BESPOKE FINANCE FOR LUXURY, CLASSIC AND SUPERCARS.
Finance from £25k to £2m designed for collectors, enthusiasts and drivers.
A brief history of the British motor industry
A look back at 130 colourful years of UK car-making
The collector-car market
The ups and downs of British classic car prices
AC to Ariel
… via Allard and Alvis
Aston Martin
Maker of Britain’s most glamorous cars
Aston Martin Valkyrie
Driving the mad, 1139bhp hypercar on city streets
Austin
The manufacturer that democratised motoring
Austin Mini Cooper S
The story of the world’s favourite pocket rocket
Austin-Healey
Classic British sports cars, from Frogeye to 3000
Bentley 3 Litre SuperSports
The spiciest 3 Litre tackles the Peking to Paris rally
Bentley continued
Pre-war titans and modern-day marvels
Bristol to Daimler
Grandees of the British motor industry of old
Ford
First-rate cars from the Blue Oval’s British division
Ford RS200
The inside story of the rowdy homologation special
Frazer Nash to Invicta
… via Ginetta, Gordon-Keeble, GMA, Healey and Hillman
Jaguar
The beginnings of a Great British success story
Jaguar XKS S
Meeting Steve McQueen’s ‘racecar for the road’
Jaguar continued
More hits from a very deep back catalogue
Jensen FF
Road-testing a car that was years ahead of its time
Contents
Lagonda
Appreciation for a marque that is much missed
Land R over Series IIA
Off-road in the IIA once owned by Land Rover’s founder
Land Rover continued
You’ll find the Land Rover’s upmarket relative here…
Lea-Francis to Lister
… via Light Car Company
Lotus
Colin Chapman’s brilliantly idiosyncratic early creations Lotus Turbo Esprit
Harry Metcalfe drives to Cortina in pursuit of James Bond
Lotus continued
A sports car rated by some as the best ever McLaren F1
Jay Leno and Gordon Murray on a car still without equal McLaren continued
How McLaren stepped out from the shadow cast by the F1
Marcos
Maker of the GT, the car that refused to die
MG
One of Britain’s most storied car-makers
Morgan to Riley…
… via Morris, Napier, Noble, Railton and Reliant
Rolls -Royce Silver Ghost
Up close with the most beautiful example of the type
Rolls-Royce continued
Stunningly refined pre- and post-war luxury cars
Rover to Sunbeam
… via Squire and SS
Triumph
Mass-market motors have rarely been so much fun
TVR to Vauxhall
Britain’s first sports car, and some of its most ferocious
Octane’s ranking
Which British car did we put on top? See here to find out
Welcome
Rule Britannia!
James Ellio Editor-in-chief
IT’S AMAZING how much of its reputation the British motor industry has retained, considering how much of the actual industry has been lost. Countless manufacturers and factories have disappeared over the years, but the marques that have survived – even if in the hands of overseas owners –continue to be known for designing and building cars of the highest possible standard. Even today, nobody does luxury cars, or o -roaders, quite like the Brits.
We’re a long way removed, however, from the days when Britannia ruled the roads and more than once revolutionised motoring. It was over a century ago that Austin, with the li le Seven, democratised motoring in the UK and via Rosengart, Dixi, Bantam et al took its mission abroad. And more than 60 years have passed since the launch, in 1959, of the Mini – an icon that remains as popular as any car ever built.
e 1950s and ’60s were the halcyon days of the British motor industry, when creatively designed and commercially successful cars were churned out as though there were nothing to it. Success in competition seemed easy to come by, too, with British sports cars dominating the international racing scene and racking up a string of victories at Le Mans.
e good times didn’t last into the ’70s and ’80s, but even if our motor industry was le pre y well bloodied by that period, it was unbowed, and in the early 1990s it gave the world a car many regard as the greatest of all time: the McLaren F1. Designed by a South African and powered by a German engine, sure, but as British as apologising when someone bumps into you.
is special edition celebrates the F1, the Mini, the Seven, and 97 more wonderful cars created here in Britain. Each was chosen on the strength of some stand-out quality, be it performance, styling, innovation, historical importance or commercial success. We’ve listed them alphabetically… but of course we had to have a go at ranking them. Flick to the back of the magazine to see our list, and feel free to tell us why it’s wrong!
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-chief
James Ellio james@octane-magazine.com
Writer Nathan Chadwick
Designer
Andrew Thomas
Features editor Chris Bietzk
PUBLISHING AND MANAGEMENT
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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
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
We look back at the colourful history of the British motor industry
THE HISTORY OF the British motor industry is a tale worthy of Shakespeare – a frankly rather muddled tapestry depicting glory and tragedy in equal measure, a saga of ingenuity, bloody-mindedness, and the peculiar British knack for both brilliance and baffling self-sabotage.
In the late 19th Century, when the horseless carriage was still met with a mixture of awe and outright derision, the continentals, particularly Daimler and Benz, were first out of the blocks and busy setting the pace. Britain, typically, was a little slow off the mark. As embodied by the Red Flag Act (Locomotives on Highways Act of 1865) mandating a man walking ahead of any mechanical vehicle at 4mph, waving a red flag, British progress was a little more leisurely and, in those early days, often under licence from the trailblazing French.
Though there were many contenders for the first truly British car, the 1895 Knight from Coventry can lay a decent claim, but soon progress was so rapid that it was hard to keep up with. Names that would become legendary started to emerge from the workshops. Frederick Lanchester, an engineering polymath, gave us the Lanchester 10 HP in 1901, a remarkably advanced machine for its time, with horizontally opposed cylinders and innovative chassis design. He was a true visionary, though perhaps too far ahead of his time to achieve widespread commercial success.
Then there was the almost mythical union of Charles Rolls, the aristocratic motoring enthusiast and pioneer aviator, and Henry Royce, the meticulous engineer, a man who famously declared: ‘Strive for perfection in everything you do.’ Their partnership, formalised in 1904, gave us the Rolls-Royce 10 HP, but it was the peerless Silver Ghost, launched in 1907, that truly cemented their reputation. It was the ‘Best Car in the World,’ a silent marvel of engineering that could cross continents without complaint.
Meanwhile, in Birmingham, the formidable Herbert Austin was laying his own foundations. Having honed his skills with the Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company, he struck out on his own in 1905, establishing the Austin Motor Company. His early models, such as the Austin 25/30, were robust, well-engineered, and catered to the discerning motorist.
The First World War, for all its horrors, proved an unlikely catalyst for motor manufacturer in the UK. Factories retooled for munitions, refining precision manufacturing techniques and assembly line processes. The lessons learned in producing aeroplanes and shells proved invaluable.
Post-war, the trickle of luxury automobiles exploded into a torrent of more accessible
vehicles. Here, two titans emerged: William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, of Morris Motors, and Sir Herbert Austin. Morris, a self-made man from humble origins, was a shrewd businessman who grasped the principles of mass production, adapting them from Henry Ford. His Morris Cowley and Morris Oxford – often affectionately known as ‘bullnoses’ due to their radiator shape – became the ubiquitous workhorses of the 1920s and ’30s. They were simple, solid and –crucially – affordable. Morris understood the need for reliability and value, selling vast numbers from his Cowley plant in Oxford.
Austin, though more conservative, was equally influential. His tiny, charming Austin Seven, introduced in 1922, was a stroke of genius. It was Britain’s answer to the Ford Model T, but in miniature, democratising motoring for millions. It spawned countless derivatives and even licensed versions abroad (the original BMW was in essence an Austin Seven). The ‘Baby Austin’ was a genuine game-changer, putting families on the road for the first time.
Those decades also saw a blossoming of characterful sports cars. Cecil Kimber, a brilliant designer and general manager at Morris’s sales and service division, created MG by basically taking Morris chassis and engines, lowering them, and adding sporting bodywork. The MG Midget, launched in 1929, became the quintessential accessible British sports car –nimble, fun, and endearing, even if it was prone to mechanical grumbles.
Other names also flourished: Riley, with its sophisticated engine designs like the Nine; Alvis, known for its quality and performance with the Speed 20; and SS Cars, soon to become Jaguar, under Sir William Lyons. Lyons, a master of styling, brought elegance and performance to the masses with cars such as the SS100 and the immediately post-war Jaguar MkIV. These were cars that exuded a certain British elegance, a blend of power and refinement.
The Second World War again saw factories converted, churning out everything from RollsRoyce Merlin engines for Spitfires to tanks. But the post-war landscape was utterly transformed. Britain, victorious but economically ravaged, desperately needed exports. This led to a curious boom. America, with its own industry slowly retooling, craved small, fuel-efficient European cars. British manufacturers filled that void. The MG TD, then the Triumph TR2 and the AustinHealey 100 became ‘dollar earners’, symbolic of Britain’s efforts to rebuild. These were cars with character, often leaky, but undeniably fun and quintessentially British.
This relentless drive for consolidation calcified in the 1950s with Jaguar ruling salesrooms and Le Mans and, in 1952, the formation of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), a shotgun marriage between Austin and Morris to create a British automotive global giant. Leonard Lord,
Left Workers at the Lanchester factory in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham, circa 1905.
This page and opposite, from top John Henry Knight and his son with the 1895 Knight, widely regarded as the first British motor car; the Dennis factory circa 1910; the Austin Seven made motoring – and motorsport –much more affordable in the 1920s. Here the Seven of Arthur Waite tackles Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb in 1923; an exhibition hall at the British International Motor Show in 1934.
Austin’s indomitable boss, took the reins. Despite the stated aim of efficiency, it led to rampant badge engineering – the Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford being prime examples. It was the birth of the confusion that would plague the industry for decades.
Yet, amid this chaos, came genius. In 1959, Alec Issigonis, a brilliant if notoriously unconventional engineer, unleashed the Mini. Its revolutionary transverse engine, frontwheel drive and clever packaging created unprecedented interior space in a tiny footprint. The Austin Mini and Morris MiniMinor (and later the Mini Cooper, thanks to the racing mastermind John Cooper) wasn’t just a car; it was a cultural icon, a design masterpiece that changed the world. It showed Britain could still innovate on a grand scale.
The 1960s started on a high with the launch of the Jaguar E-type in 1961, followed by such icons as the Aston Martin DB5, but, even though the industry ploughed on confidently and relentless, by the end of the decade the cracks were already starting to show. Labour relations became increasingly bitter, with constant wildcat strikes offering only a foretaste of what was to come… which was the formation of British Leyland (BL) in 1968.
Donald Stokes was tasked with merging almost the entire remaining British motor
industry: BMC (Austin, Morris, MG), Leyland (Standard-Triumph, Rover), Land Rover and Daimler along with the flagship Jaguar. It was meant to be a colossus; it became an unwieldy, bureaucratic nightmare.
BL’s output in the 1970s became a byword for industrial decline. The Austin Allegro, launched in 1973, with its bizarre Quartic steering wheel and unfortunate styling, was a prime example of everything going wrong –rushed development, quality issues, and a palpable sense of indifference.
The Morris Marina, another product of the early BL years, was conservative, uninspired, and deeply uncompetitive. Even the previously revered names suffered. Triumph struggled with the TR7 and Rover’s last truly independent model, the SD1, while stylish, was plagued by early reliability issues.
The 1970s were a particularly bleak decade, marked by crippling strikes and the oil crises. BL was effectively nationalised in 1975, propped up by taxpayer money. Michael Edwardes, brought in to turn things around, was a tough, uncompromising leader who faced down then unions and rationalised the business, but the damage was already done.
The 1980s saw a desperate alliance with Honda. The Rover 200 and Rover 800 (a rebadged Honda Legend) were better cars,
but they highlighted how far Britain had fallen behind in mass-market production. The old names were fading fast. Triumph had disappeared, Morris was no more, and MG was relegated to badge-engineered curiosities.
The 1990s brought further seismic shifts. BMW, seeing the residual value in Rover Group (the remnants of BL), acquired it in 1994. It poured money into developing new models, including the elegant Rover 75, a car that truly attempted to recapture Rover’s traditional strengths. But the sheer scale of the turnaround, the cultural clash, and the accumulated inefficiencies proved too much. In 2000, BMW famously sold Rover for a nominal sum to the Phoenix Consortium, retaining only the Mini brand and its Cowley plant. This was a masterstroke, leading to the success of the modern BMW MINI, a car that perfectly blended retro charm with contemporary engineering and quality.
The early 21st Century confirmed the shift to foreign ownership. Ford, which had owned Jaguar and Land Rover since the late 1980s, sold them to India’s Tata Motors in 2008. The Jaguar XF and the continued strength of Range Rover showed that, under new ownership, these iconic brands could thrive, retaining their British design and engineering heart.
Bentley, after a battle between VW and BMW, ended up with Volkswagen, continuing to produce cars such as the Continental GT in Crewe. Rolls-Royce, having been part of the BMW/VW saga, went to BMW in name only, and now hand-builds the exquisite Phantom and Cullinan from its bespoke facility in Goodwood. MG, after a series of false dawns, was eventually bought by China’s SAIC, which maintains a small R&D centre at what’s left of the old Longbridge plant. Vauxhall, Britain’s oldest surviving car brand, is now part of Stellantis, along with Peugeot, Citroën and others; Stellantis produces EVs from the former Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port.
So, where are we now? The grand, sprawling, often dysfunctional empire of British Leyland is long gone. The era of the mass-market, domestically owned British car maker is, to all intents and purposes, over. Yet despite its largely foreign ownership, the British motor industry persists, transformed into something altogether more refined, more focused.
We no longer churn out millions of everyday cars, but we excel at the high-end and boutique cars. Jaguar Land Rover is a global powerhouse of luxury SUVs. Mini, under BMW, is a success story, exporting its uniquely British charm worldwide from Oxford. Bentley and RollsRoyce continue to epitomise ultra-luxury, their
bespoke creations highly sought after. McLaren builds some of the most technologically advanced and breathtaking supercars, like the 720S and Artura, in Woking. Aston Martin, forever entwined with James Bond, continues to craft elegant and powerful GTs and sports cars such as the new Vantage and DB12. Lotus, under Geely, is undergoing a profound transformation, nodding to its traditions with the Emira sports car but seemingly struggling to move into electric performance with the Emeya saloon and Eletre SUV.
And let’s not forget the incredible ecosystem of motorsport engineering. ‘Motorsport Valley’, centred around Silverstone, is a global hub, home to countless F1 teams and specialist firms that push the boundaries of automotive
technology. Small, independent manufacturers and restorers also thrive, keeping the flame of bespoke British motoring alive.
It’s been a turbulent, often heartbreaking journey, from the pioneering spirit of Lanchester and Rolls, through the mass-market triumphs of Morris and Austin, the iconic Mini, and the painful decline of British Leyland. But for all the missed opportunities, the industrial strife, and the eventual loss of volume production, a core of design flair, engineering excellence, and a peculiar British spirit has endured. The motor car, in its myriad forms, remains intrinsically linked to the island’s identity. The road may have been bumpy, but the wheels, in a distinctly British way, are still turning.
ON THE MONEY
The British car industry has had its ups and downs over the years, and so has the market for British collector cars. How do things stand now, and how did we get here?
LET’S TALK brass tacks. While the history of British motoring is a grand narrative of innovation and occasional folly, the classic car market, specifically for homegrown UK heroes, is a fascinating and irrational theatre where nostalgia, rarity, and emotion collide with hard cash. Since 1980, the trajectory of values for British classics has been a rollercoaster, punctuated by speculation and correction, plus steady appreciation for the genuinely significant.
Cast your mind back to a Britain emerging from 1970s industrial turmoil and classic cars, especially humble ones, were regarded as cheap transport, a hobby for the tinkerer. An MGB GT could be picked up for a song – say £1500 for a decent runner. The open-top roadster might fetch a little more, but that’s beer money in today’s terms. These were used cars that hadn’t attained broad ‘classic’ status and home maintenance was part of the charm.
The Jaguar E-type, even then, was a different proposition, a cut above with its beautiful lines and sporting pedigree. In 1980, a good Series 1 Roadster might have commanded £8000 to £12,000. Not insignificant, but still a fraction of what was to come. These were cars that people aspired to, but they weren’t yet seen as the bluechip investments they would later become.
The late 1980s saw the first boom. A wave of speculative money and a growing appreciation for ‘heritage’ inflated prices. Even mundane
classics were being snapped up. Fuelled by a romanticised view of a bygone era, people were investing in chrome and leather. The market became overheated. An MGB GT could see its value creep up to £4000, even £6000 for a really good example, perhaps more for a perfect one. And the E-type went even further. A concours-condition Series 1 Roadster could easily trade for £50,000, even £70,000, by the turn of the decade. The term ‘garage queen’ entered the lexicon, cars bought to be stored, not driven.
Then came the brutal early-1990s correction. Speculators fled; many who’d bought at the peak were left holding assets worth significantly less than they’d paid. This was a painful but necessary recalibration. MGB GT values softened closer to the early-’80s figures for average cars, perhaps £3000-5000. The E-type suffered, too, though less dramatically at the very top end. A Series 1 Roadster might drop back to £30,00040,000, thought the truly exceptional cars, those with unimpeachable provenance, began to demonstrate their inherent resilience. This period taught the market a harsh lesson: speculation is fickle, but genuine quality endures.
Below and opposite
Top of the UK class: 1956
Le Mans-winning Jaguar
D-type (£17m) and ex-Moss 1956 Aston
Martin DBR1 (£17.5m).
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw a more measured, gradual ascent. The internet began to democratise information, making values more transparent and broadening the market globally. Enthusiasm, not speculation, drove demand. The MGB GT began a, steady climb, settling into a range of £6000-12,000 for good, usable examples. It became the bedrock of affordable British classic
motoring. The E-type, too, continued its upward trajectory, being seen as a truly iconic sports car with factors such as low chassis numbers starting to come into play.
The real explosion came in the 2010s. Even at the start of the decade a flat-floor Series 1 E-type Roadster in prime condition was £80,000-120,000. Then ultra-high-net-worth individuals started to view classic cars, particularly rare and historically significant examples, as alternative investments, a ‘passion asset’ that offered enjoyment and a hedge against economic uncertainty. Global liquidity and a fascination with rarity sent top-tier British classic values stratospheric.
The Aston Martin DB5 accelerating ahead of the market throug the Noughties thanks to its James Bond connection, and especially after being boosted by Casino Royale in 2006, was £200,000-300,000 even in the early 2010s and that rapidly multiplied several times over, with immaculate examples crossing the seven-figure mark. The Jaguar E-type, again, was a prime beneficiary of this boom. The best Series 1 3.8-litre Roadsters, particularly early models, saw values reach astonishing heights. A car that was £10,000 in 1980 could command £200,000, £300,000, even north of £500,000 for a truly outstanding example with a perfect and important history. Even the more common Series 2 and 3 models saw significant appreciation. An MGB GT, while still more attainable, was also lifted by the rising tide: excellent examples fetched £15,000-25,000, factory V8s even more.
