Octane 270 December 2025 by Hothouse Media

Eagle’s astonishing Lightweight GTR sets a new benchmark

Features

EAGLE LIGHTWEIGHT GTR 56

World’s greatest Jaguar E-type? Octane drives Eagle’s latest lightweight hero PLUS evolution of all the Eagle specials

TEARDROP TALBOT-LAGO 70

Stephen Bayley on Figoni et Falaschi’s icon of 1930s Streamline Moderne

KAMM 912 c 78

Flat-four Porsche restomod with a full carbonfibre body – and twice the power

ACE CAFE 86

Octane joins bikers for the Ton-up Reunion

LINDSAY LMP2 675 90

Taking to Le Mans tarmac at last –a quarter of a century after it was built

BUGATTI COAST-TO-COAST 98

4000 miles from Rhode Island to Pebble Beach in a stunning Bugatti Type 57 Atalante

THE OCTANE INTERVIEW 106

Formula 1 superstar Max Verstappen tells what it takes to be a four-time world champ

ALFA STRADALE HOMAGE 110

Exclusive drive of the stunning Automotive Artisans R33 that’s excited fans across Europe

SWALLOW DORETTI 120

Californian racer Ernie Nagamatsu explores its links to race-car builder Max Balchowsky

Regulars

EVENTS

& NEWS 18

The month’s best events; top dates for your diary; 2025 International Historic Motoring Awards shortlist announced

COLUMNS 43

Leno, Bell, Bayley and Coucher: Octane’s star contributors prove their monthly worth LETTERS 51

Family bonding over a vintage Bentley OCTANE CARS 130

A Porsche 911 GT3 joins the ﬂeet…

OVERDRIVE 136

…and a Boxster meets its 914-6 forebear

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN 138

Frank Costin, king of aero (and plywood)

GEARBOX 140

Collector Miles Collier’s favourite things

ICON 142

The Kodak Carousel slide projector CHRONO 144

Smartwatch tech meets tourbillon movement

BOOKS 146

Inside story of BL’s Group B could-have-been

GEAR 148

Eight-page festive season gi special!

THE MARKET 162

Insider tips, auction news, stats, cars for sale, Ford Sierra Sapphire RS Cosworth guide

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 194

Young paraplegic racing driver Noah Cosby 146

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WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR

Better than new

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 E-type.

What’s more, it comes with pedigree. Eagle has spent more than three decades honing and perfecting its upgrades, which started with a better-than-factory build complemented with a bit more power and better brakes. Now it’s a complete remanufacturing. You could say that Eagle was the original ‘restomod’ company – not a word I will ever be a fan of, but it has anointed itself as the official term for a booming sub-set of the classic car world that is enjoying unprecedented popularity. Every specialist worth its salt now offers a suite of sensible and discreet upgrades that were Eagle’s stock-in-trade all those years ago, and more and more are going further. A lot further. Take KAMM and its 912c, which associate editor Glen Waddington drove for this issue. The first 912c improved every aspect of the car by a fair percentage and then added lightness and strength through the use of carbonfibre. For this evolution it is all carbonfibre, and takes the game to a new level.

The third approach we’ve examined is that taken by Automotive Artisans for its R33 (above), a Maserati 4.2-powered homage to the Alfa Romeo T33 Stradale. Using a mix of traditional skills and state-of-the-art scanning and CAD, its chassis and body differ from the T33’s only in that they are considerably more accurate. Whether restomods are your thing or not, just to know that there is so much invention, industry and innovation in our world is hugely reassuring for all our cars.

FEATURING…

DEAN SMITH

‘It’s staggeringly beautiful but incredibly sensitive to angles and focal lengths, not helped by the (perfect) pearlescent white paint. Not an easy car to photograph, then, but it sounds as good as it looks.’

Dean’s stunning photography of the Eagle Lightweight GTR accompanies David Lillywhite’s story on pages 56-66

CHARLIE BRENNINKMEIJER

‘The beautifully sculpted and crafted bodywork of the R33 was contrasted, in the best way, by the brutal noise that comes from the exhaust upon start-up. Exactly what you’d want from both exterior and engine.’

A very special homage to the Alfa Romeo T33 Stradale: turn to pages 110-118.

STEPHEN BAYLEY

‘This Talbot-Lago was, despite appearances, designed to penetrate the soul rather than the air. A future Pope, Mussolini and a designer’s de luxe eroticism all contributed to its history. You can read any car like a book; this one is an entire library.’

The Figoni et Falaschi icon: pages 70-76

James Elliott , Editor in chief

CHARLIE BRENNINKMEIJER

NEXT MONTH

ISSUE 271, ON SALE 26 NOVEMBER

Giugiaro special!

The iconic road cars, his most celebrated concepts –and a full interview with the man himself

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)

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-chief James Elliott james@octane-magazine.com

Associate editor Glen Waddington glen@octane-magazine.com

Art editor Robert Hefferon roberth@octane-magazine.com

Markets editor Matthew Hayward matthew@octane-magazine.com

Founding editor Robert Coucher

Contributing editor Mark Dixon

Italian correspondent Massimo Delbò

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PUBLISHING AND MANAGEMENT

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Ignition

EVENTS + NEWS + OPINION

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 a racted a wealth of new and old a endees 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 dress.

Reverend Pixel / Michael Holden

Goodwood Revival Meeting

12-14 September

The big celebration was for Scottish racing hero Jim Clark, with a wonderful group of cars and a chaotic-looking sheep run to honour his farming background. Big news on the track was 2009 F1 World Champion Jenson Button joining the winners list after pedalling his Jaguar C-type to victory in the Freddie March Memorial Trophy with Alex Buncombe, but all the spectacle was in a star-studded, rain-soaked St Mary’s Trophy with Kristensen, Soper and more. Chris Tarling / Goodwood / Rolex

Audrain

Newport

Concours & Motor Week

2-5 October

The welcome trend of unrestored beauties winning concours continued at the sixth running of this Rhode Island festival, which boasts tours, seminars, a Bonhams auction and more.

Alex MacAllister’s Touring-bodied 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Corto Spider took Best of Show ahead of David and Ginny Sydorick’s 1961 Aston Martin DB4 GTZ, Robert Davis’s 1960 Ferrari 250 SWB Pinin Farina Cabriolet Speciale, and William Parfet’s 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster.

Josh Sweeney

autoClássico 3-5 October

The mammoth indoor event run by Spanishbased Eventos Motor, which is also behind Retromóvil in Madrid, was in its 22nd year at the huge exhibition halls in Portugal’s second city, Porto. As well as several halls of classics, there were huge dealer stands including businesses of the calibre of Juan Lumbreras, Jorcar and Bruno Martins, a separate show for blue-chip moderns, and a live stage, hosted by top journalist Hugo Reis, where F1 legends Emerson Fittipaldi and Riccardo Patrese were interviewed, among others. A tightly fought concours was won by a flawlessly restored 1971 Ferrari 246 GT.

Joel Araújo

FROM TOP

Scottish Malts 1-5 September

After 915 miles, the winners of HEROERA’s biennial regularity rally were the 1959 AustinHealey 3000 crew of Ken and Sarah Binstead, taking their first win after an epic contest with 2023 Scottish Malts winners, Dick and Harry Baines, who were competing in a new-to-them 1972 Porsche 911E. Blue Passion

Concorso d’Eleganza Varignana 1705 26-28 September

Italian collector Corrado Lopresto’s Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Berlinetta Pinin Farina was Best of Show, and Elad Shraga’s Ferrari 121 LM People’s Choice, at the third outing for this delectably tasteful Italian event , which had a concours field of some 37 cars. Varignana 1705

British Hillclimb Championship at Prescott 6-7 September

Graham Wynn’s Gould GRW59 negotiates a damp Pardon at Prescott during a superb event in which Matt Ryder (Gould GR59) took a first and second in the two run-offs. Peter McFadyen

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP Bonneville Speed Week 2-8 August

Everything from hot rods and streamliners to motorcycles and diesel trucks took to the Utah salt this year, with Danny Thompson’s Ferguson Streamliner achieving the highest speed of 411.948mph. The event was sadly marred by the loss of Chris Raschke while he was bidding to hit 500mph.

Howard Holmes Ferrari Challenge 6 September

A Champagne moment on the podium for Saturday’s top three, (l-r) Pranav Vangala, Gilbert Yates and Paul Simmerson. Yates’s victory for dealer Charles Hurst meant he retained the Trofeo Pirelli Championship. NoodlePix

The Distinguished Gentleman’s Drive 28 September

One of the many UK-wide events raising cash for men’s health awareness was this superb gathering of DeLoreans at Goodwood. Globally, the Distinguished Gentleman’s fund has raised over £30million since 2016. Ed Hill

BRSCC Silverstone 27-28 September

Ben Butler going well in Classic Mini Racing during the eight-grid autumn festival. Mick Walker

CALL TO CONSIGN RETROMOBILE 2026

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, the Fiskens stand at Retromobile has proudly showcased and sold some of the most significant collector cars of all time. Our 2025 stand celebrated the finest examples across both road and race cars, with many of the consignments offered from long-term ownership and publicly available for the first time. As we conclude another strong year of both on and off-market sales, we are now inviting consignments for our renowned Paris motor show stand. To have a confidential discussion regarding the sale of your classic automobile, please get in touch using the details below.

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP Classic Marathon 14-19 September

Thomas Koerner and Udo Schauss having fun en route from Geneva to Biarritz in their 1973 Porsche 911. Paul Bloxidge and Ian Canavan won in a 1985 VW Golf GTi. Will Broadhead

Ain Aar Classic 7 September

A big return for this Lebanese mountain event that started in 2018, but hadn’t happened since.

Elias Amiouni

VHRA Throttle Races

24 August

Despite being only the second running of the VHRA’s Throttle meet at Bicester Motion, the track places were snapped up in days.

Chris Tarling

Trackrod Historic Cup 26-27 September

Matt Edwards used the event as a warmup for the Roger Albert Clark Rally in November in Richard Jordan’s Ford Escort.

Ben Lawrence

Spa Six Hours 25-27 September

The MRL festival in Belgium was better than ever, with three days of epic racing from multiple grids.

Jordan Butters

VSCC Prescott Long Course 20 September

James Burmester tackles The Esses during the VSCC’s final speed event of the year.

Peter McFadyen

1995 Porsche 911 (993) Turbo Cabriolet - by Porsche Exclusive Department, 1of 14 examples.

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT

Dix Mille Tours 5-7 September

More than 27,000 spectators turned out at Paul Ricard for the visit by Peter Auto’s spectacular range of race series.

Photo Classic Racing

Circuit des Remparts 19-21 September

The brilliant, Bugatti-heavy action in the historic walled town of Angoulême (about 100km north-east of Bordeaux) is one for every enthusiast’s bucket list.

Chris Tarling

Alfa Revival Cup 25-27 September

Championship leader Davide Bertinelli crashed heavily at Blanchimont in the final round at Spa, gifting the title to Peter Bachofen and Dario Inhelder. Canossa Events

Bernina Gran Turismo 20-21 September

More than 50 vehicles from GP single-seaters to endurance legends tackled the 5.7km course, rising to 2300m via 50 bends from Valposchiavo to the Ospizio Bernina. The winner was Swiss pilot Daniele Perfetti in a 1975 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR. Bernina Gran Turismo

Rali Ceredigion 5-7 September

Iwan Roberts was spectacular in the Welsh hills and valleys in his Ford Escort G3.

Ben Lawrence

Dates for your diary

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 Head Island Concours d’Elegance & Motoring Festival

Classes at the concours in South Carolina this year will include one for cars with a connection to the world of music. hhiconcours.com

30 October – 2 November

Concours Wynn Las Vegas

The Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas welcomes entries ranging from ‘Gatsby-era’ American classics to modern Japanese sports cars . lasvegasconcours.com

31 October – 2 November

Les 2 Tours d’Horloge

At Circuit Paul Ricard, teams of up to four drivers in pre-1991 cars contest a proper 24-hour race. vdev.fr

1 November

St James’s Motoring Spectacle

Pall Mall in London will again be closed to traffic for this free event, which includes the St James’s Concours, featuring more than 60 of the veteran cars set to take part in the following day’s London to Brighton Run. veterancarrun.com

2 November

RM Sotheby’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run Pre-1905 cars motor from Hyde Park to Brighton, commemorating the Emancipation Run of 1896. This year’s event will also serve to mark the 125th anniversary of the 1000 Mile Trial – the endurance challenge organised in 1900 to persuade Brits of the practicality of the newfangled automobile. veterancarrun.com

2 November

Haynes Breakfast Club

At the Haynes Motor Museum’s penultimate Breakfast Club gathering of the year, 4x4s will occupy the central paddock. haynesmuseum.org

2 November

Brooklands Off-Road Day Off-roaders will fill the grounds of Brooklands Museum, some tackling the course at M-B World. brooklandsmuseum.com

5-9 November

Classic 24 Hour at Daytona

Historic racecars thunder round the famous Florida circuit. hsrrace.com

6-9 November

RAC Rally of the Tests

Windermere to Llandudno this time, and with 22 regularity sections and 30 special tests to keep crews on their toes from start to finish. hero-era.com

7-9 November

Classic Motor Show

Held at the NEC, this is the UK’s biggest indoor classic car show. necclassicmotorshow.com

7-9 November

Retro Classics Bavaria

Themed displays and tempting trade stands await visitors at Nuremberg‘s exhibition centre. retro-classics-bavaria.de

7-9 November

Époqu’Auto

Eurexpo in Lyon hosts some 2000 classic vehicles and more than 100,000 visitors. epoquauto.com

8 November

VSCC Lakeland Trial

The VSCC’s triallists travel to Low Lorton in the Lake District. vscc.co.uk

14 November

International Historic Motoring Awards

The splendid Peninsula London hotel welcomes leading lights from the historic motoring world for this premier prizegiving ceremony and gala dinner. historicmotoringawards.co.uk

14-16 November

Interclassics Brussels

V12 supercars will take centre stage at the tenth edition of the popular show in Brussels. interclassics.events

25-30 November

Mille Miglia Experience China

Back following its successful debut last year, and this time featuring a 1200km route through Guangdong Province. 1000miglia.it

RM Sotheby’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, 2 November | Image: Royal Automobile Club

29 November

VSCC Winter Driving Tests

Bicester Motion hosts the VSCC’s final event of the year, which sees entrants attempt car-control challenges in conditions often not conducive to precision driving! vscc.co.uk

30 November

Scramblers Assembly

Members of Bicester Motion’s Scramblers club gather for the last time in 2025. bicestermotion.com

30 November

New Forest VW Santa Run

Organised in aid of the children’s cancer and haematology unit at Southampton General Hospital, the Santa Run sees classic and custom Volkswagens – many covered in Christmas decorations – assemble at Beaulieu before travelling in convoy to the hospital to drop off presents. beaulieu.co.uk

4-7 December

Sebring Pistons and Props Classic competition cars do battle at Sebring Raceway, where vintage aircraft also vie for the attention of the spectators. hsrrace.com

5-7 December

Masters Racing Legends at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Before the 2025 Formula 1 season reaches its climax at Yas Marina Circuit, spectators will enjoy two 25-lap support races for F1 cars from the period 1966-85. mastershistoricracing.com

6 December

Gasparilla Cars in the Park Collector cars old and new go on display in the heart of Tampa, Florida, at an event that is free to attend for the public. gasparillaconcours.com

6-9 December

Le Jog

The famous Land’s End to John O’Groats Trial was absent from the calendar in 2024, but it’s back to reclaim the title of ‘the hardest endurance rally in Europe’. hero-era.com

7 December

Haynes Breakfast Club

Cars finished in festive red will star at December’s Breakfast Club meeting at the Haynes Museum. haynesmuseum.org

7 December

The Classic Motor Hub Christmas Party Petrolheads roll up to the Classic Motor Hub in Bibury to enjoy some Christmas cheer and a helping (or perhaps two) of seasonal treats. classicmotorhub.com

1 January 2026

Brooklands New Year’s Day

Classic Gathering

The UK’s biggest New Year’s Day gathering, featuring hundreds of classics plus live music and a BBQ. brooklandsmuseum.com

1 January Vintage Stony

Vintage cars and motorcycles take over the centre of Stony Stratford for the morning. vintagestony.co.uk

BOOK NOW!

Secure your place; make travel plans

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 is ¥880,000 (inclusive of 10% tax), which includes all accommodation (four nights) and food. Contact: paul@autumngrass.co.uk

Cavallino Classic Monaco 23-26 April

In its 35th year, Cavallino has launched the first concours exclusively for Ferrari F1 cars, which will take place in Monaco during next year’s historic Grand Prix festival (pictured at top). Expect everything from front-engined 1950s racers via 1970s V12s and on to V8s and modern F1 single-seaters. The showfield will be the marina of the Yacht Club de Monaco and entrants will be able to drive the circuit! cavallino.com/pages/monaco

28 States Marathon October / November 2027

From Cape Cod in the north-east of the US to Savannah, Georgia, this epic rally will travel via Detroit, Marquette, Indianapolis, Nashville and New Orleans. The event for pre1986 classics will skirt all five of the Great Lakes and traverse 28 states in 28 days. Total distance will be in the region of 11,000km on asphalt, gravel and sand. rallytheglobe.com

Les 2 Tours d’Horloge, 31 October – 2 November | Image: Tchaul31 Photographies

CLASSIC COMPETENCE FOR QUALITY LOVERS

A true restoration is not just about perfection — it’s about soul. Every car has a story, and at B.I. Collection, we restore it with absolute authenticity. From the first detailed evaluation to the final finishing touches, every step is documented, every decision made with full transparency. Clients are involved throughout, knowing their vehicle is in the hands of experts who care. The result: impeccable craftsmanship, preserved history, and a car that is as alive as the day it first roared to life.

BASEL BERN GENEVA GSTAAD ST. GALLEN ZURICH LONDON MONACO

Awards shortlists announced

Judges for this year’s International Historic Motoring Awards will choose between these contenders

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 Car of the Year 2025.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is picked by a jury of the most important figures in historic motoring and has in the past honoured such luminaries as Sir Stirling Moss and Leonardo Fioravanti.

Car of the Year – which selects the car that is fresh to the scene, whether new, rediscovered or restored, and has made the biggest splash over the past year – will be decided by a public vote, so see the story on the right for the contenders and how you can help pick the winner.

Personal Achievement of the Year

SPONSORED BY THE PETERSEN AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM

• Guy Moerenhout for establishing the SQUADRA Abarth & Rally Collection museum

• Luigi Orlandini for the success and expansion of Canossa Events

• Tomas de Vargas Machuca for driving the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge solo

• Fritz Burkhard for driving a Bugatti

Type 57 Atalante 4000 miles to display it at Pebble Beach

Bespoke Car of the Year

VOTE FOR CAR OF THE YEAR!

Octane readers’ votes are still needed to decide the Car of the Year for the International Historic Motoring Awards 2025 and you have until 7 November to make your favourite known at historicmotoringawards.co.uk/vote.

You should pick the vehicle that has had the biggest impact on the classic and collector car world in the past year. It could be a car that has broken new ground in concours, a rediscovered classic, a freshly restored beauty, even a restomod or an important new-build.

Last year’s winner was Fritz Burkard’s ex-King Leopold Bugatti Type 59 after it became the first preservation car to win Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

BRM P5781 Graham Hill’s F1 World Championship winner ‘Old Faithful’ was brought to the UK this year by Miles Collier’s Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, and has made multiple appearances.

Alfa Romeo Tipo B (P3) Winner of the Trofeo BMW Group – Best of Show at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este was the Auriga Collection’s Vittorio Jano-designed 1932 Alfa Romeo Tipo B, which was run under the Scuderia Ferrari banner during the 1934 season with Achille Varzi, Guy Moll, Louis Chiron and Antonio Brivio. Boreham Motorworks Alan Mann 68 Edition This Ford Escort MkI Continuation is the fulfilment of every Gen Xer’s dream: a perfect copy of the 1968 British Saloon Car Championship-winning Ford Escort ‘XOO 349F’ driven by Frank Gardner. Mercedes-Benz W196R

Stromlinienwagen The 1954 Silver Arrow, driven successfully in period by both Fangio and Moss, is the most expensive racing car ever sold, having been auctioned for €51,155,000 at RM Sotheby’s for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

Hispano-Suiza H6C Nieuport-Astra Torpedo Created in 1924 for racing driver and aperitif heir André Dubonnet, Penny and Lee Anderson Snr’s Hispano-Suiza went straight from a three-year restoration at RM Auto Restoration in Blenheim, Ontario, to the winners’ circle at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

Alfa Romeo 158 Core to this year’s 75th anniversary of the F1 World Championship celebrations is the ex-Nino Farina, Alfa Corse Alfa Romeo 158 in which the Italian won that first championship.

Blue Bird The 350hp Sunbeam, first of Sir Malcom Campbell’s recordbreakers and the first car to break 150mph, returned to Pendine Sands in Wales to mark the centenary of its triumph on 21 July. Shortly after that it travelled to Suffolk, where it took Best of Show at this year’s Heveningham Concours.

THE CONTENDERS ARE…

London Motor Week looms

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 fourcylinder 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 brandnew hypercars on London’s Pall Mall on Saturday 1 November. With free entry, it attracts around 10,000 visitors and includes the St James’s Concours, showcasing more than 60 pre-1905 vehicles that will take part in the following day’s Brighton Run.

Another popular free event is the 11th Royal Automobile Club Art of Motoring exhibition, which opens on 29 October at the Iconic Images Gallery in Waterloo Place. It hangs only original works from Britishbased artists that have never previously been displayed, with prices ranging from £250 to more than £10,000. The 2025 roll-call will include Swedish 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Stefan Johansson, who has swapped driving gloves for paintbrushes. See royalautomobileclub.co.uk.

1000 Meilen

The second 1000 Miglia Warm Up Austria featured 40 crews –including Porsche Challenge –tackling a 500km route in the Tyrol and Salzburg region. John and Rutger Houtkamp won in their 1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS Zagato, earning a place in the 1000 Miglia 2026.

A Z and lots of noughts

Specialist S30.world has launched

The Masterpieces, a factoryaccurate restoration programme for Datsun 240Zs and Nissan Fairlady Zs, aka the S30s. ‘No expense or effort will be spared to achieve this peak level of quality,’ said Chris Visscher, founder of S30.world.

Plus ça change

With Gooding Christie’s taking over the on-site sale at Rétromobile next year and Bonhams Cars losing its traditional Grand Palais venue, it’s all change in Paris next year. Bonhams Cars will move to the historic Polo de Paris in the Bois de Boulogne for 27-29 January, while Artcurial will be partnering with The Peninsula Paris for its Automobile Legends sale from 24 to 27 January.

Double-ton-up Brit

Retired Kent businessman Geoff Stilwell has become one of only eight British members of the Bonneville 200mph club, alongside such notables as Malcolm Campbell, Henry Segrave, John Cobb, Richard Noble and Andy Green. Geoff achieved the feat in his 7707 Red Line Oil Blown Fuel Roadster (which incorporates a 1927 Ford Model T Roadster body) and set a new class record of 289.239mph.

Coniston return for K7

Bluebird K7, Donald Campbell’s legendary hydroplane, will run on Coniston Water next year, subject to the approval of a speed exemption application. It will mark the 70th anniversary of Donald Campbell’s first World Water Speed Record on Coniston Water, when he hit 225.63mph in September 1956.

Too much of a good thing

It’s been a few years, but the concours log jam is back for 2026 with Salon Privé (Blenheim Palace, 2-6 September), Concours of Elegance (Hampton Court, 4-6 September) and Chantilly Arts et Elegance Richard Mille (France, 6 September) all clashing! Why not organise an epic classic car road-trip to take in all three: Salon Privé, then Hampton Court, and a quick Channel hop for Chantilly?

Famous Belgians

The 20th Antwerp Concours d’Elegance took place at Belvédère Castle for the 15th time on 7 September and featured 100 cars in ten classes. It was won by the ex-Barcelona motor show 1972 Citroën SM Opéra.

Springs hopes eternal

Two key courses at Southern California’s Willow Springs International Raceway – the 1.8-mile Streets of Willow Springs and 0.625-mile kart track – have had significant investment and modernisation to improve safety and the on-track experience. This includes repaved tracks with new internal and external kerbs, new run-off and gravel areas, plus extensive painting.

Tourist leg ends

Aston Martin V8 Vantage-driving father and son team, Phil and Will Churchill, have completed the latest leg of their round-the-world jaunt, an odyssey through the Americas including an epic 5000-mile leg from Lima, Peru, to their ‘End of the Americas’ in Punta Arenas, Chile. They have now driven more than 16,000 miles across 14 countries, raising £28,000 for www.thecalmzone. net. Next up… New Zealand.

Aurelia gets gold standard

A new resource has been launched to support the preservation of the Lancia Aurelia on the 75th anniversary of the iconic model. The Centro Aurelia website (centroaurelia.info) will pool technical know-how, cars, history, pictures and much more on the 18,000 examples built. It has been masterminded by Giovanni De Virgilio, Massimo Fila Robattino, Geoffrey Goldberg, Paul Mayo, Chris Gawne and William Corke.

