Table of contents for November 2020 in Octane

Remember that friend you had in high school, the one who was fun to hang around with because he always had crazy ideas? In Pretoria, South Africa, Elon Musk would have been that guy. Recently I got to spend a day with Elon and it was one of the most fun and interesting days of my life. I went to Tesla design headquarters in Hawthorne, California, to drive the new Tesla Cybertruck. I’d seen it in magazines and watched the unveiling on the internet but nothing prepares you for seeing it in person. Since their inception, pick-up trucks have pretty much all looked the same. Love it or hate it, this science fiction-inspired vehicle has made all other pick-up trucks look old-fashioned. I met Elon and chief designer Franz von…

There is a chilled dude who drives around London in a metallic sky-blue Jaguar E-type Fixed Head Coupé. I have admired him on occasion for the past ten years or so. He is usually wearing a crisp white shirt and tie and looks incredibly smart, so I can only assume he’s driving to and from work. He’s a big guy and good-looking in an Idris Elba kind of way, and his E-type always appears immaculate and sparkling in the boring nose-to-tail of modern black/grey/silver boxes that make up today’s traffic. I hope to meet him one day and pay my respects – you need to be ineffably cool to commute though central London wearing a tie in a hot 1960s FHC. An E-type will still stop people in their tracks.…

‘I’VE BEEN SO FORTUNATE to meet and work with so many brilliant people. Lovely people, too. Most of them…’ A mischievous gleam is never far from the eye of Mike Loasby. Now in his early 80s, still married to the girl he met more than 60 years ago and ‘semi-retired’ in bucolic Shropshire, Loasby is as sharp and lucid as ever. He’s the classic English gent, slightly schoolmasterly, a stickler for accuracy, but with a sense of fun and a gift for understatement. He makes ‘good copy’, as editors say. Kenneth Michael Loasby – but always Michael or Mike – was born in Coventry, so a career in the industry might have been pre-ordained. His father’s work, however, saw them relocate to rural South Wales when he was a boy.…

YOU’VE SEEN THE picture and now you have questions, don’t you? To answer one: yes, that is a very Bentley-esque colour scheme, and it is absolutely arresting in the metal, glistening with a sumptuous yet discreet class that it is hard to associate with anything that is basically ‘gold’. The other, of course, is: what on Earth is it? One member of the Octane team insists on calling this car ‘the Riley’ but it is rather more exotic than that. Underneath that bodywork lies a Delahaye 135M chassis, a model you may be more familiar with when clothed in outrageously swoopy, heavyweight bodywork, or work-of-art-deco lines that do not necessarily make for a practical and usable car. This might not have the slap-you-in-the-face aesthetics of some of the more extreme…

1981 BMW BAUR TOP CABRIO I WATCHED A LOT of movies during lockdown. It’s always fun to recognise a place you know, and one building that turns up regularly is my local town hall in Maidenhead, which featured in many Carry On films. I also spotted it in a TV biography about the racer Ronnie Peterson. He got married there and the archive footage showed some of the biggest names in Formula 1 gathering outside, back in 1975. I popped over the other day to snap the Baur there (below). I got a little carried away myself thinking about improvements to the car during lockdown. I’d been toying with fitting more modern wheels to it instead of the 13in turbine wheels that were optional when new, so I called my…

1955 JAGUAR XK140 FHC HOPPING INTO THE Jaguar the other day, I noticed that the indicators had stopped working. Turning the chrome lever produced no result and my immediate thought was a new switch was required, which would have been a real hassle. Then it occurred to me that it might be a problem with the fuse, so I had a fiddle but no luck. Then I noticed the temperature gauge climbing because the electric cooling fan was not cutting in. Yep, I’d knocked that out when I was under the bonnet. A quick call to Graeme Hunt Ltd (graemehunt.com), now just a few minutes’ drive from me, and I had the car booked in for next morning. I arrived at the mews and head mechanic Gary Puxty swung open…

