackened faces:…

When we last reviewed the HAGI Top at the end of February it had inched to a new high of 346.61. However, with four months of losses, its half-year standing at the end of June has dropped back to 331.12, placing the Top where it was in September 2016. In plain terms it’s down 4.30% year-to-date. Make no mistake, this is not a short-term fluctuation, but a correction that reflects the wider reality of the investment-grade classic car market in a post-bull-market world. This is confirmed by the fact that, on their very different trajectories from inception in 2008 to today, the HAGI Top, Porsche and Ferrari indices have all once more converged to within a fag paper of one another. Moreover, all three measures are down year-to-date. Since the…

BONHAMS WAS YET to complete the catalogue for its Quail Lodge sale as this issue of Octane went to press, but it’s difficult to imagine that between then and now anyone has consigned a more desirable or historic car than the Jaguar E-type Lightweight that raced at Le Mans in 1963 in the blue-and-white livery of the great Briggs Cunningham. One of three E-type Lightweights entered for the event by Cunningham, chassis S850664 carried number 14 and was assigned to drivers Walter Hansgen and Augie Pabst. It managed only eight laps before the gearbox broke. Of the other two entries, number 16, driven by Roy Salvadori and Paul Richards, pulled out after 40 laps, while the number 15 car, driven by Cunningham himself and Bob Grossman, achieved a very respectable…

EARLY SEPTEMBER is a good time for a concours. The temperature and the light are just right for a classic car tour, a picnic, a garden party and for coming to see a world-class selection of the greatest cars ever made from the finest collectors and most ardent enthusiasts. And the days are still long enough to take it all in. Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille is never about only the metal, nor exclusively about one period of automotive history. It’s an event for connoisseurs and aesthetes of all kinds, encompassing the sum of the passions – the art de vivre – that drive us to build such awe-inspiring machines, to paint, draw, design clothes and to harvest and taste the fruits of the world, to experience and celebrate…

AS A DIRECT replacement for the mighty, arguably more beautiful F12, the Superfast has a very big mountain to climb. The F12, after all, was one of the great front-engined, rear-drive sports cars of all time, and when it appeared in 2012 it was hard to believe that Ferrari would ever go one better. Yet here we are, just five years later, and the new £253,004, 211mph 812 Superfast is upon us, boasting an incredible 789bhp from its ‘75% new’ 6.5-litre V12 engine and a raft of new electronic tricks up its sleeve – plus a controversial new look, clearly influenced by its plentiful aerodynamic upgrades. The engine and gearbox still lie at the heart of the car, the V12 having swollen to 6.5 litres so that it produces more…

ONE THING BECOMES clear while slinging the $30,000 Vanderhall Venice through the jagged canyons of Angeles Crest Highway: if this quirky three-wheeler loses its footing in a high-speed corner, my passenger and I will be dashed to bits. So I’m counting on you, Continental ExtremeContact Sport DWs, pushrod suspension links, electric steering components and every small batch-built bit I can shake my Persols at. With the original Morgan three-wheeler dating back to 1909, the so-called backwards trike layout is nothing new. But Utah-based Vanderhall is eking out a slice of this nichey pie by offering a unique combination of retro style and greater drivability. The package includes a tiny windscreen, a nostalgic analogue dashboard and comforts such as a heater, ventilation and heated seats. Though the seats don’t recline (Vanderhall…

 As the Mini Remastered drew gasps with its £100k price tag, a long-time Mini specialist quietly released the first of its new-build improved Minis. It’s not deseamed, has no air-con or touchscreen ’nav, and looks like an old-school Mini because it is. But it doesn’t have a standard engine. Inspired by the FIA-spec competition mounts that Swiftune builds and races (since 1965!), the idea was to provide a brand-new car superior to a Cooper S – but at less than a Cooper S price. It’s called the Madgwick after the famous corner at Goodwood, where its builders’ engines have claimed many successes. ‘IT PULLS A CONSISTENT 108MPH AT THE END OF LAVANT – ALL WITHOUT WRINGING ITS NECK’ This car, created from a standard 1965 saloon, isn’t radically modified past…