Scottish power

Glasgow-based Munro, Scotland’s first volume car manufacturer for 54 years, has secured £2million in funding to scale up production of its electric 4x4s designed for mining, defence and construction. The company says the investment will help create up to 300 jobs.

OBITUARIES

Marc Félix

One of the founders of the Normandy Beach Races at Ouistreham, France, lost his life in a Ford Model A crash at this year’s event. Marc Félix, 54, with friends Jean-Marc Lazzari and Thomas Hervé, was inspired to start the event after taking part in the Race of Gentlemen in California.

Joe Keegan

A former policeman and then a car transport expert, Keegan, 61, of New Jersey, died while he was unloading the Andy Warhol BMW M1 Procar for the Cars on the Capitol event in Washington DC.

Daisy Sadler

The wife of Autofarm founder Josh Sadler was well-known for driving and trialling her 1929 Austin 7, ‘Chumley Carruthers’, a 1973 wedding present from Josh. In 2018, a 1000-mile charity ride won her Horse & Hound’s Inspiration of the Year award.

Tom Matano

Tsutomu ‘Tom’ Matano, the Japanese designer behind the Mazda MX-5 and FD RX-7, has died aged 76. Latterly executive director at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, over a 30-year career Matano worked for Volvo, BMW and GM before joining Mazda in 1983. See Octane’s full obituary here: octane-magazine.com/news/ mazda-mx-5-visionary-tommatano-dies-aged-76.

Enzo Osella

Having started working at his father’s garage in Volpiano, near Turin, Enzo Osella began rallying in 1957 and soon graduated to hillclimbing and racing in a range of self-modified cars, including a Lotus Eleven with an OSCA engine and Alfa differential. With Carlo Abarth as his mentor, he later bought the Abarth racing team, renamed it Osella Corse and by 1980 was in F1, where his team took part in 132 GPs.

Claudio Lombardi

Fiat and Lancia engineering great Claudio Lombardi has passed away. As Lancia’s head of engine design in the 1970s he came up with the Triflux and was one of the team behind the Group B Delta S4 and a host of driver and constructor championships. After Lancia, Lombardi moved to Ferrari, where he initially headed the F1 engine department before moving on to GTs, and then to motorcyle company Aprilia.

Marc Sonnery

Regular Octane contributor, author, historian, sometime racing driver, expert on Italian exotics and global champion of the Maserati Khamsin, Marc Sonnery has died at the age of 61. Born to a globe-trotting French Citroën executive and Swedish mother, Marc was indoctrinated into Maseratis as a child and later in life founded the Maserati Khamsin Registry and organised both the mammoth 2012 Khamsin Quaranta and the 2023 Cinquanta gatherings. Marc was a remarkable character who both knew and was known by many in the classic car world.

American gems head to Middle East

Rarities set to pack US class at royally backed Bahrain concours

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 in 1955, the Lincoln was bought by Ford, reportedly at the request of Henry Ford II himself, then shipped to the US, where it later spent decades in private collections before a two-year restoration at the turn of the millennium. It has subsequently won a host of concours honours.

The Cord L-29 Cabriolet has also had an award-winning restoration and achieved Certified Category 1 status from the Auburn

Beauty in the beast

THE WORLD’S MOST Beautiful Truck Award has gone to Larry Jacinto’s LS3powered 1941 Willys pick-up, built by Veazie Bros Fabrication (left). The pick-up took the honour at the third annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Grand National Truck Show, presented by Classic Truck Performance magazine, which hosted 400 trucks, vans and SUVs at the Fairplex in Pomona on 26-27 September.

The event is only in its third year and is the sister offering to the better-known Grand National Roadster Show, which annually hosts the world’s best hot-rods at the same venue. There were awards in more than 65 judged

Cord Duesenberg Club plus a hat-trick of 100-point scores in Classic Car Club of America National judging.

‘The American Classics class exemplifies the Royal Bahrain Concours’ commitment to presenting automotive excellence from around the world,’ said James Brooks-Ward, Chairman of the Royal Bahrain Concours. ‘These vehicles represent pivotal moments in American design and engineering history, and we’re honoured to showcase them alongside the world’s finest collector cars in the Kingdom of Bahrain.’

See royalconcours.com for more.

classes, but there is a great story behind Jacinto’s Best of Show passion project Willys. He remembers riding in the bed of the truck as a young boy, when it was owned by a family friend, and bought it 40 years later before handing it over to Bob Bauder for the build. Veazie Bros took over the project when Bauder died in 2017.

The weekend also featured two new awards. Hot rod legend Chip Foose presented the Chip Foose Design Achievement Award to Bob Matranga’s blue 1968 Chevy C-10, while Jesse Corrales’s 1952 Chevy 3100 took the Courtney Hallowell Memorial Award.

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Jay Leno The Collector

The one about the bargain Mustang that eats Porsches

The great thing about YouTube is that it allows people to watch exactly what they want. When I was a kid who wanted to watch car stu on TV, I was limited to the Indianapolis 500 once a year, the occasional half-hour episode of Motorweek, and cop shows featuring car chases where the police would always run into the same pile of empty boxes. My favourite part was hearing the tyres squeal on dirt roads!

Now with YouTube I can type in any car I want and see road tests, engine rebuilds, restomods, you name it. What I enjoy most is looking for road tests of cars I own. is week I was fortunate when two men I admire teamed up to review a car I just purchased: the new Mustang GTD. e two men were Chris Harris and Max Verstappen.

I’ve always admired Chris Harris, both for his journalistic abilities as well as his driving skills. Seeing him throw the McLaren P1 around a racetrack is a video I have watched again and again. Even though I have a P1, I live vicariously through Chris. I’ve met him a number of times; his ability to drive and communicate what he’s driving, while still coming across as a regular bloke you’d chat with at the pub, is really quite admirable.

One of my favourite sayings is that race-car driving is like sex: all men think they’re good at it. I once drove in a Toyota celebrity race at the Long Beach Grand Prix. e drivers were all dopey TV and movie personalities like me, and the racing driver was Dan Gurney. I remember saying to myself: ‘I’m going to stay exactly behind Dan Gurney and do exactly what he does. When he hits the brakes, I’ll hit the brakes. When he goes into a corner, I’ll go into the corner in the exact same way.’ at worked pre y well in the early laps. By lap four, I couldn’t see Dan in front of me anymore; by lap ve, he was in my rear-view mirror about to lap me.

I wonder if that’s how Chris felt si ing next to Max Verstappen in the Mustang GTD, when he let loose on the track. e look on Chris’s face was priceless. My dad had been a prize ghter, and I remember him telling me that if the average heavyweight ghter hit the average man in the stomach, it would break his back. A er that rst corner, Chris looked like he had just been suckerpunched by Mike Tyson. Now I’m not knocking

Chris, he really is a skilled driver, but next to Max it was just shock and awe. I have no doubt that Chris could do a be er job than Max pu ing pen to paper. But it is fun seeing Max take Chris somewhere he had never been.

Ford has done something with the Mustang that Lee Iacocca did almost 60 years ago. When the electric Mustang Mach E came out, it had four doors, didn’t look like a Mustang. ‘You’re wearing down the brand,’ purists screamed. ‘It’s not a real Mustang!’ When the Mustang rst came out, it had a smaller engine than all its competitors – Chrysler had the 318ci V8 as well as the 383. Chevrolet had the Camaro with the 327. Ford initially had the 260, which grew to the 289 Hi-Po – an improvement, but still smaller than the rest. A worried Lee Iacocca called his friend Carroll Shelby and said ‘Make this thing a race car’ and the GT350 was born. It was loud, raucous and brutal. Mission accomplished. Now Ford’s CEO Jim Farley has done the same thing with the GTD. He told his people to make this thing beat Porsche and worry about the price later.

I remember an old Vincent motorcycle racer once said to me ‘Speed is expensive, how fast do you want to go?’ I love that Jim Farley thought the Mustang GTD could beat Porsche and then went out and did it. I really don’t understand the controversy around the car. Yes, more than $325,000 is a lot of money for a Mustang, but you’re looking at this the wrong way. Say you took your standard Mustang GT to a professional race shop and said ‘Make this be the rst American production car to do the old Nürburgring in under seven minutes. Oh. And do it for about $400,000.’ ey would laugh you right out of there. is is a full-on race car, yet you can drive it on the street. To be fair, we Americans have been known to throw a couple of racing stripes on a car, stick a wing on the trunk lid, add mag wheels and there you have a GT. ose days are gone. I’m very proud of the way American manufacturers have turned things around. Over at General Motors you have Mark Reuss, GM president, driving the new Corve e at 233mph. Jim Farley is racing almost every weekend. ese companies have engineers at the helm instead of marketing people. People know I’m a McLaren fan but there is a joy in rooting for your home team!

Jay was talking with Jeremy Hart.

‘THE MUSTANG GTD IS A FULL-ON RACE CAR, YET YOU CAN DRIVE IT ON THE STREET’

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This remarkable tour will start in San Francisco, before we head across the Golden Gate Bridge into Sonoma, meander through Napa, up to Lake Tahoe, and then south through Yosemite. We will then cross the central plains, heading west to our ﬁnal destination, Monterey, staying at the best hotel in town, right in the thick of Car Week, for the ﬁnal 4-nights.

There are dozens of events to choose from (all of which we can coordinate for you), ﬁnishing with the Pebble Beach Concours on the Sunday.

Entry is limited to just 25 cars (at time of printing, just 12 spaces remain), and we are welcoming guests from all over the world. Bring your own car (we can assist with shipping), or rent one locally in San Francisco, where everything from Ferraris to American muscle cars are readily available.

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The Legend

Derek Bell

Recalling the glory years of Formula 2

The Goodwood Revival Meeting was a lot of fun despite the rain’s best e orts to ruin things. It never ceases to amaze me how the Duke of Richmond and his team manage to keep it a oat regardless of Mother Nature’s best e orts to sink it. I wasn’t competing this year, but I did get to drive an Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 during one of the parades. I raced the at-12engined version in 1975 for Willi Kauhsen, but this was an earlier V8-engined car that had previously been campaigned on the Targa Florio. It was a lovely thing. However, there were times during the weekend when it was an e ort to see where the corners ended and the grass started.

As such, I take my metaphorical hat o to the hotshoes who raced hard in trying conditions and entertained everyone. Yes, there were a few unnecessary incidents, but overall I was greatly impressed by the respect the fast guys showed each other. For me, though, the highlight of my time there was catching up with friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen for ages. It was particularly joyous to see Mike Earle, whom I have known since I rst started competing in 1964. He spo ed the Lotus Seven that I co-owned with my pal John Penfold outside a pub in Farnham and we got to cha ing. We hit it o immediately.

So much so that Mike ran me for part of the time I was in Formula 3, and also oversaw our Church Farm Racing bid in Formula 2. He did so for £5 a week way back when, which I reckon was more than I was earning from racing at the time. Mike was a brilliant team manager and he subsequently looked a er Dave Purley in all manner of single-seaters up to and including F1. ‘Purles’ was a very brave driver, as you would expect of a former paratrooper, but he hated testing so Mike would o en get me to set-up Dave’s cars, usually at Goodwood.

Many years later, Mike founded the Onyx F1 team, which punched above its weight despite operating on a nano-budget. He was also heavily involved in Touring Cars, sports-prototypes; all sorts. Nevertheless, he’s a quiet and modest chap so his praises have never been sung highly enough. Even though we don’t see each other very o en these days, it never feels like it, to the point that it’s as though we are picking up from where we le o last time

conversation-wise. I suppose it’s a sign of me having reached my autumn years that I treasure these moments all the more.

I had a similar warm glow the week a er the Revival Meeting when I hot-footed it down to Brooklands. ere was a special event that tied in with Evro Publishing’s recently launched book Formula 2 – the Glory Years. e basis for this masterwork was images taken in period by Ju a Fausel. I loved Formula 2, having competed in the category with Scuderia Ferrari before switching to my own Brabham, in which I nished second in the 1970 championship. I also drove in the series for Frank Williams and John Surtees. What you might not know is that I returned in 1984 for a one-o outing, driving for Mr Earle.

e point is, I had form in F2. I think I was the only driver to compete in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. To be honest, it isn’t something I had ever really thought about prior to this event, but I talked myself hoarse discussing the old days. Invariably, someone who knows my career be er than I do will tell me something like this; drop a factoid that makes me ick through my mental Rolodex. e depressing thing is that a lot of us silverbacks aren’t quite so sharp in the memory department as we once were, but I reckon I am pre y good with a prompt or two.

I know I have touched on this here before, but I am at a stage in life where I tend to be more re ective about my career. I wasn’t at all sentimental when I was an active driver. Sure, I celebrated winning a race, but I was already thinking of the next one. ese days, I enjoy sharing my war stories, and it always amazes me how some race fans will tell me in great depth about what I drove and where; how well I quali ed, who my co-driver was, how many laps I did, and what I ate for breakfast that day.

I must admit that there are some races that have been expunged from my ability to recall for no reason other than that they weren’t particularly memorable. I have o en said that the race memories I can summon with absolute clarity are the ones where everything went wrong. Ask anyone in sport and they will tell you that bad experiences are o en more enlightening than good ones. It is when you learn who you are and what you’re made of. Consider that a life lesson from someone who had a few ups and downs in his career. You’re welcome.

‘I HAD FORM IN F2. I THINK I WAS THE ONLY DRIVER TO COMPETE IN THE 1960S, ’70S AND ’80S’

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The Aesthete

Stephen Bayley

Good design is all about the way it smells

Forgive me, but I am writing a memoir. Not here on these pages – although I suppose these accumulated columns amount to a memoir of sorts – but in book form. However, relax. It’s not a schmaltzy account of how much I loved my mum, fumbled that rst date followed by the heart-breaking struggle to achieve don’t-ask-mewhat, but instead it describes the material world I have known and admired: the buildings, paintings, the restaurants and, perhaps most of all, the cars. In the book I have as an appendix a list of all the cars that belonged to me, with a brief note describing and explaining each. ere have been 47 of them. If the book is a success, that number will rise to 48, this last very likely being Lu gekuhlt and built in 1994. Meanwhile, it just so happens that I have met every designer whose work has shaped our taste. While his most famous creation was before my driving licence, I knew Chuck Jordan who was chief designer of the ’59 Cadillac, Detroit kitsch at its most extreme. But I also know Jony Ive, whose fastidious aesthetic purism gave Apple as much of a kickstart as Steve Jobs’ genius-level technological plagiarism. e Eldorado Brougham and the iPhone bracket my personal experience of design and tell a story about the decline and fall of the larger ambitions of our age. And that’s the story I want to tell. But it’s a poignant one, because my sense is that the world is losing its appetite for material things, preferring subliminal blips to solid objects.

I am an Analogue Person, enjoying the look, sound, style, touch and – importantly, if incongruously – the smell of solid things. Rivets, castings, carvings, brick, stone, wood, trees. Let’s not forget esh. Garlic cooked in good oil. A ra ling train. e texture of a book, the rustle of an old newspaper. A jet engine spooling down with that distinctive clanking sound from the fan blades. Pen and paper. Whi ling a stick. e basket-weave of an old chair. Stonemasons. e nose of good wine. Frankly, the nose of an average wine will do. I identify with the character in Disraeli who says: ‘I rather like bad wine. One gets so bored with good wine.’

And, of course, the sound of a loud exhaust. ere is nothing quite like a rapid sequence of imperfectly insulated explosions to make the imagination soar. In contrast, that sublime quietness of a cathedral

nave… with an almost tangible echo of the lost centuries. Real stu with meaning.

Respect for the material world we once knew is vanishing. Wine is a microcosmic example: if present trends continue, claret will cease to exist. Glass bo les may be gone, too, replaced by charmless eco-sensitive packaging… even though glass is the most recyclable of man-made stu s.

I mentioned this gloomy thesis to Lorenzo Ramacio i, designer of the Ferrari 456 and Alfa Romeo 4c. Ramacio i is not what you expect of an Italian ‘designer’: no statement spectacles and nervy presence, instead an impressively serious, even sombre, individual in a dark suit rarely without a tie.

Smiling, he rather agreed, saying kids today are not interested in ne cars. Nor, frankly, in cars of any sort: what might the prospect for future classics be? I immediately thought what many will never enjoy is that ‘new car smell’, an olfactory sensation that promises to disappear, not least because, I am told, it o ends the Chinese who are working to eliminate it.

Very rarely does one experience something as close to perfection as a brand new car. Even if its associated smell is comprised of gases given o by volatile organic compounds including acetaldehyde, plasticiser, rust-inhibitors and brominated ame retardants (mandated by cheerless heralds of H&S).

Still, for many it was and remains the smell of a transitory perfection: like most forms of perfection, new car smell degrades rapidly, following a curve of consumer behaviour as ‘the novelty wears o ’. It might seem perverse to discuss evanescent smell in a story about the importance of solid objects, but no. Smell is a faithful messenger in the material world: incense leads our imagination to a candle-lit and masonry-built Romanesque chapel. Similarly, the singer Paolo Conte said a car should smell of a woman and leather. Or maybe it was the other way around and a woman should smell like a car.

We can debate that but, as new car smell dissipates into the atmosphere and into history, we can still enjoy old car smell. Hot Castrol R, brake and rubber dust, petrol fumes, accumulated dirt, decaying upholstery, mildew, even a residue of the sweat and perfume of passengers past combine to remind us of something precious: the undeniable analogue presence of a classic car, on the road or even just in the imagination. at’s what this memoir is about.

‘SMELL IS A FAITHFUL MESSENGER IN THE MATERIAL WORLD’

The Driver

Robert Coucher

Why the default answer shouldn’t always be ‘911’

As the former owner of Porsche 356, 912 and 911, I’m envious of associate editor Glen Waddington, who managed to slide himself into the lightweight bucket seat of the radical MM 912c. As you will read, starting on page 78, much of this radical nature is in the MM’s lightness of being. With the use of modern materials and technology, the lithe coupé comes in some 270kg lighter than my early and already seemingly light 1965 short-wheelbase 912.

As well as carbon bodywork, the MM has uprated suspension, brakes, gearbox and a at-four producing twice the power of the original. From 1949 to 1965, Porsche had developed its wellregarded 356 through A, B and C model variants and had garnered a strong following with motoring enthusiasts. It was a ractive and beautifully constructed, compact, practical and rewarding to drive. In 1964 Zu enhausen’s engineers set the cat among the pigeons, launching the bigger, more complicated, more expensive six-cylinder 911. To appease its ardent four-cylinder followers, especially in America, the 911 ’shell was at the same time engineered to take the 356 engine, tuned to 90bhp with added torque for smoother everyday driving, and with a commensurate drop in price.

Seems all was happy in Porsche world as 911 sales built slowly and the hot-selling 912 took over from the then-dated 356. I experienced this transition in a rather more brutal way when I rolled my 356 into a 912. Literally. Running out of talent at Becke s corner at Silverstone, I managed to invert my 356 with some enthusiasm. In the workshop a erwards it was evident that the rusted-out ’shell was beyond viable repair. Fortunately, a Porsche friend had an early 912 from California for sale, with rust-free bodywork and a knackered engine. Exactly what I needed! My good engine was transplanted and the remainder of the 356 dismantled, with various components sold o to other Porsche owners. e poor 356 was as ro en as a pear. I’d owned it for 18 years and had never so much as kerbed a rim on numerous tough Rallye des Pyrénées, LiègeRome-Liège, Tour Auto and Tour España historic rallies. So I was slightly pissed o when the li le bastard chucked me o the circuit where a car with normal suspension would simply have spun. I know

I’m blaming the tool but the solid 912 o ered a fresh start for my longstanding four-cylinder engine.

To me, much of the enjoyment of classic cars comes from turning them into exactly what you want. I don’t ‘do’ concours so have always spent time and money on performance and handling upgrades. With the help of Porsche specialists – long-su ering Andy Prill of Prill Porsche Classics in particular –the 912 was engineered into a superb rally weapon.

As with most men, whether you are into hunting, shooting, shing or whacking a small white ball around a eld, enjoyment comes with the right kit. For me, a 1720cc big-bore kit including lightweight aluminium Shasta pistons, as well as Koni dampers, Avon tyres, chrome molybdenum pushrods and balanced con-rods – all beautiful stu . Being young and even more stupid, I managed to persuade Andy to go all the way with ridiculously large 44mm Weber carbs (Zenith 32s were original), a high-li Norris cam and Bursch extractor exhaust – he massively increased the original 75bhp to a heady 123.5bhp! With an extra 48.5bhp up its chu , the 912 really came alive. e highpoint was taking part in the challenging Tour España rally on which we met a team of German Octane readers driving a wellprepared early 911. I thought I’d be er keep out of their way in my ‘lesser’ car, but on closed stages the 912 performed brilliantly. For sure, it’s lighter than the 911, particularly at the rear as the four-cylinder engine weighs just 150kg, much less than the at-six. e upshot on unknown stages, with blind crests and corners, is that you can stu the 912 into any unsighted bend and not worry about the tricky pendulum e ect of the 911, should the corner suddenly then go the other way. It was very satisfying when the Germans came over and expressed amazement at the li le Porsche’s performance.

Although Andy Prill is a world expert specialising in Porsche 917s, 908s, 550 Spiders, all RSs and so on, he says: ‘I still love 912s and think they are underappreciated. I had one myself some years ago and miss it. e cars have a character all of their own and are such fun to drive when set up correctly.’

I salute the boys at MM for pushing the Porsche 912 envelope so far. I enjoyed developing my 912 into a real yer and would never have imagined how much further it could have gone. en again, I didn’t have £300k…

‘YOU CAN STUFF THE 912 INTO ANY BEND AND NOT WORRY ABOUT THE PENDULUM EFFECT OF THE 911’

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The latest Bentley boys

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 is!’ replied dad without hesitation, despite the fact we had never even spoken about it.

Several months later a suitable 4.5 Litre car was found and 21 months after that a full nut-and-bolt restoration was completed. I had never previously

driven a centre-throttle car nor used a crash ’box, so a steep learning curve ensued.

When the car was finally delivered, my eldest son Rafe remarked: ‘When I was 11, I asked what your dream car was. You said a 4.5 Litre Le Mans Bentley, and I always wondered why. Now I understand.’ Nothing bridges the generations like the enjoyment of vintage cars. Thank you, dad, for starting us on this unbelievably brilliant journey. Harry Tayler, Cape Town, South Africa

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Roman holiday Robert Coucher reminiscing on his six-hour Alfa Giulia Berlinetta drive along the Garden Route South Africa brought to mind a drive with my wife from our home in East Sussex to Rome and back in 1976. My Alfa was a 1750 Berlina, which I had bought as a non-running garage trade-in. Although it was just six years old, my father-in-law and I eliminated a good deal of rust before the trip, and I replaced a few bent valves. But what a trip and what a car! Regularly cruising at an indicated 100mph in that summer heatwave and faultless over the Brenner Pass, the Alfa was a joy to drive. The only downside was having all our camera gear and films stolen while it was parked near the Vatican in Rome: the boot had been opened and closed with no forcing – I guess Alfa locks in Italy then were like Fords’ in England, in that any key would open them. Yes, every car enthusiast should own an Alfa at least once.

Colin Nutt, West Sussex

Beauty, beholder etc I couldn’t allow Stephen Bayley’s assertion in Octane 267 that the most beautiful cars were made in the 1950s to the early ’70s go unchallenged. My wife and I bought one of the first Lotus Elises [similar to the above] in 1998 and it combines beauty with amazing performance, despite its relatively small Rover engine. We still have it and love it.

Geoffrey Pelham-Lane, London

Bligh-ted reputations

I’m afraid I’m going to mutiny – politely – against your portrayal of William Bligh in the auction piece about his compass [Octane 269] used in his epic 3618-mile voyage after the Bounty mutiny. Although played to repulsive perfection by Charles Laughton in 1935, your depiction of him as merely ‘an awful leader’ and ‘tyrant’ owes more to popular culture than to history. He wasn’t that bad. Likewise, Fletcher Christian wasn’t quite the unalloyed saint, either, but chippy and resentful.

Bligh, who was from humble stock, had risen through the ranks on merit rather than patronage. Christian, by comparison, was a bit of a posho who’d had an easy ride. It was this clash of culture and class, it seems, that may have fuelled mutual resentment. In the mutiny, only a quarter of the crew sided affirmatively with Christian – and Bligh took nearly half the ship’s complement into the long boat. They must have had enormous faith in him.

Mention of the British class system brings us to Sir Stirling Moss, whose name now is a byword for the virtues we admire and a pillar of the establishment. That was not always so. Moss spanned the transition from gentleman (amateur) to

professional (player). Early on, though, the establishment didn’t embrace Moss, often muttering the word ‘professional’ as a perjorative codeword that referred more to attitude than the financial reward.

Stirling Moss used to say that post-racing he made his living from a fading reputation. His is asssured, but Bligh’s has been blighted by history, so I thought I’d speak up for the old fella, who wasn’t the cartoon villain that he’s been depicted as in popular culture. He was also bloody good at using a compass.

Dave Selby, Essex

Lamborghini lapses

As the owner of a Lamborghini Countach and an Espada, I was thrilled to see the Countach coverage in Octane 269. However, I do feel the need for a bit of nitpicking related to the feature about Lamborghini’s Polo Storico heritage department.