2020 ALFA ROMEO GIULIA QUADRIFOGLIO ON STAGE WAS a new limited-edition Giulia GTA and the slightly more extreme GTAm. A bit more power than you get with the Quadrifoglio, but only a bit, and the main differences are cosmetic. They’re unleashing 500 total, worldwide, and they’re all based on the Quadrifoglio – which has just had a few revisions. Mechanically, little has changed. But, then, little needed to change. Up-front there’s a 2.9-litre biturbo V6 that pumps out 503bhp and 443lb ft, the latter from just 2500rpm. It does so with the kind of snarl you might expect of an Alfa, though that’s overlaid by whooshy turbo aspiration. All that twist action is fed via an eight-speed paddleshift dual-clutcher to the rear wheels, and headline figures say 0-62mph in 3.9sec…

IN 1970, American watch firm Pulsar launched the first digital watch, the Time Computer. It had raced to get the new watch ready, terrified that Seiko would get there first. The Japanese firm had already trumped the rest of the world in December 1969 with the first quartz watch, the analogue Astron. With its usual foresight, Seiko had bet that the LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology that Pulsar chose had too many problems, so planned on leapfrogging it in favour of the superior LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). Seiko was right. LEDs gobbled batteries, you had to push a button to tell the time and, in direct sunlight, you couldn’t see the display. LED watches were trendy and prestigious – even President Ford wanted one for Christmas – but they were…

As someone who lives and breathes car culture, I sometimes find it difficult to explain our fascination to the uninitiated. This inspirational book serves to educate, and contains many points of view from the automotive universe. Featuring many (mostly American) voices, there are chapters on every aspect of our world. Interesting people, the joys of problem-solving, racing, rebuilding… Whether you’re a seasoned petrolhead or just getting started, Never Stop Driving above all encourages the need to cherish and protect our special community.…

Collector’s book Very little had been written about the controversial Argentinian racer-turned-Italian-car-manufacturer in 1991 and, as the author recently recalled, there was absolutely nothing in print about the Pantera at the time. So this book, produced in collaboration with the US-based Pantera International car club, was an instant classic from the get-go. What strikes you now, almost 30 years later, is the quality of the reproduction of the many colour and black-and-white photos. Physically, it’s not a large book, being roughly A4 in size, but with 255 pages it still offers a comprehensive overview of de Tomaso’s life and career, from early days racing with Maserati and Osca to ‘mass producing’ the Pantera. Curiously, Wallace Wyss didn’t interview the man himself, although he did talk extensively with Pantera designer Tom…

By 1953, Singer Motors was on the way to financial ruin but, for one dealer at least, business was brisk. Bill Vaughan’s approach was simple: take advantage of the exchange rate to import Singer Roadsters into the USA, engineer a photo of a celebrity standing near a Roadster and wait for the orders to roll in. He thrust a key into the hand of the beloved New York Yankee, Phil Rizzuto, ‘in recognition of his great sportsmanship’, sold a car to Katharine Hepburn and got another into the Tony Curtis film, The All American. His most famous ‘endorser’, though, was Marilyn Monroe – not that she knew much about it. In the spring of ’53, Frank Worth was shooting stills on the set of How to Marry a Millionaire, but…

1971 STUTZ BLACKHAWK $325,000 A face only its mother could love? You can’t question the pedigree of its conception by the great Virgil Exner, but the Blackhawk is certainly an acquired taste. One of only 16 series one cars remaining. hymanltd.com (US) 1980 JAGUAR XJ-S 5.3 V12 £30,000 It’s always nice to see a former Octane cover car again, and this ex-Harry Metcalfe V12 XJ-S is on the market. A relatively early example of this excellent GT car. See Octane 147 for the story. juliensumner.com (UK) 1955 DKW 3= 6 $24,990 NZD The genius of these little DKWs goes mostly unrecognised, but the 900cc two-strokes feature front-wheel drive, a four-speed column shift and suicide doors. Surprisingly neat handling, too. duttongarage.com (NZ) 1938 LAGONDA LG6 DHC POA A great number of…