IN PARIS, SPRING was in the air on 21 March 1942. It was a welcome relief. For the French, that winter had been one of the coldest in living memory. But the frost was losing its grip and the pale tips of Easter lilies poked timidly out of the soil. In cafés and brasseries, life went on as people were at a loss to decide which winter garment to remove as they soaked up the sun and warmed their hearts with news that the tides of war finally seemed to be turning. Meanwhile, at the Mont-Valérien prison outside the city, winter remained in the hearts of prisoners and guards alike. That morning, the condemned had been removed from their cells and transported to the place of execution, as the firing…

I MAKE NO APOLOGIES for admitting that I bought this Range Rover because of its colour. OK, I also bought it because it was used on the international press launch in August 1994, and so has some historical value (I hope). But mainly because of the colour. The strange thing is that, like a lot of people, I hated the look of the second-generation Range Rover when it first appeared. I thought it looked bland, like a Metrocab London taxi of the late-80s. But my feelings have mellowed over time, and I now think its shape has aged remarkably well. I sense that wider public opinion is changing, too. The P38’s time may not have fully arrived yet, but it’s definitely on the way. Now is probably the last opportunity…

OBVIOUSLY here at Octane we’d always advise that a potential purchase should be inspected by a marque expert. Obviously I know plenty such experts. Obviously I bought my Porsche 996 without consulting any of them. So, I did the next best thing, and took my car to the experts after buying it. Who to go to? I’d heard lots of good reports about RPM Technik, particularly from 911-owning friends and colleagues Nick Trott and Adam Towler, and to seal the deal I realised they’re based round the corner from an old college friend near Tring. Perfect! So I took a deep breath and handed it to RPM Technik technical director and Porsche addict Ollie Preston, initially for him to test drive it, then to inspect it on the ramps. In…

WHEN SEX WAS SAFE AND MOTOR RACING BLOODY DANGEROUS Unique & Limited produces mesmerising, super-detailed images of memorable moments in motorsport history using a blend of photography and CGI. When Sex Was Safe and Motor Racing Bloody Dangerous is a compilation of 21 of the company’s artworks based on racing in the 1930s. Each is accompanied by the story behind the image, plus profiles of the drivers and the cars. The beauty of the way the artworks are created is that they can show events from angles that no in-period photographer could possibly have achieved – from the middle of the track, for instance – yet still appear convincingly realistic. $65.00. automobilist.com BMW CSL PRINT BY GUY ALLEN When in 1975 French racing driver Hervé Poulain commissioned American artist Alexander…

Few things get a room full of excitable bidders going like a good story, and this Porsche 356A Speedster, for sale for the first time since it left the factory in 1958, has a great tale to tell. Bought new by US Air Force lieutenant Robert Dewey when he was based in Germany with his wife, Nina, it was the third and last Porsche he owned. Dewey took the car with him when he returned to America and used it to commute to work for the next two decades. Affectionately known as ‘the Red Raider II’ by the Deweys, it remained in continuous use while they raised a son and daughter, travelling with the family to postings at air bases around the US. After retiring to Florida, Dewey commissioned Porsche…

ANYONE WHO READ Robert Coucher’s account of his arduous ‘Lads that Lunch’ assignment in Octane issue 170 might already be planning a trip to Martin Chisholm’s Classic Motor Hub in Bibury, Gloucestershire. And there’s now a very good reason for Aston Martin fans to go there sooner rather than later, because Hub-based Cotswold Collectors Cars is offering for sale this 1927 1½ Litre model, which is as historically important as it is lovely looking. Research has revealed the car, chassis S4, to have been the fourth built by Aston Martin Motors following its formation in 1926 and was its first short, sporting model. Furthermore, it was the actual unfinished prototype displayed at the 1927 motor show and is believed to be the earliest surviving Aston from the Bert Bertelli era.…