First, the caption for the lead image [above] identifies the yellow LP500 as ‘Bertone’s

original LP500 show-car.’ It’s not. It’s a recreation built by Polo Storico in 2021. The original became Bob Wallace’s road test car and was then crash-tested at MIRA in the UK.

Second, the article says that an employee ‘known only as Ingrid’ kept production records. That’s Ingrid Pussich, who was Ferruccio Lamborghini’s assistant and the factory secretary for years, not some mysterious unknown woman. She’s somewhat legendary and played an important role. Perhaps the writer was trying to add a bit of intrigue to his story but that is doing Ingrid a great disservice.

Tom Haas, New Jersey, USA

Character forming

Leafing back through old issues of Octane, a piece in issue 239 about an Armstrong Siddeley brought back a memory.

I attended Woolverstone Hall outside Ipswich from 1955 to ’57. Like many others, I was a keen plane-spotter and after school on Saturday morning we would hitch-hike to various air bases hoping to bring back bragging rights. One Saturday, Peter Brown (his dad was a BOAC pilot) and I rushed off as usual, neglecting to change out of uniform because we were so eager. It was an eventful day: apart from the usual

B-52s we were totally surprised to see a Super Sabre launch out of a barn! Having filled our quota, we headed back to school. On the Woolverstone Road out of Ipswich we were lucky to get a lift right away. Our joy quickly evaporated when we recognised the headmaster’s Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire – but our mood suddenly improved when he asked if we’d like to go ‘over the ton’. Well, needless to say we were thrilled. However, the headmaster was Major JHNS Smitherman, a commanding figure, and he was in full military uniform. We did the ton and back at school swept up to the majestic front doors in full view of many mates –perfect! We got out and the Major marched us straight into his office, whereupon he proceeded to give us each ‘six-of-the-best’ for hitch-hiking in uniform. We became instant celebrities and basked in that glow for some time.

John Arnott, Toronto, Canada

XK-eek!

I read with interest your bookazine The 100 Greatest Sports Cars of All Time [now sold-out, unfortunately – Ed], and in particular your attempt to reach 150mph in an E-type [above]. In the fall of 1968 on a newly paved and deserted road in New Mexico, I maxed out my 1967 XK-E at an indicated 155mph: steering was almost non-existent since the front got increasingly light above 140mph. I never attempted it again.

John McCatharn, Florida, USA

Send your letters to letters@octane-magazine.com

Please include your name, address and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited for clarity. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Octane.

MATT HOWELL

LOW FLYING

When a customer challenged Eagle to build a sub-1000kg race-inspired road car, it kicked off an obsessive weight-saving drive that’s resulted in one of the greatest E-types we’ve ever driven

Words

David Lillywhite Photography Dean Smith

Ifound 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 handling… everything. Weight loss doesn’t have to be as extreme as the Lightweight GTR’s to make for an entertaining machine, but what we love about this car is the obsessive attention to detail – and, I now know, the way it drives on some of the UK’s greatest roads. Without wanting to come over like a fan-boy, this is what Eagle has been doing since 1991: carrying out considered engineering changes to one of the most iconic cars of all time, making them better to drive and own. Jaguar obsessive Henry Pearman had been restoring and maintaining E-types under the Eagle banner since 1984, and in 1991 created a subtly upgraded version for a customer who wanted a driving experience as good as the car’s looks promised.

What followed was a development of Eagle’s E-type restorations: tuned engines, upgraded suspension and brakes, five-speed gearboxes, more comfortable cabins, air conditioning – but never, ever losing the character and essence of the E-type. You won’t find the option of a more modern engine on the price list. But Eagle customers kept coming back for more, until one American client asked to go a step further. He wanted to create something that went beyond a ‘normal’ Eagle E-type. After much thought, soulsearching and a session taking an angle grinder to a tired donor car, Henry and Paul came up with the Speedster – an E-type with an alloy body shaped to give a sleeker, more muscular look. The windscreen was lower and more steeply raked, the wheelarches were wider, the sills deeper with a lower floor, and the rear deck extended further forward.

That was back in 2008, but the way it was developed is crucial to the story of the Lightweight GTR’s gestation. In 2018 I drove the fourth Speedster built, in Florida, en route to its home in Miami. It was perfectly suited to that climate, but, for those less keen on doing away with a soft-top, Eagle was by then already offering the similarly bespoke Spyder GT and the Low Drag GT, the latter an Eagle take on the original 1962 Low Drag Coupé developed by aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer. On that Florida outing, Paul revealed that Eagle was also working on the Lightweight GT, a homage to the 12 Lightweight E-type race cars that Jaguar built in 1963 and ’64 to take on the Ferrari 250 GTOs. It wasn’t to be a copy, but a combination of the Works cars’ looks and Eagle road car know-how. When the first Eagle Lightweight GT subsequently emerged in 2019, it looked sensational, arguably the best of the Eagle creations to that point. I drove that mid-blue example in 2020 around the often-bumpy roads of Kent,

Right, top and bottom

You’re invited to drive a sub-tonne E-type restomod with 400bhp, so where better to test it than on the sinuous mountain roads of mid-Wales?

Above

The latest iteration of Eagle’s special-build E-types takes its inspiration from the Works Lightweights and incorporates modern materials and technology.

UK, and was blown away by its performance, ride and looks. It has all the obvious styling cues of the original E-type Lightweights – the hardtop, the lack of bumpers, the roof and boot vents, the centre-lock wheels – but if you sit the Eagle alongside an original, the differences are clear. Most obviously, the new car’s windscreen and rear window are more steeply raked, the roofline is lower, the rear wheelarches are more curvaceous, the 16in peg-drive wheels wider, the hardtop more sculpted and better-integrated with the body, and the door windows are devoid of frames. In fact, every panel of the all-alloy body differs from the original.

Eagle has since created a second Lightweight GT, with another one currently mid-build, but there’s always someone who wants something more. In this case, a new Paris-based client contacted Eagle to request a faster, lighter version of the Lightweight GT, closer to the rawness of the original 1963/64 Lightweight E-type race-cars but still usable on

the road. It had to have triple Webers and the famous wideangle cylinder head, it had to have competition-style electric cut-off switches and an exposed alloy fuel cap… and it had to come in at under 1000kg.

This, folks, is how the white Eagle E-type Lightweight GTR pictured here came to life. I first see it high in the hills of mid-Wales. Paul Brace has driven it from Eagle HQ to shake it down and show it off on behalf of the owner before it’s sent to France. As the sun rises higher in the autumn sky, the pearl flecks in the paint start to sparkle, and passers-by stop to check it out. One particularly knowledgeable visitor turns out to have owned E-type chassis 85 back in the day. I’m desperate to know how Eagle cut the weight down so significantly but that can wait, because I’m even keener to know how it drives. The Lightweight GTR has a similar set-up to that of the Lightweight GT I drove in 2020, with the same deeper sills and lowered seating position, but the

controls would feel familiar to anyone who’s driven an E-type before. Sure enough, there’s the characteristically tiny key in the ignition switch in the middle of the dash, with the black starter button just to the left. Turn the key, hear the Facet fuel pump tick into life somewhere behind me, push the starter button and the straight-six fires immediately. It’s not obnoxious but it’s certainly not quiet as it idles lumpily at 800rpm, the triple Weber carburettors less regulated than Eagle’s usual triple SU set-up.

The gearbox is a tried and tested Eagle five-speed conversion, which always feels strong and precise. In first, the gears rattle slightly, which is usually masked by transmission tunnel soundproofing and a centre console –which the owner didn’t want. He doesn’t mind the noise and, as he’s said himself, it sounds a bit 911 GT3 RS…

The re-engineered pedal box feels perfectly weighted. A little flick of the accelerator has an instant effect on the revs

‘I CHALLENGE ANYONE TO FEEL THIS GOOD IN A MODERN SUPERCAR’

but this isn’t a car that feels daunting to pull away in, even with an audience. Still, I find myself revving it more than necessary as I ease out of the car park, assuming the engine is going to bog down. It doesn’t, and I head onto the road embarrassment-free. Phew.

The engine pulls strongly to about 3000rpm, when I change up, still getting used to the car. It’s so easy, with all the controls feeling perfectly matched. The bespoke Alcantara-covered alloy seat, created and set specifically for the owner, has enough adjustment on it for me and if I’d needed to I could also have adjusted the steering column in or out and up or down. Driven like this, on undulating and twisting open roads, the Lightweight GTR sounds sporty but not unpleasantly loud or aggressive. The gearing is high and the engine flexible, so I’m mostly changing between second and third, enjoying the experience of rapid but surprisingly relaxed travel.

Paul’s words are ringing in my ears, though. He was adamant that I push the engine to 5500rpm, saying that above 3500rpm it really comes alive. Well, it would be rude not to, though I remember that the blue Lightweight GT was redlined at 5000rpm when I drove it. As the road clears ahead, I open up those three sidedraught Webers, and sure enough the car changes character as the revs rise, sounding sharper and more urgent and accelerating hard ’n’ loud.

It’s addictive, feeling it come on-cam like this, and the temptation is to keep driving it like that, again and again, sensing the car squirm and move around a little under hard acceleration, adrenaline-buzzing as the Webers roar and the exhausts start to scream, shifting through the gears with deliberate, positive movements, and then flicking the accelerator to match the revs on every downshift. I challenge anyone to feel this good in a modern supercar.

But then a slower car up front, or sheep perilously close to the road, will mean easing off for a while, and all is calm again. Weirdly calm. This E-type is so easy to drive at any speed. And what becomes clear after a few miles is that the suspension isn’t the rock-hard set-up you might expect, but beautifully supple and controlled. Bumps, ruts, potholes… it would be daft to claim a car like this glides over them but it’s not shaken, it doesn’t thump or judder or crash. In fact,

1963/2025 Eagle Lightweight GTR

Engine 4.7-litre DOHC straight-six, triple Weber DCOE sidedraught carburettors Power 400bhp @ 5750rpm

Torque 380lb ft @ 4000rpm Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Steering Rack and pinion

Suspension Front: double wishbones, torsion bars, Öhlins adjustable dampers, anti-roll bar. Rear: transverse links, fixed-length driveshafts, coil springs, Öhlins adjustable dampers Brakes Carbon ceramic discs, AP racing calipers Weight 975kg Top speed 170mph+ 0-60mph 4.0sec (est)

there are no rattles, no squeaks, no unseemly noises at all.

This is an Eagle thing. Over the years it has continually experimented with spring and damper rates, predictably making them too firm for a little while and then settling on relatively supple springs combined with the very best dampers available – in this case, bespoke adjustable Öhlins. In this way, the bumps are absorbed but the compression and rebound are perfectly controlled, so successfully in this case that Eagle has done away with the rear anti-roll bar. The only downside of its absence is apparently noticeable only on the limit.

Also, from the very start, Eagle changed the suspension geometry of its E-types to suit modern tyres. That’s something Jaguar never did, even when it switched from crossply tyres to radials. Once again, the geometry has been developed over the years to the point that Paul says Eagle has now virtually eliminated bump-steer on its cars. On the road, all this shows in wonderfully pointable steering that lets the driver know what’s going on without loading up or kicking back on poor surfaces. And the grip at both ends is spectacular on these unseasonably dry roads.

None of this is all that different from the blue Lightweight GT I drove six years ago but there are subtle differences that can be put down to the reduced weight and the engine spec. The ride is a little better and, most obviously of all, it’s easier to keep the GTR’s engine on song. That’s a combination of having less weight to propel, a reduced final drive ratio and the higher engine rev limit mentioned earlier.

And that brings us on to the 400bhp engine itself, which is built to proven Eagle specification. It’s bored and stroked to 4.7 litres, running a machined billet crankshaft and titanium con-rods to reduce rotating mass, which gives a crisper response and allows the higher rev limit on what’s now a long-stroke engine. It’s all topped by the famous ‘wide-angle’ cylinder head that originated with the D-type; basically, the inlet and exhaust valves are less upright than in a standard XK engine, allowing larger valves to be used for greater flow. The downside of this cylinder head is less low-down torque, which the triple Weber set-up does little to alleviate. Eagle’s favourite SU carburettors endow this spec of engine with a smoother torque curve but the customer-specified Webers are more dramatic in appearance, sound and power delivery.

Opposite top, and above

Race-style interior is minimalist but includes mother-of-pearl inlays and titanium gearknob; no fitted screens but a MagSafe phone charger; bespoke white-faced rev-counter is redlined at 5500rpm.

EAGLE OWNERSHIP

Joining an exclusive club

There are just 74 Eagle E-types in existence, and 12 more in build at the time of writing – and that’s including the special-bodied cars – so Eagle ownership is an exclusive club. Just four cars are restored each year, including any builds of the specials. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s rare for one to come to the market. When they do, it’s usually through Eagle, because the owners stay in touch throughout their custodianship. They’re usually sold at a premium, in recognition of the fact that buying a ready-built car has skipped the build process.

Customers are actually more likely to order new builds from Eagle, though, to ensure a bespoke car built exactly to their desires. It’s a three-to-four-year process, with the owner involved in every stage. Some have enjoyed it so much that they’ve immediately ordered another Eagle once their car is finished.

The cars have been shipped all around the world, but the beauty of them is that they are still E-types, and can be worked on by any classic car specialist. If cars do return to Eagle’s HQ in East Sussex, it’s usually for further upgrades.

In recent years, prompted by a gathering to celebrate Eagle’s 35th anniversary, the company has started to organise special events for Eagle owners. The most popular are the tours, which so far have taken place in England, Scotland, Norway, Spain, Portugal and California, with cars shipped in from far and wide.

And drama is what this car is all about, as you’ve probably gathered, though I’ve made you wait for the best bit: the weight savings. Because if you love a bit of engineering nerdiness, you’ll appreciate what follows. Remember that Paul Brace’s opinion just five years ago was that sub-1000kg wasn’t possible without several compromises too far.

Here’s what he says now: ‘I thought 1000kg was a great target, but I didn’t know if it was realistic. But that’s the target that the customer wanted, so we said that we’d give it a good go. It wasn’t money-no-object; we had to be sensible and spend the budget wisely. There was some stuff that we didn’t do because it would have been silly. There’s some stuff we did that possibly is silly, but relatively costs pennies – for example, the screws that hold the Nardi steering wheel on and the screws around the billet gearlever gaiter are titanium. The gearknob and gearlever are titanium, but the little collar under the gearknob isn’t, because the weight-saving was so marginal for the cost.’

Some items were already in the existing Eagle options list, such as the magnesium engine sump, gearbox casing, bellhousing, differential casing and rear hub-carriers, as well as the hollow driveshafts, the tubular wishbones, the Inconel exhaust manifolds and titanium exhausts, the lithium battery (‘expensive but one of the best weight savings per pound’), and even the tubular steering column.

The new developments for the GTR, though, were titanium wheel-hubs and carbon ceramic brake discs with AP Racing calipers. If you’re wondering why I didn’t

‘DRAMA IS WHAT THIS CAR IS ALL ABOUT, THOUGH THE BEST BIT IS THE WEIGHT SAVINGS’

Left

The GTR was all about a personal challenge to sneak kerbweight under a tonne – the better to exploit all 400bhp of this 4.7-litre development of the XK.

mention the brakes earlier, it’s because they were so trustworthy that I barely noticed them in action, despite them running a standard-size servo rather than the larger (heavier) servo that Eagle usually fits.

The team also ‘pocketed’ (removed excess material from) Eagle’s existing magnesium wheels and made the wheel bosses that sit on the spindles out of titanium instead of the usual steel. Even the alloy seats were made differently, with lips formed over lightweight alloy tubing rather than heavier steel rod. Other weight savings came from higher-tech materials, such as the honeycomb boot-floor that replaced the original plywood, though Paul was disappointed to find that the required Sikaflex bonding glue added more weight than expected. Obsessive? Well…

‘Every part of the car was considered,’ he says. ‘Do we drill holes in it? Do we cut a bit off? Do we cast it in magnesium or remake it in titanium? Every bolt has been shortened so there are no excess threads.’

This obsession was shared by the customer, who was involved in every stage of the process, to the point that he says he now misses his Friday afternoon updates, which

‘EVERY BOLT HAS BEEN SHORTENED SO THERE ARE NO

EXCESS THREADS’

– PAUL BRACE

he refers to as his ‘therapy’ from office life. ‘Every time we had something made in titanium, we put it on the scales and sent him the weight difference,’ says Paul. ‘And, of course, what he was doing was adding all this up on a spreadsheet. I said to him, “I know you’re saving all these figures, and I know you’re going to add all those up and take those off what the other one [Lightweight GT no.1] weighed, but it doesn’t work like that.” Only in this instance it actually did! We put it on the scales and… wow! It really was 930kg dry.’

Amid all this attention to minute weight savings come some surprising fripperies. Peer inside the cabin, race-like in its black Alcantara austerity, and you might spot a sparkle from the Eagle logo and switch bezels on the new floating binnacle under the dash: they’re platinum with mother-ofpearl inlays! While on business in Australia the GTR’s owner met members of the famous Paspaley pearling family, who offered to create the mother-of-pearl inlays as a gift after he told them that he’d chosen pearl white paintwork for his car.

To top it off, an Eagle logo was needed. Paul experimented with 3D printing for that before discovering the lost wax casting method used by jewellers. Reporting back, he explained it could be used for gold, silver, platinum… ‘Humour me with a price for the platinum,’ came the response. And sure enough, that’s what was chosen for the logo and the switch bezels.

None of this came cheap, you won’t be surprised to hear, and Paul is too discreet to give away the figure. But what he does say is that buying a Lightweight GT will cost you £975,000, ‘plus the extras to get it up to usual Eagle level, plus the hours spent shaving the weight off.’

So now you’re probably thinking that, as this is well over £1m worth, and it’s got mother-of-pearl and platinum trim, surely it’s never going to be driven hard in its life. I know, I thought the same, but Paul messaged the next day to say he’d driven the Lightweight GTR home to East Sussex from Wales the previous night. ‘It scoffs up the motorways,’ he wrote, and then shared this quote from the new owner.

‘Today’s performance cars are getting increasingly big and heavy, relying on advanced electronics to disguise the mass. I’m not sure those cars will age very well, so I commissioned Eagle to build me the antithesis: a car that is as light as possible without sacrificing comfort, devoid of screens or other electronics, and with incredible performance, long-distance comfort and timeless beauty. I couldn’t be happier with the result.’

We know he’ll use it as intended. All 930kg of it.

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 reengineered 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 five-speed gearbox. Its 6.5x15in wire wheels filled the ’arches to perfection.

The more radical direction began with the Speedster, the first special-bodied car, with a dramatic aluminium skin, cut-down ’screen and no roof or hood. Power options include a 4.7-litre straight-six producing 330bhp, capable of hitting 60mph in under five seconds. The example driven by Octane featured throttle-body fuel injection to sharpen response, though Henry Pearman admitted that carburettors are simpler and just as effective. It’s exhilarating but unashamedly extroverted – a car best-suited to dry climates and open roads, one that dazzles with performance and presence, though its extreme style and lack of weather protection make it less practical than its siblings. Seven have been built so far.

THE EAGLES THAT LANDED

The Lightweight GTR is the latest in a line of very special reimagined E-types

In contrast, the Low Drag GT is the grand tourer of the group – elegant, aerodynamic and devastatingly quick. In the test car’s case, a 4.7-litre wide-angle-head engine with triple Webers offers 380bhp and 375lb ft of torque, propelling its 1012kg aluminium body with brutal ease. Air-conditioned, spacious and beautifully trimmed, it’ll devour continents, harder suspension and firm steering giving it a racier edge but with the trade-off of a less forgiving ride. It’s basically Eagle’s fast-road take on Malcolm Sayer’s famous race car. Nine have been built.

Next came the Spyder GT, which combines the poise and performance of the Low Drag GT and the styling of the Speedster. Its raked windscreen and convertible hood offer the best of both worlds – whatever the weather. The third has just been completed.

Until the GTR, the ultimate Eagle was the Lightweight GT – the most focused and thrilling thus far. With 380bhp from its 4.7-litre triple-Weber straight-six and featuring extensive use of magnesium components, it weighs just over a tonne and drives with race-bred precision. There are two of these in existence – and a third is in-build. And now we have the latest, lightest GTR version. Whatever next?

Photograph Paul Harmer

The language of loveline

Whether described in English, French or Italian, the Talbot-Lago Teardrop is the most remarkable expression of Style Moderne, as Stephen Bayley explains

Photography Michael McCardle / Petersen Automotive Museum

They said Antonio – later ‘Tony’ – Lago was ‘spietato ma con grande fascino’ (which is to say ‘ruthless, but charming’). And they said of his most famous car that it was ‘une veritable oeuvre d’art’. They also said it was ‘una vera opera d’arte’ It’s a real work of art! And all of these are doubtless true. Thing is, you need three languages to understand the complicated story of the ‘Teardrop’ Talbot.

You can read anything that is made like a book, Henry Ford once said, provided you know how. And what is formally known as the Talbot-Lago 150-C-S proves this. It might better be compared to a library than a single volume, so many references does it contain. The threads and filaments of European motor car culture – technical, commercial, artistic, romantic, erotic – are woven into its story, its back story and its future.

They weren’t wrong. Of course, you can look at any car as if it were a work of art, provided you know how. This doesn’t work so well with a Hillman Minx (an incongruous bit-part player in this story, as I will explain). In every sense, the astonishing creation that is the Teardrop beggars definitions of where machines end and art begins – a preoccupation of the culturati in the decade when it was built.

When the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi attempted to bring one of his gleaming metal abstract sculptures into America, US Customs insisted it was a machine component, not a work of art, thus attracting a higher level of duty. Besides Brancusi, other artists were exploring the evocative possibilities of abstract sculpture that fluttered on the edge of being representational. Man Ray made a paperweight as an hommage to Priapus. Only a very dull person would not get the phallic visual reference.

A collectable display item popular at the time was Coco de Mer, the sea coconut of the Seychelles, the shape of which is richly suggestive of breasts and buttocks and what-have-you. Fashionable people used to have them mounted on plinths, clearly suggesting an erotic presence at home on the sideboard. The gorgeously sculpted mudguards (parafangi or garde-boues) of the Teardrop, known as enveloppantes, are clearly related to this style of shapemaking and a taste for voluptuousness.

Three remarkable men were responsible for the evolution of this remarkable car. The most surprising was Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the 20th Earl of Shrewsbury, who added to his already substantial inheritance by running a successful hansom cab business in London and Paris.

A busy man, in 1900 he founded the Shrewsbury and Challiner Tyre Company. Two years later he went into manufacturing with his Anglo-French creation, ClémentTalbot, the North Kensington, London premises of which were the first purpose-built car factory in Britain. Now Grade II listed, it accommodates a restaurant called Pollini.

And as if to seed the lascivious character of the future Teardrop, the Earl of Shrewsbury enjoyed an affair with the seductress Lillie Langtry, who also had an intimate liaison

of her own with the prince who later became King Edward VII. Langtry was in the circle of Oscar Wilde, who encouraged her to go on the stage. Her fame, perhaps even her notoriety, led to her becoming what we would today describe as an ‘ambassador’ for Pear’s Soap. Additionally, her portrait was painted by John Everett Millais, founder of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. I think Henry Ford would have enjoyed these baffling connections.

Then there was Antonio Lago himself, born in Venice in 1893. His father was a well-connected theatre impresario and the young man grew up with the future Pope John XXIII and Benito Mussolini, a pairing that nicely brackets the range of human moral possibilities, at least in an Italian context. Lago, like many of the great Italian architectdesigner-engineers, graduated from the Politecnico di Milano and was, unlike most architect-designer-engineers, an early recruit of the Partito Nazionale Fascista.

After a dispute with Mussolini, Lago resigned from the PNF and took to carrying a hand grenade for self-defence. He used it when ambushed by a Fascist gang in a trattoria. He escaped. Although a pattern of stylishly demonstrative behaviour had begun.

Wisely, he moved from Italy to France and then to London, where he was a salesman for Isotta Fraschini at its North Audley Street showroom. Alas, it is not known whether he still carried a hand grenade to deal with awkward customers in Mayfair. Lago then became a director of Self-Changing Gears, the firm that developed the quirky pre-selector gearbox.

When, in 1934, he heard that Automobiles Talbot (the French branch of Shrewsbury’s business) was financially troubled and set for administration, he cleverly converted his rights to gearbox intellectual property into an option to purchase. (In 1935, the year of the Teardrop, 14 years after Shrewsbury’s death, the English Talbot operation was sold to Rootes, hence the Hillman Minx connection.)

After Lago’s acquisition, he soon realised his ambition to become a manufacturer. The Talbot-Lago T150, a voiture de sport, first appeared at a Concours d’Elegance in the Bois de Boulogne. Three cars were painted the red, white and blue of Le Tricolore and presented by female racing drivers in colour-coded outfits. The car was clearly located at Top Dead Centre of fashionable Paris.

It’s at this point that the third significant character enters the Teardrop story. Lago commissioned body designs from the carrosseries of Marcel Paulin and Jacques Saoutchik, both very fine, but the cars most representative of the Teardrop spirit were the creations of Giuseppe Figoni, born in 1894 near Piacenza in the very north of Emilia-Romagna.