‘GLOBAL LIQUIDITY AND A FASCINATION WITH RARITY SENT
TOP-TIER BRITISH CLASSIC VALUES STRATOSPHERIC’
This brings us to the most expensive British cars ever sold, invariably those with racing provenance or unparalleled rarity. The market for these machines operates in a different dimension. The 1956 Aston Martin DBR1 that won the 1959 Nürburgring 1000km, driven by the likes of Sir Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham, was sold for $22.55million (c£17.5m at the time) by RM Sotheby’s at Monterey in 2017. This wasn’t just a car; it was a piece of British racing history.
Similarly, the 1955 Jaguar D-type that won Le Mans in 1956 achieved $21.78 million (c£17m) for the same auction house in 2016. These cars represent the pinnacle of British automotive achievement with prices that reflect their unique place in history. Even a one-off such as the 1963 Aston Martin DP215 prototype from Le Mans fetched $21.455m in 2018.
As for the almost mystical Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a 1912 example, known for its exceptional originality and having covered over 100,000 miles since new, sold for £3.5million at Bonhams in 2012. That underlines the enduring value placed on early, significant motor cars, particularly those considered ‘the best car in the world’ for their era.
The 2020s have seen the market mature further. The frenetic growth of the mid-2010s has cooled, particularly for cars without stellar provenance, yet blue-chip classics remain strong. There’s renewed focus on originality, history and condition. Restomods have gained traction, sometimes affecting pure collector values, but broadening their appeal.
Today, a superb, well-maintained MGB GT might make £18,000 to £28,000, V8s more and they are still seen as affordable, practical entry points into classic ownership. The Jaguar E-type continues its reign as a truly aspirational classic, but the gulf in values between the very best and ‘standard’ cars is growing, with the latter becoming more ‘attainable’ of late. Renewed appreciation for the S3 V12 model isn’t yet reflected in values.
The British classic car market, therefore, has transformed from a niche hobby into a global investment class at the very top, while retaining its accessible heart for the enthusiast. The journey from humble £1500 MGBs to multi-million-pound D-types is testament to the enduring appeal of these magnificent machines. It’s a market that rewards knowledge, patience, and a genuine passion for the oily bits and the stories they tell. And, as ever, a bit of luck never goes amiss.
AC ACE & COBRA
The Ace was a revitalising force for AC cars a er WW2, with a John Tojeiro design that used a light ladder-type tubular frame, independent transverse leaf-sprung suspension at each corner and a voluptuous all-alloy two-seater body. The early straight-six engines were AC’s own and didn’t really match the sporting image, but in 1956 Bristol’s 120bhp straight-six and four-speed gearbox became available, finally giving the car the verve it needed. In 1961 a Ruddspeed option was o ered, using a Ford Zephyr-derived straight-six. Further tuning options were made available, boosting power to 170bhp – just in time for Carroll Shelby to bowl into town.
The Ace’s engine bay had been suitably beefed up to accommodate the Zephyr engine, and fi ing the Ford 260ci V8 just meant re-siting the steering box. To cope with the extra power, a Salisbury 4HU di erential with rear inboard brakes was added. A er the prototype was completed in February
1962, it was air-freighted to Shelby in Los Angeles.
A er eight hours in Dean Moon’s Santa Fe workshop, Shelby had the first prototype out road testing. The production version would see the brakes moved outboard in a bid to save costs, and engine displacement subsequently grew to 289ci.
AC itself marketed the Cobra in Europe, discontinuing the Ruddspeed Ace in the process in 1963. In 1965 the MkIII arrived on a new chassis, designed in collaboration with Ford in Detroit. The new chassis emplyed thicker tubes, coil springs at each corner, and bodywork was made broader to accommodate wider wheels and radiators. The big change was under the hood, with a 427ci ‘side oiler’ V8 that produced 425hp and 480lb , good for a 164mph top speed. Quite something in a car that weighed just 1068kg…
The car was successful in motorsport, but it was a financial failure for both Ford and Shelby. The last Cobra bodies le the UK in 1967.
ESSENTIAL
FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1953 Engine 1991cc straight-six, naturally aspirated Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 85bhp Torque 110lb Top speed 103mph
ALLARD K1
Sydney Allard, a fiercely competitive racer with aspirations to be a manufacturer, saw the potential in the USA market for British-made sports cars for competition and road use. The K1 was one of the first post-war British roadsters with a transatlantic engine installation, based around a Ford Pilot chassis. Thomson of Wolverton cra ed stamped steel channel sections, with the side rails and crossmembers designed to fit the trailing link, Ballamy-sourced transverse-leaf front suspension and live rear axle, sourced from Ford. The lightweight aluminium body came via Godfrey Imhof. The Allard K1 used a 3622cc Ford/Mercury L-head V8 that was good for 95bhp and a top speed close to 90mph. Production totalled 151 units.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1946
Engine 3622cc V8, naturally aspirated
Transmission Three-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 95bhp
Torque 150lb
Top speed 86mph 0-60mph 13.6sec
ALVIS TC 108G
Alvis was one of the greats of the British motor industry, founded in Coventry in 1919, but it hit a problem in the mid-1950s. Rationalism in the new age of motor manufacturing a er WW2 saw body supply dry up, with Tickford and Mulliner acquired by Lagonda and Standard Triumph. Alvis turned to Swiss coachbuilder Graber, which had produced some forward-thinking bespoke bodies for the TC 21. The result was a new Graber-style body built by Willowbrook of Loughborough, encasing an Alvis straight-six engine. However, only 35 were built as the body proved expensive to build, and the contract with Willowbrook was terminated. Alvis took the design to Park Ward, and a new car entered production in 1958: the TD 21.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1956
Engine 2993cc straight-six, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 104bhp
Torque 163lb
Top speed 103mph
ARIEL ATOM
What began as a student project at Coventry University’s transport design programme has become one of the most celebrated British sports cars of all time. Niki Smart’s idea for a lightweight sports car garnered the support of his tutor, Simon Saunders, who would set up a company to build it, with input from British Steel and Tom Walkinshaw Racing. It made its debut at the 1996 British Motor Show, and would appear in 2000 sporting Rover K-Series power and Lotus-tuned suspension. Using single-seater racing technology, the suspension is fully adjustable, with pushrod-actuated dampers, double unequal-length wishbones front and rear, and Bilstein dampers.
It weighs just 612kg, which, when combined with its later engine options, makes for Buga i Veyron-rivalling acceleration times.
As the years have progressed, Ariel has o en turned to Honda for its engines, usually derived from the Civic Type R in naturally aspirated and turbocharged form, though American Atoms have used General Motors-sourced Ecotec engines.
Ariel has also produced a V8 with an engine designed by John Hartley, which developed 500bhp. Combined with a SADEV six-speed sequential gearbox, it could hit 62mph in 2.3 seconds, making it the fastest accelerating car in the world when it was released.
Introduced 2000 Engine 1588cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 111bhp Torque 107lb The
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
The Plus Four CX-T is a Morgan special project that redefines the capabilities of a Morgan sports car. Opening up new destinations and possibilities, this rugged and capable overland vehicle is Morgan like you’ve never seen it before. Built alongside experienced Dakar Rally competitors and vehicle builders, every aspect of the Plus Four CX-T has been carefully considered to equip it for overland adventure.
Morgan Works London is proud to offer one of only eight Plus Four CX-T ever to be built. This low mileage example, number 002 of 008, is the same specification as the launch images shown here, finished in Berber Sand Beige paintwork with a Black Pebble Grain interior and is equipped with the full CX-T adventure pack. Enquire at Morgan Works London via the contact details below.
The 100 greatest British cars
ASTON MARTIN ULSTER
Aston Martin had had a successful time of it in 1933 and commissioned three third-series cars for the 1934 season. Though Le Mans would ultimately be a failure, the red-painted cars took all three podium places at the RAC Tourist Trophy in Ulster. The team cars had di ered from the second-series cars by using a two-seater body and the spare wheel placed horizontally in the rear, and the success of this works trio led to calls for replica Ulsters for customers. These customer replicas featured an 85bhp 1.5-litre engine that, in such a lightweight body, meant Aston Martin felt confident enough to
guarantee speeds in excess of 100mph. Though most of the 21 Ulsters constructed featured two-seater bodywork, four had a 2/4-seater body with room for a driver and three others to travel at a breezy 100mph.
Aston Martin returned four more Ulster team cars for the 1935 season as a swansong for the 1.5-litre engined cars. Though similar to the 1934 cars, they di ered by having sloping bonnets that funnelled air to a lower radiator. The most successful of these cars, LM20, took third overall and first in class at the 1935 Le Mans 24 Hours.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1934 Engine 1481cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 85bhp Torque 100lb Top speed 101mph
HAND PICKED FROM OUR CURRENT STOCK OF EXCEPTIONAL CARS
1 of just 140 examples of the model built. Comprehensively restored between 2009 & 2010, by highly respected Aston Martin specialist restorers. Original engine rebuilt to 4.2 litre specifications. 5-speed manual gearbox. Exquisite, elegant and immaculate.
£549,950
A beautiful example of the prized DB6 Volante with automatic transmission and power assisted steering. Finished in Pacific Blue over Connolly Vaumol Tan hides. Superbly presented in restored condition.
One of just 8 examples of this model hand built by Aston Martin (5 UK RHD). Finished in R-R Royal Blue over Parchment hides piped blue. Full V600 specifications with just 3,800 miles from new and immaculate condition throughout.
£425,000
A superb Series II DB4 with deeper bonnet scoop, egg crate grille and cathedral tail lamps. Finished in original Sea Green over Tan hides and presented in immaculate condition throughout.
Nicholas Mee & Co Ltd, Essendonbury Farm, Hatfield Park Estate, Hertfordshire, AL9 6AF
1969 Aston Martin DB6 Volante £POA
2000 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante ‘Special Edition’ £POA
1967 Aston Martin DB6 Volante
1960 Aston Martin DB4 Series II
ASTON MARTIN
DB4/5/6
The DB4 was a dynamic step forward in Aston Martin design, utilising a lightweight Superleggera (tube-frame) body courtesy of Carrozzeria Touring. It would set the template for Aston Martin for more than a decade through the DB5 and DB6, and it became the first car made at the marque’s new home in Newport Pagnell.
Performance came from the Tadek Marekdesigned double-overhead cam straight-six, which in this application was good for 240bhp. The suspension was made up from ball-jointed wishbones, coil springs and rack-and-pinion steering up front, with a live rear axle and coil springs out back.
The DB4 GT joined the range in 1959, sporting enclosed headlamps, thinner aluminium body panels and a shorter wheelbase. The engine was upgraded to produce 302bhp, good enough for a
6.1sec 0-60mph time and a top speed of 153mph, making it the fastest road-legal car of the day. Just 75 were built, with a further 19 bodied by Zagato in wind-cheating, lightweight form.
The DB4 Vantage debuted in 1961 with a 266bhp engine, which was soon followed by a Convertible version. In total, 1110 DB4s were built.
The DB5 appeared in 1963, taking many of the design cues of the DB4 Series IV, such as its faired-in headlamps. The engine was enlarged to 4.0 litres and 282bhp, with the Vantage version boosting that figure yet further to 325bhp. Two types of Convertible were o ered – the first available from 1963 to 1965, and a second series called the ‘Short Chassis Volantes’ built on the final 37 DB5 chassis, between October 1965 and October 1966. In all, 1059 DB5s were constructed between 1963 and 1965.
The DB5 gave way to the starkly di erent – from the rear at least – DB6 in 1965, which featured a Kamm tail inspired by Aston Martin’s racing cars for be er high-speed stability. The DB6 also adapted the Superleggera construction technique to its own interpretation, but still had to pay a royalty to Touring. Though the DB6 wasn’t as well-received as its forebears, it has be er interior space and more room for luggage. Vantage and Volante versions were also available, including 29 Vantage Volantes. In all, 1788 DB6s of all kinds were built between 1965 and 1970.
If the regular DB5 or DB6 bodies didn’t tickle your fancy, then coachbuilder Harold Radford could build you a shooting brake. A prototype DB5 was built for Aston owner David Brown; a further 12 DB5s and seven DB6s followed, as well as another three built by FLM Panelcra .
ASTON MARTIN DBS
The DBS marked a new direction for Aston Martin, eschewing the curvaceous looks of the DB4-6 for a more rugged, angular style from William Towns, the designer who started at Rootes in 1954 before joining Rover and then moving to Aston Martin in 1966. Its development was hastened by the DB6’s inability to swallow the new V8, but delays to that powerplant meant that the DBS was sold alongside the DB6 for a couple of years with the Marek straight-six engine. In straight-six form it produced 280bhp and 288lb , but the introduction of the 5.3-litre V8 in late 1969 bumped power up to 320bhp and torque to 330lb . This gave way to the Aston Martin V8 in 1972.
The Italians had shown that the wedge had the edge in terms of contemporary design –but that was the Italians; could the conservative British get on board with such rakish looks? Aston Martin, courtesy of William Towns, took that chance with this luxury four-door that revived the dormant Lagonda name. The first generation of seven cars (built in 1974-75) were elongated versions of the Aston V8. It was the redesigned series II models with the wedgy look that shocked the world, and the margins on each sale helped keep Aston Martin afloat through the 1970s. It was technologically adventurous, being the first car to use a digital instrument panel, though the cost of that ended up being four times the budget for the entire car! Nevertheless, it did its job, presenting a more modern alternative to traditional luxury cars such as the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit, Bentley Mulsanne and Mercedes-Benz 600. In all 645 were built, including the last 105 Series IV cars that replaced the pop-up lights with two sets of three bumper-mounted items. Several special editions were made, fi ve by Tickford with bodykits and upgraded interiors, and four long-wheelbase versions. Roos Engineering also built a shooting brake.
Transmission Four-speed automatic or five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 335bhp Torque 350lb
Top speed 157mph 0-60mph 5.8sec
ASTON MARTIN DB7
Ford curtailed the decade-long development of the Jaguar F-type when it took over the company and Tom Walkinshaw Racing recognised the potential in rebodying the XJ-S. Jaguar declined, but Aston Martin, also newly under Blue Oval control, saw the promise.
The result was the DB7, a svelte return to curves not seen since the 1960s. It was a revelation, and soon became Aston Martin’s most popular model in its history. Engineered by TWR it was built at the same Oxfordshire factory that had been responsible for production of the Jaguar XJ220 supercar.
First-series cars used a supercharged straight-six engine of 3.2 litres that produced 335bhp for a 0-60mph time of around six seconds and top speed in excess of 160mph.
In 1999, Aston Martin introduced the V12 Vantage model, which upped power to 420bhp and top speed to 186mph. This 5.9-litre engine would power Aston Martin’s prime model o erings for more than 15 years.
The final flourishes in the DB7 era were the GT and GTA models, launched in 2002. The engine then produced 435bhp, though the bigger change was a shorter final-drive ratio that dramatically improved mid-range punch. In all, around 7000 DB7s were built.
ASTON MARTIN V8 ZAGATO
The V8 Zagato was a moment of genius at the Swiss motor show in the early 1980s. Aston’s owners had spo ed the fever for the Ferrari 288 GTO and Porsche 959, and discussed this with Zagato, which happened to be displaying nearby. A plan was soon formed for a high-performance, lightweight Aston Martin V8 to be built in small quantities. The result was the V8 Zagato – 52 shortened, aluminium-bodied cars with the full X-Pack trimmings (432bhp). It was powerful enough to hit supercar speeds of 186mph, famously achieved by a French journalist on the autoroute. A further run of 37 convertible versions followed in 1987 with a lower-tune, fuel-injected engine and minor styling revisions.
Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 432bhp
Torque 395lb
Top speed 186mph 0-60mph 5sec
The 100 greatest British cars
ASTON MARTIN DB9
The DB9 was the dawn of a new era: not only was it the first of the Gaydon Astons, it was the first to use the VH architecture that would underpin all the marque’s cars for more than a decade. Its bonded aluminium structure was 25% lighter than the DB7’s yet o ered double the torsional rigidity. The 5.9-litre V12 engine was adapted from the second-series DB7, and further developed to produce 450bhp and 420lb , but as the car evolved it gained more performance. A drop-top Volante model entered production in 2005, and the DBR9 represented the firm’s return to endurance racing. It took class victories at Le Mans in 2007 and 2008.
Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 510bhp Torque 420lb Top speed 190mph 0-60mph 4.2sec
ASTON MARTIN V12 VANTAGE
The V8 Vantage had proved to be a sensation on its 2005 launch – its mixture of tuneful engine, gorgeous looks and genuine usability made it the best-selling Aston Martin ever. However, there was always something lingering in the back of enthusiasts’ minds. With the Vantage’s platform in essence a shortened version of the DB9’s, could the bigger brother donate its 5.0-litre V12?
A er showing the Vantage V12 RS concept car in late 2007, Aston simply had to make it, and the full version appeared in 2009. Extensive use of carbonfibre across the car kept the weight penalty for the extra cylinders down to 50kg. It could hit 60mph in 4.2 seconds before cracking on to a top whack of 190mph thanks to its 510bhp V12.
A Vantage S model followed in 2013, taking power to 565bhp (with a further 30bhp available with the Performance Pack) courtesy of revised engine management and dual variable camsha timing. Initially only available with automatic transmission; a seven-speed manual was finally o ered.
Numerous special editions were made available, from the limited-run Zagato model through to the thunderous track-optimised GT12. Roadster versions of both variants were also made built.
MATT
HOWELL
ASTON MARTIN ONE-77
The One-77 took Aston Martin’s VH architecture to the extreme, taking inspiration from contemporary German touring car racing in the pursuit of ultimate weight distribution and performance. It features a full carbonfibre monocoque shrouded in an aluminium body, while the engine is located 26cm behind the front wheel centre line, in e ect o ering front/mid location. The inboard suspension front and rear is inspired by racing cars. However, the cherry on top has to be the 7.3-litre V12 developed in partnership with Cosworth and driving through a six-speed automated manual gearbox by Graziano Trasmissioni. It produced 750bhp and is 25% lighter than a normal Aston V12.
Now considered one of the highlights of Aston Martin’s Gaydon era (the purpose-built factory opened in Warwickshire in 2003), the car could reach 220mph and hit 60mph in 3.5 seconds, but married its scintillating performance with stunning looks by Marek Reichman, who, a er
Having been teased at the Paris Motor Show in 2008, the One-77 made its full debut at Geneva the following year –and only a couple of months later took the design Award for Concept Cars and Prototypes at Concorso d’Eleganza Ville d’Este on the shores of Lake Como. It later received many other accolades for its design. Just 77 were built, one being adapted to become the unique Victor in 2022, some eight years a er One-77 production had ceased. With manual transmission and an 836bhp engine, the dramatic Kaize ‘Ken’ Zheng-designed car featured side exhausts and flank bumpers from the Vulcan. It remains a one-o .
The Aston Martin Valkyrie is the most uncompromising road-legal sports car ever built. What on Earth is it like to drive on city streets? Stephen Archer finds out…
Photography Tim Scott
‘T
oo noisy.’ ‘Cramped.’ ‘Twitchy.’ ‘Nowhere to store anything.’ Just a few quotes on the Valkyrie from other writers. An Aston Martin director commented – in public –that the car is ‘impossible to drive’. So is the Valkyrie the apotheosis of the Aston Martin sports car, as we were led to believe it would be, or is it seriously awed?
