Table of contents for December 2025 in Octane

IN THIS ISSUE we have consciously brought together three very different but absolutely crucial approaches to the future preservation, evolution and use of classics by exploiting modern skills and tech that hugely outstrip what was possible in period. First there is our cover car, the latest physicsdefying offering from Eagle. Seasoned readers could arguably be jaded about what is the greatest E-type ever because I am pretty sure they all have been at one point or another, though not necessarily in Octane. Yet for David Lillywhite, our editorial director and my predecessor, to get as excited as he has about the new Lightweight GTR from Eagle is all the evidence I need that it is something pretty special, the best merging of track performance and road comfort yet in an…

To take advantage of our special offer and get three issues of Octane for £5, either visit octane-magazine.com/subscribe or call +44 (0)20 3966 6695 BUYING YOUR ISSUE OF OCTANE – NEW AND OLD Print issues Octane is available at the usual branches of UK shops, such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and independents, as well as WH Smith Travel. You can order the latest magazine or a back issue, delivered direct to your door, by visiting octane-magazine.com Digital issues Download the Octane Magazine app on Android or Apple and you will be able to enjoy the new issue. Alternatively you can source the digital edition via either Zinio or Readly. Subscribe You can find superb offers on print and digital at octane-magazine.com/subscribe. Order before 14 November to start with issue 271.…

International Historic Motoring Awards 14 November This is the only truly global awards ceremony in the classic and sports car world. Taking place at the Peninsula Hotel in London, the event was sold out last year as the winners were revealed for 14 awards selected by an international jury, plus Car of the Year decided by Octane readers and also the Lifetime Achievement Award. Book a place now.  historicmotoringawards.co.uk Tour d’Elegance Japan 30 November – 3 December Luxury tour starting in Kyoto and finishing in Tokyo with two classes: classics (1930 to 1989) and modern future classic sports cars (1980s to present day). Accommodation will be of the highest order and there will also be a Concours d’Elegance during the event. The entry fee for two people and a car…

A REMARKABLE c1904 Opel Darracq is set to make its debut on the RM Sotheby’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run on 2 November. Discovered stashed in the basement of a Hanover technical university in 1960 and in the Heinemann family since, this landaulet has undergone years of meticulous restoration and is powered by an ultra-rare four-cylinder 20/24hp engine. The Brighton Run is the culmination of London Motor Week, which also hosts a range of other events for those not taking part or rising at dawn to spectate. The main show is the St James’s Motoring Spectacle, a display of over 130 cars in six themed zones from veterans to brand-new hypercars on London’s Pall Mall on Saturday 1 November. With free entry, it attracts around 10,000 visitors and includes…

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I found my notes from a 2019 drive of Eagle’s sublime mid-blue E-type Lightweight GT. ‘We could have pushed for sub-1000kg but that would have meant doing without the air-con or soundproofing,’ the company’s long-time technical director Paul Brace said at the time. And yet here we are in Wales on a stunning October day with the brand-new Eagle E-type Lightweight GTR, which weighs (wait for it…) 930kg dry, or 975kg with all its fluids. That’s 2050 and 2150lb for non-metric types, and over 30% lighter than a standard E-type Roadster. And guess what? It has air-con and soundproofing and even higher peak power than the Lightweight GT. Does it matter? Yes and no. The lower the weight of any car, the better the performance, the ride, the braking, the…

Of course, I realise this may sound like a broken record in these parts but I am a bit of a Porsche 911 fan. Not necessarily an air-cooled purist (for me, the sweet spot for usability, talent and value lies in the 997 generation) though I’ll admit that one of the most memorable drives of my life came at the wheel of a ’73 Carrera RS 2.7. Naturally I’m aware of its many foibles, and I’m not the kind of wheelman who manages, shall we say, always to exploit all of them positively. But its great steering, sense of purpose, unburstable build quality, focus on practicality over luxury, and (not least) that soundtrack make the 911 a true great. I even quite like the way some of them look. Those…