Figoni moved from Italy to Paris and was apprenticed to a coachbuilder, routinely adding artistic value to chassis made by Delage and Bugatti. His first signature masterpiece was a road-going body on an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 chassis, the type that won Le Mans in 1932. By 1935 he was independent, and hired Ovidio Falaschi to run the

‘It is not known whether Lago still carried a hand grenade to deal with awkward customers in Mayfair’

Above and opposite

This 1937 Talbot-Lago Type 150-C-S by Figoni et Falaschi belonged to the late Peter Mullin. It’s as striking inside as out, and features a race-bred 140bhp 4.0-litre straight-six with four-speed pre-selector gearbox.

commercial side of his business, freeing him to do the amboyant designs that made his name synonymous with the extravagant style of the 1930s.

Fundamentally, the Teardrop was a pure racer with a powerful 4.0-litre engine. It was engineered by Walter Becchia who, in con rmation that Talbot was a crossroads in many automotive career journeys, later moved to Citroën, where he re-designed Maurice Sainturat’s 2CV engine, adapting it from water- to air-cooling. It has been said that inspiration here came from the BMW R12 that Citroën designer Flaminio Bertoni rode. So skilled was Becchia that this total re-design was said to have taken no longer than a week. (In the 1950s, Becchia designed a at-six for the Citroën DS, but mounting costs ruled out its use.)

e Buga i 57S(C) Atlantic of 1938 shows a clear resemblance to the Teardrop, although its own ancestry goes back to the one-o magnesium-bodied Aerolithe, shown at the Paris Salon of 1935. Certainly, the later and equally magni cent Buga i con rmed the signi cance of Figoni’s Talbot so far as aesthetic direction was concerned. is, in a decade of a ‘nouveau style des carrossiers accordant une grande importance à l’aerodynamisme’ (a new style of bodywork paying great a ention to aerodynamics).

e outstanding features are those pontoon garde-boues enveloppantes, a steeply raked windscreen, faired-in headlights, astonishing proportions, lavish curves, uncompromising stance. Its artistic value is inarguable, but maybe the Teardrop had some of the practical failings of the Buga i Atlantic, where conversation was said to be impossible above 60km/h and rear vision so impaired that turning one’s head was like pivoting while wearing a hoodie.

Figoni’s design process began with a sketch. He then used the sketch to make a matrix of thin metal strips, not unlike a modern CAD nite element analysis. A frame of ash was subsequently created and this provided the form over which the metal was so beautifully bashed. e outrageously gorgeous shape was enhanced on some examples by Figoni’s early use of Nitrolac metallic paint.

It’s conventional to cite the Teardrop as a masterpiece of Art Deco, but that’s not quite true. ‘Art Deco’ is a recent invention, or, at least, the name is. It was not a homogeneous movement with a manifesto, but the title of a 1968 book by Bevis Hillier. Figoni never said ‘I am an Art Deco designer.’ In 1925 it was known as Style Moderne. And that’s how the Teardrop may be understood: ‘modern’ is now a stylelabel with a very speci c historical location. e Bauhaus had opened six years before the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, which gave Hillier his nominative cue, but despite its claims to make design democratic, the German school was essentially elitist and austere, never achieving real popularity. In contrast, ‘Art Deco’ claimed all the positives of the new industrial civilisation, but without the sententious moralising of Gropius et al.

Like the Bauhaus, however, ‘Art Deco’ designers used modern materials and techniques – Nitrolac, for example –but enjoyed speed, pa ern, the romance of travel, glamour, colour, luxury and sensuality all embodied in the Teardrop. Small wonder it became more genuinely popular than penitential Bauhaus chairs. Art Deco consumerised modernism, making it accessible, what the French so rightly call haute vulgarisation. While lavish and expensive, the Teardrop spoke a language everyone could understand. Unlike, for example, a Bauhaus chair.

But was the Teardrop truly aerodynamic or just a demonstration of aerodynamic fashion? You don’t want things to be pear-shaped, so a Teardrop shape is just ne, but it is not quite correct. Tears suggest melancholy, but this car can be read as joyous, irrefragable hedonism at its vertiginous peak in the years before Hitler’s war made joyous hedonism look decadent rather than great fun.

ey called it ‘Teardrop’ or goccia d’aqua or gou e d’eau because this was contemporary shorthand for a shape that was streamlined. Architects and designers were seduced by the new formal wonders of all-metal aeroplanes: the Douglas DC-3, Lockheed Electra and Boeing 247. Howard Hughes’ sensational H-1 Racer monoplane made a unique

‘This car was not a technical exercise in the ofpenetration air, rather an exercise in the deep penetration of the soul’

impression. In the year of the Teardrop, Le Corbusier even wrote a little book called L’Avion Accuse!, suggesting that aircraft were exemplary designs and a source of universal inspiration. It was a joyful moment for amateurs of mechanical beauty, or automobile art. But tears running down cheeks do not make the perfect shape of a raindrop. When precipitation occurs, water meets opposition from the air and adopts the path of least resistance: a rounded shape that tails off into a point. I have seen estimates that the drag coefficient of a raindrop is 0.04.

So far as I can tell, no-one has determined the Talbot-Lago Teardrop’s Cd. But this car was not a technical exercise in the penetration of air, rather an exercise in the deep penetration of the soul. It fully expresses a commitment to delight and sensual pleasure. Perhaps ‘Art Deco’ really is the most appropriate description after all.

The Teardrop was an exact contemporary of Jean Patou and Elsa Schiaparelli, completely original fashion designers whose elegance and refinement hinted at a subtle eroticism. They freed women from old constraints, while committing them to new ones. Backless and bias-cut dresses may have been liberating, but they were also fetishising of the female body. Not necessarily a bad thing, but worth noting.

CERTAINLY, TONY LAGO understood the value of associations with fashion, ephemeral as fashion may be. Revealingly, Falaschi said we are ‘couturiers of automotive coachwork, dressing and undressing a chassis one, two or three times’. The erotic suggestion here does not need to be explained.

Despite the number of costume changes, only 16 Teardrops were made. How curious, how elegiac, that something so widely regarded as ineffably beautiful should exist only in such small numbers. But maybe that tells you something about the rarity and fragility of beauty itself.

After 1945, when car production resumed, unitary construction slowly began to make coachbuilding – especially in the grande luxe genre – redundant, a process of decline that may be said to have ended when Bertone went bankrupt in 2014. Figoni, the uncontested champion of ravishing visual extravagance, became a humble garagiste

Tony Lago sold French Talbot to SIMCA in 1959. He died the next year.

P.S.

THANKS TO Petersen Automotive Museum, petersen.org.

Porsche’s 912 was lighter and more nimble than the earliest 911s. KAMM’s fully carbon-panelled 912c takes that to the extreme – with double the power

Words Glen Waddington Photography Paul Harmer

f 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 aircooled 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 foibles, though. Driving a 911 – any 911 – hard rarely comes without a flutter in the stomach, at least at some point. Even Porsche knew it needed taming, hence the longer wheelbase from 1968 (see Octane 269), and front bumper overriders as ballast to reduce the pendulum effect. But what if that rear-mounted engine could hang a little less far out beyond the driven axle? Worth a change in soundtrack?

All this is mentioned because the car in these pictures is not a 911. It’s a 912, though a heavily modified one, and is definitely worth the change in soundtrack, as we’ll see. Regular readers might be familiar with the KAMM 912c that appeared in issue 244. This goes a step further: it has a full carbonfibre body and weighs a scant 700kg, give or take. That’s 50kg less than the previous version, which featured carbonfibre opening panels and front wings, and it’s some 270kg less than a standard steel 912.

The founder of KAMM is Miki Kázmér, a Hungarian film producer and amateur racer who set out to have the ‘perfect’ 912 built but became frustrated with the services of others and began his own project, before then offering similar cars to order. As he told Octane’s editorial director, David Lillywhite: ‘I used my skills as a producer to manage the project, finding the best people and directing the process. The 912 project involved significant modifications, including using carbonfibre for weight reduction and re-engineering the suspension and brakes. The aim was to create a car that was both usable and enjoyable to drive, with a focus on simplicity and heritage and that bridged the gap between modern and vintage cars. I was surprised by the balance and handling of the 912, which was more enjoyable to drive than the 911.’

More than anything else, what makes a 912 distinct from a 911, of course, is its engine. As the 911 was launched, Porsche engineer Dan Schwartz was appointed to oversee a new engine for a cheaper variant, ready to supplant the ageing 356, which briefly overlapped in production. Built from 1965 to 1969, the 912 actually outsold the 911 and a total of 30,000 were built. Schwartz’s engine was intended to be two-thirds of a 911 flat-six, more powerful than the final generation of 356 engines but far less complex and costly than the Carrera 2’s race-bred 2.0-litre, which had gear-driven twin overhead camshafts for each cylinder bank. A second option was a 1.8-litre fuel-injected derivation of the 356’s aircooled pushrod flat-four, but the final choice was basically a development of the 1582cc engine that saw service in the 356SC. In this case, with a slightly lower compression ratio and fed by Solex carburettors, it typically produced about 95bhp, some way down on the 110bhp of the least powerful 911 (with a 2.0-litre ‘overhead-cam’ flat-six) yet the payback was not only a 70kg weight advantage but also far better weight distribution. The shorter flat-four didn’t hang quite so far beyond the rear axle.

And that’s exactly what Kázmér wanted to capitalise on. He wasn’t alone in his quest, as the group of professionals he assembled now includes Zsolt Janvari, who joined from Dallara, previously worked at

Above and opposite

Flat-four is an evolved version of the 912’s engine with twice the power; carbon panels define the exterior; interior features well-disguised air-con.

Singer Vehicle Design, was involved in the build of the Aston Martin Valkyrie and has worked for both Haas and Williams Racing. Other recruits include Balint Szabo and Nimrod Ludescher, both former Koenigsegg consultants. In charge of engine building is Gabor Galambos, who comes from a traditional race engine-building background and is known in Hungary for his 9000rpm, 236bhp, 1.6-litre Lada motors. Says Kázmér: ‘He knows how to get the best from a naturally aspirated fourcylinder. It is one thing to have the vision of the perfect lightweight drivers’ car, but it is another to take that idea to fruition.’

In the KAMM’s case, the engine is still basically a version of the Porsche Type 616 air-cooled pushrod flat-four, at least in the ‘bottom end’ (really the middle!), with a strengthened crankcase and new crankshaft to ensure robustness. It’s fitted with large-bore cylinder barrels that take it to 2.0 litres in capacity, plus a new, hot camshaft, redesigned cylinder heads and a bespoke KAMM airbox. Further to that, those exKoenigseggheads (sorry) dedicated 10,000 hours on the dynamometer, building more than 200 iterations in search of the best fuel mapping for the two individual throttle-bodies with venturi intakes, in order to deliver the right combination of performance and driveability. The result is 182bhp at 6500rpm and a (possibly even more impressive) torque peak of 180lb ft at 4500rpm – yet, despite that lofty figure, at least 110lb ft is delivered from low down at 2000rpm.

All that goes to the rear wheels via a re-engineered Type 901 five-speed gearbox (the casing is original, so technically this is a matching-numbers 1968 car) that’s operated by a bespoke shift mechanism. That’s set further back in the cockpit, so you’re not rooting around under the dash to change gear, and features a carbon lever plus a pull-and-twist lock-out to stop you accidentally selecting reverse. First is on a dogleg.

Time for a drive. First thing to notice? The door clicks open and kerlacks shut just like a 911 (or 912) door should, despite the fact that it’s made from carbonfibre instead of steel. The upper frames are 993, with more modern seals, and there’s reprofiled guttering, both upshots of 15,000 hours spent on aero. Even the door-mirrors went through 20 versions. Side glazing is Lexan though the rear ’screen in this case is glass, at the owner’s request, in the name of refinement – yet there is no soundproofing, as he wanted the voice of the engine unfiltered. Furthermore, he has specced a long-ratio final drive and lower-geared steering (2.5 turns between locks, rather than KAMM’s earlier 1.7).

A once-over outside has you in awe of the carbon weave on display (all the black bodywork you see is not painted). It’s made up of 155 pieces of carbonfibre, including the roof and rear quarter panels; 35 are in the engine bay alone; all are made in-house. The basic monocoque steel structure remains intact, and the build process involves stripping and blasting the original 912 body, carrying out any necessary restorative metalwork, adding reinforcement and then fitting the carbon panels. The engine and drivetrain are assembled while the body is finished and sent off for painting. The whole then comes together and the engine is tested in-situ before final finishing. The owner is invited to inspect the result and a 1500km shakedown drive is carried out before handover.

The 912c looks poised yet period. There are 15in alloy/carbon hybrid wheels, brakes are by Brembo (AP Racing kit is also available), and gone are the usual torsion bars: in their place are adjustable TracTive coilovers, the dampers ruled via a dashboard knob with five notches from softest to hardest. There’s a throttle map switch, labelled ‘DMC’, that also acts on a flap within the titanium exhaust system. It stands for ‘Drive Me Crazy’…

Get in and find yourself held in bespoke lightweight Fusina ‘comfort’ seats; you can have harnesses but there are belts here. The wood-rim steering wheel is original, cleaned and repolished, and feels fantastic. New gauges are made by Smiths in South Wales and there is a lightweight heating and air-con system fitted, powered by KAMM’s own alternator and with vents subtly let into the lower rail of the dash.

Opposite and above Comfort seats and carbon panelling within; AP Racing pedals; much thought went into the door-mirrors; all bodywork adaptations are carried out in-house.

Fire up the flat-four and it thrums excitedly, loud yet not intrusive, far more in the way of percussive chunter than Beetle clatter. Sounds good, appropriate, encouraging. That swell of torque makes pulling away easy in spite of the racing clutch, and with dampers set soft and throttle map in laid-back mode it pads away comfortably. Usability box: ticked.

Into urban outskirt traffic, braking is effective and feelsome, again confidence-inspiring, the firm pedal easily modulated though you need to be assertive. There’s no servo. Steering is surprisingly light, and manouevring reveals a wide turning circle, which is equally surprising. The gearshift takes a little deliberation, proving knuckly and slightly reluctant, yet it does nothing to undermine the fact that the 912c will handle the everyday stuff. Plenty else of this vintage, especially when tweaked and teased to this extent, would likely have you muttering in frustration in these circumstances, and facility in town traffic is not necessarily why you’d want to blow £300,000 on one. As a few ripples and humps reveal a slight mismatch between springs and dampers on this softer setting, it’s time to seek faster roads and turn up the wick.

A transformation occurs. On the more aggressive throttle map and with dampers on the firmest setting, the 912c’s real character comes to the fore. That engine wants to rev, and beyond 2000rpm it just gets stronger and stronger. You can go past the power peak towards the 7000rpm redline, revelling in the bustle and thumping of its induction, the sizzle of its valvegear and the blare of its exhaust. It’s not at all peaky, instead feeling insistent and inspiring. This is the heart of the car, able

to shine thanks to the weight-saving measures elsewhere. Truth be told, 182bhp isn’t a whole pile of power these days; here it’s about the powerto-weight ratio. This is worth more like 400bhp in a modern sports car.

You can use that urge without the kind of circumspection that comes with a flat-six. The 912c feels superbly balanced, turning in benignly and holding a neutral line though a series of corners taken at speed, the dampers retaining deft control yet without the ride threatening your dental health – and this from someone who usually knocks adjustable damping back by a degree. It’s hugely entertaining yet – that word again – usable. Compact 1960s dimensions make it close to perfect for a British B-road, and even the occasional pothole can’t undermine that.

Any downsides? Well, I personally wish the owner of this car had gone for the higher-ratio steering rack. I’d fight shy of calling it slack, but there’s a certain slowness to it about the straight-ahead that I’m unaccustomed to, and rather than inspiring confidence it serves to dilute the drive a fraction. It could be a bit more informative, too. And while getting used to the gearshift improves your relationship with it, and it certainly becomes easier in maximum-attack mode, it still feels as though either a little more honing or more mileage on the clock could improve it.

Yet there’s no doubting that, in the 912c, Miki Kázmér and his esteemed colleagues have achieved the stated goal of bridging the gap between modern and vintage cars. In a world where maximum power often rules, taking a 912 and swapping its steel body panels for carbonfibre is not the most obvious route to take. But it’s certainly an effective one.

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Andrew English joins devotees for the latest reunion at London’s most prominent motorcycling landmark, the Ace Cafe

A CE PLACE

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 a speculative purchase of the strip of land in Stonebridge between the newly established North Circular Road and the River Brent.

What a place it was, too. With a modern kitchen and 25 staff, The Ace Café served 2000 meals a day around the clock, mainly to lorry drivers grinding their way round the capital on what was then its outer (but is now its inner) ring road. Ironically, while it was surrounded by strategic targets, in 1940 the German Luftwaffe bombers somehow missed the dense industrial estates and railway bridges carrying rail freight cars to all points north-west and hit The Ace. It was swiftly rebuilt, however, and post-war became reinvented as a meeting place for the disaffected youth bored with being told how they didn’t win the war, and looking for a bit of fun and a place of their own. ‘You want

to hit back at all the old geezers who tell us what to do,’ said one teenager in Charles Hamblett’s and Jane Deverson’s 1964 book Generation X, a candid collection of interviews with the post-war baby boomers.

On the rebellion, disenchantment and societal detachment of those first outsiders, and then the ton-up boys, bikers and rockers that followed them, were the reputation and legend of The Ace founded. A few years back I met Brian Winch, an Ace regular in the early 1960s – its biking heyday. At 19 years old, he rode a nearly new 1961 Triumph Bonneville, bought for £189 at Pankhursts in Salisbury. ‘It was like a space rocket in its day,’ he told me. ‘On Saturday evenings we would ride up from Southampton, through Camberley, to the Ace. Sometimes we’d go on to the Busy Bee Cafe on the M1, or we’d stay here and sleep in allotment sheds or in the railway carriages in the shunting yards. It was a basic transport cafe then; the food was edible if you were hungry. It wasn’t a great place to pick up women, but most of the lads brought their girlfriends if they had them. We used to all ride together; the bikes were smart, with lots of chromium plate. We didn’t call ourselves “rockers”, just “bikers”, and we didn’t go to pubs, just cafes.’

But not everything was quite as peaceful back in the Ace’s 1960s heyday and the rivalry between parka- and tonic suitwearing mods and leather-clad rockers erupted as pitched battles between the two warring tribes on seafronts across the nation. As Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia ballet plays at Sadler’s Wells, it’s worth recalling that some of the source

All photography Ace cafe London Archive unless otherwise credited

Clockwise, from above left

As built in 1938; and as the Luftwaffe left it in 1940; the first Reunion in ‘94 attracted thousands; Ton-Up Rev and 59 Club founder Bill Shergood; the Ace Cafe 2.0.

material was a series of headlines describing the gruesome skirmishes. ‘Youngsters Beat Up Town – 97 Leather Jacket Arrests,’ was the Easter 1964 headline in The Daily Express, while The Daily Mirror report was headlined ‘Wild Ones Invade Seaside – 97 Arrests’. Newsdesks and columnists got stuck in with reports of riot squads being deployed by air to police the beaches. ‘Truncheons Drawn In Hastings’ was the Telegraph headline on 5 August that year, as mods and rockers clashed with the ‘airborne coppers’.

As the 1960s fizzled out in a fug of psychedelia, so the old Ace Cafe served its last egg and chips in 1969. It remained closed, fulfilling such glamorous roles as storage for a tyre company, until Mark Wilsmore organised the first Ace Cafe reunion at the site in September 1994. It was such a success that he applied to reopen the place and, after much paperwork and bureaucracy, he found himself the holder of planning permission to reopen part of the old Ace, which he duly did in 1997, followed by a grand reopening in 2001. So, it is 25 years in some diaries at least.

That first reunion has now been followed by 30 more, yet another generation being introduced to the wheeze of the Ace’s coffee machine, the sizzle of its hot-plate and the cacophonous jukebox. I join the throng at this year’s event on my Moto Guzzi. Not exactly traditional Ace fare like a British twin, but I need not fear the retribution meted out against such interlopers in the venue’s murkier past.

The gathering is huge. Two-wheeled machines fill the car park outside the cafe for three days (5-7 September), but there is a series of ride-outs, too, culminating in the massive Brighton Burn Up, a run down to Brighton’s Madeira Drive, just like those Bank Holiday punch-up excursions of yore.

The most historically interesting tour, however, is Saturday’s Café Racer Ride Out. That heads to a celebratory service and blessing of the bikes by the Reverend Jane Palmer at All Saints Church in Hanworth, which also celebrates the 66th anniversary of the 59 Club. The 59 Club was the invention of Reverend Bill Shergood, nicknamed ‘the Ton-Up Vicar’ and on a personal crusade to end hostilities among rival bike and scooter gangs. He remained chairman of the club until his death in 2009, during which time it became one of the world’s most popular motorcycle clubs. You’d struggle to find a more welcoming atmosphere, with creaking leather accompanying the stirring hymns and readings and gleaming machines gently dripping oil in front of the altar. I’m not entirely sure about sprinkling any sort of water on my old Moto Guzzi though. Water and Italian motorcycles tend not to go well together.

But the 59 Club has a secret: ‘Less well-known is that the 59 Club started as a club for scooters… We tend to keep that quiet,’ whispers an attendee known as Gnasher.

For events dates and details, see london.acecafe.com.

Clockwise, from above left Octane’s man on his fancy foreign ’bike; still primarily a working cafe; now hosts loads of car meets; Rev Jane Palmer blesses English’s Guzzi.

THE BETTER

An ambition to race at Le Mans a quarter of a century ago lives on.

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 li le 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. en there was the in uence of his cousin, Lord Hesketh, and the excitement and sense of adventure that came with growing up at the heart of Hesketh Racing.

It’s li le wonder that Valentine – along with older brothers Ludovic and James – ended up going racing himself. He campaigned everything from a Grand Prix Opel to a Maserati ‘Birdcage’ in historics, and also spent three years in the British GT Championship plus two in longdistance racing at the wheel of a Group N BMW.

Along the way, he got to know Peter Hannen, widely respected as being one of the nest historics racers at that time. eir fathers had known each other since the mid-1950s, thanks to their respective careers at auction house Christie’s and, as Hannen puts it: ‘ e two families were always what I would call lightly intertwined.’

By the end of the 1990s, Hannen was racing a BMW in many of the same events as Lindsay, who had set his sights on the most famous endurance race of all: Le Mans. And he wouldn’t be doing it the ‘easy’ way, by securing a seat in an existing team. Having raced Harriers in the British GT Championship, Lindsay commissioned that company’s founder – Lester Ray – to build him an SR2-class sports-prototype. e deal was that it would be supplied minus engine and gearbox, which Lindsay would supply in partnership with Hannen.

e shi ing sands of sports car racing during that era are a whole other story, but SR2 was a category in the International Sports Racing Series, which had been introduced in 1997 and later morphed into the FIA Sportscar Championship. SR2 cars could also be modi ed to run at Le Mans in the new LMP675 class, but there were ever-evolving di erences between the two categories. While an FIA-spec SR2 car was limited to 3.0 litres and six cylinders, the LMP675 regulations for 2001 allowed naturally aspirated engines to be anything up to 3.4 litres and eight cylinders – and that had an e ect on Lindsay’s eponymous sports-prototype.

‘It was meant to be an SR2 car,’ he explains. ‘ ere was a championship all around Europe. I used to come across them when I was racing BMWs and they were just delightful li le sports cars. We commissioned Swindon to build a Nissan V6 engine. at was what we were going to do – have a li le SR2 car like the Pilbeam and Lola, that sort of thing. en they changed the rules to allow for V8s… Everything changed because of that, but the SR2 is really what we were building – not an LMP car.’

Instead of the Nissan V6, they decided to t a 3.3-litre naturally aspirated V8. is bigger powerplant was developed for them by Nicholson McLaren from the turbocharged Cosworth XB engine that had been so successful in Indycar racing, and which would later be used in the shortlived Grand Prix Masters series.

‘ e way we looked at it at the time,’ says Hannen, ‘was it appeared that, under the new LMP675 rules, you could put something together using tried-and-tested components – nothing that was made out of “unobtainium”. e idea was, basically, that in order to nish rst, rst you’ve got to nish – so let’s try to do something that would actually nish. It had a proven gearbox. It had a pre y bulletproof engine. Valentine had had success with Lester Ray’s GTs, and although it was

Right

The Lindsay LMP2 675 ﬁnally takes to the track at Le Mans – 24 years a er it was ﬁrst built to compete there.

‘GAGNARD HAD NO INTENTION OF ENTERING IT FOR THE LE MANS CLASSIC, AND RELENTED ONLY AT THE LAST MINUTE’

only going to be an aluminium honeycomb over a spaceframe, and was probably 80 or 90 kilos overweight, I don’t think that was terribly important in the great scheme of things. The key issue is to spend the least time in the pits – and to finish.’

The car was launched at the 2001 Goodwood Festival of Speed and, in a nod to the Lindsay family’s Scottish heritage, was unveiled from beneath a Saltire cover. There was even a piper on hand, and the sleek prototype was emblazoned with stickers for ‘V12 Telecom’, the company that Lindsay ran with former racer Charles Rickett.