Determined to nd out, I asked the generous owner of our feature car to bring it not to a circuit or even to some deserted stretch of dual carriageway, but to the heart of London. If you want to read about how fast this thing goes, you’ll nd plenty of accounts [including on page 38] of test drives on emtpy, billiardtable-smooth racetracks – but let’s get real. e Valkyrie is road-legal, and plenty of those who bought the 150 Coupés and 85 Spiders built did so in the hope of being able to enjoy their car without having to load it into a transporter rst.
So we’re going to see how fun and practical (or not) the Valkyrie can be in an urban se ing. In a 20mph zone. Navigating through tra c at Hyde Park Corner.
FIRST, THOUGH, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate that the Valkyrie exists at all; for a while we all wondered if it would ever arrive. e model was announced in 2015, but deliveries did not begin until 2023, the enormous complexity of the project causing production delays.
e whole thing stemmed from a sausage-and-mash
dinner at which Andy Palmer (CEO of Aston Martin at the time) started tossing ideas around with Christian Horner (team principal of Red Bull Racing, which was then partnered with Aston Martin), Simon Sproule (then Aston’s chief marketing o cer), and genius F1 designer Adrian Newey (now working directly for Aston, but then employed by Red Bull Racing). e upshot of the meal was an agreement to make the most advanced high-performance road car ever. is was a Newey project from the start, and it showed. If Newey is designing a car, everybody else involved needs to raise their game – a lot – and be open to meeting seemingly impossible challenges. Among his goals for the Valkyrie was parity of weight and normally-aspirated power. e team didn’t get there, but 1139 bhp and 1270kg (911bhp per tonne) is pre y close. For context, the 2024 Aston Martin Vantage has 409bhp per tonne – and that car has two turbochargers. Worldwide highway regulations were obviously an important consideration for Newey, but on the other hand here was a Formula 1 designer with the handcu s of F1 rules removed. His proposals necessitated the building of a new production facility at Gaydon, and a number of outside specialists had to be dra ed in to bring his ideas to life. ese included Red Bull Advanced Technologies, Rimac (for expertise on hybrid power) Ricardo (transmissions), Michelin (tyres), Alcon (brakes), Multimatic (carbon bre) and FlexSys. Who? e only company prepared to take on the challenge of making a wiper arm light enough and aerodynamic enough to satisfy Newey.
‘TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE THAT THE VALKYRIE EXISTS AT ALL; FOR A WHILE WE ALL WONDERED IF IT WOULD EVER ARRIVE’
Archer blasts down The Mall in London early in
Denuded of its bodywork, the Valkyrie seems to have more in common with a Lockheed F-35 than it does with a normal car. Get down on your knees and peer at the underside – dominated by a pair of vast, sinister-looking venturi tunnels – and you find yourself wondering how the gearbox and engine can possibly be contained in a chassis that looks as if it’s only half there. Cosworth managed to meet Newey’s unusual packaging requirements, creating an extraordinary 6.5-litre V12 with a tight, 65-degree V – that angle chosen to ensure the engine did not compromise the design of the car’s underside.
The exhaust exits at the top rear of the bodywork, just in front of the wing that raises at 20mph. The exhaust output contributes to the wing’s aero, but can reach temperatures in excess of 600°C, meaning the rear end of the car had to be given a special ceramic coating to stand the heat.
The effect of the Valkyrie’s aero-first design is that the car generates almost enough downforce above 150mph to drive along the roof of a tunnel. Downforce is reduced for normal road use by air bleed-off flaps in the venturi; race tyres can tolerate the downforce, but road rubber? Not so much.
Aston Martin’s pursuit of weight savings was maniacal. The badge on the front is laser-etched, 40-micron-thick titanium. The brake light set into the rear of the roof is the world’s smallest at 5mm – and would have been tinier still had it been possible to reduce the size of the item’s CE mark.
WHEN I SLIDE into the Valkyrie for the first time, I find, unsurprisingly, that the cockpit owes much to F1 cars. Your feet, which you cannot see, are above your backside. The pedal box can be moved, but the steering wheel isn’t very adjustable, though the main displays are on the wheel rather than hidden behind it, at least.
Once you’re strapped in, you have an immediate feeling of ‘wearing the car’, something normally experienced only in purpose-built racing machines. With the engine still dormant, though, it’s fairly civilised in here; you even have soft-close doors. Still, I’m feeling pretty intimidated, particularly since it’s still pitch black out. Keen though I am to see how the Valkyrie copes in London, I’ve absolutely no interest in sitting still in traffic, so I’m setting out good and early in the morning.
The start sequence is unique, the start button needing to be jabbed three times. The first press wakes up the electrical systems and the various displays: three camera-fed ‘mirrors’; a central touchscreen for less essential controls; and a screen in the middle of the wheel, which features your speedometer, rev-counter and ride-height adjuster (the car can be lifted by 25mm to make speed bumps a little easier to negotiate).
The second press preps the engine for firing. One last touch and it explodes into life. Once started, the V12 is not much noisier than the turning-over sound – but that is very noisy indeed. It’s 125dB-plus in the cabin.
Clockwise from above
The exhaust expels gas so hot that the rear of the Valkyrie had to be given a special coating to prevent damage; venturi tunnels help the car make huge amounts of downforce; noise-cancelling headphones are essential kit in the deafeningly loud Valkyrie.
If you need a frame of reference here, that’s about the same reading you’d get standing 100ft behind a screaming jet engine. Without the very clever Apache helicopter noisecancelling headphones that are included with the Valkyrie, the racket would be intolerable. With headphones on, though, and with my phone connected to the car’s system via Bluetooth, I’m able to have a normal conversation with our photographer as he directs me to his location. What the car sounds like when given its head, I won’t find out, but even at a trot the Valkyrie provokes a visceral response unlike any other road-legal machine ever built.
This is a hybrid, of sorts. The engine must be running at all times but a Rimac electric system takes the car to 10mph, and thanks to the auto clutch, pootling along at any speed is a doddle. Once you get going, though, the immensely powerful Cosworth motor has an urgency you can feel in its every pulse. No need to look at the rev-counter, nor even to listen to the revs; they are transmitted through your body.
After a few hours in the car, confidence naturally grows, and let’s just say that The Mall gets quite the wake-up call when we arrive to get some action shots. The Valkyrie’s Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres feature two different rubber compounds, one for grip and the other for stability and wet grip. Without downforce you can break traction, but the car is a remarkably friendly beast – docile, even, when it’s asked to be. Gearchanges are seamless, and the brakes can pull you up with 3g.
Faults? The steering is well weighted, but a quicker rack would be better. And I can accept the decision to do away with luggage space in a car like this, but could I have somewhere to put my phone and the keyfob, please?
SOME OF THOSE who placed an order for a Valkyrie asked for their deposit back after being told the car would take longer to arrive than planned. They had no idea what they’d end up missing out on; the car is a towering, borderline miraculous achievement considering the regulatory environment in which it was created and the hurdles Aston Martin had to overcome to realise Adrian Newey’s vision. I’d venture to say that no performance car has ever gone from concept to production with fewer compromises made.
Let me end with a quote from the owner of our feature car, who has had, and still has, a number of important cars. ‘Now I have the Valkyrie, there is no other car I want.’ The comment resonated with me, because I didn’t want to get out of the car and give it back. I might not have explored the outer limits of the Valkyrie’s performance (and honestly, how many owners ever will?), but I can assure you that I had just as much fun driving around London as all the other journos did racing a Valkyrie around Bahrain’s F1 track.
THANKS TO David Long and HWM Aston Martin (www.hwmastonmartin.co.uk).
2023 Aston Martin Valkyrie Coupé
Engine 6500cc V12, DOHC, fuel injection, plus electric motor Power 1139bhp @ 10,600rpm
Steering Rack and pinion, power-assisted Suspension Front and rear: double wishbones, hydraulically actuated torsion bars, active ride-height adjustment and damping control Brakes Ventilated carbon-ceramic discs Weight 1270kg Top speed 220mph 0-60mph 2.5sec
The 100 greatest British cars: Aston Martin Valkyrie
Taking it to the track
At Bahrain International Circuit, Richard Meaden puts the Aston Martin Valkyrie through its paces, and is awed in spite of the car’s undeniable foibles
Photography Drew Gibson and Max Earey
From left Road tyres made it impossible to get the most out of the car in Bahrain, but writer Meaden still came away from his track test reeling.
IT’S HARD not to be overwhelmed by the Valkyrie. It’s intoxicatingly potent. There’s so much torque that the car punches out of corners like it’s been fired out of a slingshot.
And the tortured wail of the V12 is one of the finest engine notes you’ll ever hear – as long as you’re listening from the kerb, anyway… As Stephen has already mentioned, the sound is experienced a bit differently in the cockpit. Even with earplugs and the muffling effect of a crash helmet, the noise level is extremely high.
It’s the Valkyrie’s biggest issue, both because a supercar’s soundtrack is such an integral part of its appeal, and because the sensory deprivation that comes from heavy hearing protection has an impact on your ability to connect with the car.
The car’s acceleration is breathtaking, and braking is equally impressive – which is just as well, for the Valkyrie is pulling a genuine 200mph at the end of the Bahrain F1 circuit’s start/finish straight. Darren Turner, Aston Martin’s Le Mans-winning development driver, advises braking just 200m from Turn 1, a tight right-hander. That seems impossibly late, but once you’ve summoned the necessary courage, it turns out to be entirely doable.
The big selling point of the Valkyrie was aerodynamic efficiency, and more specifically colossal downforce with minimal drag. The man who masterminded the car, Adrian Newey, permitted Aston’s design team to finesse the
surfaces of the car, but only if any aesthetic enhancements came without functional penalty. The production car makes 1100kg of downforce during high-speed braking, but learning to really exploit its cornering potential is a major challenge.
The steering has fabulous weight and you can place the car with absolute accuracy. This does wonders for your confidence, but the active suspension’s almost board-flat body control doesn’t give you much in the way of feel. This problem is compounded (no pun intended) on the day I drive the Valkyrie by the fact that the car is shod with road tyres that are working very much at their limit. Ultimately, that delicious sensation of leaning into seemingly limitless grip that you get in a passively suspended, slicks-and-wings racing car just isn’t available to me here.
According to Turner, the active suspension allows more body movement when the dynamic driving modes are switched to road settings, which suggests that the Valkyrie could well be a more feelsome machine away from the racetrack.
This isn’t a perfect car, then, but its flaws are easy to forgive in the sense that they are born of the sort of ambitiousness you just don’t see from most carmakers. Productionising and homologating Newey’s unique vision of a road car was the automotive equivalent of summiting Everest without the aid of oxygen.
AUSTIN SEVEN
The Austin 7 was the car that got Britain moving –designed as economical transport for young families, it became an international hit that spawned licence-built versions across the globe.
Sir Herbert Austin faced considerable opposition from those within his own company. The result was that he sank significant funds of his own into its development and much of the subsequent planning took place in the billiard room of his home.
A young draughtsman by the name of Stanley Edge conceived a four-cylinder engine with 7.2bhp and a three-speed gearbox. Austin drew up the car’s look, inspired by a Peugeot, and a ached it to an A-frame influenced by a truck design. Along the way, Austin patented many innovations, which earned him a significant royalty on each car sold.
The 7 worked because it was a quarter smaller than a Ford Model T and half the weight, which
meant the 696cc (later 747cc) sidevalve engine provided sprightly performance. Most importantly, however, it was relatively inexpensive to buy and had the extra allure of coming from the same stable as Austin’s larger cars.
While the first year didn’t yield quite as many sales as hoped for, they soon took o and 290,000 were built between 1922 and 1939. Other nations soon co oned on to the possibilities – in Germany, the first BMW was a 7 derivative, while France had Rosengarts and in the USA it appeared via the American Austin Car Company. Nissan also used the Seven as the basis of its first cars.
Even in the UK, the Seven would prove critical beyond its own wheel tracks – a certain Sir William Lyons and his Swallow Sidecar Company did great business with an open tourer called the Swallow. Such was the demand for this elegant machine, with around 3500 built, that it forced Lyons to move to Coventry and thus lay the foundations of what would eventually become Jaguar.
The Seven’s light weight made it a useful racing machine, pioneered by Herbert Austin’s son-in-law, Arthur Waite. This would eventually lead to the Super Sports models that o ered a heady 80mph, but the influence would move down the generations. For example, Colin Chapman’s first Lotus used Austin Seven underpinnings and Bruce McLaren was among many to rebuild Seven ‘specials’ in the post-war racing era.
Today, the Seven is a stalwart of the veteran car scene, and is still a competitive performer, too.
BARRY HAYDEN
The
The Mini was never intended to be anything more than an economical runabout, but in Cooper S form it became a giant-killing competition car. Here, Mark Dixon meets the oldest surviving example of the type
Photography Dean Smith
factor
The 100 greatest British cars: Mini Cooper S
The 100 greatest British cars: Mini Cooper S
Amodern Mini Cooper (or, as BMW would have it, MINI Cooper) is hard on our tail as we cross the M40 and leave Banbury behind. A few minutes ago we were in a warehouse-like photo studio on an industrial estate, but now, after a long day photographing the car you see here, it’s time to play.
Although this Mini Cooper S has a top speed of 95mph, it can’t accelerate like the modern car behind us, which is being hustled along by a commuter keen to get home. But then we arrive at a series of 90-degree corners, and suddenly the balance of power changes…
Yes, it’s all true. Everything you’ve read about the Mini Cooper’s handling is gospel. This tiny car rockets around the first bend as if on rails. By the time our commuter friend exits the corner, we’re halfway along the next straight. In a contest of Mini versus MINI, David still has a few tricks to show Goliath.
The giant-killing ability of the original Mini has been a big part of its appeal ever since the car first appeared in 1959 – at which point it had an 848cc, singlecarburettor engine making all of 34bhp. Unlike every preceding BMC model since the Morris Minor of 1948, the Mini (retrospectively known as the Mini 850) was genuinely revolutionary with its transverse engine, an integral gearbox sharing the engine oil, front-wheel drive, and rubber-cone dry suspension. The car’s lightweight, wheel-at-each-corner design gave it superb handling that went a long way to compensate for its modest power output.
Just days after the Mini was launched it was being used in competition: BMC unveiled the car on 26 August 1959, and on 18 September a lightly prepped 850 was taking part in the Viking Rally in Norway. The BMC Competitions Department entered the car to support the Austin A40 of Pat Moss (traditional support vehicles were not allowed), but Comps manager Marcus Chambers still brought the Mini home in 51st place.
Like the pre-war Austin Seven, the Mini democratised motorsport. It was an affordable car for the enthusiast on a budget, yet it was also seriously competitive. In 1961, up-and-coming saloon car racer John Whitmore (who had yet to inherit his father’s baronetcy to become Sir John) bought a well-used Mini 850 from the BMC Comps Dept at Abingdon for £400 and won the British Saloon Car Championship with it. In fact, he built such a lead in the standings that he didn’t need to race in the final round of the Championship at Brands Hatch – so he lent his car to a keen amateur racer who was visiting from America. Whitmore had never heard of this chap, who was also an actor, but after meeting him in London for a chat he agreed that he could borrow the Mini for the race at Brands. His name was Steve McQueen.
The irony is that the Mini was never intended to be even a remotely sporting car. Its creator, Alec Issigonis, envisaged it purely as an inexpensive runabout, to the extent that the 948cc engine carried over from the A35 was deliberately downsized to 848cc because Issigonis considered it unnecessarily powerful. If the 948cc unit had been carried through as originally proposed, the Mini would have had a top speed of 90mph from the start, instead of a merely decent 72mph.
So, while the car’s excellent dynamics made it of immediate interest to ‘sporting’ drivers, it wasn’t until the Mini Cooper arrived in late 1961, with its A-series straight-four bored and stroked to 997cc and breathing through twin SUs, that the Mini really set the cat among the oversized pigeons. This development came thanks to World Champion racing car constructor John Cooper, who had used the BMC A-series engine in his Formula Junior, and who also happened to be a good friend of Issigonis. Cooper borrowed an early 850 from the factory and drove it to the 1959 Monza Grand Prix, where it caught the eye of ex-Ferrari engineer Aurelio Lampredi, who was then working for Fiat. Lampredi blagged a long test-drive and is famously said to have remarked to Cooper on his return: ‘If it weren’t so ugly, I’d shoot myself!’
Cooper immediately realised the potential of the little car and approached the new BMC boss, George Harriman, to see if he would build a limited run of ‘hot’ Minis for homologation purposes. Harriman was doubtful that they could sell the 1000 cars needed for homologation but, according to John Cooper’s son Mike, ‘My father replied: “You don’t have to build them; just say you did!”’ Cooper had worked up a prototype from a standard 850 using Formula Junior engine parts, and ultimately BMC agreed to develop a production version of the car. The souped-up Mini would be sold through BMC’s UK dealer network and John Cooper would receive a £2 royalty on each car sold – plus factory backing for his Cooper Car Company team in saloon racing.
The 997cc Mini Cooper was a commercial success – but the standard A-series engine had been bored out as far as it could reasonably go. So Morris Engines and Downton Engineering redesigned it, giving rise to the Mini Cooper S. Siamesed bores, larger big-end journals, a nitrided crankshaft and big-valve cylinder head were all features of the totally reworked unit, now much shorter in stroke (68.2mm instead
of 81.28mm) for faster revving, and considerably larger in capacity at 1071cc.
What we have here is the oldest surviving Mini Cooper S, one of two pre-production cars built early in 1963 and given the consecutive registrations of 731 HOP and 732 HOP. The cars were used for publicity and press purposes, and 731 helped propagate the Mini Cooper mythology when it appeared in episodes of the TV series Danger Man, driven by Patrick McGoohan’s character, John Drake. Although the logbook of 731 survives, the car itself has not been seen for decades – but 732 HOP, our feature car, is very much still with us.
Well, sort of. ‘The car may have already been reshelled by the time I and my sister bought it in 1976,’ confesses owner John Pick, who makes absolutely no bones about the fact that his Cooper retains very few of the parts with which it left the Longbridge line on 6 March 1963. What it does have, however, is impeccable and continous history – and when you learn that 732 HOP is known to have competed in 126 motorsport events, ranging from autotests to hillclimbs to stage rallies, you can understand the extensive rebuilding.
‘732 HOP IS KNOWN TO HAV COMPETED IN MOTORSPORT EVEN FROM AUTOTESTS STAGE RALLIES’ E 1 2 6 TS , TO
‘Early Minis were just old cars in the mid-’70s,’ says John. ‘We saw 732 HOP for sale in the classified ads in the back of Motoring News, and at the time it was just another old Mini with wheelarch extensions. My sister was at university but I was still at school when we started rallying it, with her driving and me navigating.’
During the Mini Cooper’s production run, several variants of the A-series engine were used. Besides the 997cc and 1071cc units already mentioned, there was a 998cc version, which replaced the 997 in late 1963 and ran to November 1969. This was by far the most common Mini Cooper engine, with 55,760 units produced. A super-shortstroke 970S engine was designed for the European one-litre racing class and was available only from June 1964 to April 1965. King of the hill, though, was the 1275S engine, which was launched in March 1964, and which propelled the Mini to its famous Monte Carlo Rally victories in ’65 and ’67 (and, by any reasonable measure, ’66).