SIMON WINSON ‘Looking through some of my old photos during lockdown, I remembered the amazing time I spent with the Lister Storm team, when the guys from Leatherhead took on the major league at Daytona. The sound of that V12 and the excitement of the racing is something I will treasure forever.’ Lister at Daytona in 1996: pages 80-86. PETER TOMALIN ‘I’ve often chatted to Mike Loasby, usually about Astons for Octane’s sister title, Vantage. He helped pull the company back from the brink in the mid-70s, but he also worked for Alvis, Triumph, Coventry Climax and – most intriguingly – DeLorean. As ever, he doesn’t pull any punches.’ The Octane Interview: pages 98-102. JAMES NICHOLLS ‘This fast on land is hazardous, but on water these speeds take on another…

THE SHORTLIST FOR the Historic Motoring Awards’ Car of the Year has been announced and the winner will be decided by Octane readers’ votes. Excitingly, because the ceremony will this year take place live online, voting for this most prestigious award can continue right up until the announcement on the night! The ten cars on the list are the most significant to have emerged, to have come to prominence or to have broken new ground in the past year. All you have to do to cast your vote is go to historicmotoringawards.co.uk – where you can also see the shortlists for all the other categories that will be going before our panel of expert judges. The glittering tenth anniversary edition of the Historic Motoring Awards was due to take place…

During the coverage of the Belgian Grand Prix, I was struck by the amount of speculation surrounding Sebastian Vettel’s future. That, and the talking heads opining why his final season with Scuderia Ferrari has become so rancorous; how and why a four-time Formula 1 World Champion finds himself without a ride for 2021. Much was also said about how and why the ‘reds’ are in such dire straits this year, generally running at – or near – the back of the field. It’s painful to watch. Despite all of what I have heard and read about this situation, one thing is clear: it’s all conjecture. What I will say is that much has been made regarding allegations that were slung in Ferrari’s direction last year when it was highly competitive.…

SIMON WINSON (PHOTOGRAPHER): I was working for a commercial photo studio when in came this chap with pictures of a smart silver car. They were not the best and we got chatting. That was [Lister boss] Laurence Pearce – and I ended up photographing the Lister Storm’s launch. Then he said he had another job: Daytona! He didn’t want to pay a day-rate; he’d pay my expenses and we would make money on the printing. LAURENCE PEARCE: My father Warren had raced E-types, among other things, and I have motorsport in my blood. But when the road car side took off, I focused on that. Then the recession of the early 1990s hit: from 50 staff to five or six of my best. And then Group C ended and suddenly…

2000 HONDA INTEGRA TYPER IF YOU’VE EVER tried to organise a group activity with a bunch of busy friends, you’ll understand why it can be easier said than done. Myself and a group of former colleagues often talk about getting together for a drive, but in reality it probably happens once a year at most. Given the fact we’ve been missing many of the regular events due to Covid-19, the appetite to make something happen this time seemed stronger than usual. With plenty of parking and outdoor space, the charming little cycling-themed Café Ventoux was chosen as a start point. Naturally, a quick fluid and level check at my workshop in the morning turned into a full hour-long pampering session – so I turned up a little later than planned.…

1927 FORD MODELT MY PARTNER, Paula, rather likes the Model T but she’s been less keen on having to climb over the side of the car to get into it. This was necessary because the chap who converted it into a pick-up truck, a hot-rodder called Phil Wells, had artfully welded and bolted the doors shut for that authentic hot-rod vibe. Or maybe just to strengthen the body. Truth be told, I sometimes struggled to lift my size 12s clear of the bodywork, too. Looking at the passenger door, it seemed that it might be made to open again, with a little grinding and cutting. And, to my intense relief, I was right. Phil had tack-welded a metal plate over the inner aperture where the door lock would have been,…

2019 JAGUAR XKSS REPLICA King for a day Steve McQueen had an XKSS and LA at his feet. Well, if it was good enough for him… WHO ARE WE fooling? Nobody! But once in Hollywood there lived a Jaguar XKSS and an actor named Steve McQueen. My friend Paul has a fantastic XKSS replica. We have LA at our disposal. Cue the chance to play McQueen in 1960sHollywood. He lived at the top of Nichols Canyon Road on a short street called Solar Drive. It overlooks the whole of the city, and yes, that’s the same Solar that gave his production company its name. It’s early Sunday morning as we pull up and attempt – quietly – to back the XKSS into the driveway. As quietly as its 4.2-litre straight-six…