What was the Swallow Doretti? The key players were sports car fan Dorothy Deen – so surnamed after a shortlived marriage to L Howard Deen – and her father, Arthur Andersen. Arthur was an engineer who reengineered the ‘Whizzer’ engines used on bicycles on which Dorothy took long treks in LA. He also manufactured small model aircraft engines that Dorothy advertised in modelling magazines, as well as Popular Mechanics. Arthur also had a steel business, the Andersen-Carlson Company, which made thin-walled tubing for electrical conduits. He sold out to the Rome Cable Company located in Torrance, California, but stayed on as a manager. Arthur’s company did business with the Abingdon, UK conglomerate TI (Tube Investments) that had been founded in 1919 and in 1946 included the Swallow Sidecar and Swallow…

AFTER LONG NEGLECTING this quirky car in favour of other projects, the past 18 months or so have really made me appreciate the simplicity of the Swede. Those other cars – Citroën SM, Porsche 996, MGB GT and more – are long-gone now, so the Saab is somehow still my only classic. It’s an absolute blast on country roads, and I’m gradually working through the many minor faults that I’ve ignored over the years. One thing I thought I’d fixed was the erratic fuel gauge: the needle used to swing back and forth with an audible electrical ‘click’, which could have been either dodgy wiring or a fuel sender fault. Having worked through the spaghetti behind the dash, it soon became clear that it was the sender at fault. It’s…

SEASON ONE OF Mad Men, the ’60s-set Madison Avenue ad-land series, concludes with hero Don Draper pitching an advertising campaign for a new slide projector to Kodak execs who have named it ‘The Wheel’. Draper performs an emotional presentation of slides from his disintegrating life and commences: ‘This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the Wheel, it’s called the Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels, around and around and back home again.’ Moved almost to tears by the poignancy of the presentation, his audience sits absorbed. Needless to say, the agency wins the account and the Kodak Wheel gets a new name. Shining a light through…

In a parallel universe, this book might have been called MG Maestro 6R4. As John Davenport, the former Director of Motorsport for British Leyland, mentions in his foreword, the Maestro was a more promising candidate as a rally car because it was larger, which would have made the engineering easier. The only cash available from marketing, however, was for the Metro – and the rest is history. It’s a history that thankfully was preserved by Austin Rover engineer Wynne Mitchell, whose recollections and contemporary notes are the backbone of this lavish, large-format tribute to rallying’s underdog. They are complemented by superb rallying images from publisher McKlein’s huge archive, and by priceless ‘insider’ shots of the cars being assembled and tested. It’s easily forgotten that the 6R4 was actually designed and…

THE FIRST DETAILS of Artcurial’s Renault Collection sale have surfaced, with the French auction house set to offer around 100 cars from Renault’s own (and significant) factory collection. They range all the way from an 1898 Type A – the company’s first car – through to a selection of 20 single-seater F1 racers. Highlights so far include an ex-René Arnoux 1982 RE30 (left), a 1983 RE40 and a 1984 Lotus 95T, powered by a Renault Gordini EF4 V6. The company will also offer more than 100 items of previously unseen automobilia, including design studies, windtunnel models and even engines. artcurial.com Also Look Out For… ‘As a prayer for peace on Earth,’ Gene Keyes wrote in a note that he sent to two Champaign-Urbana newspapers in December 1963, ‘I will be…

Pendine Sands hot rod races 20-21 September Don’t be fooled by the beautiful baby blue skies in these pictures: the first day of this annual spectacular on the seven-mile beach where JG Parry-Thomas set a new Land Speed Record in Babs in 1926 (following Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird record the previous year) was a complete wash-out. But on day two the Vintage Hot Rod Association came out to play in glorious fashion. The 12th running of the event attracted a wealth of new and old attendees and Steve Read was crowned King of the Beach for a 135.40mph run. As ever, the pit and sands were restricted to VHRA members, but beyond that it was free to view and spectators turned out in their droves, many of them in period…