John Pick’s Cooper has had most of these fitted – and more besides. ‘It was built as a 997, which was then taken off the production line and re-fitted with a 1071 to turn it into
a Cooper S,’ he explains. ‘But when we bought it in 1976 it had a 998, which didn’t run very well, so we replaced it with a healthy 998 – and then, when the crank broke, with a 1400cc A-series. But that made insuring the car tricky, so we put in a stock 848. It wasn’t until the late 1990s, when I realised the historical significance of the car, that I tracked down the correct 1071 unit, as part of a total rebuild.’
So, John, exactly how much of the original 732 HOP is left? ‘Not very much!’ he grins. ‘The front hubs, for sure, and probably the brake calipers. The steering rack, possibly the steering column – and definitely the speedometer, which is a rare early part.’
This is par for the course for an early Cooper, however. Cars used for motorsport tended to get damaged and rebuilt – and, of course, in the 1960s they rusted, too. Badly. 732 HOP was certainly in a very non-original state by 1976, when John and his sister bought it. ‘Back then,’ John recalls, ‘it had wheelarch extensions, a glassfibre boot and bonnet, Perspex windows, and just one seat. It had been repainted a Triumph red instead of its original Surf Blue with white roof, and there were traces of yellow paint beneath that.
732
‘Later, my sister upgraded to a Peugeot 504 for rallying, and I bought out her share of the Mini. But I knew nothing of its significance until the mid-1990s, when someone told me it could be a really early car. I wrote to the archivist at British Motor Heritage, Anders Ditlev Clausager, who informed me it was the second Cooper S built, with the second 1071cc engine.’
John had already re-shelled 732 HOP himself by then, back in the late ’70s, after an ‘incident’ during a rally. ‘I’d rebuilt it into a Mk3 Mini shell, transferring the running gear. I used the car for 10-15 years after that, doing all the usual things – it got rolled, was crashed – and so it was pretty tired by the 1990s. But it was clearly an important car and I was wondering what to do with it when British Motor Heritage approached me in 1996 and asked if they could rebuild it at a classic car show at their expense, to promote their forthcoming new Mini bodyshells.’
Sounds great? Well, it was both good news and bad news. ‘The problem was, they had most but not all of the necessary tooling at the time – so in the end we used yet another secondhand donor bodyshell, and stripped all the parts out of the old Mk3 shell, ready to transfer. I got a call from BMH
in early February [of ’96], and it soon became clear that the car show was not happening at the NEC in Birmingham, as I’d assumed, but in Essen in Germany! And it was in early April. I managed to get all the dismantled parts refurbished by then, but we ran out of time to do a dry run. In the end we got the car built up over the three days of the show and there was just a single part missing: the lead to the starter motor from the solenoid; we found one in the show’s autojumble!’
Soon after its Essen rebuild, the Mini was driven to the South of France by a classic car magazine, and then John decided to enter it in the Midland Hillclimb Championship – in which he continued to compete for another five or six years. Then he stripped the car to a bare shell yet again…
‘Unfortunately, when the car was painted [not by BMH] ahead of its Essen rebuild, it was allowed to get damp between the primer and the top coats, and the result was rust bubbles and even whole strips of paint falling away. So this time I had the shell e-coated, which involves electrostatically charging the metal and dipping it in paint, which is drawn into all the seams and crevices. This was in 2006-07, and I haven’t done as many hillclimbs since, but it’s not a concours car; we just go out in it and have fun, whatever the weather.’
Above and right
Hop is the second Cooper S built, but it was barely recognisable as such until owner John Pick learned of the car’s history and had it restored with some help from British Motor Heritage.
1963 Austin Mini Cooper S
Engine 1071cc OHV four-cylinder, two SU HS2 carburettors, integral gearbox Power 70bhp @ 6200rpm
Torque 62lb ft @ 4500rpm Transmission Four-speed manual, front-wheel drive Steering Rack and pinion
Suspension Front: double wishbones with rubber cone spring units, telescopic dampers. Rear: trailing arms with horizontally acting rubber cone spring units, telescopic dampers Brakes Front discs, rear drums
Weight 635kg Top speed 95mph 0-60mph 12.25sec
While 732 HOP is now closer to original condition than it’s been since the early ’60s, it’s not 100% ‘as built’ and is unlikely ever to be. That’s partly because John is not a rivetcounter, and partly because these early Coopers did have their flaws. For example, the cylinder head is a later part; the heads used on the early cars were prone to cracking between the exhaust seats and, as John says, what’s the point of swapping back to an inferior component in a car that is regularly used? BMC itself swapped out parts on its press cars to reflect production changes and keep the cars upto-date. To give just one example, 732 HOP left the line without a heater, yet it had acquired one by the time it was tested by Patrick McNally of Autosport later that year.
As part of his quest to restore 732 HOP to its 1963 state, John started digging into the car’s history and trying to track down previous owners. Factory records state that 732 was retained by Austin’s publicity department until 4 December 1964 and then sold to a Mr J Pugh of Sambourne, near Redditch, south of Birmingham. He’s the only person John has not been able to trace.
John’s stroke of luck was that the man he bought the car from in 1976 was a motorsport scrutineer, and his contact details were still in Motorsport UK’s ‘Blue Book’. This chap had only had the Mini for a couple of years but was able to give John the address of the previous owner, a John Walker. The two Johns turned out to live three miles apart!
‘John Walker told me that he’d bought 732 HOP from a used-car lot, and he was the one who had repainted it red. He was also able to lend me a lot of pictures of the car being driven by him on rallies, and cuttings that listed the results. The acronym “DNF” does seem to appear rather a lot!’
Maybe so, but it’s intriguing to see the names that appear alongside John Walker’s in these results – future stars such as Russell Brookes and Will Sparrow, then competing in provincial road rallies early in their careers. It’s equally fascinating to see the snapshots from a time long before 732 HOP’s early history was understood. Here, for example, is a red-painted 732 slithering along a muddy stage in 1971 or ’72, with flared ’arches over Mamba alloys, a single rollover
hoop in the cabin, and rubber catches securing the bonnet. ‘I remember those catches,’ says John. ‘I forgot to do them up one day, and the bonnet flew up and broke the ’screen.’
John’s time with 732 HOP has not been without incident since its most recent restoration, either. ‘I was waiting at some traffic lights when a truck in front of me started reversing without warning. Because I had a car behind me, all I could do was sit and watch the truck back into me.’ The creased 732 was straightened out again, but look closely and you can still see evidence of the accident in the shutlines –but then 732 HOP was never built to concours standards in the first place. John has copies of the photographs used for the 1963 Autosport road test and they clearly show that 732 had pretty shocking panel fit, even by the standards of the early ’60s. There’s a considerably wider gap between the bonnet and one front wing than the other, for example.
But who cares? The car still drives brilliantly. Fold yourself behind the thin-rimmed wheel and you’ll be astonished at just how much room there is up front. Thanks to the frontwheel drive there’s no transmission tunnel, meaning there’s acres of space for your feet. There’s plenty of headroom, and lots of elbow room, too, since there’s only a sheet of doorskin between you and the outside world. And, of course, you pull the door to by yanking on the metal side pocket or the window sill, and you open it again by tugging down on a cable that works the door lock.
The ‘pudding-stirrer’ gearchange is supposedly a lot better than that on the earliest Minis, thanks to a remote linkage, but there’s still some slop; on the credit side, the gearchange action is as light as you’d expect. Get the car moving and first gear turns out not to be the ultra-low ratio typical in so many British cars of the 1950s; in fact, according to the yellow telltales on the speedo rim, it’s good for 30mph.
Those same markings suggest that you can hang on to second and third to 50mph and 70mph, respectively, while 95mph would be your absolute maximum. John confirms that the car has a sweet spot of 80mph. Incredibly, the engine is ‘safe’ up to about 8000rpm.
You don’t have to rev the pushrod nuts off it, however, since there’s a decent amount of torque in any gear, which helps the car’s sprightliness. It’s quite hard to resist the temptation to gun this little buzzbox everywhere, especially
‘IT CORNERS PRETTY MUCH FLAT AND, UNLESS YOU’RE DRIVING LIKE AN ABSOLUTE LOON, QUITE NEUTRALLY’
since its tiny dimensions encourage the exploitation of gaps that are off-limits to today’s bloated barges. The A-series is a friendly engine, eager to show you what it can do, rasping fruitily as you row it along on the gearlever. But it does cry out for a fifth gear; at 60mph your left hand will be instinctively searching for and failing to find an extra ratio.
Even with sparkling-for-the-time acceleration figures of 0-50mph in 8.1sec and 0-60mph in 12.25sec (the former achievable in second gear), you’ll struggle to outpace just about any present-day car. But, as our MINI driver found out, it’s a different story on a roundabout or a really tight and twisty road. Here the car’s super-light weight, pin-sharp steering and shopping-trolley wheels allow it to change direction like a slot-car. It corners pretty much flat and, unless you’re driving like an absolute loon, quite neutrally, shading into understeer only if you really push it. The ride gets slightly choppy on a back road – 10in rims and a 6ft 8in wheelbase are never going to offer limousine levels of luxury – but Issigonis’s revolutionary rubber-cone ‘dry’ suspension works incredibly well.
Production of the Cooper 1071S ended in 1964, after roughly 4000 cars had been built. The car had done its bit to establish the Mini legend, especially when Paddy Hopkirk
and Henry Liddon won the Monte Carlo Rally with one in 1964. A few days afterwards, the pair appeared, with their car, on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, which was watched by 20 million TV viewers. But it was then the turn of the 1275S to take the Mini to new heights of competition success and cultural impact.
To quote the lyrics of one famous Mini owner, however, All Things Must Pass (George Harrison’s psychedelically painted ‘S’ is the most famous of the four Minis given to The Beatles by Brian Epstein), and by the late 1960s the star of the Cooper S was on the wane. In competition it was outshone by the likes of the Escort Twin-Cam, and it was no longer flavour of the month among the fickle celebrity set.
We’ll probably never know how 732 HOP was being used in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when the Cooper S was being quietly put to sleep by the accountants at British Leyland, who also closed the old BMC Competitions Department in 1970. Perhaps the elusive Mr J Pugh of Sambourne merely drove 732 HOP to the shops, or took his wife to her hospital appointments in it, or maybe he enjoyed weekends in the Peak District after cramming its boot with camping gear. If so, the car was doing just what the Mini was originally designed for, and Issigonis would surely have approved.
Designed to be a low-cost sports car that the average chap could keep in his shed, the Sprite was the result of a raid on the Austin parts bin by the Donald Healey Motor Company, which arranged all the bits together like a master sommelier. That helped to keep costs down, and this fiscal focus defined the car – the headlamps that give the Sprite its character were supposed to retract, but budget cuts nixed the idea. Gerry Coker and Les Ireland’s design proved to be just what the post-war roadster market wanted, and its tunable A-series engine and light weight made it a formidable competition car.
JOHN COLLEY
A lot of this success was down to the Sprite using sheet metal body panels to take the structural stresses; such unitary construction was a first for a volume-production sports car and kept the chassis rigid despite the lack of a fixed roof.
In 1961 the Sprite was completely restyled, with the headlamps moving to a more conventional position either side of the car, and an overall look that aped that of the forthcoming MGB. MG itself would launch its own version of the Sprite, the Midget, which eventually became more popular than the Austin-Healey version. In 1962 a long-stroke 1098cc engine from the Austin A40 and Morris Minor 1000 replaced the early 948cc unit.
Two years later the MkIII Sprite and MkII Midget arrived with a host of engine, suspension and trim upgrades. The MkIV Sprite and MkIII Midget of 1966 saw the arrival of the 1275cc engine and a folding convertible top. In 1971, three years a er Donald Healey’s departure, Austin cut ties with Healey so the final 1022 cars were called Austin Sprites. Thanks to mechanical simplicity and a wide knowledge base, the Sprite and Midget justifiably remain among the most popular and a ordable classics available.
AUSTIN-HEALEY
100 & 3000
Donald Healey had already tasted success with his Nash-Healey sports car, and his idea for its replacement impressed Leonard Lord of Austin greatly –who was keen to develop a replacement for the Austin A90. The new car would be based on A90 components. Lord and Healey agreed a deal for Jensen to build the bodies and for the car to be built at Austin’s Longbridge plant.
Key to the car’s success was its sti structure, which saw the front bulkhead welded directly to the frame; the car had a very low centre of gravity, as the chassis frame passed under the rear axle assembly. Its light weight and 90bhp 2660cc four-cylinder engine added up to a top speed of 100mph, which gave the car its name.
A er the 100M model appeared in 1955 with larger carbs and other engine revisions to produce 110hp, Austin-Healey set its sights on competition success with the 100S. This took power to 132bhp,
but the bigger news was a weight-saving aluminium cylinder head, disc brakes (it was the first production car to have them front and rear), the deletion of the bumpers and a smaller grille. The resultant weight saving was 91kg, helping it become a darling of the motorsport world.
The 100-6 of 1956-1959 saw the introduction of the Austin C-Series straight six engine in 2.6-litre form. This would morph into the Austin-Healey 3000 in 1959 as capacity swelled to 2912cc. Performance was suitably chunky, with 0-60mph taking 11 seconds thanks to 136bhp, which would develop over time to 150bhp.
The 3000 would also become a stalwart competition car, with storied tales at racetracks around the world, but it also became a highly e ective rally car that flew the flag for Austin before the introduction of the Mini. It’s a role it still excels at in historic rallying today.
The 3 Litre SuperSports is rated by some as the finest Bentley ever. You’ll hear no argument from Graham and Marina Goodwin, who drove their SuperSports to victory in the epic Peking to Paris rally
Words David Lillywhite Rally photography Gerard Brown Studio photography Matthew Howell
The Facebook page says it all: ‘Dust in My Face is set up by Graham and Marina Goodwin, two middle-aged empty-nesters who have decided to explore the world in a vintage Bentley.’ This, you’ll probably have guessed, is that Bentley. Its nickname is ‘Pyman’, and it’s pictured here wearing war wounds and a thick layer of dust picked up on the 2019 Peking to Paris Motor Challenge.
Why a Bentley? ‘Well,’ Graham begins, ‘I was actually into off-road motorbiking, and when the kids flew the nest and we sold our business, I thought we should take the opportunity to see the world on a motorbike.’
‘But I really didn’t fancy off-roading on the back of a bike,’ says Marina. ‘I’d already broken my collar bone skiing.’
Graham again: ‘Then someone said, “Why don’t you try endurance rallying?” We talked about it, and thought maybe we should give it a go – perhaps in a ’60s or early-’70s Porsche. But we kept seeing the pre-war cars and thought it would be really cool to try something older.
‘Our worry was how strong a pre-war car would be. Then we saw the Bentleys. They’re tough and reliable, but also over time they’ve continued to go up in value. Obviously, as a Yorkshireman, that appealed to me! Then we found that they’re exciting to drive, they’re really fast, and they’re mechanically simple, so you can learn how to maintain them. We just got more and more into the idea.’
Having decided to take the plunge, Graham and Marina visited vintage Bentley specialist William Medcalf and came away with a rare example of the 3 Litre SuperSports, the nimblest and most potent version of Bentley’s first model.
Only 18 SuperSports-spec cars were built between 1925 and 1927, all but one of them on a 9ft short-wheelbase chassis (the other on a standard 9ft 9½in chassis). These were the supercars of their day, guaranteed by the factory to be able to hit 100mph at Brooklands, and marked out as special by a green (rather than blue or red) grille badge. Pyman was the fourth of nine examples built with a wider bulkhead, and hence an oval radiator.
Strong, fast, and with better handling than a standardwheelbase Bentley. This was surely the car for Graham and
Marina, and if there was any doubt, it evaporated when Medcalf told them the history of the car. Its first owner was a Mr Pyman (aha!) who worked in the shipping industry and was based in Whitby. ‘We bought the car to take it home to Yorkshire,’ says Marina.
Still, the plan from the start was for Pyman to be driven to rougher parts even than Yorkshire, and Medcalf and his team were asked to prepare the car for endurance rallying.
‘We did some little rallies as a test,’ remembers Graham, ‘and then our first big one was the Rally of the Incas in 2017, and we got totally hooked. It’s a combination of things: the people you meet, the challenge, the reception you get when you drive through in an old car like the SuperSports.’
Having been bitten by the rallying bug, Graham and Marina couldn’t resist signing up for the most famous and daunting event on the calendar: Peking to Paris.
‘I wouldn’t have wanted to do it in any other car,’ Graham continues. Obviously we’re biased… but if you’re going to do a big rally and you want to be really cool, either you do it in something really old like an Itala with wooden wheels, or you do it in a Bentley.
‘BENTLEY
GUARANTEED THE 3 LITRE SUPERSPORTS WOULD HIT 100MPH AT BROOKLANDS’
‘But with something like an Itala it’s just about surviving until the end, while in a Bentley you can still win the event; you can beat all the pre-wars and you can beat the classics, too.
From left
The high-compression engine of this rare Bentley 3 Litre SuperSports –still coated in dust following the car’s exertions on the Peking to Paris rally.
And spectators like you, and everyone on the rally likes you, because they all know that you’re putting in a pretty hard shift – you get dirt in every orifice!’
‘The only day I looked clean on the Peking to Paris was the day I turned up,’ jokes Marina.
The pair are delighted that they went to Medcalf, pointing out that you need the very best preparation and an expert at the other end of the phone at all times. A long-distance rally is a major commitment, both in terms of time and money, and if you don’t get to the finish for want of proper preparation, all that is wasted.
‘The cars that have won the Peking to Paris a lot in the past have been Chevrolet ‘Fangio’ coupes, and they’re very good rally cars,’ says Graham. ‘You can fit a rollcage in them, so you’re safer, you can fit harnesses in them, and underneath you can fit some quite nice shock absorbers, which will help on the rough stuff. The downside of a car that has a rollcage and seatbelts is that it gives you the confidence to go a bit quicker than you maybe should.
‘A Bentley you can’t really modify the same way. We got a little more power out of the engine, but we had standard suspension, standard gearbox – no synchromesh, doubledeclutching – and no seatbelts or rollcage. I had the steering wheel to hold onto, but Marina… Well, usually by the time
I’d shouted “Bump!” she was already in the air.’
‘I’ve got a little handle I can hold onto, but it wasn’t much use. I was like a loaf of bread sitting in the seat,’ laughs Marina.
‘We had times when we were racing along a single track in Mongolia behind another car, and you’re in their dust cloud because you’ve got to get close to them to overtake,’ says Graham. ‘You’ve got to wait until the rut at the edge of the track disappears so you can go off track, get past them, and pull back in. Then, when you’re in that dust cloud, suddenly they do a manoeuvre around a giant pothole and you hit it because you don’t see it. We had that happen several times and it was brutal.
‘We also had a time on some soft stuff when we hit a bump. I don’t know why, but it launched us in the air. I thought I’d cracked my neck, and Marina…’
‘I went up in the air!’ she says. ‘I was horizontal, and I hit my back hard on the back of the seat. Two days later I couldn’t open car doors and things. I thought I’d fractured my ribs. I had a lot of painkillers, but we were still going for it, and we were on rough roads. I just pretended I was having a baby, panting through the pain! You have to keep going, don’t you?’