FROM THE EARLY days of the Mini-Cooper, Lancia Fulvia and Alfasud, the world began to accept that front-wheel drive had its place in competition, while the more hard-edged hot hatches of the 1980s moved the game on – bringing fun and a genuine alternative to the traditional sports car. The Integra Type R was one of the first genuinely hardcore front-wheel-drive cars when it was launched in 1996, but it wasn’t just about being fast. Here was a car that could involve a driver in the same way as a BMW M car or RS Porsche: stripped and honed for the track, but involving and hugely capable on the road. In today’s age of turbocharged engines, super-wide low-profile tyres and electric power steering, the Integra remains a unique proposition. It…

Vanwall #VW7 Built from original parts on a new chassis. Original engine, transmission etc. Currently in “short nose” Monaco configuration.. 1956 Leyland Royal Tiger Vanwall Formula 1 Transporter Supplied to Vandervell Products and used by their Vanwall GP Team. 2 owners since. Recently restored at great expense to an exceptionally high standard. 1958 BRM P25 Formula 1 Driven by Jo Bonnier to BRM’s first Grand Prix victory at the 1959 Dutch GP. Retained by Rubery Owen until 1981. Original magnesium bodywork. A regular winner in historic racing. 1977 McLaren M23 Chassis #012 Arguably the most original of all M23s. A well known car which has been raced and cherished by 2 long term owners. Fitted with a fresh DFV engine. A rare chance to own one of the greatest of…

WHILE THE SECTION of the old Brooklands circuit under the stewardship of the Brooklands Museum is in fine fettle, many other parts are in such poor condition that Historic England has placed them on its ‘Heritage at Risk’ register. They will now be protected. In an effort to arrest the decline, Historic England has joined forces with Brooklands Museum, Elmbridge Borough Council and Surrey Council and hosted an event to explore ways of safeguarding those parts of the track within the boundaries of private and business properties, as well as those on wasteland. The event, held on 6 July – and which also celebrated the 110th anniversary of the first race at Brooklands – brought together owners and tenants with a responsibility for a piece of the historic site, to…

in association with…

AS WE SET off from Seville’s majestic Plaza de España to embark on a three-day journey through Andalusia’s most beautiful scenery, this inaugural Sotogrande Grand Prix instantly revealed its potential. The event, named after the seaside golf resort close to Gibraltar where it ended, was the first Spanish event by the organisers of the Zoute Grand Prix, and took the familiar form of a classic car rally with a modern GT line-up. ‘We had no problem filling a 100-car field for this first outing,’ said Filip Bourgoo. The field included early-1950s sports cars such as the Ermini Sport 100 BLT Barchetta and an Osca S 187 750 alongside E-types, Healeys, MGs and Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadsters. But the most popular choice for coping with the near-40ºC heat was the Porsche…

IN ONLY four years, Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille has become a high-profile event on the car/culture scene, so you need to book early – especially on the accommodation side. Alternatively, if you’re driving your classic to the pageant, it might be worth looking for a last-minute spot on a tour. If you’re doing it yourself, tickets can be booked through www.chantillyartsetelegance.com (click on the ‘tickets’ tab). General admission and car parking remain at €35 for early bookings, but rises to €50 when booked from 1 August or bought on the day. This ticket also allows access to all of Chantilly’s further attractions, including the château itself, the imposing Museum of the Horse, the riding displays and the art exhibitions. For an extra €290 or €350, including entry tickets,…

PORSCHE BILLS the new Panamera Sport Turismo as a ‘4+1’. An improvement over the regular Panamera’s four seats, yes, but that ‘plus one’ had better be small. Very small. They shouldn’t bring along too much luggage, either, as the Sport Turismo’s boot swells by a scant 25 litres with those rear seats in place, and only 127 litres more with them flat on the floor. A more practical Panamera, then? Undeniably, but only fractionally. From the company that designed and engineered the Zafira MPV for Vauxhall, we might have expected a little more in terms of practicality. Nonetheless, while the Porsche Panamera has really grown into its skin in its second incarnation, the Sport Turismo makes it truly beautiful. The lengthened roof does wonders for its proportions. This is a…