THE SHORTLISTS FOR the 2025 International Historic Motoring Awards Presented by Lockton have been revealed. Contenders for the 15 awards have been selected from a record number of nominations and will now go before an expert panel of judges to decide the winners. The judges include Octane columnist Jay Leno, Pebble Beach’s Sandra Button and designer Peter Stevens. Their final selections will be revealed at a fabulous ceremony, to be hosted by Amanda Stretton at The Peninsula London on 14 November. For more information, or to book your place at the awards, visit historicmotoringawards.co.uk; single seats cost £310 +VAT, a table of ten £2800 +VAT. Of course, as well as all the categories listed, there are two more coveted trophies up for grabs – the Lifetime Achievement Award and the…

THE ROYAL BAHRAIN CONCOURS, the new event from the team behind the London Concours, Concours of Elegance and Concours of Elegance Germany, is only a few weeks away, but it is really starting to take shape. As Octane went to press, organisers revealed the first cars signed up for the new show, which takes place on 7-8 November 2025 at the Royal Golf Club and operates under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain. Organisers are promising some 90 concours cars, plus 300 club cars, and classes include an American Classics category, featuring ten landmark US cars that include a one-of-a-kind 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis by Carrozzeria Boano Torino and a Cord L-29 Cabriolet. After its debut at Turin…

EAGLE’S STORY BEGAN with founder Henry Pearman, who, after winning the 1989 Pirelli Classic Marathon in an E-type, dedicated his business to building the ultimate expression of Jaguar’s masterpiece. Development engineer Paul Brace soon joined and Eagle has since spent more than three decades refining the E-type’s brilliance while curing its period flaws. Each is handbuilt to order, fusing 1960s design with 21st Century craftsmanship, materials and tech for modern performance with a period-appropriate analogue feel. First came the Eagle E-types, the original re-engineered Coupé and Roadster restorations, 53 built to date as enhanced versions of the standard Jaguar – faithful, yet subtly evolved. Each is bespoke-built and can be had with a variety of engine options. The one Octane tested had a 3.8-litre straight-six, delivering 248bhp through a silky…

YOU COULD THROW a dart at a calendar blindfold and hit a significant date for the Ace Cafe, 1950s bastion of café racers, prominent landmark on London’s hardly picturesque North Circular, and, under the aegis of Mark Wilsmore, a revived and reinvented hub for motorcycle and car fans. Although The Ace now hosts just about any celebration or vehicle club, many with regular meets, with a history stretching back 87 years it actually predates the current vogue for motors-and-coffee venues by at least 75 years. It was established in 1938 by Hugo ‘Vic’ Edenborough, who’d seen the beginnings of the roadside café culture in America and who, after starting George’s Snack Bar in the East End and then The Halt Café in Hendon with his friend Eustace Fletcher, had made…

WHILE ON THE motorway bound for Silverstone and a meeting with reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen, one thought takes hold. An opportunity like this is rare for me, yet for him it’s just part of the endless round of interviews before a British Grand Prix. Removed from opinions so easily formed via memes, YouTube highlights, often-biased television commentary and Netflix, I wonder what he will be like in person. Dismissive? Surely he is too professional for that. Disinterested and bored? Possibly; I’m 100% sure he’d rather be doing something else. The words of Dr Alfred Lanning from 2004’s I, Robot come to mind: ‘My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.’ Just who is this Dutch trackmaster, and how did he reach such heights when so many…

SO FAR, TRIALS of the Sunbeam, pictured bottom left, had been limited to local trips around the village, so the opportunity to test its reliability over a longer route presented by the local classic car and tractor run – for which a rescue pick-up and trailer were promised – was not to be missed. A rally combining passenger cars and agricultural machinery might not be the norm, but in our rural community it seemed logical and made for an interesting turnout. I don’t know whether there were more tractors than cars – it seemed possible – but it was an impressive line-up regardless and they certainly scored on size. As tends to be the case with such events these days, pre-war cars were well outnumbered by post-war and modern classics,…

TWO SIBLINGS, 30 years between them. Linked by ancestry yet often regarded as outsiders and poseurs. I’m talking about the Porsche 914 and Boxster, each a successful car in its own right and both sold as more affordable alternatives to the range-topping patriarch 911. The 914 (of all stripes) went on to sell 115,000 copies. The 986 Boxster (in all configurations) sold over 165,000 through to 2004, making it a comparative blockbuster. Yet both base models had their own more muscular big brothers. In the 914’s case it was the 914-6, which – unlike the far more common VW-powered four-cylinder – had a Porsche 2.0-litre flat-six mounted amidships. And for the Boxster, first released in 1996, big brother was the more powerful S, launched in 1999. While, however, the Boxster…