The team spoke confidently of its plans for Le Mans the following year, and not only was the project covered in the specialist press, it was even picked up by the Daily Mail, where columnist Nigel Dempster made sure to find a society angle by referring to Valentine as ‘nephew of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres’. The driver roster would be Lindsay himself, Hannen and New Zealander Rob Wilson – and if, in this ambitious privateer programme, there were echoes of Alain de Cadenet’s inspiring Le Mans campaigns of the 1970s and ’80s, that should come as no surprise. ‘De Cad’ had become something of a mentor to Lindsay following the tragically early death of his father.

‘Some people think it was a bonkers idea,’ Lindsay now reflects, ‘but it didn’t feel as mad as it looks. Because I was brought up with de Cad and Alexander [Hesketh], it didn’t seem that odd. There were lots of other people building cars. Richard Austin, who was my co-driver in GT2, built a GT1 car called the Sintura. It didn’t feel like building cars was so unusual. If you scratch around and look for those SR2 cars, you’ll find lots of little independent manufacturers.’

Hannen cites many of the same influences: ‘We weren’t going to hire paid hands – this was for us. I was following my Alain de Cadenet dream.

He was my lodestar in this. Alain was a great friend and we got a lot of sage advice from him. He’d say, “Watch out for this and watch out for that, make sure you don’t overcool the brakes because they’ll be too cold at the end of the Mulsanne” – all that sort of thing.’

Their initial plan was to do the Vallelunga round of the European Le Mans Series in September 2001, then a full schedule up to the following year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, but not until early 2002 was the Lindsay first tested at Bruntingthorpe, with Wilson behind the wheel. There was also a session in the MIRA wind tunnel, and legendary Brabham and Ralt designer Ron Tauranac had come on board as a consultant. With Tauranac wrapped up in a heavy coat and hat at the cold Bruntingthorpe test, it took Valentine a moment to recognise the gruff old boy who was walking around his car pointing out what he felt was wrong with it…

One of those issues concerned the rigidity of the chassis. ‘I don’t think Rob ever actually went fast enough [to notice],’ says Hannen. ‘He was just running it in – a systems check, I think you’d probably call it today. There wasn’t any hard running as far as I remember, but Ron said that the chassis must be flexing.’

That was one setback, but then came a hammer-blow from the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. In a letter dated 21 March 2002, it said very simply: ‘The Selection Committee of the ASA ACO des 24 Heures du Mans has recently hold [sic] a meeting during which a great number of entrance files had to be examined. Unfortunately, it was not possible to accept your entry for the race.’

That year’s event was hugely over-subscribed, the Lindsay had not made the cut and – with the regulations rapidly evolving at that time –the little team was forced to accept that the dream was over. Valentine is a naturally ebullient character, but even now there’s sadness in his voice

Opposite and above

Period photos show the original build and wind tunnel testing, plus Rob Wilson at the wheel, who tested the car initially; the LMP2 675 has recently undergone race preparation, following a restoration that took place after its previous sale at Goodwood in 2018.

as he recalls that period: ‘Its final outing was at the Patrick Lindsay Memorial Trophy meeting [in April 2002]. We had a big lunch there and the car went out, and I knew that was the moment we were drawing a line under it. That was the last time it drove.’

‘We sort of felt that was our last chance,’ recalls Hannen. ‘We certainly would never have got into a prototype after that. It was all getting to be very, very expensive – very suddenly. We’d done it, it was great, and I thought I’d better go and do other things. For 20 years after that, I didn’t really do anything with cars.’

The Lindsay itself was tucked away at Valentine’s home until being sold at Bonhams’ 2018 Goodwood Revival auction. After being restored in the UK, it was sold to Guillaume Gagnard, who runs WG British Racing – a French-based historic motorsport specialist.

‘I was in England looking at a Formula 3 March for a customer,’ he explains. ‘The March was owned by Sean Walker, and he said, “If you’re interested in other cars with special history, let me know,” and then he told me about the Lindsay. That’s how it started. It wasn’t really planned, but I bought it because I love this kind of car, with a special story.

‘In the past, there had been many small teams preparing cars for Le Mans. Until the beginning of the 1980s, I think it was possible. After that, it was different. By the beginning of the 2000s, it was only professional teams and works teams – not a small team like that with just one chassis specially built for one race.’

For two years other cars took precedence and the Lindsay lay dormant, but in early 2025 Gagnard started resurrecting it. The earlier restoration had involved an engine and gearbox rebuild, and everything had been crack-tested, but he had to fit a new in-date fuel tank. The wiring was also

replaced throughout and a more period-correct dash panel fitted. Then came a shakedown test at Barcelona. ‘It’s definitely a good car,’ says Gagnard. ‘The engine is amazing. We tested it on our dyno and with the restrictor it gives 470bhp. Without the restrictor, it gives 540bhp. The car weighs less than 800 kilos, so, as you can imagine, the package is good.’

At that time, Gagnard had no intention of entering it for the Le Mans Classic, and relented only at the last minute after persistent pressure from his co-driver. ‘We arrived without really working on the chassis. Barcelona had primarily been to check the engine and gearbox, and make sure everything was OK.’

Frustratingly, their early running at Le Mans uncovered a problem with the front suspension and they decided that discretion was the better part of valour. ‘We tried to do something for second qualifying and it was better, but not perfect. We cannot race against a grid like this with a car that is not ready, but it was fun to have it on track for the first time at Le Mans, because that was Valentine’s dream.’

The man himself was there to see it, and the fact that it didn’t start the race was beside the point. Its brief outing was enough to give Valentine a sense of personal closure while, at the same time, heralding a new beginning for his car. As circuit commentator Bruce Jones said: ‘Cut the Lindsays in half and it says “racing driver”, and I think this is a wonderful story. We don’t expect it to be at the front, but the fact that it’s here is brilliant and, from now on, I’m sure it’ll keep coming out.’

It will indeed. Lindsay hopes to drive it at next year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, 25 years after it was launched there, while Gagnard says that he’ll take it back to the Le Mans Classic. And this time, far more people will know its name.

This page

The LMP2 675 being driven during qualifying at this year’s Le Mans Classic by its current owner, Guillaume Gagnard.

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As an international concours judge, I feel qualified to say how the process works. You need a beautiful car with a solid story to start with, then, if necessary, a high-class restoration. A shakedown test to check that everything works as it’s supposed to. Finally, a good detailer and a safe transporter to minimise risks on the journey to the concours field. But what if you decide to skip that final aspect and drive your entry fresh from restoration to the venue?

‘Saving on the transportation fee was not the main target,’ Fritz Burkard laughs thunderously. Yes, the Swiss collector has just driven his 1937 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante Rolltop Coupé all the 4000 miles from Rhode Island on the US’s East Coast to Pebble Beach, on the West Coast: no ordinary car, no ordinary drive, and no ordinary concours.

‘I simply thought it was a unique opportunity. I had the 57 in Vermont, at Sargent Metal Works, for the muchneeded restoration in preparation for Pebble Beach; there were several US states I’d never visited, and I really love to drive my cars. So, when the Friends of the Audrain Museum in Rhode Island happily offered to provide logistical support, the decision came naturally and I immediately thought “Let’s drive!” Going from the Atlantic to the Pacific shows that you can drive a pre-war car for such a long way without too many worries and still have fun on the concours field. I dream of my Bugatti shifting from trailer queen to road warrior, and hope that other owners of classics will decide to follow this path.’

The journey of the 1936 Bugatti 57 chassis 57428 began well before this epic adventure, of course. Of around 680 Type 57s manufactured between 1934 and 1939, 32 had the Atalante body and this is one of 11 of those equipped with the Rolltop roof, a creation of Jean Bugatti. ‘It is an aesthetically beautiful solution and very practical indeed, especially on a journey like this,’ says Burkard. ‘The Rolltop, a Bugatti patent, opens all the panelling above your head, but the structure remains and the side windows stay in position, greatly reducing the noise and air buffeting typical of a roadster. I love its shape, but not everybody thinks the same, so much so that, in my car’s case, all the roof structure had been chopped to make a convertible of it.’

Ordered in spring 1936, chassis 57428 with engine number 308 was originally specified in two-tone red over black and later delivered (on 9 January 1937) to the Parisian J Bloch, though intended for his brother-in-law Bernard. However, as stated in an internal letter from Bugatti written two days later, the car was described as ‘ex-service’ of ‘Mr Bugatti’ – Ettore himself. It had actually been registered on trade plates on 16 June 1936 – just ten days after being completed – and delivered to the

The road to Pebble Beach

Not only was this 1937 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante restored just in time for this year’s Pebble Beach Concours, it drove there too – from 4000 miles away

Words Massimo Delbò Photography Antonio Melegari, courtesy of Audrain Auto Museum

‘A route across the north avoided the August heat of southern states’

Concours Bois de Boulogne, which took place on the 27th. There, entered by actress Dolly Davis, it won the Grand Prix Voiture Transformable.

The Type 57, subsequently painted black, lived on in Paris with several different owners, all somehow linked to the Bugatti world, until 1953 when it was sold to Barcelona, Spain, where it remained with a variety of custodians for the next 67 years. ‘It is not clear if the modification to the roof was carried out in the last period of the 57’s French life or in the early years of its Spanish one, but we assume it happened around 1952-53,’ says Burkard. ‘When I bought it in 2020, it was evident that the only logical solution to preserving the historical importance of the car, which was otherwise very original, was to return her to the factory configuration. That process took several years, as we carried out a lot of research to discover how the car had been, in every detail, when it left the Bugatti factory.’

Immediately after that frame-off restoration was complete, the car was transported to Rhode Island for the beginning of the cross-country trip. ‘There was no time for any sort of shakedown, so even during the first miles the restored 57 was already a long way from the shop and heading west. A little risky, definitely, and we suffered

some minor problems because of that,’ says Burkard. ‘Nothing big, but for the first couple of days the car was leaking too much oil, and we had to take care of it. We then discovered, in heavy rain, that the windshield wipers were not working, and our only option was to follow the tail-lights of the car ahead. Luckily, we had a technician with us, and his competence was invaluable. He got everything fixed around day three.’

Driving in August meant maintaining a route across the north as far as possible, to avoid the heat of the southern states. ‘We mostly followed the path of Interstate 80, driving on it only when necessary, otherwise preferring secondary roads close by. I was happy to finally visit, among other central states, Nebraska and Wyoming. This experience confirmed to me that the USA is the best possible country for such a journey – amazing scenery and, outside the big cities, very empty roads. Sometimes the Bugatti and the photographer’s car were the only vehicles on the road for hours, and that was so refreshing.’

Not only was the route enjoyable, so was the car. ‘She is absolutely perfect for such a task,’ says Burkard. ‘The 3.3-litre straight-eight engine is powerful enough, about 135bhp, to keep driving at 70-75mph for hours without

Clockwise, from top left Often the Bugatti and the photographer’s car were the only vehicles in sight; possibly the most exotic car in the drivethru’; cowboy hats provide driver and crew with sun protection; in profile at Wyoming’s Flaming Gorge.

any issue. Sometimes it was hilarious to see the faces of people we were passing at 80mph, hardly able to believe their eyes as this old lady roared by at such a speed.’

The trip took 11 days: about 400 miles in around eight hours every day, and sometimes a little more – hugely impressive for such an old exotic car, especially one that had just been restored. ‘We would have loved to take an few extra days but time was limited as we had to be at Pebble Beach,’ says Burkard. ‘We stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats, as that is such an iconic place, but it didn’t feel appropriate to salt-blast the new paint. For me, the magic moment came as we went through Santa Cruz, finally heading straight south to Pebble Beach with the Pacific Ocean to our side. That was when we realised this happy trip was coming to an end, and we were all touched by that. The final miles to Pebble Beach were a sort of preparation for our arrival, and the celebration.’

Almost 4000 miles in a near-90-year-old car: surely not everything went to plan? ‘Apart from a very unkind waiter

at a diner, we have no bad memories,’ says Burkard. ‘Truck drivers were always very thoughtful when overtaking us, leaving extra space between themselves and the car, and although we could feel the turbulence at least we could anticipate it. And everybody was really thrilled to see us, happy to see the car. The section from Rhode Island to Chicago, mostly in forests, was really special, as were the mountains in the west, and – of course – the 17 Mile Drive as we closed in on our destination.’

It was also satisfying to discover that the wooden Rolltop roof was perfectly waterproof, even in heavy rain. ‘It’s a tribute to the concept created by Jean Bugatti almost a century ago, and to the craftmanship of Scott Sargent, our restorer,’ says Burkard.

A special moment came while visiting the Blackhawk Collection. ‘We met with Rémy Kress, 16 years old and already a shadow judge at Pebble Beach. He owns and drives a Bugatti Type 57, another Rolltop Coupé, that his family was so kind to lend us for reference when mine was

Clockwise, from below Impossible not to call at Bonneville, but sense prevailed when it came to paint preservation; truckers paid due respect; passing Pyramid Lake in Nevada.

‘The trip took 11 days: about 400 miles in around eight hours every day’

being restored. To see the two cars side by side, and such a young man so passionate about it, confirmed to me that there is still a lot of love for these old ladies.’

With this long journey proving so successful, Fritz plans to keep on driving – and is now planning a trip from Anchorage to Pebble Beach for 2027. ‘We had so much fun, we really would love to go on the road again. Alaska to Pebble is about the same distance. I’d be very tempted to bring the Bugatti again, as it was so perfect for the task, but I don’t think I could have it again at the Pebble Beach Concours so soon. Unfortunately there is not a trophy for the furthest-driven car, but they should think about it. In our social media we got 1.6billion “likes”. That’s an amazing number considering that we were just a bunch of friends driving a pre-war car. Even the new Bugatti Tourbillon generated only 1.5billion.’

So after Filippo Sole in 2022 with his 1930 Lancia Dilambda, here’s another pre-war car that was able to drive cross-country to Pebble Beach before being entered into the most important classic car show in the world. In doing so, it has proved (once more) that 90-year-old cars are reliable enough to complete such epic journeys. So no more excuses: enjoy the drive!

Clockwise, from top left

You can’t cross America without crossing a desert; meeting up at the Blackhawk Collection with a fellow Rolltop owner; journey’s end at The Lodge, Pebble Beach.

SALE:

FOR SALE: Bugatti Brescia

FOR

Bugatti T59/50 S Road Car

THE OCTANE INTERVIEW

Max Verstappen

Octane meets the reigning Formula 1 World Champion, and finds out what it takes to achieve that status four seasons in a row

Words Wayne Batty

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 other child prodigies either burn out in the pressure cooker of success, fail to reach their full potential, or fall out with everyone including the very people who aided their rapid rise? A little insight into Verstappen’s upbringing suggests that the potential for any one of those scenarios playing out is high. And yet he is a four-time Formula 1 World Champion who appears well-adjusted and (these days) well in control.

Max Emillian Verstappen, the first of two children born to former F1 driver Johannes ‘Jos’ Verstappen and former karting ace Sophie Kumpen, was driving karts at four years old and winning races at seven. National and European championships followed in-between his parents’ initially messy separation and eventual divorce – those close to the family say they’re on much better terms now. In the split, Max’s sister, Victoria, stayed with her mother while Max lived with his father, 30km away. As he’d be karting for a few hours nearly every day after school and the two were regularly travelling to races across Europe, it just made sense.

It’s no secret that Jos, stern and uncompromising, put a lot of pressure on Max, the type of pressure that can make – or more often break – a youngster. In this case, at least in terms of what the record books show, Jos’s approach – along with Max’s enthusiasm, natural talent and discipline – paid off.

In 2013, aged 15, Max won the World KZ championship, karting’s pinnacle. His manager, Raymond Vermeulen, organised a few tests in a Formula Ford and a Formula Renault as a potential

next step, but feeling that they’d be a bit dull in comparison to the immediacy of karting, Max showed little enthusiasm for either. However, just five or six laps in a traditional old F3 car at Valencia with German outfit Team Motopark did the trick. Smiling broadly as he exited the car, he walked back to his father and said: ‘This is a car. This is what I want to drive.’

Very few have graduated successfully from karting straight into Formula 3. Jos and Raymond figured that, if anyone could do it, it was probably Max. They were right. Vital miles covered by racing a Formula Abarth car in the shortlived 2014 Florida Winter Series proved a decent warm-up to Max’s FIA Formula 3 European debut season. Driving for Van Amersfoort Racing, he finished the year in third overall, registering ten wins and suffering eight retirements (mostly technical DNFs). The following year he signed for Scuderia Toro Rosso, becoming the youngest ever F1 race-starter and, even more impressively, the youngest ever to win an F1 race (in 2016, with Red Bull). I know the history, the pretty much incomparable driving ability and the ruthless on-track persona, but, as I sit waiting in the Red Bull hospitality lounge, my hope is to steal a glimpse into the man behind the track star.

Max approaches, looking relaxed and glowing with health, his PR entourage in tow. Pleasantries exchanged, I dive in and ask what would make him walk away from F1. Apolitically, and without hesitation, he answers: ‘The day that I don’t enjoy it anymore. At the moment, all my goals have been achieved in F1. I will try to continue that momentum, to win more. But if I wake up one day and I don’t like this anymore, then that’s the time to stop.’

As he basically grew up behind the steering wheel, you’d expect Max to love driving, but when pressed to pin that passion down to one aspect – winning, close racing, or just going really fast – his answer reveals much about his laser focus on motor racing. ‘I think it’s just trying to maximise everything you can in the car, especially like in a qualifying lap when you come back into the garage perfectly satisfied. A perfect lap in perfect conditions is very rare, but that’s what you’re always aiming for.’

It’s clear he’s fuelled by a pursuit of perfection, a single-minded hunger to push for more. Max attributes ‘never being satisfied with

Portraits Pierre Alban Hüe De Fontenay, Maybourne Riviera Hotel, for TAG Heuer

what you’re doing; always wanting to become better’ as the one thing that has contributed most to his success. ‘That’s something I’ve had from when I was in go-karting. Even when you win races, you can’t accept that that’s enough, because there are always people who will work even harder, and you have to do the same.’

Like father, like son. Reports from those who were there in 2014 tell of a man who had the advantage of understanding motorsport at the highest level. He wasn’t hands-off like most. Apparently, the Van Amersfoort engineer who was working on Max’s car experienced end-of-season burn-out thanks to something that comes naturally to Jos: applying pressure, especially in pursuit of victory.

‘There are always people who will work even harder, and you have to do the same’

Off the track it’s probably fair to say that, character-wise, Max falls between Jos’s fireball intensity and Sophie’s reputed calmness, but on track he’s much more like his father. The bond between them is strong, stretching back to Max’s earliest memories. ‘I must have been three or four years old and I remember seeing my dad drive, travelling with him sometimes, watching him do straight-line testing at an airfield, and walking around in the paddock,’ says Max, thoughtfully. It’s a relationship that goes well beyond a respect for what came before. Although his racing career has reached radically greater heights, it seems Max is determined to take his father along with him. I ask who would be the best driver pairing ever: himself and who else? His answer is both unexpected and telling. Instead of Senna, Fangio or Clark, Max says: ‘I would have enjoyed driving together with my dad at a similar age. Obviously that’s not possible, but both of us in our twenties – that would really be something special.’

Even without the age-matching magic potion, there’s a strong possibility that they’ll team up for a run at Le Mans. It may ‘only’ be in an LMGT3 car, but that won’t matter one iota to the Verstappens, who by a few accounts ‘don’t care about the opinion of the world’. It’d be more about the experience of driving together than anything else. Rather than their relationship crumbling under all those years of pressure, it has instead been galvanised by it. For Max, family is at least as important as motor racing. So, what is his endgame? When all the red racing mist has finally dissipated, what does he hope to have achieved? ‘I think the most important is that I am happy. It doesn’t matter if I win 60 races, 70 races, four titles or zero titles. When I return home and have a great time with family and friends and feel loved and healthy, that’s the most important.’

And there’s more feelgood stuff to come. With all the famous celebrities, sporting legends and highly influential friends that he’s interacted with over the years, it’s his parents he admires most for the impact they’ve had on his life. Listening to my questions intently, he looks straight at me with a genuine sincerity in his eyes that transfers to his voice when speaking: his are the answers of what my mother used to call ‘an old soul’. At 27 years of age he’s surely far too young to be considered a family man. Where is the ambitious, aggressive, self-indulgent, overly robust racer who drives an F1 car like it was a kart? He’s certainly not sitting on the couch across from me.

Switching strategies, I mention that it’s been said that ‘everybody collects something’ and ask what he collects, besides world titles, hoping for something weirdly eclectic. ‘Trophies,’ he says with a sneaky smile, before conceding that he doesn’t really collect anything specific. If he likes a car, he’ll buy it, but he’s not a

collector in any sense, and he’ll certainly not be going in search of any Pebble Beach accolades any time soon either. ‘I will definitely not try and show it to others. I’ll buy it for myself, not to showboat.’ That’s my cue to show him that the classic and collector car crew speak F1, too.

Double diffusers, flexing wings, brake steer; how does he feel about innovations that exploit loopholes? ‘Smart! I mean, people reading the rules to the limit – yeah, F1 has always been about trying to find an edge over your competitors.’ As to whether the specific technology in question should be banned immediately or the rules tightened up post-season, Max is predictably pragmatic. ‘It depends if someone else finds it, then you want it banned. But if you find it, then you don’t. That’s just how competition works.’

Unlike many fans, he is under no illusion about whether F1 is more business than sport. In Liberty Media’s hands, there appears to be a recurring call to ‘spice up the show’ – think sprint races and the Miami GP. Again, Max takes a pragmatic view: ‘It comes down to whether you want to make the most money as the rights holder, or you want to appease the purists. I get both sides. It’s hard to find the balance. Everyone has to make money, but at the same time we love the sport and want to keep it authentic as well.’

As a long-suffering fan of Formula 1 who has followed every race in some form or other since Piquet took his second title at Kyalami in 1983, I’m pretty firmly in the ‘keep it authentic’ camp, so I’m keen to know which era he reckons was Peak F1. ‘That’s a difficult one,’ says Max. ‘It depends on how you look at it. Right now, the sport itself is having a greater impact than ever before, but if you look at pure car emotion it probably was in the 2000s.’

And what of life outside of F1? Testing an IMSA-spec Acura ARX-06 ahead of the 2014 Las Vegas GP, a session at the ’Ring in

a Ferrari 296 GT3 as ‘Franz Hermann’, overwhelming Chris Harris in an 815bhp Ford Mustang GTD, and making his VLN Nürburgring race debut in a Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport aside, Max loves his SIM racing. He’s also passionate about managing Verstappen.com Racing, his Red Bull-powered motorsport outfit, which competes in GT3 Sprint and Endurance Racing, Rally and SIM racing with a view to helping young drivers transfer from virtual to real-world racing. ‘My [Team Redline] SIM driver [Chris Lulham] is now driving a real GT3 car full-time this year. So that’s like a real passion project for me, and one that I will definitely focus more on once I stop racing in Formula 1.’

Given Max’s penchant for team management, it seems perfectly natural to assume he might one day be interested in running his own F1 team, but he is quick to shut that down: ‘No chance. Too many races, and it costs a lot of money to be involved as well.’

As the PR crew start looking at their watches, I make a final dig into the Verstappen psyche: if a complete outsider, someone who’d never heard of you before, asked who you were, what would you say? ‘I’d tell them I’m a taxi driver from Monaco, and then we’d just have a drink together.’

All that, and a sense of humour, too.

THANKS TO TAG Heuer, Official Partner and Timekeeper of the Oracle Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team.

Clockwise, from opposite Verstappen, aged 27, a four-time F1 champ; in action karting, in 2013; as a youngster with his father, Jos; at this year’s Australian Grand Prix; racing in the 2016 Barcelona Grand Prix – at which he became the youngest ever winner.

BEAUTY

( RE )INCARNATE

An Alfa Romeo T33 Stradale tribute worthy of the name: Octane – exclusively – is ﬁrst to drive the Automotive Artisans R33

Words James Elliott Photography Charlie B

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 better than Vaccarella and Hezemans taking the 1971 Targa Florio in a T33/3 and then Vaccarella and Merzario repeating the feat in 33TT12 in 1975.

In the studio the T33 was the foundation of the most fascinating and influential design exercise of that or any

other era. Blue-chip carrozzerie were given T33 chassis and a free hand and they came up with masterpieces: from Gandini at Bertone the Carabo (the birth of his wedge design language) and Navajo, ItalDesign’s Iguana (by Giugiaro and his debut with brushed aluminium), plus a trio from Pininfarina, Paolo Martin’s P33 Roadster and Cuneo, and Fioravanti’s Coupé Speciale.

On the road, the T33 Stradale – the 10cm longer tubular aluminium chassis of which was the basis for those concepts – was most notable for its rarity (just 18 chassis were built), its cost (at £6100 in 1967 it was the most expensive car in the world), its speed (no road car was quicker over a standing kilometre) and its astonishing beauty (thanks to the old master Franco Scaglione).