‘You need a tough navigator!’ Graham chuckles. It’s clear these two took the event seriously, working on their car every night, checking for damaged or loose components, and Marina studying the route book carefully.
‘Some days we did 650km and only stopped to have our timecard chipped. There were also times when Marina was urging me to go faster –’
‘Well, we were behind!’
‘– but I knew the car would be destroyed if I did. To be competitive you’ve got to know the 100% point on your car. At what point will your car give up? And you need to drive 5% back from that.’
Graham and Marina agree that the highlight of Peking to Paris was the 800-mile section through Mongolia and across the Gobi Desert, describing it as ‘like driving on the Moon’. The pair, you’ll have gathered, are quite competitive, and prior to Peking to Paris they’d placed well in several events, but they were nonetheless surprised to be leading the Vintage class when the rally emerged from the desert.
‘We were only in the lead because the car in front of us had fallen apart,’ says Graham. ‘And it didn’t actually bode well for our chances. Nobody who led out of Mongolia had ever won the rally.’
Could they stay in front? They tried to conserve the car over the rough terrain that followed, but their lead kept dropping until it was down to 40 seconds. Then, in Russia,
came trouble. Pyman’s air filters had been fitted with neoprene covers to protect them from the Mongolian dust, but Graham took the covers off once the rally reached Russia. After a day of rain, Pyman hit a waterlogged special stage, and mud sprayed all over the starter motor and the carburettors, and into the engine. The throttle stuck at 3500rpm – almost maximum revs for a Bentley 3 Litre.
‘We ended up driving with the throttle locked on,’ says Graham. ‘We were skidding around on this timed stage and in danger of doing doughnuts. When we finally got to the end I turned the engine off to investigate, but I couldn’t see what the problem was. I went to re-start, and the starter jammed. We got a bump-start, and it then locked on at 3500 revs again. This is where we were lucky, because the main time control had been brought forward a little bit by the organisers. You need luck sometimes.
‘But we still had to drive the car with a locked-on throttle for 90km and just bang it into gear, and every corner you just had to ride the clutch. We got towed over the border at Kazakhstan; we couldn’t have driven through at 3500 revs, they’d have arrested us. We thought we were out of the rally.’
‘DRIVING
IN THE GOBI WAS LIKE DRIVING ON THE MOON’
Clockwise from below
Negotiating heavy traffic in the Gobi Desert; in camp, preparing to head for Ulaanbaatar; road casualties hit by the Goodwins’ Bentley in Siberia.
1925 Bentley 3 Litre SuperSports
Engine 2996cc four-cylinder, 16-valve, SOHC, two SU Type G5 ‘Sloper’ carburettors
Power c100bhp @ 3500rpm Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Steering Worm and wheel Suspension Beam axles, semi-elliptic leaf springs, friction dampers Brakes Mechanical drums Weight c1500kg Top speed 100mph
page
This
Scenes from Mongolia and Russia, the highlights of the Peking to Paris rally for Graham and Marina –pictured top right, enjoying another luxurious camp; and bottom right, celebrating their win in Paris.
‘A BENTLEY HAD NEVER WON THE PEKING TO PARIS BEFORE’
It took until 1.30am that night to fix the problem, and Graham and Marina were up again at 5am for the next leg. Incredibly, they had held onto the lead through all the drama, and when they got to Finland the special tests were on circuits and rallycross tracks, which suited them well. By the end of the Finnish leg they had pulled away again.
Still, anything could happen. ‘We had a rally in Africa that we led for 24 days and then we lost it at the end,’ recalls Graham. And for the final stage, the maximum time penalty was increased from the usual four minutes or so to eight minutes. Graham and Marina’s lead was six minutes.
‘Everybody was setting off and driving like the clappers, and all the spectators were amazed,’ says Graham. ‘And then we drove in first gear and just chugged along safely.’
‘The look of disappointment on people’s faces!’ laughs Marina. But she and Graham had done it: they’d completed 13,500km, or around 8400 miles, leading most of the way.
‘To win the Peking to Paris is a big deal,’ says Graham. ‘It’s only every three years, and a Bentley had never won it before. ‘Ultimately, though, while the event is a competition
and we really went for it, the most important thing was, again, the people we met and the places we went through. Russia was a revelation for me. The people were so friendly and helpful; they would give us a hand working on the cars and they wouldn’t take any payment. It was a lovely thing.
‘A big rally like Peking to Paris is worth doing for that sort of experience alone. If all you want to do is finish and enjoy yourself along the way, an endurance rally isn’t actually that difficult; all you’re doing is driving a long way.’
In the years since their Peking to Paris win, Graham and Marina have lost none of their enthusiasm for ‘driving a long way’, and in fact they helped to set up the very successful, not-for-profit club Rally the Globe, which has organised endurance events around the world, from Alaska to East Africa. If you join one of the club’s rallies, don’t be surprised to find a vintage Bentley leading the way…
THANKS TO William Medcalf (vintagebentley.com). For more on the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, see hero-era.com. For details of future Rally the Globe events, see rallytheglobe.com.
BENTLEY 4½ LITRE
You might be surprised to learn that WO Bentley had been sceptical of the Le Mans 24 Hours. Bentley’s entry in the 1923 race, its first foray, had ended in failure, but the marque returned in 1924 – and won! A plan was hatched to capitalise on its race success for extra marketing allure.
To build a car to dominate at Le Mans, Bentley removed two cylinders from the 6½ Litre model, striking a balance between the 3 Litre’s nimble but underpowered engine and the six-cylinder 6½ Litre’s propensity for chewing its tyres. The results were dramatic, with Bentley taking four consecutive victories in the 24 Hours between 1927 and 1931, one of which was in a 4½ Litre. The competition was catching up, though, leading one driver, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, to dream-up the Blower Bentley. Birkin convinced Bentley’s majority shareholder to build 55 4½ Litres with superchargers supplied by Amherst Villiers, much to WO Bentley’s disgust. The Blower Bentleys were certainly fast (175bhp for the road car, 240bhp in racing trim), but positioning the supercharger in front of the engine led to horrendous understeer. Other than second place at the 1930 French Grand Prix, the Blowers were a failure – but a glorious one. In all 720 4½ Litre models were built, including the Blowers.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1927
Engine 4398cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 110bhp Top speed 92mph
PAUL HARMER
C HARLES P RINCE
1929 Bentley 4.5 Litre by Vanden Plas
1930 Bentley 8 Litre by Mayfair
1930 Bentley Speed Six
1930 Bentley 4.5 Litre Blower
1938 Bentley 4.25 Litre by Vanden Plas
1923 Bentley 3 Litre Factory Team Car
The 100 greatest British cars
BENTLEY SPEED 6
Bentley needed to build a car that was suitable for large and heavy bodies, which its customers had been pu ing on the firm’s sports chassis. The resulting car was the 6½ Litre, the vast six-cylinder engine of which could easily develop 147bhp.
That car formed the basis of 1928’s Speed Six, which saw the introduction of a single-port block, two SU carbs and a high-performance camsha to deliver 180bhp in road trim, and 200bhp for the racers. The resulting car was immensely successful, taking two victories at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1929 and 1930.
BENTLEY 8 LITRE
It could be argued that the 8 Litre is the car that sank Bentley in its original form – the cost of development hit home just in time for the Great Depression. It is a truly spectacular swansong – an 8.0-litre straight-six mounted on three rubber points to isolate the chassis and body from vibration in a bid to create the ultimate performance luxury car of the era. Other novel items included a magnesium alloy crankcase, four valves per cylinder and twin-spark ignition. This irked Rolls-Royce to the extent that it bought Bentley and curtailed production a er only 100 chassis had been built.
BENTLEY TURBO R
For decades, Bentley was the poor relation in the Rolls-Royce marriage – yet all it took was a fortuitous encounter with a Ford Escort on an engineer’s commute to turn around the entire company. Unable to shake the Blue Oval menace, the engineer developed a suspension kit for the recently launched Mulsanne Turbo. This kit became so popular with owners that the concept was developed into a new model, the Turbo R. With a 50% increase in roll sti ness, allied to the mosntrous 296bhp 6.75-litre V8, it was instantly hugely popular, and in the end 7230 Turbo Rs were built.
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 140bhp Top speed 120mph
BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT
The Continental GT was the first new Bentley since the firm’s acquisition by Volkswagen, and the first to be built using mass production techniques.
BENTLEY R-TYPE CONTINENTAL
Bentley had one goal when it conceived the R-Type Continental – the fastest four-seat production car in the world. The result was what Autocar defined as ‘a modern magic carpet that annihilates great distances’.
Developed as a co-production between Rolls-Royce and coachbuilder HJ Mulliner due to the la er’s lightweight metal body construction techniques, the car was at the leading edge of aerodynamics at the time. Wind tunnel time saw the teardrop two-door shape develop, with rear fins to keep the car stable at speed. Though it’s a luxury car, engineers imposed a 1700kg limit as the 120mph target speed would be impossible for the tyres otherwise. To achieve this, the bodywork, windowframes, windscreen surround, backlight, seat frames and bumpers were all cra ed from aluminium.
Initial cars used the same 4.6-litre straight-six engine as the R-Type saloon with upgraded carbure ors, induction and exhaust manifolds (taking power to 153bhp over the standard car’s 140bhp) and higher gear ratios, though a 4.9-litre engine was introduced in 1954. Most of the 208 cars built have bodies from HJ Mulliner, but Park Ward, Graber, Franay, Pininfarina and James Young developed their own interpretations.
Anyone thinking it wouldn’t have the torquey thump Bentley enthusiasts were accustomed to didn’t have much to worry about – under the bonnet lay a 6.0-litre W12 with 552bhp, and a stump-pulling torque figure of 479lb , delivered to the road via a permanent four-wheel-drive system. It was – and remains to this day – a smash hit, comfortably becoming the best-selling Bentley ever. The fourth generation, now supplied with a hybrid V8 rather than a V12, went on sale in 2024.
Power 552bhp Torque 479lb Top speed 198mph 0-60mph 5sec
DREW GIBSON
BRISTOL 400
With WW2 a memory, the Bristol Aeroplane Company (BAC) sought to spread its wings (pardon the pun) into the world of cars. In 1946 it acquired a large proportion of Frazer Nash, which owned the rights to assemble the BMW 328. Bristol’s first car would blend the best bits of three BMWs – a modified version of the 1971cc straight-six from the 328, the chassis of the 326 and looks inspired by the 327, finished in a mixture of steel and aluminium. It remains the only Bristol to have a steel and aluminium skin. Just 487 were built over three years.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1947
Engine 1971cc straight-six, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 80bhp
Torque 105lb
Top speed 95mph
BRISTOL 411
Though Bristol had been using Chrysler V8s for some time, the introduction of the 411 was a major step up in performance. Ditching the old A-type engine for an engorged big-block B-series took capacity up to 6277cc and horsepower to a monumental 335bhp. This 30% increase in horizon-headbu ing ability meant a dizzying top speed of 143mph. Over fi ve generations, power would reduce, even as engine capacity grew to 6.6 litres, se ling at 265bhp though the torque was still a chunky 335lb . The 411’s interior was also upgraded, with the traditional Bluemels twin-spoke steering wheel replaced with a conventional three-spoker.
Britain’s first 12-cylinder car was something very special indeed – all 7.1 litres of it. Cra ed by Daimler Chief Engineer Laurence Pomeroy with high power, quietness and smoothness in mind, the engine blended two 25/85hp Daimler cylinder blocks with a single, common crankcase – the cylinders are arranged in blocks of three with separately detachable cylinder heads; only the aluminium crankcase was new. The result was a lo y 150bhp, and the engine could idle at just 150rpm, almost silently – it’s said that the only sounds you can hear with the bonnet up are a tick as the points open and the carbure or breathing.
The engine was mounted in a channelsection frame, with a four-speed gearbox mounted on an engorged crossmember, and the size of the engine necessitated fi ing the steering box on the scu le. It was soon the car to have for royalty, with King George owning two limousines and King Hussein of Jordan having an open example. Three wheelbases were available – the perfect canvas for coachbuilders, some of which emphasised the car’s sporting potential. One chassis from Thomson & Taylor would go on to influence the design of the Invicta S-Type.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1926
Engine 7136cc V12, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 150bhp Top speed 100mph
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1959
Engine 2548cc V8, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 142bhp Torque 155lb
Top speed 124mph 0-60mph 11.1sec
DAIMLER SP250 ‘DART’
The last Daimler before its absorption into Jaguar is a special, if controversial, one. Its origins were in a V8 saloon project, but that was soon overlooked with a bid to tap into the booming USA roadster market. The heart of the car was a 142bhp 2.5-litre hemi-head V8 that would make for a potent roadster thanks to its glassfibre body; in all it tipped the scales at just 940kg. It could flick past 60mph in a smidge over 11 seconds yet record 25 miles per gallon. It would also have a plethora of options made available, neatly sidestepping import duties for the American market, such as a heater, fog lights, wire wheels and an adjustable steering column.
Sadly its controversial looks and a reputation for chassis flex in the early cars (later rectified by Jaguar) meant that only 2654 were built, a long way short of its predicted sales targets. However, the British Metropolitan Police were big fans of the SP250, especially in automatic transmission form – around 30 of them were deployed to chase down café racers and other speeding motorists. Automatic gearboxes were favoured to avoid the clutch wear that would have come from long stints on duty – and soon other police forces in the UK and around the world followed suit.
FORD
LOTUS CORTINA MK 1
In 1961, Colin Chapman had a problem – the Coventry Climax engines he was using were expensive; he desperately wanted to build his own engine. Harry Mundy, the designer of the Coventry Climax, proposed a solution: a twin-cam version of Ford’s Kent engine. The resultant unit, which had extra fe ling from Keith Duckworth of Cosworth, soon started to prove its worth in competition and in the Lotus Elan.
At the same time, touring car racing’s popularity was booming and the Blue Oval wanted a piece of the action, so it called for 1000 Lotus Twin-Cam engines for the Ford Cortina to go racing. This was no simple engine transplant: lightweight alloy was used in the doors, boot and bonnet, while the gearbox and engine casings were also lightweighted in the Lotus tradition. The engine
produced 105bhp, and was matched to a close-ratio gearbox taken from the Elan.
The suspension was completely changed, with coils replacing the Cortina’s simple leaf springs, and there were two trailing arms with A-brackets for optimum axle location. The front suspension benefited from shorter struts and forged track-rod
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1963
Engine 1558cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 105bhp Torque 108lb
Top speed 108mph 0-60mph 13.6sec
ends. To aid structural rigidity, additional bracing was engineered-in behind the rear seat and from the rear wheelarch down to the chassis in the boot. This meant relocating the ba ery to the boot, near the wheelarch, which did wonders for weight distribution. To make the sporting Cortina stop with the same enthusiasm with which it accelerated, Girling disc brakes were fi ed.
Though the idea of a stripped-out performance saloon was rather novel, it proved to be highly popular, boosted by on-track success courtesy of Jim Clark, Sir John Whitmore and Jackie Stewart.
Sensing that people viewed the Lotus Cortina’s success more as Lotus’s than its own, Ford took production of the Mk2 in-house to Dagenham. The engine was upgraded to 109bhp, and it received a di erent final-drive ratio and a bigger fuel tank.
FORD GT40
Henry Ford II’s mid-century obsession with all things Italian had come to a head with his pursuit of Ferrari, which was ultimately doomed to expensive and humiliating failure over openwheeled racing. Ford’s response was an all-out assault on endurance racing, to wrest the laurels from the then-dominant Scuderia.
Ford turned to engine customer Lola, which provided two mid-engined Mk6 chassis as the basis of the project, and former Aston Martin Racing boss John Wyer and Ford engineer Roy Lunn to cra the GT40. It didn’t get o to a good start, with two years of struggling before its first victory, and it got into its swing only with the fitment of the 7.0-litre engine and Carroll Shelby’s impetus. The rest is racing legend, with four
Le Mans victories on the trot, but the GT40 was a formidable road car, too.
Just 31 Mk1 road cars were built at Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough. Though called a road car, there was li le in the way of creature comforts – changes were limited to wire wheels, carpets, ruched fabric map pockets in the doors and a cigare e lighter. These cars would eventually be available via Wyer’s own company.
ESSENTIAL
FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1964 Engine 4727cc V8, naturally aspirated Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 380bhp Top speed 160mph
This would become a slight issue for Ford, whch would develop the MkIII as a road car. It used a detuned 289ci engine and featured changes such as four headlamps for US lighting regulations, a larger rear section for luggage, so er damping, a centre-mounted gearshi and an ashtray. However, the MkIII’s clear di erence to the road cars meant that the Wyer-built MkI cars were far more popular – just seven MkIIIs were built.
The MkV continuation model came about via Peter Thorp of Safir Engineering, overseen by John Wyer and engineered by Len Bailey to upgrade the cars with Alan Mann Racing-specification front suspension. Other improvements included CV joints rather than drive donuts and aluminium fuel tanks. Most cars were fi ed with Ford small-block V8s.
FORD ESCORT RS1600
The Lotus Cortina opened the door for performance Fords and the Blue Oval capitalised on a new-found reputation for inexpensive fun with the 1968 Escort Twin Cam.
The RS1600 took things even closer to the racetrack with the Cosworth BDA engine, which had its roots in the 1.6-litre F2 singleseaters. In essence a Kent crossflow four-cylinder block with an alloy Cosworth 16-valve cylinder head, it was a magical piece of kit. It produced 113bhp, or 122bhp with Weber 40 DCOE carbure ors fi ed.
As the car was designed to help give Ford the edge in motorsport, the RS1600 used several strengthening techniques through the chassis; it even came with a stone deflector bolted in place underneath the boot-floor.
The options list was where the sporty driver went to town: you could choose from the aforementioned Weber carbs (or Dellortos), alloy wheels, Bilstein dampers, a limited-slip di erential, roll-cage, fireproof rear bulkhead, sump guard, supplementary oil-cooler, magnesium alloy Minilites, flared ’arches and spotlights. There was only one colour though – Ermine White, though it would be spread out to more a er ten months. The car proved to be highly successful in motorsport, taking many victories in touring car racing and rallying.
FORD SIERRA RS COSWORTH
It may be one of the most successful touring cars and one of the wildest-looking cars ever made by a mainstream manufacturer, but this is a true folk hero: the Cossie.
Drawn up over a ploughman’s lunch a er a Cosworth factory tour by Ford motorsport bigwigs, it was designed to stop Rover winning in touring car racing. The wild rear spoiler wasn’t for show, and under the bonnet lay something special: a Cosworth-tuned 16-valve Pinto engine that, in standard road spec, produced 201bhp. This was truly remarkable for the era, and once 500 more RS500s were built by Tickford with bigger turbos and other changes to give the racers the edge, a legend was born. The racers blasted their way to outright touring car wins with up to 550bhp. These tuning principles were soon brought to bear on the road. ‘Only’ 350bhp was easily achievable, giving the Sierra Cosworth true supercar-rivalling pace. Unfortunately, car thieves began to notice, too.