Porsche 904 Carrera GTS print by Paul Howse Paul Howse has produced disappointingly few paintings in recent months, but we’ll forgive him – the car-designer-slash-watercolourist has been busy working with Lanzante to create the new 95-59, a limited-production supercar made to celebrate the company’s famous win in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. Job (very well) done, Howse is now back in his painting studio and he’s just completed a portrait of a car that is itself a true work of art: the 904 was conceived in such a hurry ahead of the 1964 racing season that there was no time for engineers to interfere with the beautiful lines and proportions penned by stylist Butzi Porsche! £40 (A4 size) or £75 (A3 size); commissions from £295. paulhowseart.co.uk Loewe aura.pure…

IF YOU ENJOY a bit of Canadian prog rock, then finding out that this Miura S was owned by Rush’s legendary drummer Neil Peart might be of interest. Peart was a well-known car enthusiast and he picked up this Miura, chassis 4042, in 2015. In line with the rest of his collection, he had it painted in its current shade of silver. His time behind its wheel was sadly limited, as he passed away in 2020 and his ‘Silver Surfers’ collection was sold in 2021. The early history of Miura S ‘4042’ is an intriguing one, too. It was sold in Spain and the chassis number was in effect re-used by the factory from an older, presumably crash-damaged car’s – thereby avoiding punitive Spanish import duties. In gold with black…

BEING SANDWICHED BETWEEN two undeniable legends – the three-door Sierra RS Cosworth and Escort RS Cosworth – probably hasn’t helped the Sapphire. I recall attending a track-day at Donington in the early 2000s and remarking on the glut of heavily tuned Sapphire Cosworths dominating the circuit. These were very serious cars, available for very little money at one point, and, unlike those of the three-door Cosworth, their values have risen at a much steadier rate. Understandably, the booted Sierra was less of a collectible from the get-go, given that its brief was to make the ‘Cossie’ more civilised and usable – not to mention sensible – as a road car than its motorsport homologated predecessor. Mechanically, the Genk-built Sapphire shared its UK-made 204bhp YBB engine and five-speed T5 gearbox with…

Plus Porsche 356 Carrera GS  On the road in the hottest of the breed Rolls-Royce Corniche Shooting Brake  Art of the estate, by coachbuilder Niels Van Roij McLaren Longtails Ten years and three generations of extreme hypercars Riley Brooklands This Le Mans veteran is the most raced Riley of all (Contents may be subject to change)…

23-26 October Auto e Moto d’Epoca Bologna Bologna Exhibition Centre is packed with classic cars and motorcycles, thousands of them available to buy. There’s also a huge trade village – three whole halls of parts and automobilia. autoemotodepoca.com 25 October RADWood SoCal A celebration of the cars and pop culture of the ’80s and ’90s, held at the Port of Los Angeles. radwood.com 25-26 October VSCC Cotswold Trial Old hands will compete on the Saturday before novices (those who have driven in fewer than six VSCC trials before) tackle the course on the Sunday. vscc.co.uk 25-31 October Marrakesh Tour Crews in post-1949 classics and modern sports cars explore the Atlas Mountains and the desert landscapes around Marrakesh, where the event starts and ends. rallystory.com 29 October – 2 November Hilton…

LIKE, I SUSPECT, many British blokes of a certain age, I have happy memories of my father waxing lyrical about WO Bentley’s fantastic cars and the heroics of his team during the 1920s. Somewhere these fabulous green machines became part of my psyche and ever since I can remember I have harboured an ambition to own one. Fast-forward to 2022. My father moved from the North Wales border to West Sussex, and while exploring his new surroundings he stumbled upon the nearby showroom of Vintage Bentley Ltd. Much to the astonishment of his wife, he spontaneously pulled in and introduced himself to the proprietor, William Medcalf. ‘Are you in the market for a Bentley?’ asked William, who’s being driven by my father in the picture [above]. ‘No, but my son…