NEVER MIND THE suit. Lotus boss Jean-Marc Gales is on his knees, pointing out the Rimstock alloy wheels, forged to be as light as possible. You’ll struggle to find a more bantamweight road car rim, he says. Check the AP Racing two-piece brake discs behind, he implores, before giving an impromptu masterclass on how the technology works. He’s barely dusted off his trousers before he’s back down enthusing over the carbonfibre front splitter, then dashing round to the rear wing: ‘200kg of downforce at 175mph!’ he shouts. Gales’s enthusiasm for Lotus is infectious. And apt, given it’s to be bought by Geely, the Chinese giant that’s done amazing things for Volvo. For now, Gales’s outlet is the new Exige Cup 380, the road-legal track special he’s relishing. Lotus’s 911 GT3…

I WAS SORRY to hear about Sir John Whitmore (Octane 169). His passing coincided with my coming across a couple of photographs I had taken of a certain pea-green Mini in the autumn of 1961. I spotted a racing Mini, TMO 840, one Sunday morning outside Emmanuel Church in South Croydon. As a follower of motor racing even then (I was 15), I realised it was John’s British Saloon Car Championship-winning, Don Moore-prepared Mini of that year. I just had to find out who it belonged to. It turned out to be owned by our curate David Gibson, nephew of the well-known WW2 bomber pilot of the same name. David offered to take me for a spin – or rather a blast – around the quiet suburbs of Croydon: wow!…

Just about everyone says so. And as we all know by rote, when the car broke cover at the Geneva motor show in March 1961, it caused a furore. If you believe all that has been written since then, onlookers expressed their admiration with cheers, whistles and deafening applause. Scroll forward a decade, however, and it was a different story. Perceived wisdom tells us that the tides had by then ebbed from the high-water mark of the Series 1 classic. By the time the last V12 edition rolled off the production line in 1974, the E-type was no longer cool – it was an anachronism that had clearly lived beyond its natural lifespan. But norms shift, and surely few would argue that the car pictured here is not fashionable in…

 750 HORSEPOWER. Let’s begin there. Chew on that number and say it a few times slowly. ‘THE MASSIVE WHEELS JUST TUCK INTO THOSE VOLUPTUOUS WINGS’ Everyone identifies tough-talking Texan ex-racer (and Le Mans-winner) Carroll Shelby as the conceptual creator of the Ferrari-beating Shelby Cobra. And then he turned the original Ford Mustang ‘from a mule into a racehorse’ (his words). Shelby Mustang and Cobra production wrapped up at the end of the 1960s and, following a car-building dalliance with Chrysler, Shelby Automobiles got back together with Ford in 2005 to continue a line of modified, pumped-up Mustangs. Some, like the current GT350, were built and developed in-house by Ford Performance. Others were designed, developed and produced by what has once again become Shelby American, now in Las Vegas, Nevada. The…

Swiftune, based near Ashford in Kent, has been building and racing Minis for more than half a century. Glyn Swift started the company in 1965 and son Nick took over in 1995, leaving dad to concentrate on what he liked best – creating great cars. Swiftune engines have powered just about every winning Mini at Goodwood, taking the top three places in the all-Mini race in 2009 and the top four in 2015, and Nick himself has won there three times driving his own cars. Glyn built this car for historic racer Mike Waller, and had started the construction of the next two Mini Madgwicks, but passed away only days before we photographed it at Goodwood. ‘Glyn, Nick and I had been talking for a while about doing something because…

WE LOVE OLD-SCHOOL technology in our old-car world, a world mostly centred on an era unvisited by digital electronics. Calculations were analogue, three-dimensional shapes were produced and measured physically and not always accurately. Two worlds, then and now. The heart says they should stay as separate as possible. But maybe the heart is shooting the messenger, for technology should do only what we want it to do. The pictures you see before you show worlds not colliding, but meshing. What is happening is that an icon – yes, why not use that word here? – of the early 1960s, as shapely a construction as can be imagined, is being digitally scanned in such detail and to such accuracy that the icon can be recreated to dimensional perfection. Should the National…