Ford had agreed to purchase a large number of Cosworth engines and, with touring car regulations changing, turned the Cossie into a four-door executive express with the Sapphire Cosworth from 1988 onwards. It gained four-wheel drive in 1990, and the underpinnings lived on until 1996 in the Escort RS Cosworth.
Introduced 1986 Engine 1993cc four-cylinder, turbocharged Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 201bh p Torque 204lb Top speed 143mph 0-60mph 6.2sec
JAMES LIPMAN
ALEX TAPLEY
FORD RS200 THE INSIDE STORY
The much-missed author Graham Robson worked as a consultant to Ford in the RS200 days. This is his eye-witness account of the car’s development
Photography Zach James Todd, courtesy of Canepa
Idon’t think I’ll ever forget the heady days that surrounded the birth of Ford’s RS200. I wasn’t responsible for the design, nor for the concept, but I was very much involved in the ‘Why don’t we…?’ discussions.
Late one Friday evening in January 1983, in deepest Dorset, I was lazing in front of a roaring fire, with a snoring bulldog beside me on the sofa and a glass of Scotch whisky to hand, when the phone rang. It was well after 10pm and I was not expecting anyone to contact me. I answered and was puzzled to find myself speaking to Stuart Turner, Ford’s director of public affairs.
Since 1975 Stuart had not been involved in running in Ford’s motorsport activities – but through his boss and friend, Walter Hayes, he had never lost touch with what was going on. His opening remark got my attention: ‘Graham, this conversation is not taking place.’
The call lasted for more than an hour, Stuart giving me a detailed rundown of what had been happening, what should have been happening, and what might yet happen with Ford’s motorsport programmes.
His message was simple, and brutal: ‘Our motorsport policy is in trouble. Walter [Hayes, Ford’s PR supremo] wants me back in place of Karl [Ludvigsen]. We’ve got to kill off the Escort RS1700T. We need a new Group B car. I’m calling several people for their views. What do you think?’
By midnight he had signed off, having milked me dry of ideas. I was happy to know that my suggestions echoed those of more technicallyminded experts. A summary of my thoughts was to be delivered to Stuart’s home (not to the office) within three days.
I noted down my ideas under 12 headings, and I still have a carbon copy of my memo. Like everyone else, as I learned later, I mentioned four-wheel-drive, a target of more than 400bhp, the need to build 200 cars off-site, and the need for a star engineer to do the concept layout. A week later, the phone rang again…
‘I think we all agree about the general layout. I’m calling the machine “B200”, for obvious reasons, but I can’t get my bosses to understand how special it has to be. Walter [Hayes] understands, but not the others. Do you have any pictures of the Lancia Stratos?’ I did, as it happened – and not only images but an Autocar cutaway drawing.
‘Perfect, let me have them tomorrow, please.’ And thus began the story of a very special car.
25 February 1983 It had been quiet for about six weeks. Then, suddenly, Ford of Europe announced that Karl Ludvigsen was to move on and that Turner was to take over as director of European motorsport. At Ford this move reverberated like an earthquake, for Turner wanted to get things moving fast. Almost immediately I was asked to work up a ‘club activities’ package (one-make championships, forums, special visits to RS dealerships, a finda-rally-driver competition, all that stuff) – but I heard no more about the ‘B200’.
14 March 1983 Both the RS1700T and the C100 Group C project were promptly cancelled. As Motorsport division manager, Peter Ashcroft later told me: ‘The board meeting was in the morning. Stuart’s stoporder followed by phone, before lunchtime, and work stopped that very day.’
Media reaction to the cancellations was vitriolic. ‘What on Earth is going on?’ they wanted to know. I knew, of course, but I was not about to say.
27 March 1983 I dined with Turner and he told me what was brewing. Work had already started on a turbocharged Escort XR3 and on a much more powerful Sierra XR4i. His product planning guru, Mike Moreton, would manage those programmes without interference for some time.
Setting his targets high, and agreeing that a mid-engined, four-wheel-drive Group B car was essential, Turner had asked Brabham’s Gordon Murray if he would lay out the new car, and had seen both Keith Duckworth (to chat
Above
The RS200 was born following a conspiratorial late-night call between writer Robson and Ford’s director of public affairs, Stuart Turner.
‘HIS
OPENING REMARK
GOT MY ATTENTION: THIS CONVERSATION IS NOT TAKING PLACE’
about four-wheel-drive technology) and Brian Hart (to talk engines). The delay – and there was a delay – was because Murray said he could not spare all the time needed. And in any case, Bernie Ecclestone, his boss at Brabham, was against the idea.
Murray and Moreton were convinced that such a car (200 examples of which would have to be built for homologation), could not be constructed in-house. Reliant, Lotus, Tickford, TVR and Aston Martin were being considered as contractors. All had been approached, and all were interested. Reliant was keenest of all and could produce bodyshells.
28 April 1983 The search for a star designer was proving frustrating. Although, in Turner’s words, Gordon Murray was keen (‘The genius has taken the hook…’), he could not tackle the job without leaving Brabham and going freelance. Ecclestone didn’t like the idea of that, and said so.
The only way to benefit was if Turner and Brian Hart could spend an evening picking Murray’s brain. And so they did. ‘We listened, enthralled, as he set out his ideas on how a special sports car should be engineered. It was a memorable evening, and a masterclass in design,’ Stuart later wrote.
Mid-May 1983 Turner decided to arrange a ‘design competition’ between some respected freelancers. On the phone he mentioned names including Patrick Head, Mike Loasby, Tony Southgate, Giampaolo Dallara, Derek Gardner, John Barnard and Nigel Stroud.
Loasby, Southgate and Stroud were invited to provide a ‘paper project’ based around the Ford-Cosworth BDT turbocharged engine, 200 of which were already in stock from the aborted RS1700T programme. Turner’s design brief said: ‘Key objective: to produce an outright international rally winner. Nothing must be allowed to compromise this.’
Transmission Five-speed manual, four-wheel drive, three viscous-coupling LSDs, adjustable torque split Steering Rack and pinion, unassisted Suspension Front and rear: double wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers Brakes Discs, fourpiston calipers, no servo Weight 1180kg Top speed 150mph 0-60mph 5.0sec
from above
Unremarkable Fiesta switchgear and vents, yes, but that postboxred torque-split lever makes up for it; 420bhp Ford-Cosworth turbo four; the rear clamshell lifts to reveal the engine and transmission.
LIVING WITH AN RS200
Graham Robson used one as a daily driver in the 1980s. What was it like?
Between 20 and 30 RS200s were used in motorsport, and almost all the rest went into the heated garages of collectors. Back in the mid-1980s, only two individuals ran an RS200 as a ‘daily driver’: one was Bob Howe, the man tasked with selling every RS200, and the other was yours truly. Back then I was running the Ford-controlled Owners’ Club, and writing much service material about the cars.
What Ford needed from Howe and me was information about the experience of using an RS200 for ‘endurance mileage’. We were probably the only individuals who were routinely swept under the entrance barriers at Boreham: ‘We know there are only two of you running RS200s every day, so we let you in…’ Even the gate guardian, a bossy fellow known as Cosworth, got used to us.
Howe also carried out demonstrations for every customer who visited him, and in the end he did more than 100,000 miles. Over four years I had the use of four cars and covered 85,000 miles, which included following the Pirelli Classic Marathon to Cortina in Italy and driving home again. I got used to treating an RS200 gently first thing in the morning, until the engine oil pressures came down to operating levels. You could suffer a burst pipe if you weren’t careful; that happened to both me and Howe. It was quite common for drivers of the contemporary Capri 2.8i and Sierra RS Cosworth to try to goad you into a race. They’d always lose interest after trying to follow the RS200 through corners or around a roundabout.
And: ‘NOT a lie-down racing driving position. Windscreen angle is critical in rallying. No body styling is required; this will be done by Ghia.’
Late May 1983 News arrived that John Wheeler, the ex-F1 designer who was based at Ford Motorsport’s Boreham HQ and who had engineered the RS1700T, was offended at not having been invited to contribute. He insisted on being involved, and became the fourth person to submit a design proposal.
10 July 1983 While doing commentary at a classic car show at Knebworth, I was visited by Turner, who in cloak-and-dagger style slipped a package into my briefcase, winked, and walked off without saying a word. Inside, for my information, were the four design proposals.
Within days Turner and Mike Moreton had studied them. Of the four, they preferred the
designs by Southgate and Wheeler, and they decided to simply combine their best features. Southgate’s concept was technically very elegant but rather racecar orientated, while Wheeler’s was a more practical car for ‘side-ofthe-road’ servicing.
The plan was to build the first car at once, with 200 to follow by the end of 1984, and to aim for homologation on 1 January 1985.
August 1983 Boreham went into a state of lockdown, with no casual visitors – certainly not me – allowed through the doors while preparation work started for the building of the first B200. At one stage, pieces of Sierra bodywork were used for a mock-up, with king mechanic Mick Jones acting as the ‘mannequin’. The other mechanics were kept busy working on turbocharged Escorts and the forerunners of what would become the Sierra RS Cosworth.
Once I became accustomed to the abysmal performance of the heater, the total lack of rear visibility for the driver, and the abrupt clutch operation that required a Master’s degree in subtlety, life could be – and usually was – blissful. It helped if you kept away from traffic jams (the engine could be tempted to boil over), but there were compensations. When I was driving an RS200, every pretty girl seemed to smile at me!
Clockwise
Meanwhile, Ghia started shaping the body. Turner’s three-page brief noted that he wanted ‘an ageless design… exciting (but unaggressive) and with a “Ford family flavour”. A “Porsche Sierra”, perhaps…’
Mid-September 1983 On his way back from the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Turner called in at Ghia in Turin and collected a package of styling sketches. He showed them off in a meeting held at Boreham, which concluded that more work was needed.
‘The big argument,’ Turner later commented, ‘was over the working environment for the
drivers. We wanted an upright screen so that there would be no distracting reflections when flashing through forests. Ghia wanted a more raked and sporting one. Eventually we won.’
20 September 1983 Bob Lutz (who by that time was running Ford’s worldwide automotive operations from Detroit) chaired a meeting in London, where approval was finally given to spend $293,000 on the first prototype. One car – no more, just one car – could be produced. Now the rush really intensified. ART, the firm in which John Thompson and Tony Southgate were involved, built the first chassis tub, and it
was hoped that the prototype would be running by January of 1984.
FF Developments (or Ferguson, as they were still known by almost everyone) got the job of designing the four-wheel-drive system for the new car. The team at JQF in Easton Neston, near Towcester (their premises were in Lord Hesketh’s mansion), re-engineered the RS1700T engines, which were enlarged slightly from 1786cc to 1803cc. And a specialist based in South Wales, Ken Atwell (maker of the GTD40 kit car), was hired to produce the original body moulds.
‘GIVEN
THE CHANCE, PETROLHEAD BOB LUTZ WOULD HAVE DRIVEN THE CAR STRAIGHT OUT INTO OXFORD STREET’
By now the official model name – RS200 –had been chosen, and it would appear on every Ghia sketch from this point.
January 1984 Turner held his annual pre-season motorsport press conference in London, where he stonewalled all media questions about new models. Immediately afterwards, in a private briefing, I learned that the first ART chassis/tub had been completed, that the running gear was making steady progress, and that Ghia had satisfied Ford with its final styling suggestions.
A clay mock-up was being completed in
Turin and would shortly be transported to Ken Atwell in South Wales. Unhappily, though, the timetable was already slipping, and there was now no chance of getting the car on sale by the end of 1984.
12 March 1984 This was the big day – for everyone from Walter Hayes on down, and especially for Turner. At long last Ford’s top brass would see the completed car (beautifully finished and liveried for the occasion, though it was yet to turn a wheel) for the first time. And the cloak-and-dagger approach was maintained to the very end.
Left
The RS200 prototype was ready for scrutiny from Ford’s big cheeses less than six months after work began – but turning prototype into the production car seen here took rather longer.
Instead of presenting the car at Boreham, or even in the styling studios at the company’s design HQ at Dunton, the team chose to do it in an upstairs showroom at the Ford export garage in Balderton Street in London, just off Oxford Street. Stuart Turner, John Wheeler and Mike Moreton were all in attendance –Turner making the marketing pitch, Wheeler explaining the car’s technical layout, and Moreton going through the manufacturing survey. All were anxious to get speedy approval. Their visitors, including Bob Lutz and Alex Trotman, were impressed – and so they should have been, for it had taken only five-and-a-half months to progress from project approval to having a car to show. Given the chance, renowned petrolhead Lutz would have driven the car straight out into Oxford Street for its first trial, but that would have been premature, even by his standards.
The bigwigs agreed that five further preproduction prototypes should be built, and authorised a budget of $600,000 for testing, development and certification work. And Mike Moreton was given instructions to finalise a production contract with an outside concern.
After the directors and then Prince Michael of Kent had examined the new machine, I was briefly allowed into the showroom to take a look at it for myself. So there it was… the result of that unexpected phone call back in January of the previous year.
Now, though, Ford had to turn this pretty prototype into a fully fledged production car. Not only did they have to refine the design, but they had to find a location at which 200 cars could be built – and that would take them until the end of 1985…
THANKS TO Canepa Classic and Collector Cars (canepa.com).
The magic number
The FIA demanded 200 production cars for Group B homologation, and Ford was no less creative than others in meeting that target…
Words Graham Robson
MANUFACTURERS WISHING to enter their cars in production-car-based racing series have long been required to build a certain number of examples first, with the exact quantity dictated by the folks at the FIA. And almost as long as ‘homologation’ has been around, there have been cheats looking for loopholes to exploit. You want examples?
Vauxhall with two Chevette HSs when it claimed to have made 400; Lancia with 190 of the Stratos when it claimed 500; Ferrari with just 39 250 GTOs when it should have had 100; BMC with just two Mini Cooper 970Ss instead of 1000…
The FIA tightened things up in the 1980s and started to demand hard proof – real cars, to be lined up and counted – before rubberstamping any new model. From 1982, Group B homologation called for 200 cars to be built. Lancia (with the Rally 037), Peugeot (with the 205 T16), and Audi (with the short-wheelbase quattro) all followed the rules, and Lancia (with the Delta S4) and Austin-Rover (with the Metro 6R4) were sure to follow suit.
In 1985, therefore, Ford set out to build 200 RS200s, aiming for speedy homologation. The cars were ready – just – by the end of January 1986. Or were they?
Much-publicised photos taken at Reliant’s Shenstone factory (which was chosen by Ford to produce the RS200) show the cars lined up and ready for a visit from the FIA. But some of the 200 were thrown together and looked… suspiciously incomplete. Not long after the FIA inspection team flew home, no fewer than 46 cars were stripped out, and the parts were put on the shelf as spares.
Ford ultimately built six prototypes and 194 production cars before Bob Howe became a one-man sales department at Boreham and started finding buyers for them, and it took him until mid-1989 to shift the last of the cars.
Victim of circumstance
The RS200’s Group B rallying career was all too brief, but the car would dominate other forms of motorsport
Words Graham Robson
FOLLOWING AN accident at the 1986 Tour de Corse in which Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto died, the FIA abruptly announced that the prodigiously powerful Group B cars would not be allowed to compete in the 1987 World Rally Championship.
The decision meant that the 420bhp works RS200 competed for only a year, but for Ford fans it was a glorious period. Malcolm Wilson drove the car to victory on its debut, in the Lindisfarne Rally in September 1985, and in 1986 the RS200 took 19 overall wins in six countries, most of them coming at the European Championship level.
Ford’s WRC campaign had barely got started when Toivonen and Cresto perished in the fifth round of the ’86 season, but in the first four rounds RS200s driven by Stig Blomqvist and Kalle Grundel set fastest stage times. There was a 3rd-place finish in the Swedish Rally, and only bad luck (broken wheel studs) prevented the RS200 from winning the famously testing Acropolis Rally in Greece, where the car’s speed on rough stages thoroughly unnerved the Peugeot and Lancia teams.
In a few short months the RS200 proved that
it could win anywhere – from icy Scandinavia to sweltering Spain, and from the tarmac of Holland and Belgium to the gravel of Great Britain. Here at home, in fact, the RS200 of Mark Lovell and Roger Freeman won the 1986 British Rally Championship.
Meanwhile, Mark Rennison bought one of the first non-works cars, prepared it for loosesurface sprint events, and immediately began to dominate the British rallycross scene. As soon as ex-works rally cars became available, buyers from all over Europe snapped them up, hoping to emulate Rennison’s success, and the RS200 set the standard in rallycross for several seasons.
For 1987, Boreham’s chief engineer John Wheeler had been planning an ‘Evolution’ RS200 (of which 20 examples would have to built). It was to be 100kg lighter than the standard RS200, and powered by the new 2.1-litre Hartpower BDT-E version of the famous Ford 16-valve engine. On its first fullpower run in 1986, the BDT-E had pulled more than 500bhp, and 600bhp was forecast for the near future. Later, rallycross entrants with cars built to Evo specification proved that even this was a conservative estimate.
Above
Care to count ’em?
RS200s lined up for inspection by the FIA at the Reliant factory in Shenstone – chosen by Ford to build the RS200 because of Reliant’s experience with plastic bodies.
The 100 greatest British cars
FRAZER NASH TT REPLICA
The 1931 Tourist Trophy race didn’t end well for Frazer Nash, with all three cars failing to finish. However, the lightweight bodywork would prove popular, blended with a variety of engines – a 1.5-litre Meadows four-cylinder, a 1.7-litre Blackburne six-cylinder or a 1.5-litre Gough four-cylinder. You could also specify individual cars to you heart’s content – with any number of chassis lengths, bodywork and engines available. However, the TT replicas would be the cars to carry the Frazer Nash brand; even though circuit racing didn’t yield great success, its agile nature meant it was perfect for the International Alpine Trials of 1932-1934.
GORDON-KEEBLE GK-1
The Gordon-Keeble brought together the best of British luxury, Italian styling and US shock and awe in the engine bay. Its makers had built a Chevrolet-engined, Peerlesschassis’d one-o for a pilot and found it might be a player in the GT class. Giorge o Giugiaro at Bertone styled a body that was realised in lightweight glassfibre over a spaceframe chassis, with independent front suspension and disc brakes. Power came via a 5.4-litre, 280bhp Chevrolet engine at a price that undercut Ferrari and Aston Martin – and ultimately bankrupted the company. Despite several a empts to restart production, it was all over at 100 cars, of which 90 are believed still to exist.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1924
Engine 1496cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 60bhp
Top speed 85-110mph
GINETTA G4
Gine a had made its name with the G2 and G3 in racing circles, but the G4 saw the firm work its lightweight magic for a road car. Built around a Ford 105E engine with a glassfibre body, the G4 was available as a two-door coupé, a two-door convertible or a two-door barche a for racing. The 105E engine produced 91hp, though some G4s used the Lotus Twin Cam engine; suspension was by way of coil springs up front and a Ford live rear axle. The car was a popular performer in club motorsport, and it soon gained enough of an international following to be put back into production in the 1980s.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1959
Engine 1340cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 90bhp
Top speed 120mph 0-60mph 8.5sec
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1964
Engine 5354cc V8, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 280bhp
Torque 360lb
Top speed 138mph 0-60mph 6.2sec
GORDON MURRAY AUTOMOTIVE
T.50
Lots of manufacturers claim motorsport links for the road cars, but the GMA T.50 wears its credentials more openly than most: the enormous fan on the back of it is directly inspired by the Brabham BT46B F1 car. Both were designed by Gordon Murray, who also designed the McLaren F1 – the T.50 is a glorious imagining of just what’s possible at the outer fringes of internal combustion engine development.