‘There were fears that the 1951 British GP would be the last to be held at Silverstone.’ Then the British Racing Drivers’ Club agreed a four-year lease, ‘guaranteeing the event’s immediate future’. Sounds familiar; clearly it’s been a feature of the Formula 1 calendar pretty much since the first F1 championship race was held at that venue 70 years ago. And it’s one of several nuggets you’ll find within the overviews of each season in F1’s first decade. Yet the meat of this 300-oddpage book is in the descriptions of the cars, carried out team by team for each racing year. Although there are plenty of obscurities in the early years, it’s dominated by Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maserati before giving ground to Vanwall, Cooper and so on, and it…

That author Kevin Whittle has eked out an entire book on the lesser-known Lotus 19 is comment-worthy; that he has effortlessly packed more than 150 pages of this portrait A4 hardback with pictures, details, history and stats is nothing short of remarkable. In all, there are over 150 photos and 60 illustrations, while decent-quality repro on lavish 175gsm art paper makes sure they sing. So, the Lotus 19? With just 17 built and sparse major success despite a long international career, it may not have the profile of its sports-racer predecessors the 15 and 11, but it was a true watershed car for the marque. It combined in its brief two-year (with reprise) production life all the best of what had come before and, crucially, some of what was to…

Collectors refer, rather disparagingly, to plastic toys made in Hong Kong in the 1960s as being ‘copies’ of British Dinky and Corgi toys. The implication is that the Far Eastern factories lacked the imagination to design their own products and were simply rehashing someone else’s designs. The truth is a little more complicated. It’s certainly true that many of these plastic toys were, shall we say, ‘inspired’ by British diecasts, but that doesn’t mean they are merely slavish imitations. This Rolls-Royce and Horse Box set, branded as Lucky Toys, is a good example. Diecast collectors will immediately see where the ideas came from. The car, a Silver Cloud III, is similar to a Dinky Toy first seen in 1964. This had opening doors and a bonnet that correctly opened in…

Due to cancellations and moves online, it is essential to confirm details with auction houses 16-25 September RM Sotheby’s, online 23 September Charterhouse, online 24 September Brightwells, online 26 September Classicbid, online Historics, Ascot, UK 27 September Artcurial, Grezillac, France 3 October Mathewsons, online 4 October Bonhams, Philadelphia, USA 8-10 October Vicari, Biloxi, USA 8-14 October RM Sotheby’s, online 10 October Bonhams, Birmingham, USA 11 October Bonhams, Knokke-Heist, Belgium 14 October H&H, Duxford, UK 15-17 October Mecum, Dallas, USA 16-17 October Branson Auction, Branson, USA 17 October Bonhams, Goodwood, UK Oldtimer Galerie, Toffen, Switzerland 20 October Osenat, Fontainebleau, France 21 October H&H, online 22 October DVCA, online 22-24 October Barrett-Jackson, Scottsdale, USA 23-24 October RM Sotheby’s, Elkhart, USA 24 October Cheffins, Cambridge, UK 28 October Charterhouse, online (motorcycles) 29-31 October…

With so much economic uncertainty swirling around, insurance company Hagerty has picked a timely moment to release possibly the most in-depth research yet into the long-term fluctuations of the classic car market. Produced by John Wiley for Hagerty Insider and following the fortunes of a single model of car over more than two decades in the USA, the report was prompted by the dire global economic outlook following the Covid-19 outbreak and sought to analyse how the classic car market had fared in previous recessions. And how it might this time. The Hagerty report focused solely on the fortunes of the 1954-63 Mercedes-Benz 300SL, especially appropriate according to Wiley because ‘the car has been considered collectable from the time it was new and has never gone out of style’. Starting…

Nostalgia was once defined as a psychosis. Certainly it’s an emotional disorder, because the sufferer believes the best is in the past, whereas ‘desire’ presumes that pleasure is to come in future. As the sensible among us believe it will. Morris Dancers and people who thatch roofs are, for example, nostalgic. So that’s the end of that argument. Is there any more nostalgic term than ‘coupé’? Today it evokes a lost world of indulgence, a world where functionality is sacrificed and glamour promoted, where the profile of your car was more important than its passenger capacity. There never was a rational reason for wanting a coupé. But who wrote the rule that we must be rational? The word coupé is French for ‘cut’ and, like cabriolet, berline and limousine, derives…