‘BY THE 1920S, ISOTTA FRASCHINI WAS ONE OF THE MOST ADVANCED CARMAKERS IN THE WORLD’ Back in January 1900, when Cesare Isotta and the Fraschini brothers Oreste, Antonio and Vincenzo founded their new company, they never imagined they were creating what would become one of the most legendary marques in history. Società Milanese d’Automobili Isotta Fraschini made cars that were dreamed about by royalty, actors and industrialists all over the world. There is a link between Isotta Fraschini, Alfa Romeo and, as Alfa Romeo’s racing chief, Enzo Ferrari, and that’s the city of Milan. Famous today for its business and the fashion, it has almost completely disappeared from the automotive map. Yet it was the first Italian city in the development of the car movement. Darracq, Peugeot and Citroën had…

ONE OF THE reasons I bought my Alfa was so the whole family could enjoy it. Now that it’s back in the UK, the first job was to have seatbelts fitted, both in the front and, more importantly, the back, so that my sons (seven and nine) can travel in their car seats. Quickfit Safety Belt Service, this year celebrating 55 years in the business, is based in Middlesex. They were recomended by a few people I knew who had used them for their classic cars. Sales manager Pawel helped me decide on the best belts for my car: it would have to be inertia-reel type in the rear for the boys, and I decided to go for those in the front too, opting for comfort and security over period…

‘THE FOUR-TIME LE MANS WINNER TOOK THREE WINS EACH AT SEBRING, THE TARGA FLORIO AND TOUR DE FRANCE’ HISTORY IS NOTORIOUSLY fickle in its recognition of past glory. In the analogue era of post-war motor sport, before corporate money and technology moved the goalposts, Olivier Gendebien was a four-time Le Mans winner, the first and, for over a decade, the only. During an international career spanning barely seven years, he furthermore took three wins each in the Sebring 12 Hours, the Targa Florio and the Tour de France, and accumulated an overall record to put him surely among the all-time greats. Yet even by we who recount history for a living, he is often remembered, alas, as the driver we always forget to remember. Which is not to deny he…

MUSEUMS DON’T HAVE to be big or fancy to hold your attention, and the family-run Kilgarvan Motor Museum, tucked away down a country road in Kerry, Ireland, is neither. Like the Irish people itself, however, it’s a warm and convivial place where there are no ropes or barriers between you and the exhibits, and it features some marques that you wouldn’t expect to discover in this rural backwater. Did you know, for example, that Adler, Auto Union, Borgward and Isetta cars and microcars were assembled from kits in Ireland, to avoid paying punitive import duties? One of Kilgarvan’s exhibits is a DKW two-stroke saloon that was rallied extensively in Ireland during the 1950s and ’60s; like most of the cars on display, it has been restored by museum founder John…

‘LEAKE’S TWIN TURNTABLES PLACED THE AUDIENCE IN THE CENTRE, TO KEEP EVEN THOSE WITH SHORT ATTENTION SPANS ENTERTAINED’ IT HAS BEEN another big spring-to-summertime month in the northern hemisphere, with total auction results topping $70,000,000, but all is not perfect in sale paradise. Although no-one is loudly voicing their apprehensions, there’s a perception of slowness in the million-dollar-plus market. Is it trickling down to lower market levels? Let’s see if this month’s results give a clue. We’ll start Stateside. In the wealthy enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut, Bonhams had a very successful sale with 82 out of the 90 cars on offer swapping keys with a new owner. Bonhams Greenwich has a habit of adding some great barn-find cars into the mix, with vehicles all the way up to immaculately restored…

‘LECTURING KEEPS ME IN TOUCH WITH THE VISIONS YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE FOR THE FUTURE OF MOTORING’ MY WORLD CAN seem a bit hectic because I have to juggle my life between three different roles – freelance design work, lecturing and running my own watch brand. But they are all very closely connected. And in between all this, I try to find time to drive my beloved MGB GT, which I acquired as a basketcase 13 years ago. Together with my wife, Penny, I run MHD Watches [matthewhumphriesdesign.com], which we set up three years ago to design and sell interesting, automotive-inspired wristwatches with a vintage feel. In 2012 I left my job as head designer for Morgan, and now I’m kept very busy as a freelance vehicle designer, with the majority…