When the road car, with quad lamps on the two magnesium-bodied prototypes, was revealed to the public in September 1967 it was powered by a rear/midmounted full race-spec 1995cc flatplane-crank 90º V8 (the same engine that with a crossplane crank proved so obstinate in the Montreal), with chain-driven cams rather than the gears of the racers. It was good for about 250bhp and 160mph, driving through the similarly track-focused

Colotti six-speed manual ’box. It rode on 13in Campagnolo magnesium alloy wheels, had Girling discs all round (inboard at the rear), and the same wishbonesand-trailing-arm suspension as the racers.

Carrozzeria Marazzi, which built them, verifies that 18 chassis left the works but that includes the five concept chassis (the ever-resourceful Pininfarina re-used one of its pair), which, when the prototypes are also taken out of the equation, leaves just 11 cars, all red except Count Corrado Agusta’s blue one, which also had helicopter seats. Other statistics are available.

There is no question that the T33 was sensational to look at, with a ground-hugging, sports-prototype front end, butterfly doors (a first on a ‘production’ car, having been trailed by Gandini on the Carabo) and an almost all ‘glass’ canopy over the driver’s head. As a lover of violently smashing together curves and pointy bits, Scaglione is usually all about drama and extremes, cars that are spellbinding through outrageousness more than traditional beauty. But not pretty, not all curves like this.

Kevin Rice, latterly Pininfarina’s design chief and formerly with Mazda and ItalDesign, says: ‘It’s hard to imagine that it was considered “old fashioned” when it came out. The Scaglione car was a contemporary of Gandini’s Carabo, which heralded the new age of “wedge” design. Scaglione was 51 at the time and Gandini 29 and the two cars looked like they came from two completely different eras. The passing of time, though, has turned Scaglione’s car into an absolute icon and an all-time

Clockwise, from opposite Scaglione’s original was the first production car with butterfly doors; lush interior echoes rather than replicates T33 Stradale’s; 15in wheels add stance… and tyre options.

‘THE PROCESS HAS BEEN A REAL MIX OF OLD AND NEW TECH’

beauty. It’s tiny in real life but has a formidable presence that stops your pulse. It’s like a ballerina: lyrical, gracious and vivacious in motion, and taut, powerful and poised when stationary.’ If you want to see exactly what Kevin means, track down online clips of the T33 Stradale in the 1969 Gina Lollobrigida lm Un Bellissimo Novembre

So potent are the legacy and mythology of the T33 Stradale that Hagerty’s Price Guide estimates values at £13-15m, and that’s XKSS money, which is apt given their origin stories. e lure is so great that Alfa Romeo has revisited it in the £2m (ish, inc taxes) 33-o (and all sold) turbo V6 33 Stradale built around a carbon bre monocoque and a couple of doses of Maserati MC20.

In the UK, however, Alfa’s own tribute has been overshadowed by a more rearward-looking homage to the T33 that this year has appeared everywhere from the Supercar Driver Secret Meet to Salon Privé, the Concours of Elegance to Goodwood Revival. e R33 has been the sensation of the British summer.

e project started when David Hutchinson’s a empts to build his own replica were frustrated. David, who grew up around cars thanks to his father having the rst VW garage in No ingham, started racing in Formula Vee and ended up piloting an ex-Michael Schumacher Bene on, plus a Jaguar D-type at the inaugural GP Historique de Monaco. Having factory-restored an S1 Land Rover during Covid, he was looking for his next project and fell in love with the T33.

David explains: ‘Richard Norris from Classic Alfa was selling 33 glass bre bodyshells that you could drop on a Vauxhall VX220 chassis, so I bought one. When I saw a nished car though, it just didn’t look right to me and that was the moment my one-year project with X budget

turned into a ve-year project with X times ten! So I also sourced a replica T33 Stradale chassis, an option suggested by Classic Alfa, and started on aluminium bodywork, but 3½ years later, a few things – mainly people – had gone wrong, it was ge ing painful and I was almost in tears. At that point I met Jayne and Lee.’ at’s Jayne and Lee Irish of Pristine Panel Work in Worcestershire. Lee started with a ve-year apprenticeship at Morgan and since then has worked for Classic Motor Cars of Bridgnorth, Ferrari specialists, and has done two stints with Scaglie i in Italy, la erly working on the Porto no. Having gone it alone, they started with a small unit in Bromsgrove and no sta , but now have six fulltimers and, as well as panelwork, o er the full suite including storage and paint. Only trim is farmed out.

David took the project to Jayne and Lee for ‘ nishing’ two years ago but soon got the dreaded call. ‘Lee called me in and said “I think you’d be er see this”,’ he says. ‘I was just “Oh my God”. Bits of the two-skin aluminium body were missing and nothing really ed. It was crunch time: I couldn’t sell a part-built car so I decided it had to be nished whatever that took, and Lee, being of similar mind, agreed. e combination of our perfectionist personalities has been brilliant for the project but terrible for my bank balance!’

Lee picks up the tale: ‘We ended up building the chassis and all the panelwork pre y much from scratch. e only di erence between our chassis and the original is that the rear legs and front subframe are not magnesium but steel, which is be er because the originals cracked anyway. We only retained 5-10% of what came to us.

‘Richard Norris has original panelwork, which we replicated. e process has been a real mix of old and new

Clockwise, from opposite R33 surprisingly usable on the road; Maserati 4.2, as recommended by Classic Alfa’s Richard Norris; Hutchinson’s bespoke luggage options.

‘GRAB THE SMALL NARDI WHEEL, CLUTCH DOWN, AND WOAH!’

tech, with CAD and modern science merged with wooden body bucks and an English Wheel. The outer skin is 1.2 gauge ally, with six pieces at the front and eight at the rear, and the inner is 1.5 for rigidity.

‘We found the original was out by 20mm side to side so, as a result of the technology, what we have now is millimetre-precise and actually better than the original –it’s laser-straight and everything shuts properly.’

I, like everyone apparently, irritate the team slightly by assuming the R33 would be powered by Alfa’s ‘Busso’ V6, but David had committed to Maserati very early on. ‘I had already decided I was going down the Maserati route and had an engine and gearbox. The 4.7 we tried at first sat very high, but the dry-sumped 4.2 – which is famously reliable… for a Maserati – gains us four inches and is virtually the same size as the Alfa 2.0-litre V8, but lighter.’

In David’s car it drives through a Ferrari 430 ’box, but in production cars there will be a Porsche 997-derived unit.

Production cars? Lee: ‘There was no plan at the start to scale it up, then over 1000-plus hours I fell in love with the project and the beauty of the car. After David’s prototype we will do up to 33 more at a rate of nine a year. We have had an enormous amount of interest, and especially about a right-hand-drive version. No problem.’

A separate company, Automotive Artisans, has been formed to build the R33s and, when Octane visits, there is one more car in build (the chassis and body look just about complete) and another chassis configured and ready to start on. To get road-registered they will go through IVA, a sort of MoT on steroids, which is what sadly ruled out mimicking the striking quad-headlamp set-up of Scaglione’s original T33 prototypes.

David’s car, complete with his bespoke luggage, will remain the prototype, the billboard, his. ‘When I saw it

with the paint on, that was hugely emotional. When I drove it on the road for the first time it was a beast but you could get away with two gears. The engine has so much torque that it’s unbelievable. There’s a lot of rose-jointing and I took it to Suspension Secrets near Sandbach and they were awesome. My long-term plan is just to drive it and enjoy it. It’s my toy. It’s thrilling.’

Thrilling and beautiful.

There is variation from the original here just as there was among the originals. Single roof-mounted wiper, twin or single bulkhead-mounted? They went for the latter. And circular side-repeaters from the three options on the T33 Stradale. The detail is fabulous, such as the handformed chromed brass window surrounds. Bits of 105-series abound as they did in period: doorhandles, stalks, characteristically floppy indicator, the twisting stalk for the lights (perhaps a little too close to the dash).

Thorough inspection reveals that this car may resemble the T33 but it is not pretending to be one. Close up, the badge, which loosely resembles the crest of Milan from

a distance, is actually a tribute to things Worcestershire is renowned for (though not Lea & Perrins). The script is familiar in font but says R33.

Weave yourself past the featherlight door and through the potholer-friendly aperture, drop into the seat within a luxuriant tan leather interior with lovely door-strap, and you’ll see plentiful R33 script and insignia on the instrument (one central dial, a rev-counter, with a digital speedo visible only with the ignition on, à la Singer) and dashboard, complete with five further dials and rally clocks. The car fits me like a glove, which means taller people might be worried, though the team reckons seat and pedal-box adjustments mean six-footers are welcome.

Strap into the big Willans harness, fire it up and that 4244cc naturally aspirated Maserati 90º V8 on throttlebodies fills the cockpit. It’s not quite so noisy that you need headphones and intercom to communicate but it’s gloriously raucous, popping, banging and rumbling like thunder with a deep bellow. Grab the small Nardi wheel, clutch down and, woah! One of the beautiful things about

The steel chassis is as per Alfa’s and shrouded in intricate two-skin aluminium panelwork. It is just 3970mm long, 1709mm wide and less than a metre tall.

Opposite

driving this is that it feels like an old car, but the clutch is modern, forgiving and usable. You can ride it, which you need to because first is so powerful that it will just either dragstrip away or kangaroo itself into oblivion. I take to pulling away in second.

Soon you are effortlessly banging your way through the six-speed manual 430 ’box, open-gate naturally, which is a sexy upgrade from the T33, with none of the trauma of learning and risking a fantastically costly non-synchro Colotti. There’s a little chirrup from the tyres every time you accelerate ferociously, grateful for the added contact patch of the 23/62-15 rear Michelins (270/45s in modern parlance) that do a lot of work in balancing out the power of the engine and the strength of the chassis. Those tyres are wrapped around larger custom-made 15in wheels, which helpfully created enough space for uprating the brakes with Wilwood callipers. Braking is excellent.

The steering, via a small Nardi wheel, is beautifully weighted at speed, and while, despite Gaz shocks, the ride can be a bit crashy over pockmarked country roads and farm tracks, when the surface is better you realise that the R33 might be something very special on track, if it doesn’t turn out to be overpowered for the chassis. That’s not a given, however, because it’s been taken down from over 400bhp to about 376 at 6500rpm in deference to the torque curve. It shows; when we test it by going up a very

steep hill in sixth at 30mph it doesn’t complain at all. Outward vision ahead and to the side are superb (as it is skywards, unsurprisingly) and the reflection from such a steeply raked screen is less than expected, but there is no rear-view mirror, though there’s talk of a camera, which will help hugely with reversing, too. Also thanks to that canopy, and despite the electric windows (which three of the originals also had), you are extremely grateful for the air-con in this car, which makes a potential bread oven pleasantly comfortable.

The air-con sums it up really. To me it is a T33, but one you can drive and live with. Yes, the chassis and body could qualify as toolroom copies, but there are significant upgrades. That does not mean that anything is lost – it offers the full experience, no ABS, no traction control, no power steering – yet there are big gains. With development driving you suspect it could be astonishing on track but, thanks to the modern drivetrain, and unlike the original, it is also a docile and usable road car. It’s light but nowhere near as light as the T33, to which it is probably conceding 400kg, but with the T33’s V8 revving to 10,000rpm and giving 250bhp, the heavier yet more powerful R33 is likely very similar in overall performance. The same. But different.

For build details and prices see automotiveartisans.co.uk.

This page

This car will be the prototype and up to 33 more are scheduled to be built at PPW’s Worcestershire workshop, at a rate of nine a year.

AS Motorsport ltd

Poplar Farm, Bressingham, Diss, Norfolk, IP22 2AP

Tel: 01379688356 Mob: 07909531816

Web: www.asmotorsport.co.uk

Email: info@asmotorsport.co.uk

ASM R1 Stirling Moss tribute car enjoying track time at Goodwood.

ASM hand build bespoke versions of the R1 roadster, inspired by the Aston Martin race cars that won Le Mans and the world Sportscar championship in 1959. Contact us for details of commission builds and stock.

FRIENDS OF DOROTHY

Ernie Nagamatsu offers an enlightening US perspective on the birth, death and surprising California afterlife of the Swallow Doretti – while exercising his own example

Photography Evan Klein

Swallow Doretti The untold story

Clockwise, from above

Front echoes 166 Barchetta; the glamorous Dorothy Deen and actor Harry Morgan with TR3 California; owner Ernie Nagamatsu at the wheel.

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 CoachBuilding Company, which founder William Lyons had sold to TI when he started SS/Jaguar shortly before the departure of co-founder William Walmsley.

With Swallow floundering in the early 1950s, the TI management decided to reinject it with glamour by building a sports car, and put Eric Sanders in charge. In 1952 Sanders travelled to California to meet with Arthur Andersen of the Rome Cable Company, who had streamlined the manufacture of the tubing that would be used in his cars. As much as it was a business meeting, this was also a meeting of minds between two ardent sports cars fans and, at the end of the year, Arthur was invited to the Swallow Coachbuilding Company to discuss the sales and marketing of a new sports car for America. He met with Sir John Black and ex-Bristol aircraft engineer Frank Rainbow, plotting the take-over of the hungry West Coast market with a new design that had to be ready for launch at the 1954 London Motor Show.

The team had an open brief for the design, but to reduce costs and time – only nine months to have a running, rolling prototype – they used the gearbox, rear axle and front suspension from the Triumph TR2. The chassis was of rigid Reynolds 531 manganese-molybdenum, medium-carbon steel tubing in a ‘box’ ladder design. With a wheelbase of 95in and track of 48in at the front and 45in at the rear, it was both longer and wider than a TR2’s, which left plenty of room for the engine to be set further back for an improved 52:48 weight distribution.

Like the AC Ace, the body design was clearly influenced by the 1949 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta and, in spite of being fashioned in expensive aluminium by Birminghambased Panelcraft rather than Swallow, the prototype Doretti weighed 56lb more than the TR2. Its engine was a stock TR2 90bhp overhead-valve four-cylinder fed by twin SU carburettors, with matching Triumph four-speed gearbox and optional Laycock de Normanville overdrive. There were drum brakes behind fragile 15in four-bolt wheels that were usually uprated to wires for racing, and the live rear axle was located by semi-elliptic leaf springs.

Performance-wise it was good for 100mph, slightly blunted by those extra few pounds. That was offset by a finely crafted leather interior, which relocated the instrument binnacle to the centre, potentially to minimise changes between right- and left-hand drive. It put the Jaeger rev-counter in front of the passenger.

In March 1953, with New York’s Fergus Motors signed up for the East Coast and Southeastern Motors for the South, Arthur Andersen was appointed distributor for both Triumph and the Swallow Doretti for the entire West of Mississippi region. But how? As it happens, Paul Bernhardt, one of Arthur’s machinists at the Rome Cable Company, had started designing and manufacturing custom sports car accessories with Dorothy Deen in the early 1950s under the banner of Cal Specialties in Gardena, California. Its range included ‘wind wings’, sun-visors, aluminium valve covers and luggage racks, as well as MG and Jaguar hardtops. Cal Specialities was hastily reorganised into two corporations: Cal Sales and Cal Services.

The Durstine Agency was then hired by Standard Triumph to promote sales, featuring Dorothy Deen as the first female sports car dealer. In July 1954 a Silverstone Press event featured a six-lap race for journalists between four new Dorettis, but the truth was that, compared with contemporary sports cars such as Morgans, Austin-Healeys and the TR2 itself, performance was somewhat lacklustre. So there may have been no winning on Sunday to sell on Monday, but there was an extensive marketing campaign and the photogenic blonde bombshell Dorothy was its star.

Already she had staged a special North American debut for the yet-to-be-named Swallow sports car in the Embassy Room at the stylish Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in January 1954. That press launch included two of the new cars and a complete ‘show’ chassis, plus five TR2s, a TR chassis and two Standard saloons. It was at this point that Arthur decided the new product should have an exotic Italian-sounding name, and ‘Italianised’ his daughter’s name to present the Doretti. As Dorothy said: ‘I was flattered that a sports car would be named after me.’

‘THERE WAS AN EXTENSIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN AND DOROTHY WAS ITS STAR’

‘WHEN

THE PLUG WAS PULLED IN 1955, JUST 276 DORETTIS HAD BEEN BUILT OVER TEN MONTHS’

Swallow took on the Doretti trademark and badge design and began production, with most of the early cars destined for the USA. Positive reviews meant hopes were high, but the $3200 price was high, too, especially against $2600 for the faster, lighter TR2. Dorothy’s pleas to better adapt the car to US tastes fell on deaf ears and sales floundered.

As a result, Dorothy Deen closed the Cal Sales company and production ground to a halt. Some speculated that its ultimate parent company, TI, had been forced to kill off the Doretti because it supplied bumpers and door-locks to Jaguar, but it’s unlikely anyone outside of those most invested in it ever saw the Doretti as competition for XKs.

Far more likely is that the notoriously mercurial Standard Triumph Car Company chairman Sir John Black, so instrumental in establishing the whole thing and giving the gig to Arthur Andersen, simply turned against it after being involved in a bad accident in a Swallow Doretti with test driver and competitions boss Ken Richardson. The pair were entering the main works gate at the same time as a large lorry and Sir John was badly injured in the crash. It’s been suggested that the strength of the Reynolds 531 chassis saved his life, but the incident resulted in the total loss of support for the Doretti from its the key enabler.

When the plug was pulled in February 1955, just 276 Doretti cars had been built over a ten-month period. Three prototypes for a coupé version called the Sabre were also designed, but never went into production. A further 12 Dorettis were subsequently built in kit form at Monks Garage in Solihull.

And that was officially the end of the Swallow Doretti story – but on the contrary, for me, as the owner and racer of Max Balchowsky’s legendary racer Old Yeller II, that is really where it starts to get interesting…

By the time of the Swallow Doretti’s emergence, and its demise, race car builder and racer Balchowsky was already well-known through multiple appearances in hot rod and sports car magazines, making a name for himself as the goto fabricator for mods and difficult repairs. Hot Rod magazine ran ‘Haulin’ Healey’, a comprehensive guide to the modifications and adaptations required to fit an AustinHealey with a Balchowsky-built Chevy engine. That article really put Max and his multi-talented ‘spanner lady’ wife Ina on the map. Ina was highly skilled in welding, tuning carbs and changing ‘rear end’ gears; reputedly she could repair anything brought to Hollywood Motors.

Swallow Doretti

Clockwise, from opposite top It could be a ’50s Brit sportster; dashboard layout similar to TR2 except the speedo has leapt to passenger side; goes well on modest power; engine was stock Triumph four-pot.

Max and Ina turned their attention to the Doretti. Max used his contacts at Borrani in Italy to source racing wheels to replace the fragile factory items. Then Max bought and modified six black Dorettis, fitting four with Buick engines, one with a Chevrolet and another a Cadillac. He picked the Swallow Doretti for its strength, saying: ‘It was the only car strong enough for a 250-pound man to sit on it and not damage it… the rest of the car is strong.’ Balchowsky noted that the Chevy-engined Doretti weighed only 40lb (18kg) more than stock and yet gave almost 300bhp against 90bhp. His second Doretti was Dorothy Deen’s personal ‘preproduction’ demonstrator. Modifications included a Jaguar four-speed ’box, custom four-tank radiator and a Salisbury diff. Jaguar 12in drum brakes were used at the front, with special Max-drilled backing plates, and Lincoln drums at the rear. To solve the Doretti’s fish-tailing issue, Max worked out that the Triumph A-arms caused steering toe-in, so he replaced them with MG front suspension components. Having found that torque delivery was too flat with the Jaguar gearbox – and four speeds were unnecessary! – he put in a 1937-42 Cadillac La Salle transmission plus an Inland 10in Cab diaphragm clutch with heavy-duty disc to take the Buick’s massive torque. A 1951-53 Mercury rear axle was fitted, with ‘Hi-Tork’ limited-slip differential. Modifications were also made to the firewall and some crossmembers, plus there were a higher bonnet bulge, new engine shroud, repositioned steering box, and the floorboards were trimmed to clear the bell-housing. Engine mounts were positioned as far back as possible to benefit weight distribution, and a 12x24in hole was cut into each wing in an effort to quell the Buick engine’s infamous propensity for overheating. The radiator was bigger, too.

The Buick engine modifications included boring and stroking to 322ci for 350bhp at 5500rpm. The heads were ported and polished and fitted with lightened valves, there were 9:1-compression pistons, rocker arms were lightened, the intake manifold modified, dual coil ignition fitted, and four Ford 97 carburettors took care of fuelling. A rare Winfield cam was employed as Max had a good relationship with the semi-reclusive Ed Winfield.

The resulting beast recorded a top-speed run of 147mph, and at the drag strip the Buick Doretti established a sports car class record with 120mph terminal speed over the quarter-mile. Max claimed that, with 350bhp and proper gearing, a top speed of 160mph would be achievable, which is terrifying when you consider that one journalist, when reviewing the Max-modified Doretti, wrote: ‘The result was a 2000lb roadster, the size and rigidity of a tin of baked beans, that could hit 120mph!’

Max drove the Buick-Doretti at the Glendale Grand Central Airport Sports Car Race in November ’55 and at the Paramount Ranch Road Races in March 1957. Dorettis were also entered at Palm Springs, Santa Rosa, Torrey Pines, Watkins Glen and Alabama Courtland.

Max was creating so much attention with his modified Dorettis that he was soon offering them for sale, for a turnkey $3700. Such was the interest that he wrote letters to Midwest auto dealers to see if there was national interest in more of his powerful ‘Burettis’. But, again, it was not to be.

Even so, Max had shrewdly seen the potential of a strong and lightweight tube chassis with a US engine to provide an effective power-to-weight ratio, though the suspension required significant design changes. Could the Buretti have helped inspire Carroll Shelby’s Cobra?

Above

Max Balchowsky racing his fearsome, D-type goading Buick Doretti, aka the Buretti. Plans to produce more than his original six came to nothing, though the incorrigible hot-rodder also used Cadillac and Chevrolet engines.

Swallow Doretti

IN THE SPOTLIGHT, HCVA MEMBER:

ASTON ENGINEERING

ESTABLISHED IN 1983, Aston Engineering is a world-renowned Aston Martin specialist, catering for the DB4 through to the original Vanquish. Over the past 40 years, the company has gone from strength to strength and its state-of-the-art facility caters for all of your Aston needs. Being a founder member of the Aston Martin Heritage specialist partnership, which was established in 2002, the business is proud to have a long association with Aston Martin.

The company’s workshop facilities offer everything from inspection and assessment for prospective new owners through to routine servicing and full restorations. Many upgrades and improvements have been created in-house, which can now be discreetly added to your Aston Martin for additional refinement and driver comfort. These include handling kits, air conditioning and power-assisted steering. Given the company’s strong engineering background, its in-house engine shop has developed both the sixcylinder and V8 engines for highly successful international track use. This in-depth knowledge has allowed Aston Engineering to offer upgrade packages for road engines, which are all fully run-in and power-tested on its dynamometer.

The parts department strives to be a one-stop shop, catering for all your requirements. As an Aston Martin appointed Heritage Parts Partner, it has an extensive stockholding of genuine parts on-site for same-day worldwide dispatch. The online store allows you to sample a selection of the many thousands of items available.

Enthusiastic clients, both old and new, have the chance annually to join the ‘Peak Classic’ tour organised by Aston Engineering, enabling likeminded owners to enjoy the cars and each other’s company at an exclusive venue (peak-classic.co.uk).

Aston Engineering has decades of experience with the marque and is actively involved in the sale of these historic cars, selecting only the finest examples.

Bugatti Owners’ Club and Prescott

Speed Hill Climb: championing motorsport and hillclimbing since 1929.

+44 (0)1242 673136 www.prescotthillclimb.co.uk Autohistoric: specialists in the preservation and restoration of veteran and vintage vehicles.

+44 (0)1825 873636 www.autohistoric.co.uk

Jaguar preservation, restoration and servicing, specialising in cars from the 1950s and 1960s.

+44 (0)1789 507611 williamheynes.com

Harding Auto Services: 1920s to modern day, road, race and custom.

+44 (0)1483 487626 hardingautos.co.uk

Hot topic

OLD VEHICLES AND NEW JOBS

The recent announcement by the UK Prime Minister of reforms to transform further and higher education included a 2040 target of at least 10% of young people pursuing higher technical education or apprenticeships by age 25, a near-doubling from today. HCVA members report that filling entry-level engineering and craft roles is one of their key concerns and there has been a shrinking pool of suitable candidates leaving education in the UK.

The HCVA embraces education and skills as one of its four campaign pillars and ‘Attracting the next generation’ was the theme at a recent HCVA Heritage Matters trade insight day. We believe that fostering an interest and early passion in dextrous activities, craft skills and engineering, and promoting an awareness of the careers available, needs to start at school age or younger. The HCVA supports StarterMotor in its role to ignite passion for our automotive legacy and to promote potential career paths for young people in our sector. We also support the Heritage Skills Academy in delivering its exceptional apprenticeship scheme that adds real skills back into the sector, many with HCVA member companies.

But we need to do more, and it is vital that the Government’s plan to rebalance the education system with the skills needs of industry starts at a young age with better-defined pathways into vocational training and apprenticeships. The Government can also do much more to support employers in order to mitigate apprenticeship costs and thereby stimulate a boost in apprenticeship investment, and to work with industry to develop more effective work experience programmes.