Anyone scanning the entry list for the Endurance Racing Legends grid at this year’s Le Mans Classic would have noted the presence of famous marques such as Audi and Bentley, plus the usual GT contenders from Porsche, Ferrari and Chevrolet. As they got a little further down, however, they might have paused at car number 65, which had an altogether less familiar name: ‘Lindsay LMP2 675’. And they’re unlikely to have known exactly what this low-key appearance at La Sarthe meant to the man who’d hoped to drive it there almost 25 years earlier. Valentine Lindsay had been surrounded by cars and motor racing since childhood. His father, Patrick, was a renowned historics racer who owned a mouth-watering collection of cars over the years. Then there was the influence of…

Has there ever been a model so enigmatic yet charismatic, so awash with magical beauty and talent as the Alfa Romeo Type 33? On the track, Carlo Chiti’s 1966 design took a couple of years to find its feet – the first incarnation was a four-cylinder before Autodelta upped it to the 2.0-litre V8 – but it came to life with the T33/2 that in 2.0-litre or 2.5-litre forms dominated its class in endurance racing in 1968, while larger-engined Porsches still stole the headlines. Variants kept running until the late 1970s, winding up with a 3.0-litre flat-12, by when it was already a legend, having accrued the 1975 World Championship of Makes in imperious fashion and the 1977 World Championship of Sports Cars. For the Alfisti, however, it never got…

THERE’S NOTHING I like better than an early start on a summer morning, heading out before everyone else into a glorious sunrise, roof down, open to the elements. Deep joy. Except that Goodwood Revival is well into September, it’s not light until gone six, the weather is back to being changeable; plus I’m going on a Saturday, so cue inconvenient road closures. A last hurrah? Last man standing, more like. I’ll be honest, a glimpse at the forecast nearly had me taking the family wheels and, on that last stretch through the South Downs, I pondered my wisdom with lights ablaze, wipers on high speed and still struggling to see. The grassy car park made for a distinctly boggy welcome, and I pulled in among a sea of modern Toyotas.…

FRANK COSTIN FAMOUSLY didn’t much care for cars. He certainly didn’t consider their aesthetics to be of any great importance. It’s perhaps closer to the truth to say he thought looks irrelevant. All that mattered was that they cleaved the air efficiently. Attractive styling was a happy byproduct. Nevertheless, despite his proclaimed indifference to all things automotive, he penned some of the most remarkable vehicles ever to turn a wheel. These spanned everything from single-seaters to microcars, road-going GTs to would-be supercars. None made him rich. Costin was first and foremost an aerodynamicist. He wasn’t the first to apply a mathematical approach to shaping cars, but he was one of the most unbending in his approach. He was also among the best-known, and with good reason. The irony is that…

IN RECENT YEARS, pre-war cars have often had a tough old time at the auctions, with the interest and market seeming to shift towards more modern machines. There have been plenty of exceptions, however, and as the $33.9m Gooding Christie’s Stan Lucas Collection Auction demonstrates, offering them at the right time and in the right place can make all the difference. Lucas died earlier this year; he was an avid pre-war collector, and all the 99 lots were offered with no reserve. Top-seller was a 1911 Oldsmobile Limited Series 27 Seven-Passenger Touring, which doubled its top estimate with a sale price of $5,065,000 – a new auction record for any Oldsmobile. Other highlights included a rare fabric-bodied 1930 Bentley Speed Six Sports Tourer at $2,095,000, while a 1924 Doble Series…

THERE’S SOMETHING MAGICAL about the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900, not least because it was a competition machine above all else. Yet, having been developed to win the Mille Miglia, it also made for a compelling road car, just like this example that is set to be offered at RM’s London sale. Built in 1937 as a long-chassis Spider for German business owner Ernst Carstens, it was originally fitted with an unusual two-seat Cabriolet body by Karosseriewerk Aug Nowack – and, as a result, it bore a strong resemblance to Horch roadsters of the time. Not a huge amount is known about its early history, but it re-appeared in Germany during the 1950s and eventually made its way to the USA with an American serving in the US Air Force, minus…