1968 JENSEN INTERCEPTOR I WON’T DWELL on why progress has been giving the Jakobshavn Glacier a run for its money, but what you need to know is that the Jensen went away in spring 2019 with a brief for it to be made ‘solid and presentable’. The job was given to Massimo Olimpi at Autostilo (www.autostilo.co.uk), who’d done beautiful – I mean glorious – work on my pal Tom Cribb’s Alfas at extremely reasonable rates. Things began well but then Massimo started having a 2019 that knocked most people’s 2020 into a cocked hat for bad luck and trauma. It was capped off when I visited the Jensen just before Christmas, to find he had simultaneously uncovered the worst of the rot and was under threat of losing his workshop.…

1936 CORD 810 BEVERLY ONE OF THE peculiarities of the Cord’s Lycoming V8 is that the exhaust exits through the top of the block, with the manifolds then curving through 90º over the top of the cylinder heads to join those oh-so-sexy chromed external exhausts, before diving into holes through the front wings. However, one has to pay the penalty for such stylishness when all these gubbins have to be removed to get at the heads. When I last wrote, I was waiting for new head gaskets while Ben and Janos were busying themselves with refurbishing the brakes and exhaust. Since I happened to have the cylinder heads at home, I thought I’d attempt to clean them up a bit. An hour or so of probing with various instruments liberated…

2020 LOTUS EVORA GT410 SOME PEOPLE get excited by acceleration figures or a car’s time around a certain 13-mile racetrack. At the other end of the spectrum, the way something can swallow suitcases or sip fuel on a run can be just as impressive. We all have our own benchmarks, and ride comfort, compliance and usability on British roads are always factors that rank high-up on my list of requirements. It’s why I’ve always admired Lotus. It builds some of the finest-handling cars on the planet, yet places huge emphasis on usability and comfort. You do not need a bone-jarring chassis for good handling. Until recently, the Evora GT410 Sport was the only remaining model in the now 12-year-old Evora range. Stripped back and hardened, it’s the fastest and most…

They simply don’t make them like John Haynes anymore. And this affectionate portrait reveals just how multi-faceted he was, with far more depth and breadth to his character than the Capt Birds Eye beard and ebulliant character might suggest. There are smatterings of photos that add enormous colour both to the man and the book – it is nice to be reminded that the manual and museum maven started as a genuine hands-on enthusiast and took his racing seriously. It majors on those whose lives he touched most, but they are just a handful from millions!…

Here’s a book to strike a chord with many an Octane reader. Subtitled The 200-Year War on the Motorist, it’s an amusing polemic about all the many forms of grief that have been piled on the drivers of self-propelled carriages since the Red Flag Act and before, right up to today’s low-emission and congestion charge zones. Ruppert’s strident opposition to the concept of climate change sits less comfortably here, but he does raise many thought-provoking questions – such as the massive job losses that low-maintenance EVs are bound to bring. At just a tenner, this is an engaging read.…

1974 Ford Escort estate BH Auctions, Tokyo, Japan Summer 2020, bhauction.com Thought to be the only Mk1 Escort two-door estate in Japan, this Portuguese-built car was imported just three years ago. It was meticulously restored by a Dutch specialist, and is presented in perfect condition. Powered by the original 1100cc Kent engine and four-speed manual gearbox, it’s estimated to sell for ¥2,000,000-2,500,000 (£14,000-17,500), with the ‘Summer 2020’ auction date yet to be confirmed. 1934 Lagonda M45 Rapide Tourer H&H, Duxford, UK 14 October, handh.co.uk Often considered to be the ultimate sporting Lagonda, this red M45 is one of only 52 Rapide Tourers built. The catalogue suggests that chassis Z11206 was previously the property of Lagonda Club chairman John Sword. Wearing the registration number OSL 332, it’s presented in very honest…