The HCVA is committed to the next-generation skilled workforce, which will be essential to a bright future for the UK’s world-leading historic and classic vehicles sector.

With your support, we can make sure historic vehicles stay where they belong: on the road, for everyone to enjoy. Join us as a trade member, fellowship member or supporting enthusiast at www.hcva.co.uk.

Dale Keller, CEO

Octane Cars

e trials and tribulations of the cars we live with

NOTHING STRIKES FEAR into the heart of a performance car owner like a new, unexpected, noise. And when said car is any of Porsche’s GT products, then you know that there will likely be nancial implications a ached. Truth be told, I can’t complain too much. My previous car was a 997 Carrera 2S, so I’m well-versed in the world of Porsche tax. Also, it’s fast approaching a year into ownership of my 2007 997 GT3 Clubsport and this is the rst real unexpected bill that I’ve had which, all-in-all, isn’t bad going. You may have seen the car in Octane before; this is its debut in this section but it was a cover star

Paying the Porsche tax

along with Alex Ham’s beautiful 1973 2.7RS in issue 263.

e problem with GT3s like mine is that relatively few of the underpinnings are shared with the Carreras, so most suspensionrelated woes involve a fair amount of grin-and-bear-it. Having just got the car back from the lovely folks at STR8 Paint near Oxford, which had expertly repaired and repainted the front bumper a er a previous owner’s over-zealous use of numberplate xings, something at the front of the car had decided that its time was up. It sounded a bit like I was smuggling a frunk-full of snooker balls on anything but the

smoothest of road surfaces, and o ered an embarrassing creaking noise when turning at low speeds. Naturally, this came to a head on a lovely summer’s drive out for my birthday lunch, leaving me pondering what the eventual bill would be as I blew out the candles on the cake.

A couple of days later, the car was in the stewardship of Sporting & Historic Car Engineers (sportingandhistoric.com) near Banbury, for diagnosis and repair. Finding a trusted specialist for this kind of car is most of the ba le but, given the calibre of machinery that passes through the Sporting & Historic workshop,

Clockwise, from below Glen Waddington drives the GT3 ahead of Alex Ham’s 2.7 RS, while Jordan takes the photo; on the ramp at Sporting & Historic; aged rose-jointed top mounts diagnosed; can it be quiet enough for a track-day?

2007 Porsche 997 GT3 Jordan Butters

I knew I was in the right place – at any one time you’ll find the likes of an immaculate Ferrari Dino between legendary GT1 racers such as the D2-liveried Mercedes CLK LM and Lister Storm GT1. Goodwood Revival race-winners are regulars, and they’re also extremely well-versed in Stuttgart’s finest, being responsible for maintaining some of the historic Porsche-only 2.0-litre Cup championship cars.

After a couple of hours on the ramp, the issue was diagnosed: both front suspension top mounts, which are rose-jointed, needed replacing, their date stamps indicating that they were last changed in 2013. New OEM parts were ordered from Porsche and fitted the next day. The GT3 was also treated to an oil-change service and full nut-and-bolt check of the rest of the suspension components to ensure nothing else was required.

Back on the road and the car is transformed – no more knocking and a tighter turn-in. To celebrate, I’ve booked in for my first track-day with the GT3 at Bedford Autodrome in a few weeks to see what else I can rattle loose, but before then I need to come up with a solution for quietening the exhaust slightly to pass Bedford’s 87.5dB drive-by limit. Wish me luck!

OCTANE’S FLEET

These are the cars run by Octane’s staff and contributors

JAMES ELLIOTT

Editor-in-chief

• 1965 Triumph 2.5 PI

• 1968 Jensen Interceptor

• 1969 Lotus Elan S4

ROBERT COUCHER

Founding editor

• 1955 Jaguar XK140

GLEN WADDINGTON

Associate editor

• 1989 BMW 320i Convertible

• 1999 Porsche Boxster

SANJAY SEETANAH

Advertising director

• 1981 BMW 323i Top Cabrio

• 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante

• 2007 Mercedes-Benz SLK200

MARK DIXON

Contributing editor

• 1927 Alvis 12/50

• 1927 Ford Model T pick-up

• 1942 Fordson Model N tractor

• 1955 Land Rover Series I 107in

ROBERT HEFFERON

Art editor

• 2004 BMW Z4 3.0i

DAVID LILLYWHITE

Editorial director

• 1971 Saab 96

MATTHEW HOWELL

Photographer

• 1962 VW Beetle 1600

• 1969 VW/Subaru Beetle

• 1982 Morgan 4/4

BEN BARRY

Contributor

• 2007 Mazda RX-8

MASSIMO DELBÒ

Contributor

• 1967 Mercedes-Benz 230

• 1972 Fiat 500L

• 1975 Alfa Romeo GT Junior

• 1979/80 Range Rovers

• 1982 Mercedes-Benz 500SL

• 1985 Mercedes-Benz 240TD

SAM CHICK

Photographer

• 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider

JORDAN BUTTERS

Photographer

• 2007 Porsche 997 GT3

ROWAN ATKINSON

Contributor

• 2004 Rolls-Royce Phantom

BERTHOLD DÖRRICH

Contributor

• 1939 Alvis 12/70 Special

• 1958 Austin-Healey Sprite

• 1972 Porsche 911T

ANDREW RALSTON

Contributor

• 1955 Ford Prefect

• 1968 Jaguar 240

RICHARD HESELTINE

Contributor

• 1966 More i 850 Sportiva

• 1971 Honda Z600

PETER BAKER

Contributor

• 1954 Daimler Conquest

• 1955 Daimler Conquest Century

• 2005 Maserati 4200GT

• 2008 Alfa Romeo Brera Prodrive SE

DAVID BURGESS-WISE

Contributor

• 1924 Sunbeam 14/40

• 1926 Delage DISS

JOHN MAYHEAD

Contributor

• 1946 MG TC

• 1970 VW Type 2 Westfalia

• 1988 Porsche 944

MATTHEW HAYWARD

Markets editor

• 1990 Citroën BX 16v

• 1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four

• 1997 Citroën Xantia Activa

• 1997 Peugeot 306 GTI-6

• 2000 Honda Integra Type R

• 2002 Audi A2

JESSE CROSSE

Contributor

• 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390

• 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth

MARTYN GODDARD

Photographer

• 1963 Triumph TR6SS Trophy

• 1965 Austin-Healey 3000 MkIII

DELWYN MALLETT

Contributor

• 1936 Cord 810 Beverly

• 1937 Studebaker Dictator

• 1946 Tatra T87

• 1950 Ford Club Coupe

• 1952 Porsche 356

• 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL

• 1957 Porsche Speedster

• 1957 Fiat Abarth Sperimentale

• 1963 Abarth-Simca

• 1963 Tatra T603

• 1973 Porsche 911 2.7 RS

• 1992 Alfa Romeo SZ

EVAN KLEIN

Photographer

• 1974 Alfa Romeo Spider

• 2001 Audi TT

Clockwise, from le Saab has been in the family since 1980; eBay yielded period literature bargains; fuel sender needs a tweak.

Fuelling the passion

1971 Saab 96 V4 David Lillywhite

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.

ose 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 xed 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 spaghe i behind the dash, it soon became clear that it was the sender at fault. It’s easy to get to, under the plywood boot oor, and the obvious x seemed to be to replace it with one of the modern equivalents from the brilliant Malbrad Saab.

Seems I didn’t do the best job though, because while driving my daughter and our then-ailing dog back from the local country park, the Saab stu ered and then picked up. Optimistically I carried on, thinking that it felt like fuel

starvation but the gauge showed half full, so surely it was OK… en it stu ered again on a roundabout. I quickly changed course, just as the engine died, and smoothly rolled into a fuel station. I do feel I’m quite lucky sometimes… although I’d rolled up to an E10 pump, so then had to push the Saab up to an E5 super unleaded, which wasn’t quite such a good look.

In hindsight, I realise I’d not calibrated the new sender properly, which will probably entail simply bending the sender arm a li le. High-tech stu . I’ve also set up the Bluetooth stereo, which is hidden behind the dash, with just a round control unit (the same size as the Saab’s a ermarket oil pressure gauge) visible. e speakers are under the seats, so I’ve not had to cut any holes and it works remarkably well until the engine and exhaust drown out the music.

Speaking of which… this is not a quiet car! e Jetex performance exhaust is surprisingly loud, and I’ve probably not helped the volume overall by upgrading the V4 engine’s bre timing wheels to tougher metal replacements. I feel there are still some improvements

that can be made to the noise levels, though. I’ve also tweaked the adjustment of the column gearshi , to make the change into third and fourth far less hit and miss; I’ve changed the mountings of the new seatbelts, which I wasn’t happy with; adjusted the ancient Spax dampers for be er handling; and rustproofed the underside of the car. Most satisfying of all, I’ve added to the already extensive documentation (the car’s been in my family since 1980) with a load of period Saab brochures and price lists, bought for next to nothing on eBay. It’s all been very satisfying.

Capable centenarian

1924 Sunbeam 14/40 David Burgess-Wise

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, and, at 101 years old, the Sunbeam was the oldest participant by a decade. Other pre-war entries included a 1937 Ford 8hp Model Y, an MG Midget and a front-wheel-drive BSA.

Apart from a diversion through the private grounds of a local hall, the first part of the run was familiar territory, but soon after I’d crossed the Essex-Hertfordshire border I was into unknown country. Happily, as I was alone in the Sunbeam, a clear map was provided and the route was easy to follow, passing by isolated villages with curious names such as Clapgate, Clay Chimneys and Maggot’s End. The Sunbeam proved remarkably flexible in top gear (of three), needing second only on the few long upward slopes. Its four-wheel brakes (newly available on 1924 models) were effective, though prone to squeal if applied hard.

Some 40 miles further on, the homeward route circled Stansted Airport and headed back to the starting point for a well-deserved cream tea. Rewardingly, the Sunbeam hadn’t missed a beat and its reliability was proven.

A week later, it provided appropriate transport to an open-air concert of traditional jazz by the perennial ‘Kid’ Tidiman and his All-Stars that, in spirit, transported me back in time to my teenage years as a Trad Lad, when I drank brown ale (a youthful indiscretion!) with Acker Bilk in the bar of the Jolly Farmers in Purley.

I wonder what Roaring Twenties entertainments the Sunbeam took its original owner to a century ago?

Goodbye, sunshine

1989 BMW 320i Convertible Glen Waddington

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. Maybe they were right? I opened the door and a waterfall landed in my lap as the fabric roof disgorged what had settled at a standstill. It had done so well up to then.

Thing is, as far as Midhurst, I’d had an enjoyable drive: sure, the E30 is at its best boulevarding with the roof down, or even making the most of some gentle twisties, but it’s an adept and comfortable cruiser, too. And convoying with other classics is always fun, even if they were thinner on the ground this time. I ended up joining a beautiful DB4 and a foolhardily roof-down MG Midget for a stretch. The driver of the latter must have got drenched.

My bigger fear came later, as I returned to the car park after the event and witnessed a quagmire. Several cars were stuck already, not least a newish BMW, its driver haplessly spinning the wheels and doing nothing more effective than showering all the nearby cars in mud. Maddening.

Thankfully the grass by my car, though wet enough that water came over my shoes, was still intact. A bit of deft manoeuvring then heading out in second gear on little more than idle meant no getting stuck. Phew.

On the Saturday of the previous weekend I’d ventured to the Top555 supercar event in Rutland, where the BMW was one of the oldest cars present and by far the least powerful. There was a fine array of Porsches (including the latest, and dating back beyond my mate Lee Marshall’s exceptional 1989 911 Turbo Cabriolet) and Ferraris, including two 12Cilindris. I headed home afterwards in convoy with a very fine 997 GT3, a car that was proud to wear a little road grime and clearly much enjoyed.

There was a suggestion that the Sunday might be the last warm day for a while, so Mrs W and I set out to enjoy some top-down sun, though time and teenage daughters meant staying local. Highlight journey of the year so far has been a day driving to the Suffolk coast and back, which we never got the chance to do again.

I’m not one to hide the BMW away simply because of rainy weather, though wet winter days are little fun. Still, as Goodwood proved, just being in this car makes an occasion of the journey – even with the roof up.

OTHER NEWS

‘The Moretti is the prettiest car I have ever owned but I’m easily distracted and my head has been turned. After eight years, it’s time to sell it and move on’

Richard Heseltine

‘Having replaced the fuel pump on my Audi TT, I took it to the ArtCenter car show in Pasadena, the first show I’ve been to where people were photographing it’

Evan Klein

‘The ’68 Mustang GT 390 is almost ready to fire up, but a final conundrum is: which battery? Modern and available in the UK, or an eye-wateringly expensive Autolite replica available only from the USA?’

Jesse Crosse

‘The Z4’s remote locking is becoming more erratic. Luckily the driver’s side has a key lock; whether a passenger can get in is another matter’ Robert Hefferon

‘My cunning – some would say lunatic – plan to alternate between two classics for all my daily driving rather than buy a modern car got slightly delayed but has now been activated – I’ll explain all next month’ Mark Dixon

Clockwise, from below

Meeting an Aston en route to Goodwood; car park there a sea of (wet) Toyotas; on display with considerably faster fare in Rutland.

Overdrive

Other interesting cars we’ve been driving

Theory of relativity

1970 Porsche 914-6 and 2002 Porsche Boxster S Greg James

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 S marched forward in a variety of forms including the S550 Spyder, the 914-6 was a sales flop.

Is a comparison valid? After all, the Boxster S is three decades newer, has a 250bhp liquid-cooled 3.2-litre mill, a smoother six-speed transmission, wider rubber, and MacPherson strut suspension. The 914-6, while sprightly and undeniably sexy, falls 120bhp short in grunt, sits on narrow 165 rubber, features

semi-trailing arm rear suspension, and suffers a somewhat vague dogleg five-speed shift.

My good buddy Tom Ellison, who owns this PCA Parade award-winning Tangerine 914-6, was up for a drive in the twisties and agreed to meet me and my Rainforest Green Boxster S for a spirited outing in the Cascade Mountain foothills: cue tight turns, good straights and scant weekend traffic. Game on. The road follows the course of the Raging River, about 30 miles east of Seattle.

As familiar as I am with many Porsches, I’d never piloted a 914-6. Its transmission has a feel

that I remember from flat-four 914s: notchy and – at first – tricky, but acceleration is decidedly crisp. This example runs 2.4 pistons and cams, fed by Webers; it sounds superb and feels eager to rev.

For a 55-year-old car it is much more rapid than expected, and quickly impresses with its roadholding, too. It’s a true lightweight by modern standards, at less than a tonne, and handles like it was made for these country roads. Sure, Tom manages to put some distance between my Boxster and his car in the longer straights, yet the 914-6 holds its own and stays close in the corners. Yes, even on such narrow tyres, it

This page and opposite Three decades separate 914-6 from 986 Boxster S, yet both offer mid-engined flat-six magic – for a bargain price in the Boxster’s case.

hugs the road like few other cars I’ve ever experienced, feeling stable, balanced, taut and surprisingly fast.

We swap back and I return to my familiar Boxster S. At over 20 years old, it’s still a great car, and great value, too: I paid $26,000 for it three years ago on Bring a Trailer, with 40,000 miles on the clock and a new clutch and IMS bearing (prices in the UK are even keener, starting well below £10,000 for a good one). In comparison, you’ll pay more than $100,000 for a great 914-6.

The Boxster S is my go-to any-weather roadster: quick, low-slung, well put together and

(so far) issue-free. How does it compare to the 914-6? It’s sticky, dynamically balanced and perfectly suited for carving-up tight country lanes for hours without complaint. You buy it because it’s affordable and hugely entertaining: solid, surprisingly fast and a delight to drive.

I find myself marvelling at how enjoyable both feel when pushed, though the 914-6 offers the more visceral experience. Not necessarily better, just different, more connected. As we approach the freeway on-ramp, Tom downshifts and the 914-6 takes off at a rapid pace. In third gear, I figure the 3.2’s greater torque will

‘I’m marvelling at how enjoyable both feel, though the 914-6 offers the more visceral experience’

suffice to keep up. Wrong! The 914-6 leaves me in the dust.

In its day the 914-6 suffered from being too close to the 911T in price while competing with the new, cheaper Datsun 240Z. The Boxster S, on the other hand, had the market more to itself. Both are excellent drivers’ cars from different eras that can thrill even though neither is truly fast by today’s standards. If I had to pick, my vote would go to the 914-6. Sure, the Boxster S is more comfortable, faster, and easier to drive. But the 914-6 offers a mix of brisk performance and oldschool feel without being unruly or overly demanding.

Gone but not forgotten

Words by Richard Heseltine

Frank Costin

A short attention span and a disdain for cars couldn’t quell the leftfield output of this genius aerodynamacist

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 his brother Mike – the ‘Cos’ of ‘Cosworth’ – was a rabid car enthusiast, and it was he who dragged his older sibling into the world of motor racing. Without his prompting, the narrative behind Lotus making the leap from specials-builder to global motorsport colossus would be worded differently, that’s for sure.

Francis Albert Costin entered this world on

8 June 1920. He was the first of four children born to an English father and an Irish-Italian mother. His family life wasn’t exactly bohemian, education achievement and respect for your elders being paramount, but it was rooted in a love of culture, music and adventure (Costin Sr had been a jungle explorer, among other exploits). A defining moment occurred in April 1928 when Frank was handed an encyclopaedia and discovered the aeronautical section. He knew instantly that his life would revolve around aviation. Scroll forward to the late 1930s and the British aircraft industry was gearing up for war. Costin joined General Aircraft at 17 and within three years had advanced to the design office. By 1951 he was the Aerodynamic Flight Test Engineer in charge of the Experimental Department at De Havilland Aircraft and, two years later, he was heading the firm’s Aerodynamic Flight Test Department, working ludicrous hours with zero public recognition, and loving every second of it. Costin had also found the time to get married and become a father to two sons.

Then, in June 1952 and under duress, he attended a motor race at Goodwood. Brother

Mike, who had become Colin Chapman’s right-hand man within Lotus Engineering, practically shanghaied him. Mike recalled in Octane in 2011: ‘I’m a solid, feet-on-theground miserable bugger whereas Frank was a total enthusiast. His feet were never on the ground. Anyway, Frank couldn’t understand why I was messing about with cars. “We’re aircraft people,” he would insist. I got him involved with Colin when he was trying to do an aerodynamic car.’

This had got as far as a model for what became the Mark VIII, but the elder Costin was appalled by what he saw so ended up designing the body himself, this being the first of a string of Costin-penned Lotus models. He also shaped Vanwalls in collaboration with Chapman. Quite by accident, he had become a jobbing designer for hire. However, while Costin may have bordered on genius – his CV included everything from Olympic bobsleighs to would-be spacecraft – he didn’t have a commercial bone in his body.

In the ’60s his surname carried enough cachet for him to become a name-above-thetitle star, such as on the timber-hulled Costin-Nathan GT. His paymaster Roger Nathan recalled in 2016: ‘Frank was a boffin; had an opinion on everything. Because of the way the car was constructed, it was highly labour-intensive. Frank simply lost interest and went off to do an F2 car with Brian Hart. We had no drawings to work from as everything was in Frank’s head. We spent an age reverse-engineering the car so that we had blueprints from which to make them in series.’

Nathan’s experience wasn’t unusual. As one project neared completion, Costin’s curiosity would be piqued by something else. Relationships would flame out, and he would often get stiffed when it came to invoices being settled. Then he decided to become a manufacturer rather than a mere designer. The Costin Amigo was fiendishly clever in parts but onto a loser from the outset. Any sports car that features a chassis comprising bonded ply and glue is bound to come up against a degree of customer resistance. Eight were made before the scheme tanked.

From the mid-1970s until the early ’80s Costin was content building a new house, working on assorted aviation projects, designing high-speed airport fire tenders, and teaching. In a roundabout way, it was via a training programme funded by the Irish Government that he came into contact with brothers Val, Sean, Peter and Anthony Thompson, who bankrolled what was in effect an updated Lotus 7 for the 1980s. It amounted to little. Then there was a Cosworth V8powered supercar, but finance evaporated.

Costin died in February 1995, aged 74. He had been one of few designers to whom Colin Chapman deferred – that speaks volumes.

Miles Collier

Car enthusiast and collector, artist, investor and philanthropist who founded Revs Institute in Florida in 2008 to further study into the car

1. This paperweight was the event memento from the 25th anniversary SVRA race meeting commemorating the silver anniversary of the Ford GT40. The event – featuring a one-hour GT40 enduro – was at Watkins Glen and Peter Livanos was the driving force. He even retained Jesse Alexander to shoot the event.

2. I used to shoot competitive sporting clays and was frustrated that my 12-gauge ‘race gun’ pointed so beautifully while the same receiver with sub-gauge barrels (20-gauge, 28-gauge and .410) was muzzle-heavy. My associate and ace fabricator, Dave Klym, suggested that using titanium carrier barrels to hold the sub-gauge tubes would be much lighter. It was, and the shotgun now points like a dream. This Perazzi reminds me of the conﬂuence of shooting and motorsport in my life.

3. I always had a thing for Porsche’s first bespoke racing car: 550 -01 and its sister car won their class at Le Mans in 1953. Upon sale to the privateer Jaroslav Juhan, the car ran the Carrera Panamericana where it retired while leading its class. This model sat on my desk for years, fuelling my ambition to find and acquire the car. Miraculously, I did finally get it. Kismet.

4. This wonderful inkwell reminds me that the French make other beautiful things beyond automotive coachwork of the 1930s.

Shores race. Dad died in 1954, and this image

5. This is a picture of my dad in his racing kit, taken by Phil Stiles at the 1950 Palm Beach Shores race. Dad died in 1954, and this image is the one that reminds me of him.

6. I bought these mountain running shoes in Bozeman, Montana. I love their ﬁt and perfect comfort. I used to use them to walk/jog up the Laureles Grade in Carmel, California, when I was out at Laguna Seca and Pebble Beach.

7. I used this pen to write my book, The Archaeological Automobile, which I think represents the best text on the ﬁeld of historical automobiles as material culture, human legacy and important collectable objects. I still use it daily and love its patina.

8. My friend, Porsche tuning and restoration ace Kevin Jeanne e, handed out six of these P and Cs to people who were important to him in his career, and I was thrilled to be given one. They were in the Daytona 24 Hour-winning 935 that was driven by Henn, Wollek and Foyt. Kevin built the engine and was crew chief.

9. I have always been a student of ancient Egypt. My very favourite artefact in my tiny collection is this indurated limestone sculpture of the scribe Amose, from 1200 BC. I study ancient Egyptian language and read hieroglyphs recreationally. Currently, I am reading The Tale of Sinuhe; I ﬁnd the act of translation engaging and soothing.

10. This book did more than any to make me love motorsport history. As a photojournalist, Weitmann’s eye was unequalled. The best part of the book is the photograph of the works Carrera Abarth GTL, 1001, during a rainy night pit stop at Le Mans. I now own that car.

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 ‘ e Wheel’. Draper performs an emotional presentation of slides from his disintegrating life and commences: ‘ is 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 a hand-painted glass slide to project an image on a screen predated photography by hundreds of years, with Dutch physicist Christian Huygens commonly credited with inventing the ‘magic lantern’ in 1659. Huygens’ device was candle-powered, so hardly blinding. ings got considerably brighter in the 1830s with the introduction of limelight as a light source, by directing a ame of oxygen and hydrogen onto a cylinder of calcium oxide. Projection improved immeasurably when these potentially incendiary devices were supplanted by the incandescent lightbulb.

e 35mm lm developed initially by omas Edison and William Kennedy Dickson in the 1890s for use in Dickson’s ‘Kinetoscope’ was adopted internationally in 1909 as the movie industry standard, but it was the introduction of Oskar Barnack’s Leica in 1925 that kicked o its dominance as a still camera format. One year later Leitz (manufacturer of Leica) introduced its rst 35mm ‘ lm strip’ projector, using uncut rather than mounted slides. A slide version followed.

Kodak Carousel S

How hosts shared their holiday snaps at a ’70s party before the vol-au-vents and wife-swapping

Kodak had operated in Germany since 1896 but in December 1931 it acquired the Nagel camera company and in 1934 introduced the Dr August Nagel-designed 35mm Retina range of precision cameras. More signi cantly, it also introduced a preloaded disposable lm casse e that would rapidly become the universal standard. Casse es loaded with Kodachrome, the rst commercially successful colour reversal lm, arrived in 1936. ere was then a pressing need for slide projectors to show o colour images to maximum advantage, and Kodak’s rst slide projector, taking one slide at a time, arrived in 1937.

e Carousel concept was presented to Kodak by inventor Louis Misuraca, a Neapolitan émigré who, perhaps feeling that there was a limited market for his invention, opted for a one-o up-front payment rather than royalties and whizzed o to Italy with his family on an extended holiday. Kodak’s engineers worked on Misuraca’s idea and in 1961 the company launched the revolutionary (nice pun opportunity) Carousel projector with a motor-driven rotating slide tray that could hold 80 or 140 slides.