Power comes from a 4.0-litre Cosworth V12 that revs to a vertiginous 11,500rpm, at which it delivers 654 naturally aspirated horsepower, with 344lb of torque coming in at 9000rpm. With the car weighing 987kg dry, it has a power-to-weight ratio of 672bhp per tonne.
The fan is not just for show – it’s there to improve the ground e ects of the car via the use of steep, angled rear di users. The fan sucks the air under the car at a 90 º angle, drastically improving downforce without large spli ers or rear spoilers. However, there are active aerodynamics for drivers who need a high-downforce set-up: there are six presets to choose from, with up to 30% more downforce available. Under braking the active
spoilers shi to 45º, providing 100% more downforce for stable braking.
The result of all this is a car that can flick past 62mph in 2.8 seconds and top out at 226mph – but for those who want even more performance, the Niki Lauda special edition is available. This reduces the car’s weight by a further 134kg, and adds a large delta wing at the rear, an underbody aerofoil, a front spli er and adjustable di users. This all adds up to 1200kg of downforce, which can be further augmented by a high-downforce kit that takes it to 1500kg. Power goes up to 772hp, and an aero-fin grows from the roof while the fan runs permanently at 7000rpm. Just 25 Niki Lauda editions will be built, alongside 100 regular T.50s.
The 100 greatest British cars
HEALEY SILVERSTONE
The Healey Silverstone was the right car at the right time: with the British Government relaxing the rules on car sales tax, Donald Healey saw the market for an inexpensive roadster. Designed for both road and track, it featured lightweight aluminium bodywork over an ash frame, a sleek, open two-seater design, and a 2.4-litre Riley engine delivering around 104bhp. The chassis was a narrow
ladder-type frame, constructed from boxsection steel for added rigidity without excess weight. This design improved torsional sti ness and helped keep the overall weight of the car to around 950kg. The car was highly successful in club racing, though it also did the business on the road. Two versions were built: 51 original D-types and 54 later E-types that were slightly more comfortable for road use.
Power 104hp Torque 132lb Top speed 113mph 0-60mph 12.2sec
HILLMAN IMP
Rootes knew it needed something special to compete with the all-conquering Mini and the result was one of the most innovative cars of its time: the Hillman Imp. Its rear-mounted all-aluminium 875cc four-cylinder engine featured a chain-driven overhead camsha – novel for a small car in this era. Put together by Tim Fry and future
Ferrari star racer Mike Parkes, it was the first British car to feature a rear-opening hatchback window. It was also remarkable in having fully independent suspension front and rear, largely unheard of in cars of its class at the time, as was rack-and-pinion steering. All this forward thinking made it a handy competition car, built at the new Linwood plant in Scotland.
The S-Type was introduced in 1930 as an evolution of Invicta’s earlier models, specifically designed to o er superior handling and a lower centre of gravity – hence the low-chassis designation.
The frame was swept down between the axles rather than over them, lowering the entire car (and by rote its centre of gravity) by several inches and thus drastically improving the handling. The chassis was made from channel section steel with extra bracing for rigidity, with semi-elliptic leaf springs front and rear and friction dampers to control rebound. Braking came from cableoperated mechanical drums at all four corners.
Under the bonnet lay the Meadows 4.5-litre 6ESC six-cylinder engine, which was good for 110bhp in standard form, though its low-end grunt is what gave the car its competition edge in hillclimbs. Both the engine and the four-speed manual gearbox were mounted far back into the chassis and low down for optimal weight distribution. Just 71 were built between 1931 and 1935, with many receiving bespoke bodies from the likes of Van den Plas, Carbodies and Corsica.
The car proved to be highly e ective in endurance rallies, and not just because of its engineering nous – its strength, stability and easy of repair made it a popular choice.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1931
Engine 4467cc straight-six, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 110bhp
Torque 173lb
Top speed 93mph
JONATHAN FLEETWOOD
JAGUAR XK120/140/150
Jaguar’s first sports car since SS 100 production wrapped up on the eve of WW2 needed to be something special, and the XK120 didn’t disappoint. Originally a testbed for the William Heynes-designed Jaguar XK six-cylinder engine, the rapturous response to the London Motor Show prototype convinced company chairman William Lyons to put it into production.
Lyons himself styled the car, with the first 242 hand-built in aluminium over ash framing. However, such was the demand for the new Jaguar that construction was forced to move to steel, though aluminium was retained for the bootlid, doors and bonnet.
Under that bonnet lay the new 3.4-litre XK straight-six that, when adorned with twin SU carbure ors, provided 160bhp, 124mph at the top end and the title of fastest production car in the world. Its double overhead camsha s and aluminium cylinder head were novel for the time. It soon became the car to have for the international celebrity set – Clark Gable acquired the first production version – and it would become a potent competition car, too.
The XK140 replaced the XK120 in 1954 – in addition to more power (190bhp) there was more interior space (courtesy of moving the engine, bulkhead and dashboard forwards by 3in), improved braking, telescopic dampers and increased suspension travel. The SE version upped performance still further, taking horsepower to 210bhp courtesy of a C-type-derived cylinder head.
1957’s XK150 was mechanically similar to its forebears, but the aesthetic recipe was altered with a one-piece windscreen, thinner doors and a widened bonnet. In 1960 the 3.8-litre version of the XK engine was made available, o ering 220bhp in standard tune and a walloping 265bhp in S models. This cut the 0-60mph time down to seven seconds and the top speed grew to 135mph. To reel in the rampant speed, four-wheel Dunlop disc brakes were made available as an option.
When Jaguar needed to shift some surplus racecar chassis in 1957, it simply dressed them up as roadgoing sports cars. Just 16 examples of the D-type-based XKSS were built – and this one was among the great loves of Steve McQueen’s life
Words
David Lillywhite Photography Evan Klein Archive image Getty / James Drake
Steve McQueen loved cars and bikes, and none more so than his Jaguar XKSS. He was so fond of it, in fact, that he bought it twice…
When his fame and bank balance began to grow in the early 1950s, McQueen replaced his long-suffering and often-broken MG TC with newer, faster sports cars. He charged around Los Angeles in an Austin-Healey and then in a Corvette until, heeding the concerns of his wife, Neile Adams, he bought himself a more sensible Ford Fairlane.
Life in the slow lane was never going to be for McQueen, though. In 1957 he acquired a Siata 208, which was followed by a Porsche 356 Speedster and a Lotus Eleven. And then, in ’58, he topped them all with this XKSS.
The car had been bought new in April 1957 by James E Peterson of Altadena, California, who ran it at the San Fernando drag strip in
August of that year, setting the fastest time of the day. Interestingly, Peterson was the man who designed Riverside International Raceway, which opened in September 1957 and went on to be used extensively by Hollywood in TV and film productions.
Anyway, Peterson sold the XKSS in 1958 to Bill Leyden. Gameshow host Leyden drove it regularly, and it would often be parked in a studio lot on Sunset Boulevard, which is where McQueen first spotted it. It wasn’t long before he began to pester Leyden to sell it.
Leyden soon caved in – but at that point McQueen still had to bring Neile around to the idea of having a thinly disguised Le Mans racer on the driveway. In the end, it was she who handed Leyden a cheque for $5000. This was in late 1958, and Steve McQueen was the excited owner of XKSS 713, previously D-type chassis XKD 569.
The car was originally supplied with cream paintwork and a red interior, but McQueen preferred dark colours so he sent the XKSS to renowned hot-rodder Tony ‘The Loner’ Nancy to be refinished in British Racing Green over black leather.
Soon he was roaring around LA in the freshly painted XKSS, which he nicknamed ‘The Green Rat’. He was well known to traffic cops – whom he often outran. The local sheriff apparently promised a steak dinner at Lawry’s in Beverly Hills to whichever of his men could catch the speeding McQueen! In his first two years of XKSS ownership, the star twice came close to losing his driving licence.
He once tricked a patrolman into racing him and Neile to the hospital, claiming that Neile was in labour. Sure, she was pregnant, but only six months along… Once they reached the hospital and the patrolman went on his way, McQueen told the nurses ‘False alarm!’ Not that he got away with it entirely, of course: Neile didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day.
Google ‘Steve McQueen XKSS’ and you’ll be presented with dozens of period photographs, including several taken at McQueen’s home in the LA suburb of Brentwood, where we shot the car for this feature. A number of pictures show him posing with the car and another one of his runabouts: Ringo, the horse that he rode
in the Western TV series Wanted Dead or Alive Ringo was reportedly more of a handful than the XKSS. He threw McQueen half a dozen times, and bit him, too. ‘It’s a good thing he likes me,’ McQueen joked.
In 1967 and with a new Ferrari 275 GTB/4 on the way, McQueen decided to sell his Green Rat to the famous Harrah Collection in Reno – though in his mind he wasn’t really letting go of it. This was, in the words of McQueen’s lawyers, a sale ‘of convenience’, and one concluded on the understanding that the car would would not be driven by anyone, nor sold to anyone except McQueen.
But when McQueen eventually asked to buy the car back, Bill Harrah decided he wasn’t inclined to sell. Only after some legal wrangling did McQueen manage to reacquire the XKSS, paying rather more for it than he had received from Harrah a decade or so earlier. This was in February 1978; less than three years later, McQueen died from a heart attack aged just 50 after undergoing surgery for cancer.
His beloved XKSS was sold in 1984 to former neighbour Richard Freshman, who had the car restored by Lynx. In 2000 Freshman sold it to the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA, where the team has maintained it in superb condition, as Jay Leno discovered when he was permitted to take it for a spin…
‘McQUEEN WAS WELL KNOWN TO THE LOCAL TRAFFIC COPS –AND OFTEN OUTRAN THEM IN HIS XKSS’
JAY LENO DRIVES M c QUEEN’S XKSS
‘I’ll never be Steve McQueen but for one brief moment I can pretend…’
When I first came to Hollywood in the 1970s I would see this car occasionally around town, and I was fortunate enough to know Steve McQueen a little bit; we had mutual friends like Bud Ekins, the motorcycle racer who was McQueen’s stunt double in The Great Escape
To lots of people back then the car was ‘just an old Jag’, but to me it was the most exciting Jag ever built – an XKSS, one of only 16 in the world, from the golden age when racecars and street cars were only this far apart. Oh, and it was owned by none other than the King of Cool. It’s one of those cars you think you’ll never get the chance to drive, but here we are.
Your first impression is that the car feels so much lighter than, say, an XK120. With its aluminium skin and all the aluminium in the motor, it’s very light – and it’s incredibly powerful and long-legged, too. When I pulled away I thought, ‘Woah, am I in third?’ But no no no, this thing is just geared for top speed; at 60mph you’re barely over 2000rpm.
It’s so stable at speed, too. I just can’t believe how nice this is to drive. It feels like a modern car. No, scratch that – modern cars don’t feel this good! And, oh my God, the sound it makes… The 3.4-litre motor sings like Pavarotti.
You’d think that back in the day they could have sold a million of these things. Compare it with some of the other cars of the ’50s: sure, Ferrari had a V12, but Porsche had, what, 90bhp, while this has 250. It would give the Mercedes Gullwing a real run for its money.
The car is a credit to the Petersen Museum. In a lot of museums, cars just sit for 30 years and they don’t run right. A car needs to be exercised, and the guys from the Petersen take the cars out, drive them to events, use them as they were intended to be used.
Go and see this car in person at the museum if you’re ever in LA; it will blow you away. It will be more compact than you thought, even sexier than you thought. To drive it has been the thrill of a lifetime. Honestly, how do you top this?
The 100 greatest British cars: Jaguar XKSS
THE SECOND COMING
In 1957, production of the fabulous Jaguar XKSS came to an unexpectedly early stop. We went behind the scenes at Jaguar to find out how the model was brought back to life six decades later
Words Philip Porter and David Lillywhite
Photography Amy Shore, Mike Dodd and Nick Dungan
‘Nobody’s very sure,’ said Lofty England, director of Jaguar’s service department, when asked how the fire started. ‘There was the service department and the sawmill, and a pressboard wall between them, and for some reason that got on fire. Whether it was a cigarette or what, I don’t know. Nearby was the tyre stock and that got on fire, and that got the roof on fire, which was [coated with] bitumastic, and in five minutes it was neither here nor there.’
Sixteen fire crews responded to the blaze at Jaguar’s Browns Lane factory on 12 February 1957, but it quickly became clear that despite their efforts the damage was going to be massive. When the smoke cleared, the despatch shop and the hundreds of cars inside were toast, along with part of the assembly line, the stores, the test department and the sawmill.
Amazingly, Jaguar was building cars again only six days later, thanks to an act of generosity from Dunlop. The tyre manufacturer had bought and extended the old Jaguar plant at Foleshill but had not yet moved in, and the company insisted that Jaguar borrow it. One model, however, had met its demise in the fire: the XKSS
The curvaceous sports car was always going to be built in small numbers, of course. It was conceived as a way of using up surplus D-type chassis, and while it was very attractive and fantastically fast, it was barely more civilised than the Le Mans-winning racecar on which it was based. Jaguar planned to produce 25 examples, but had completed nowhere near that number by the time the Browns Lane factory went up in flames. Nine D-types awaiting conversion were destroyed, along with jigs and tooling. A few XKSSs that were already in-build survived and were finished off, leaving the number made at 16.
In 2016, however, Jaguar decided that this sad tale needed a new ending, and it announced that its Classic division would complete the originally planned run of 25 by building nine XKSS continuation cars. Read on to learn just how a small team put a car from the 1950s back into production…
The
Above and right
Having explored several options, it was agreed that the only way to achieve the ‘perfectly imperfect’ look of the original cars was to produce the bodywork for the new cars by hand, and Coventry engineering firm Envisage Group was chosen for the job. Traditional English wheel and metalbeating techniques were employed, but the panels (made from period-correct NS3 aluminium alloy and MG2 magnesium alloy) were shaped over glassfibre formers rather than old-fashioned wooden ones.
Again with an eye to correctness, Jaguar Classic enlisted Huntingdon-based chassis specialist Arch Motor & Manufacturing to build the car’s frame, using specially commissioned, Imperial-gauge Reynolds 531 steel tubing.
Left
Almost 60 years after a catastrophic fire forced Jaguar to abandon production of the XKSS, the prototype continuation car comes together at the Jaguar Classic workshop in Ryton-on-Dunsmore.
The Jaguar Classic team had previously built a small run of E-type Lightweight continuation cars, but that experience only proved so helpful. ‘It was the parts availability!’ says engineer Richard Traves. ‘It made the XKSS much harder to do than the Lightweight E-type.’
As well as figuring out how to remanufacture rare components, the team had to decide how to shape the continuation cars when no two originals were exactly alike. ‘We scanned four original cars,’ notes Kev Riches, who led the project. ‘They were generally within 10mm of each other in dimensions. One was out by 3/4in, but that car had been flattened on the Mille Miglia!’
Above and left
To Crosthwaite & Gardiner fell the monumental task of producing brand-new D-type engines and transmission parts. Jaguar wrote a very big cheque to cover the cost of the necessary tooling, and the investment will hopefully ensure the availability of previously unobtainable parts for many years to come.
There was an unexpected problem when the new cylinder blocks were cast, though: today Crosthwaite & Gardiner works to tolerances that were unachievable for Jaguar back in the 1950s, and the new blocks looked too good, so Kev & Co requested that some of the crisp edges be ‘weathered’ slightly for a more authentic look.
The 100 greatest British cars: Jaguar XKSS
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Two months before final assembly, the prototype car –still unpainted and untrimmed – was tested for the first time at Jaguar’s private test track. Kev Riches (wearing sunglasses) and David Marshall (goggles) were delighted with the car’s performance once they had tweaked the brake balance, and it got the thumbs-up, too from the late Norman Dewis (above), who was Jaguar’s test driver back in the 1950s, and who raced a D-type at Le Mans.
Left
2016 Jaguar XKSS Continuation
Engine 3442cc straight-six, DOHC, twin Weber 45DCO3 carburettors Power 250bhp @ 6000rpm Torque 240lb ft @ 4500rpm Transmission
Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Steering Rack and pinion Suspension Front: double wishbones, torsion bars, telescopic dampers. Rear: live axle, transverse torsion bar, telescopic dampers Brakes Discs Weight 914kg Top speed 142mph 0-60mph 5.2sec
The Smiths instruments were recreated by the team at Caerbont Automotive Instruments, who had access to original technical drawings dug out of the Jaguar archive. The archive proved invaluable throughout the process of developing the XKSS Continuation. ‘We could go back and understand the size of the rivets, the type of wood used for the rim of the steering wheel –all that stuff,’ explains Kev.
Of course, it was necessary to deviate from 1957 specification in some instances. An exact replica of the original fuel bag would have been useless, unable to withstand the ethanol content of today’s fuel, so a new one was made. For safety, modern four-point harnesses are fitted, bolted to an FIA-spec hoop hidden in the rear. And unlike the original XKSS, the continuation comes with carpets to reduce heatsoak; in a D-type or an original XKSS, the floor can get hot enough to melt the soles of your shoes!
JAGUAR E-TYPE
Jaguar’s rampant success at the Le Mans 24 Hours in the 1950s was brought on by advanced aerodynamic thinking inspired by the aeronautical world – and it’s these principles that were brought to bear on the E-type road car in a bid to create the ultimate GT car of the age.
The Malcolm Sayer-designed shape was aerodynamically e cient, which matched perfectly with the race-bred 3.8-litre XK sixcylinder engine that had proved its worth in the D-type. Its 265bhp power figure garnered a 0-60mph time of a whisker under seven seconds and a top speed of 150mph, which were outrageous metrics for the age. The presence of disc brakes at all four corners was cu ing-edge at a time when most rivals were still using drums, as was independent suspension front and rear. The monocoque central tub with a tubular front subframe was also novel for the era, and endowed
the car with strength and lightness, making for a car that handled as well as it looked. It soon accelerated into the hearts of a generation, and because it was a Jaguar, it undercut all of its rivals from Ferrari and Aston Martin on price.
The car was continually adjusted over time, with engine size growing to 4.2 litres, and several body styles appearing. Series 2 models built between 1968 and 1971 lost the headlamp covers in response to US regulations, though power steering and air conditioning became available as options.
The Series III model of 1971 introduced the 5.3-litre V12 engine to the E-type’s chassis, upping power to 272bhp and lowering 0-60mph times. The interior was much roomier than its forebears as the car fully embraced luxury over sportiness, with automatic transmission, wire wheels and air conditioning available as options, while power steering was made standard.