Meanwhile, the German outpost of Kodak was working on its own development. e US version was workmanlike but its surface treatment was on the fussy side, and Kodak Germany employed the industrial design skills of Hans Gugelot and Reinhold Hacker to add some contemporary re nement to their projector. e result was the Carousel S, a pared-back cast aluminium two-tone grey-enamelled exercise in functional minimalism aimed at the professional user. Even the normally red-and-yellow Kodak logo was rendered in monochrome; it immediately whispered ‘Bauhaus’. So much so, in fact, that New York’s Museum of Modern Art has one in its permanent collection.

Hans Gugelot is interesting. Born in 1920 to Dutch parents in Makassar, Dutch East Indies, he grew up in Switzerland and studied architecture, graduating in 1946. A er working as an architect he began collaborating on design work with Max Bill, a former student of the Bauhaus and the doyen of Swiss design. In 1953 Bill co-founded the Ulm School of Design in Germany and appointed Gugelot as Professor of Industrial Design. In 1954, Gugelot was approached by Erwin Braun, of the eponymous electrical product company noted for its minimalist and rational approach to product design. ere, as part of a design team under Dieter Rams, he worked on the SK4 combined radio and record player known, due to its innovative Perspex lid, as ‘Snow White’s Co n’ (see Octane 29). In 1964 Gugelot also designed a prototype all-plastic Targa-top sports car concept for Bayer, based on a BMW 1600Ti, that many contend was an in uence on the VW/Porsche 914. Gugelot died only a year later, aged 45.

His Carousel rapidly became the de facto standard projector in boardrooms, colleges, schools and art galleries and the click-clackclick of the auto-change became the familiar soundtrack to slide presentations worldwide. Gravity fed from above, Carousel slides had to be loaded upside down and back to front, a challenge that prompted millions of presentation mishaps. A remote control or push bu ons activated slide-changing; for continuous presentations the projector could be set on auto and was happy to chug away una ended for hours on end.

Between 1961 and 2004, when sales ceased, Kodak produced 35million Carousels in over 90 variations, so there are plenty still available. Time to dig out those old family slides and revisit a place where, in Don Draper’s words: ‘We ache to go again.’

Words by Delwyn Malle

by Mark McArthur-Christie

No Mechanics without Drivers

Masterful watch troll Moser & Cie has a new smartwatch collaboration (sorry, ‘x’) with Alpine F1

VISIT THE GENEVA Watch Days event in early September and it’s easy to get watch-drunk. A er wondering if you’d get caught pocketing a perfect replica of Louis Moinet’s original 1816 chronograph and dribbling over Ferdinand Berthoud’s entirely handmade Naissance d’une Montre 3, anyone would be reeling. It’s not long before usually sane people start referring to anything with a ve- gure price tag as ‘entry level’. e one thing you won’t expect among all the haute horlogerie will be a smartwatch – let alone one from H Moser & Cie. is is the watchmaker that, when Tim Cook launched the Apple Watch, responded with its own remarkably similar Swiss Alp Watch. Moser ditched the plastic bleepy bit for an in-house, hand-wound HMC 324 mechanical movement, a white gold case and a small seconds dial designed to look like the spinning wheel of doom. en, because it hadn’t trolled Big Tech su ciently, Moser followed it up with the Swiss Alp Watch Concept Black. is had a familiar rectangular case with rounded corners, but it housed a minute-repeater tourbillon movement. ere was no time display, just a plain, deep gloss black ‘dial’ with only the escapement on show.

Now the same rm has a connected smartwatch. Really? at’s like Jack Hargreaves rapping. ere is logic here, though. Moser and car-maker Alpine have an exchange programme between the BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Technical Centre in Enstone, UK, and Moser’s Neuhausen am Rheinfall manufacture in Switzerland: engineers and watchmakers work together and share knowledge. So this collaboration is rather more than slapping a watch logo on a car and vice versa.

At a quick glance, you’d have no idea that the Streamliner Alpine Mechanics Edition was a smartwatch. e case is a classic Moser Streamliner, with a small blue fumé dial at 12 (like its Cylindrical Tourbillon), superluminova- lled hands and ceramic indices. But it’s the sapphire dial for the digital display where the action happens.

As you’d expect, the analogue dial looks a er hours and minutes. e digital element – that’s hidden until you push one of the three case-side bu ons – then powers up and shows you GMT and local time (with a country selector), a 1⁄100-second chronograph, a perpetual calendar and Race Mode. is not only tells you which races are scheduled for the season, but counts down to them and then gives you speci c team time and race alerts as well as messages.

is is all down to another partnership. is one is with Sequent, a La Chaux-de-Fonds watchmaker specialising in solar-powered smartwatch tech. It’s managed to produce a 186-component movement, the Cal. D10, which runs at 32,768 vibrations/second

(standard for a quartz) and will lose or gain no more than 0.3sec per day. It’ll even talk to your iPhone or Android.

is is all splendid, but smartwatches tend to be bulimic when it comes to power consumption. Your Moser Mechanic will happily turn in 9000 hours (a year, in e ect) of pure analogue time indication. Get bu on-happy, and you’re looking at three two-hour Grands Prix, with a continuously lit digital display.

ere is but one, pricetag-shaped, y in the ointment. To get a Mechanics Edition, you’ll also need to buy the Streamliner Alpine Drivers Edition because the two watches come as a pair. at’s a (near enough) £55,000 outlay. e Drivers Edition is, as you’d expect, a stunner, but £50k is a lot to spend if all you wanted was a smartwatch, smart as this one is. Here’s hoping Moser realises it would have a queue out of the door if it sold the Mechanic separately.

ONE TO WATCH

An excellent smartwatch that does away with the umbilical cord

FANCY A SMARTWATCH that’s not dependent on its charger to survive? How about a Sequent SolarCharger, with a full-dial area solar cell that keeps the whole thing running at +/–0.3sec-per-day accuracy. at’s around ten times more precise than the current COSC standard. It’ll do all the standard smartwatch things, too, like tracking steps, heart rate and sleep, as well as linking to your phone. Don’t fancy blue? You can even get a transparent case model so you can see the magical gubbins inside for the same price (£629). Best of all, it looks like a proper watch and not as though someone’s strapped a hockey puck to your arm.

MG Metro 6R4

Inside Story of the Group B Rally Legend

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.

WYNNE MITCHELL, REINHARD

KLEIN & JOHN DAVENPORT

McKlein Publishing, £235, ISBN 978 3 9471 5665 8

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 prototyped by Williams Engineering, before it was handed over to Austin Rover to develop and build. As Mitchell drily comments, this was ‘not an ideal situation’.

Nevertheless, at least the project did happen, not least thanks to a legal loophole that allowed 6R4s to be sold to the public under kit car regulations, meaning it didn’t have to undergo Type Approval. Some of the most intriguing photos in this very richly illustrated book are of the bright-red 6R4 prototype, reminiscent of a Renault 5 Turbo, with no spoilers front or rear and with more rounded box ’arches than the production cars. It was powered by a V6 that was created by chopping two cylinders off a Rover V8 before an all-new 3.0-litre, four-valveper-cylinder twin-cam V6 was designed.

Over nearly 400 pages, the evolution and rallying history of the 6R4 is charted, with images used big and bold, the vast majority of them in colour. Testing sessions are fully covered as well as the main events, and there’s naturally a section on the 6R4’s enduring career in rallying after Group B was banned –one fabulous photo shows no fewer than 14 gathering for the start of the 1988 Longleat Stages Rally. There’s also a collection of interviews with some key figures in 6R4 history, such as Didier Auriol, who won the 1986 French Rally Championship in one. ‘I fell in love with this car!’ is his summary.

The sad takeaway from all this is that if the 6R4 had been developed more quickly, it could have been a giant-killer before the likes of the 205 T16 and the Delta S4 got off the ground. Internal politics and the lack of investment at Austin Rover held it back – and so it joined the long list of Great British ‘might have beens’. And let’s try to forget that when the project was canned, the retail price of unsold 6R4s was reduced from £40,000 each to £4000…

Reliant

The Forgotten Four-Wheelers

Not all forgotten, of course – the Scimitar, even the Kitten and the SS1 are still fairly familiar – but how about the Sussita? This pioneer of the Israeli motor industry was just one of dozens of projects undertaken by Reliant for other manufacturers, mostly because of its expertise with glassfibre; Reliant built the Ford RS200 bodies, for example, as well as those for Metrocab London taxis. Packed with photos, this little softback is both informative and enjoyable.

MICHAEL BURGESS, Amberley, £15.99, ISBN 978 1 3981 1423 4

Macau Grand Prix Photographs 1954-2023

Former Hong Kong resident Philip Newsome has long been fascinated by the Macau Grand Prix, and many of the images in this beautifully produced hardback were taken by him; most of the others are from his archive, and there are evocative shots from the mid-50s of TRs and even a Mercedes 190SL (see Octane 69 for a feature with its driver, who won in 1956) against a background of Chinese junks, and candid portraits from across the decades.

PHILIP NEWSOME, blueflagpress.co.uk, £65 plus p&p, ISBN 978 1 7397 0611 1

Maggie A Lifelong MG Love Affair

Don’t let the dark cover image or seemingly twee subhead put you off: the reason for the author’s affection for his MG Magnette is that it belonged to his late father, who died aged just 58. However, it had been off the road since before he was born – so this is part family memoir, part resurrection story, as he recounts the tribulations of becoming the MG’s new custodian and, in doing so, remembers his dad. A moving account of why some cars are more than just cars.

TOM McCOOEY, Scratching Shed, £12.99, ISBN 978 1 0686 1897 0

The Complete Catalogue of the Jeep

While there is no shortage of books about Jeep published in its native country, this UK-produced version benefits from an outsider’s view that takes a more globalist view. As the subhead states, it covers ‘all Jeep variants from around the world, 1942-2005’ – which includes countries as diverse as Italy and Iran, India and Israel. And that’s just the ones beginning with ‘I’.

The author is primarily known as possibly the world’s leading Land Rover historian, but he’s not let marque loyalty distract him from what he admits can only be a comprehensive rather than a definitive history of Jeep – it has an incredibly complex back-story, passing through numerous corporate owners (including Renault, which bought a controlling interest in Jeep’s owner AMC in 1982). That said, few people other than Taylor would know about the 1958 Land Rover/Jeep hybrid, a Series II 88in chassis fitted with a CJ-5 body, built by Rover during an abortive proposal for a collaboration with Kaiser-Jeep to produce vehicles in the UK. He has a photo, of course.

What strikes you most is how early the makers realised that off-roading could be fun. Jeep was very quick to get into what we’d now call lifestyle, releasing a glammed-up Tuxedo Park take on the traditional Jeep in 1961 (the spread depicts late-60s Commando C101s). The whole fascinating gamut – from the WW2 Willys and Ford military staples through to the luxury Grand Cherokees of the 1990s, via forward-control trucks, vans and many more – is brilliantly captured and prolifically illustrated in this quality hardback. Even US readers might appreciate it!

JAMES TAYLOR, Herridge & Sons, £40, ISBN 978 1 9149 2913 7

Forever Young Six Lost Talents of Motor Racing

Like the 2006 book The Lost Generation, about the tragically premature deaths of up-and-coming F1 drivers Roger Williamson, Tony Brise and Tom Pryce, Forever Young tells the stories of six more ‘lost talents of motor racing’. Between 1958 and 1991, Stuart Lewis-Evans, Chris Bristow, Chris Lambert, Bert Hawthorne, Bertrand Fabi and Paul Warwick were all killed by the sport they loved.

Four writers have collaborated on this project – Motoring News’ then-newbie Andrew Marriott shared a flat with the tyro racer Bristow in the 1960s – and, thanks to plenty of (often amusing) anecdotes from the people who knew the subjects, you gain a sense of them not just as racing drivers but as real individuals. Their potential can only be imagined; as the late Ken Gregory said of Chris Bristow: ‘He would have been world champion. He was just extraordinarily fast.’

IAN WAGSTAFF, ANDREW MARRIOTT, JON SALTINSTALL & DARREN BANKS, BHP Publishing, £40, ISBN 978 1 7385 0854 9

Compiled by Chris Bietzk and Sophie Kochan

Eight pages packed with stu we’d love to ﬁnd under the tree this year Gear

OCTANE GIFT GUIDE

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 espresso machine

An espresso machine to please even the fussiest of co ee connoisseurs, with ten pre-infusion se ings, no fewer than 66 grind se ings, and a trio of quickheating thermoblocks to allow you to prepare your co ee and froth your milk at the same time. £1999. loewe.tv

Auto Union Type C kids’ toy by Baghera

The monstrously powerful Auto Union Type C, which won three out of four championship races in the 1936 Grand Prix season, demanded the greatest respect from all who got behind the wheel – but this 21cm-long likeness of the car, made from tough ABS plastic, will put up with a bit of gung-ho driving. £60. meandmycar.co.uk

Ruark MR1 Mk3 Bluetooth speakers

In Mk2 form, the diminutive MR1 powered speakers won What Hi-Fi’s award for best desktop speakers seven (!) years in a row, but Ruark has managed to improve upon a classic design. The new MR1 cabinets are around 2.5cm taller and deeper than the old, to best complement a new 8.5cm woofer, plus the master unit now features additional audio inputs and Class D ampliﬁer tech adapted from the highly regarded R410 all-in-one music system. End result? A still-tiny set of speakers capable of delivering a shockingly big and dynamic sound. £399. ruarkaudio.com

Classic

by Deus Ex Machina

Deus Ex Machina has teamed up with Mini to produce a range of clobber that includes this shirt, which features an updated version of one of our favourite illustrations by Carby Tuckwell, the founding creative director of Deus. £50. deuscustoms.co.uk

Mini T-shirt

Luminox Atacama Field Automatic

It might not share the Special Ops aesthetic of many other Luminox watches, but the Atacama Field is a rugged piece of kit. Named a er the Atacama Desert (a place that looks just like Mars and is about as hospitable), the watch is powered by Sellita’s workhorse SW220-1 movement and is water-resistant to 200m. The hands and indices are illuminated by tiny tritium gas tubes that will glow continuously for up to 25 years. £1399. uk.luminox.com

Patek Philippe 5370R Split-Seconds Chronograph

Few watches at this year’s Watches & Wonders event drew as much a ention as this rose gold Patek – mechanically identical to the platinum 5370P of 2015, but visually more compelling. The glossy brown main dial is executed in grand feu enamel while champlevé enamel is used for the beige sub-dials and tachymeter, which are respectively recessed into and set proud of the main dial to give the face a sense of depth. £247,250. patek.com

Chopard L.U.C Quattro Mark IV rose gold

The latest Qua ro arrives 25 years a er the ﬁrst, a landmark watch that introduced a four-barrel movement boasting a nine-day power reserve. At 39mm across and 10.4mm thick, the Mark IV is more elegantly proportioned than some of its forebears, and its blue dial is wonderfully clean because the power-reserve indicator – always front and centre on previous Qua ros – has been moved to the bridge. A class act in every respect. £34,600. chopard.com

Swatch Neon Emerald Chrono

Like us, the folks at Swatch are growing more nostalgic by the day for the 1980s and ’90s: they have just revealed six additions to their retro Neon Collection, including this stupendously colourful 42mm chronograph. The designers of the watch have borrowed liberally but judiciously from the Emerald Diver of 1986; we’re glad they chose a shade of green for the case that is a bit more Caribbean sea and a bit less Ninja Turtle! £115. swatch.com

brm-chronographes.com

Montegrappa

Elmo 02 Plus fountain pen

Based on a timeless model that was designed back in 1925 by Montegrappa’s ﬁrst technical director, Heinrich ‘Elmo’ Helm, but boasting a modern ‘Piston Plus’ mechanism that allows the whole barrel of the fountain pen – rather than a small, traditional reservoir – to be ﬁlled with ink.

From €375 montegrappa.com

Full-size toys from Collecting Cars

No ma er how good you’ve been this year, Santa is unlikely to deliver the classic you covet (there’s only so much room in the sleigh, a er all), but online auctioneer Collecting Cars, which will be o ering cars right through the Christmas holidays, might just have what you want… collectingcars.com

Tumi Surveillance Flap Backpack

Made from durable ballistic nylon, this backpack is part of Tumi’s ‘Alpha Bravo’ range of luggage – inspired by military gear but optimised for those of us who deploy to the o ce every day. Open the locking roll-top and you’ll ﬁnd padded compartments for both a laptop and a tablet. £510. uk.tumi.com

Château Séraphine, Pomerol 2020

In the tiny, hallowed wine-growing region of Pomerol in France, a pair of English interlopers are producing some fabulous stu . Winemaker Charlo e Krajewski and her father Martin are the people behind this sought-a er drop, made from 100% Merlot grapes and described as positively ‘opulent’ on the palate. £140.50 (75cl) or £281 (magnum). privatecellar.co.uk

Breguet Classique

Souscription 2025

Created to celebrate Breguet’s 250th anniversary, this wonderfully reﬁned, 40mm single-hander is based on the classic Souscription pocketwatch introduced by Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1796. Nods to the past are everywhere, but our favourite is easy to overlook: on the lower half of the dial are a barely visible serial number and signature, engraved into the delicate grand feu enamel in 1790s fashion with a pantograph. £45,700. breguet.com

Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef 41mm

Available in ﬁve eye-popping colour schemes inspired by some of the world’s corals, the C60 Trident Reef is one of the easier dive watches out there to recommend – partly because it’s such a cheerful customer, but also because Christopher Ward donates a portion of the proceeds from each Trident watch sold to Blue Marine Foundation, a charity set up to protect the ocean environment and combat overﬁshing. £695. christopherward.com

Oris Big Crown Pointer Date Calibre 403 Terracotta

The Big Crown Pointer Date was conceived 87 years ago and with nary a thought for fashion (it was intended as a tool for pilots who struggled to operate a small crown while wearing ﬂyer’s gloves), yet when given a splash of on-trend colour it looks as if it could have been designed yesterday. Oris recently introduced a handful of colourful new watches to the Big Crown collection, the pick of which, we reckon, is this. £3200 (£3350 on bracelet). oris.ch

Rolex Perpetual 1908 on Settimo bracelet

The launch of the brand new Land-Dweller was inevitably the big story when Rolex pitched up at Watches & Wonders back in April to show its wares, but there was plenty of excitement, too, about this addition to the Perpetual 1908 collection. The lightweight, supple, seven-link Se imo bracelet, with its perfectly concealed clasp, is a treat to wear, and an impressive feat of cra smanship, too. £30,600. rolex.com

T-shirts, sweatshirts, prints and more. Inspired by art, design, sport and good times - see them all at www.t-lab.co.uk

WWW.T-LAB.CO.UK

Sennheiser HD550 open-back headphones

‘Make it light, make it comfy, and make it sound great’ was apparently the instruction from customers to the team developing the HD550, and the engineers obliged. These open-back headphones weigh just 237g and thus stay put with minimal clamping force, and their sound is as superbly balanced as promised – good enough to put many more expensive sets of headphones to shame.

£249.99

sennheiser-hearing.com

D R Harris & Co

‘Pick-Me-Up’ cocktail bitters

As far back as the 1860s, London gents feeling the e ects of the night before would haul themselves to St James’s Street chemist D R Harris for a dose of the company’s ‘Pick-Me-Up’ tonic – a legendary concoction that, with the guidance of bi ers expert Bob Petrie, has now been transformed into a tasty additive for your favourite cocktails. £7.50 (10ml) or £22 (100ml). drharris.co.uk

‘Racing Lines’ shirt by T-lab

T-lab’s latest o ering features a pair of duelling single-seaters but also a nod to the origins of motorsport: that ‘Since 1894’ tag on the far right is a reference to the year of the ﬁrst organised motor race, an event that saw drivers charge between Paris and Rouen at average speeds approaching 12mph. Steady on! £34. t-lab.co.uk

Alfa Romeo T33/2 model by Spark

‘How does the car work on the course?’ a TV reporter asked Mario Andre i shortly before the la er was due to climb into an Alfa T33/2 to contest the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona. ‘Any spots where you have trouble?’ Andre i, with a smile, replied: ‘Nah… except there’s no horsepower comin’ out the corners, that’s all!’ He did not appear to relish the prospect of a long stint in the ‘li le’ 2.0-litre car, but in the event he and co-driver Lucien Bianchi and the Alfa all acqui ed themselves well; in fact, Andre i and Bianchi might just have sni ed a podium ﬁnish if not for a prang that meant they had to stop several times to stick the rear of the car back together with the tape you see replicated on this fun, 1:43-scale resincast model. £74.95. grandprixmodels.com

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Richard Mille RM 30-01

Le Mans Classic

The latest in a long line of Richard Mille creations inspired by the Le Mans Classic, and the best of the lot. The brand’s designers have had some fun incorporating nods to the traditions of racing at the Circuit de la Sarthe – note in particular that the calibre RMAR2 movement has been modiﬁed to accommodate a 24-hour counter, on which the number 16 is highlighted in reference to the usual 16.00 start time of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. CHF 220,000. richardmille

Farer Three Hand Series III Venture

The Three Hand has long been a mainstay of Farer’s lineup, and a third generation of the watch has just arrived, bringing with it some a ractive textured dials. The Series III, like its predecessor, is powered by a La Joux-Perret G101 movement with a 68-hour power reserve, but the new watch is slightly more petite than the old at 39mm, and, with its new screw-down crown and monobloc mid-case, it is water-resistant down to 100m. £1025. farer.com

BRM V6-44-SA Colordrive Blue

The V6-44-SA, which features a movement suspended by three shock absorbers visible through the dial, is the most distinctive of the models made by French manufacturer BRM, and this limited-edition version is particularly arresting. The dial was painted not by BRM but by the Paris-based car restorer ODS Carrosserie, and the shimmering metallic blue ﬁnish wouldn’t look out of place on a 100-point concours-winner. £5310. brm-chronographes.com

Echo/Neutra Averau Ceramic Chrono

Though it is both incredibly light and more or less impervious to scratching, ceramic is not quite the perfect material from which to make a watch case, because it’s also bri le. That needn’t worry anyone interested in this new chronograph, however, because it is not quite what it appears to be: here, an outer ceramic case is reinforced by a so-called ‘TiFrame’ titanium skeleton that extends into the lugs, a common weak point on full ceramic cases. €1970. echoneutra.com

BugattiPaddock relief print by Steve Goodwin

Steve Goodwin created this typically charming linocut artwork following a recent trip to Goodwood Circuit, and made ten prints, which are now available to buy through his website. Goodwin is an artist increasingly in demand – he was commissioned to produce the poster art for this year’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run –so we won’t be surprised if that number proves to be inadequate… £140 unframed or £170 framed; commissions £POA. inkycrow.art

1:12-scale Eagle Mk1 model by Automodello

O en when Dan Gurney was behind the wheel of the temperamental Eagle Mk1, he had to content himself with having the pre iest car on the F1 grid – but when it actually worked, the Mk1 went like the clappers. At Spa in 1967 it co-operated long enough for Gurney to become the second driver ever to claim an F1 victory in a car of his own construction, and this detailed, authorised model of the Belgian GP-winning Mk1 is a fabulous tribute to a pair of history-makers. $1499.95. automodello.com

Bram Stoker silk tie by Henry Poole & Co

Savile Row tailor Henry Poole makes a range of ties dedicated to notable clients of old, who include Winston Churchill, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Dracula author Bram Stoker. £145. henrypoole.com

Mondaine Swiss Railways 25cm wall clock

A new, white-framed miniature of the iconic station clock originally conceived by designer Hans Hilﬁker in 1944, but perfected by him 70 years ago this year, in 1955. £199. uk.mondaine.com

Canon’s range of f1.4 VCM (voice coil motor) primes has expanded to include this corker, equally well-suited for head-and-shoulders portrait photography and for shooting video. £1679.99. canon.co.uk

Edited by Matthew Hayward

The Market

BUYING + SELLING + ANALYSIS

Pre-war stars shine in $33.9m

Gooding Christie’s auction

The Stan Lucas Collection sale sets new records for several models

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 E set an auction benchmark for this relatively obscure marque at $2,205,000. Several other records were achieved at this landmark sale, for Stutz, Crane-Simplex, Mercer and Stevens-Duryea. Bonhams has been busy, with Goodwood Revival and Audrain auctions providing quite a contrast.

A soaking wet Goodwood failed to inspire buyers, resulting in a £5m, 53% sale result – Bonhams’ lowest sales value there since 2014. It wasn’t helped by the ex-Jim Clark Lotus Elan being withdrawn, and the headline competition Cobra failing to worry its reserve. Top seller was one of the two Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato ‘Sanction III’ continuations built in 2000, which sold for £1,079,000.

Audrain offered beautiful blue skies, and a highest-ever $10.3m result for the now firmly established Rhode Island event. The star was a 2022 Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ at $5,725,000.

As we were going to press, Gooding Christie’s announced two new key appointments for its expanding European remit: Managing Director –EMEA, Oliver Camelin, who has joined from RM Sotheby’s, as well as Consultant (Senior Specialist) James Knight, formerly of Bonhams.

Broad Arrow has just announced a new partnership with InterClassics, making it the exclusive auction partner for the Belgian and Dutch collector car sales events. Matthew Hayward

TOP 10 PRICES SEPTEMBER 2025

£3,758,736 ($5,065,000)

1911 Oldsmobile Limited Series 27 Seven-Passenger Touring