ESSENTIAL
FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1961
Engine 3781cc straight-six, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 265bhp Torque 260lb
Top speed 150mph 0-60mph 6.9sec
JAGUAR MK2 3.8
As the natural forebear to more recent six-cylinder sports saloons from German marques, the Jaguar Mk2 had it all. Its creamy-smooth 3.8-litre XK straight-six delivered a potent 220bhp and 240lb , enough to sprint the well-heeled executive of the day all the way to 125mph, having zinged past 60mph from rest in just 8.5 seconds.
Its low weight, rigid structure and rack-and-pinion steering were blended with independent front suspension and a live rear axle suspended on leaf springs to give engaging handling, yet because this was a Jaguar, it was a truly elegant and luxurious place to be.
The Mk2 established the template for nimble six-cylinder saloons for decades to come, and became a formidable saloon car competitor across the world.
Though the E-type is o en seen as the darling of the Jaguar range, it is arguably the XJ6 that defines the marque. It redefined the luxury saloon market – no longer did you have to forgo sportiness for exemplary comfort.
At its heart was an innovative independent suspension set-up, refined from that of the E-type and which underpinned Jaguars for decades therea er. Inboard rear disc brakes reduced unsprung weight, and fanatical testing regimens guaranteed the refinement of a Rolls-Royce with supreme roadholding.
Jaguar also paid close a ention to weight distribution, and its monocoque construction was extremely rigid. All the be er to enjoy the famed XK straight-six engine, available in 2.8-litre and 4.2-litre capacities. Such strong performance was developed further with the super-smooth 5.3-litre V12 engine, which joined the range in the early 1970s.
This was the last car designed by Sir William Lyons, who was so pleased with the result that he proclaimed it to be the best car Jaguar had ever made. It would certainly prove hugely popular for generations, its styling influencing all Jaguar saloons for the next four decades, and acquired a legendary reputation as the cars for executives, politicians and royalty across the globe.
Conceived as a co-production between JaguarSport and Tom Walkinshaw Racing, the XJ220 was originally intended to compete in Group B motorsport. That didn’t happen, but the result was a groundbreaking supercar that was briefly the world’s fastest production car. Its bonded and riveted aluminium honeycomb monocoque was derived from Group C endurance racing, while the pushrod suspension layout was also motorsportinspired. Its long, svelte shape was cra ed from hand-formed lightweight aluminium, and had a drag coe cient of 0.36.
The original concept featured a V12 engine and four-wheel drive, but the collapse of Group B competiton and a shi in endurance racing regulations forced a rethink. The answer came from the Williams-developed MG Metro 6R4 rally car, the V6 engine of which was much lighter and smaller, aiding packaging and weight distribution.
With its capacity increased by TWR to 3.5-litres and augmented by two Garre T3 turbochargers, the engine produced a mighty 542bhp at 7000rpm and 475lb at 4500rpm. This all added up to a car that could hit a world-beating 217.1mph, having blasted past 60mph from rest in 3.6 seconds.
JAGUAR F-TYPE
Any car that follows the hallowed E-type has to be something special, which is why it took Jaguar 40 years and several models in-between to get the job done.
Based around a shortened version of the XK platform, the production car was very similar to the C-X16 show car of 2011. Ian Callum had penned a shape that deliberately evoked memories of its famous forebear, most notably in the rear three-quarters, yet this was a modern approach to what a Jaguar could be.
It was available in coupé and convertible forms, engines ultimately ranging from a four to the supercharged 5.0-litre V8, also with four-wheel drive. In 567bhp SVR form it became the first Jaguar since the XJ220 to top 200mph. Most potent of all was the Project 7, a 250-o skunkworks edition reminiscent of the Le Mans 24 Hours-winning D-type.
e Jensen FF was one of the most radical road cars ever conceived. James Ellio tests examples from either end of a lamentably small production run
run
Photography Lee Brimble
The Jensen FF changed everything… and nothing. Launched in 1966, it was the rst production road car with a full fourwheel-drive system, yet most of the world believes the use of four-wheel drive in road cars was pioneered by the Audi qua ro – a model not introduced until 1980. e FF was also the rst car with anti-lock brakes (a legal requirement on all new cars sold in the UK today), but credit for that innovation is frequently given to the 1985 Ford Scorpio. It’s as if Michelangelo were wri en out of history and Raphael fêted as the master rather than the pupil. ere were good reasons, of course, why other manufacturers didn’t immediately follow Jensen’s lead, namely complexity and cost. Jensen’s disregard for such trivialities meant that just 320-odd examples of the FF were built – by hand, of course. But the car was more in uential than the production numbers might suggest and among motoring enthusiasts with a rm grasp of history, the FF is revered.
THE ORIGINAL idea for a four-wheel-drive passenger car came from racing driver Freddie Dixon, who sought not to build a faster car but a safer one. Fellow racer Tony Rolt liked the concept and the two men joined forces in the 1930s with the aim of developing a permanent four-wheel-drive system that compensated for slipping wheels and was therefore suitable for hard surfaces. A er World War Two they secured investment from tractor mogul Harry Ferguson, and Dixon-Rolt Developments was rolled into the new Ferguson Research company. e plan was to engineer the system and license it to manufacturers. But as the 1960s dawned, Dixon quit. He didn’t want to move from Redhill to Coventry when Ferguson decided the business would relocate. en, in October of 1960, Ferguson died. And despite everybody’s best e orts, no carmaker seemed to want what Ferguson Research was selling. Still Tony Rolt pressed ahead, building the Ferguson P99, a rolling laboratory-cum-billboard. is Coventry Climax-powered Formula 1 car was adopted by the Rob Walker team and managed one signi cant win, when it was steered to victory by Stirling Moss in the 1961 International Gold Cup at Oulton Park. Fi ed with a larger Climax engine, the car later won the British Hillclimb Championship in the hands of Peter Westbury – but that was about it for the so-called Ferguson Formula in racing. Once it was out there, other teams just developed their own, similar systems.
On the road-car front, Ferguson built various technical showcases to try to sell the Ferguson Formula to the likes of Ford and Triumph, but it was only Jensen that recognised the potential of the technology. e West Bromwich-based manufacturer started working with Ferguson Research as early as 1962, and in October 1965 it displayed a four-wheel-drive version of the C-V8 at the British International Motor Show.
‘THE PRICE OF THE FF WAS £7700 – THE EQUIVALENT OF 13 MINIS’
SO W PPED UP is it possible to become in the story of the Ferguson Formula that it’s easy to overlook the Jensen FF’s other claim to fame as the rst production car with anti-lock brakes. You have probably heard of the Dunlop Maxaret system, which was introduced in 1952. Despite being swi ly adopted by the aviation industry, it did not make it into a production road car until 1966.
In 1959 Denis Jenkinson wrote in Motor Sport about Jaguar’s experiments with Maxaret, explaining the technology for a readership then unfamiliar with ABS. ‘ e instant a wheel is about to lock, the Maxaret releases the hydraulic pressure from the o ending brake, by means of a bypass valve, even though the pilot is still applying full braking pressure – and of course with no pressure going to the brake the wheel is prevented from locking. Now, the moment the wheel is running free, the Maxaret closes the bypass valve and pressure goes once more to the brake. If it still wants to lock, the Maxaret releases the pressure again. ese cyclic variations take place at about the rate of ten times a second.’
A er testing an experimental Jaguar MkVII equipped with the system, Jenks was disappointed to learn that it was prohibitively expensive for use in a production car. By the standards of most car manufacturers, it was still impractically costly seven years later, but Jensen put it in the FF anyway. By 1970, the price of the FF was £7700, or the equivalent of 13 Minis. By then, of course, a Jensen dealer could justify the price to a potential buyer by pointing to all the awards and plaudits the FF had won. Notably it was Car magazine’s Car of the Year for 1967, and Sports Illustrated called it ‘the safest car in the world’. It didn’t hurt, either, that the FF was embraced by members of the rock ’n’ roll rmament, among them Ginger Baker, John Bonham and Mitch Mitchell.
JENSEN INTRODUCED the FF at the same time as the Interceptor, and to the man in the street the two cars, both styled by Federico Formenti of Carrozzeria Touring, probably look identical. e visible di erences (the FF has a more squared-o nose and an extra set of gills, and is longer by four inches in the wheelbase) give li le indication of the extent to which the cars di er mechanically.
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The plush interior of the Mk3 car screams 1970s; the fabulous rear styling is shared with the Interceptor, launched at the same time as the FF.
To accommodate the extra differential and transfer box of the FF, Jensen had to adjust both the chassis and the transmission tunnel of the Interceptor platform, and the FF also got a bespoke front suspension and the forward driveshafts had constant velocity joints. Unlike the Interceptor, the FF – which usually wore an extra Ferguson Formula grille badge – never dabbled with 7.2-litre power and stuck with the 6.3litre (383ci) Chrysler V8.
What exactly did all the work of the Jensen engineers add up to? We’re about to find out. Octane is fortunate to have at its disposal cars from opposite ends of the FF’s lifespan: chassis number 6, one of the very early FFs built at Vignale in Turin and the final car of only 15 Mk3s. They’re here courtesy of Steve Groves and Ian Owen, a pair of businessmen who have a stake in Jensen specialist Cropredy Bridge Garage.
Chassis 119/006 was first owned by war hero Captain Peter Hall, one of the POWs involved in planning the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III that was dramatised in the film The Great Escape. He bought the Jensen to replace an Aston Martin DB6 of which he was not fond – he phoned
Aston Martin to inform them he had finished with their car and that they were free to collect it at their leisure from a hedge in Leicestershire! Hall later replaced his Mk1 FF with a Mk2 car, and 119/006 had several more owners before it ended up with FF collector John Wild in the 1990s.
After a mechanical restoration the car found itself on the move again, and in 2013 it was discovered living under a tarpaulin on a Hexham farm by Steve Groves. With the help of Cropredy Bridge as well as Ulric Woodhams of the Jensen Museum, Steve restored it while retaining all of the features seen only on the Vignale-built cars. One example: the Italian leather used in the interior of 119/006 is different to that used for the later, UK-built FFs, and so instead of replacing the original hide, Steve went to the trouble of having it restored at the University of Northampton.
The very last FF, Ian Owen’s Stratosphere Blue car, was originally finished in Brasilia paint with a Tan interior. Thanks to the work of the late Jensen aficionado Richard Calver, we know it left the factory on 20 December 1971, specced with a Voxson 8-track player, Sundym glass, aircon, and town-and-country horns.
1966/71 Jensen FF
Engine 6276cc Chrysler OHV V8, Carter four-barrel carburettor Power 330bhp @ 4600rpm Torque 425lb ft @ 2800rpm Transmission Three-speed automatic, four-wheel drive, split 37:63 front:rear Steering Rack and pinion, power-assisted Suspension Front: double wishbones, twin coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar. Rear: live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, telescopic dampers Brakes Discs, Dunlop Maxaret anti-lock system Weight c1800kg
Top speed c130mph 0-60mph 8.4sec
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The final FF, registration BVM 501K, is an easier but less dynamic car car to drive than its forebear; both FFs benefit from a big Chrysler V8 that provides easy power and torque.
The car had seven UK owners before it was bought by ad-man Bruce Milner. The California-based Kiwi has had loads of weird and wonderful cars over the years, from an Alfa Romeo 1900 SSZ (featured in Octane issue 256) to a Monteverdi Hai SS. He bought the Jensen in 1996 for £16,000 and shipped it to the US, where a full restoration was carried out over three years from 2003. DD Classics brought the car back to the UK in December 2013 and it was acquired by Ian Owen shortly afterwards. It has been looked after ever since by the experts at Cropredy Bridge, who have rectified some past work and retrimmed the interior, too.
I KNOW the 1971 Mk3 pretty well, because it was in it that I undertook my longest ever road test of a classic car. Back in 2016, when the FF and the Interceptor turned 50, 30 Jensens motored from the UK to the old Vignale factory in Turin. I took the Mk3 back from Italy to Windsor via Le Touquet, and it drove like a dream.
I’m happy to report that nothing has changed. The car is conspicuously powerful and has an air of unshakeable confidence; like a large ship carving through the sea, it feels capable of subjgating nature. Just tickle the throttle and the response is instant, and the car sprints all the way to its red-zone of 5100-6000rpm.
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The engine bay of the early, Vignale-built car, registration LJU 808E; and the car’s classically styled interior, including wooden door panels not found on later cars made in the UK.
The 100 greatest British cars: Jensen FF
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Five years separate the Mk1 from the dark-blue (or Stratosphere Blue) Mk3, and each car has its own character –to a degree you might not expect considering that Jensen made no significant mechanical alterations to the FF during the model’s production run.
And performance does not come at the expense of creature comforts here: the cabin, with its Jaeger dials and generously stuffed seats, is quite the place to sit, and in addition to power steering you get electric windows, electric wing mirrors, and air conditioning that actually works. It’s just possible that this car – this actual car – is the ultimate expression of the late-’60s/early-’70s 2+2 GT.
The Mk1 is a different beast, both in appearance and in personality. There’s no FF badge on this one, and you notice that the Crystal Blue paintwork is subtly two-tone, the roof a darker shade than the rest of the car. The air scoops on the sides of the car are deeper than those on the Mk3, and, like the first Interceptors, this early FF has large bumpers and Rostyle wheels. The eagle-eyed will observe, too, that the badge on the C-pillar does not sit on top of a vent – a sure sign of a Vignale-built car. Watch out if opening the door when it is breezy (there are no stays) and settle in. The cabin is much lighter and airier than that of the Mk3, with Vignale-only fillets of wood on the doors. You guide the car with a wood-rimmed steering wheel, larger than the leather-covered one in the Mk3, and the moment you get moving you sense that the Vignale Mk1 is going to offer a different experience. It feels lighter and nimbler than the Mk3, but also less planted and solid. It’s the more involving car to drive, but inevitably the more demanding and tiring of the two as well.
If I had to pick between them? As the owner of a Mk1 Interceptor, I’m naturally drawn to the Vignale, a car that feels so much like my own, except with vastly better roadholding and braking. But in the Mk3 memories of that wonderful drive home from Italy come flooding back, and the bond I formed with the car on that trip is hard to break.
It’s a real pity that so few people have had the pleasure of driving an FF; today there is no more underappreciated car than Jensen’s masterpiece. The FF’s fan club is growing, however, as Audi discovered when it had the temerity to suggest on social media that the quattro was the first fourwheel-drive production car. The ensuing pile-on was, like the FF itself, something to behold.
‘THE Mk1 FF FEELS SO MUCH LIKE MY 1968 INTERCEPTOR, EXCEPT WITH VASTLY BETTER ROADHOLDING AND BRAKING’
The 100 greatest British cars
LAGONDA LG45 RAPIDE
Following Bentley’s demise and incorporation into Rolls-Royce, WO Bentley fancied a new challenge. Lagonda’s new owners (the firm had gone bust in 1935) called upon his engineering genius to help develop an exclusive, luxurious and fast car – the LG45 Rapide.
It was in essence the roadgoing version of Lagonda’s M45R that had taken victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1935, and as such featured a lengthened, sti ened version of Lagonda’s cruciform-braced chassis. It featured semi-elliptic leaf springs front and rear, with Luvax hydraulic dampers that made for surprisingly agile handling and comfort, given the car’s size. Bringing the car to a halt were Girling servo-assisted drum brakes.
The 4.5-litre straight-six engine under the bonnet was originally a Meadows design, but heavily reworked by WO Bentley and his engineering department, with a new crossflow cylinder head, high-li camsha and a revised combustion chamber. This yielded a mammoth-for-the-time 150bhp, making for a top speed in excess of 100mph.
All this came at a cost and the Rapide was seriously expensive – it really was the Buga i Chiron of its day, and just 25 were built.
The Lagonda V12 was at the peak of the firm’s assault on the luxury market, with the legendary WO Bentley’s engineering know-how in full e ect.
The first and only V12 he would develop from scratch, it features a single overhead camsha per bank, aluminium-alloy construction and twin ignition, with 24 spark plugs. This meant power outputs between 175bhp and 200bhp, and an engine that could run for 24 hours at 4000rpm.
Lagonda tested the theory at Le Mans in 1939 and, though the V12 was a big luxury car at heart, it was among the fastest runners before ultimately retiring. Just 189 V12s were built, with bodies from Lagonda itself, James Young and Tickford in saloon, drophead coupé or tourer form.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1937
Engine 4480cc V12, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 175bhp
Top speed 105mph
0-60mph 12.9sec
JORDAN BUTTERS
David Ayre Cars has over 30 years experience in the Vintage Car Industry with a world class reputation for the restoration of 6 cylinder Bentley’s, Lagonda’s & Invicta’s.
We manufacture and sell new parts manufactured to the original plans and highest specifications. We’re also recognised as the go-to vintage car specialists if you want to enter internationally recognised concours events, competitively rally your car anywhere in the world.
The 100 greatest British cars: Land Rover Series IIA
HIS LAST LANDY
This Series IIA was the last Land Rover owned by Spencer Wilks, the man who steered Rover into a golden age. Mark Dixon drives it
Photography Land Rover Classic
We’re both wondering whether the old Land Rover is going to make it through. Riding shotgun alongside me is Mike Bishop, an expat Aussie who grew up thrashing Series vehicles around the bush and is now Land Rover Classic’s resident historian. Mike has just pointed out that he recently had to organise the recovery of a much more modern Landy from this very stretch of boggy, ru ed mud.
Our vehicle is a 1965 Series IIA with a standard 2.25-litre petrol engine. No traction control, no ‘All Terrain Response’ dial; just mechanical four-wheel drive and a set of period Michelin XCAs that look unhelpfully road-biased. And neither of us is wearing boots. If we get stuck in the mud, at least one of us is going to get u erly lthy.
But being a bloke – and because I’m si ing next to an Australian –I can hardly wimp out now. ‘I reckon she’ll be ne,’ I say, with more con dence than I’m feeling. Mike, to his credit, agrees that I can give it a go. So, into low range, then I pull the gearlever back into second gear, gun the engine and launch us into the sticky stu .
Normally the advice when o -roading is to travel much more slowly than you’re tempted to. Sometimes, however, maintaining momentum is the crucial factor, and that’s de nitely the case here. e Landy plunges into the gloop, slithering sideways as the ruts take hold, but I keep my foot in, le ing the steering wheel spin through my hands as the front
From le GXC 639C returns to the island roads it first drove in the mid-1960s, when it was brought to Islay by former Rover boss Spencer Wilks.
wheels get suddenly de ected, before wrestling back control to avoid colliding with a nearby tree. e engine is roaring and our is adrenaline owing as the Landy bucks and weaves – but the old girl never stops making progress, and soon we’re clear of the danger zone.
‘Well done, you!’ says Mike, with just a trace of audible relief. Well done, Land Rover, I think. We’re e ectively on road tyres and we’ve just cleared a section that few passenger vehicles of any age could even have a empted. It’s easy to see why the 1960s Series IIA is regarded as one of the best Land Rovers ever made.
is one, however, is even more special than most. It was the last Land Rover to be owned and used by Rover’s long-serving managing director, Spencer Wilks, who took it with him when he retired to his estate on the island of Islay, in the Southern Hebrides.
It’s no coincidence that this outwardly standard Series IIA has a couple of unique features, since Wilks o en liked to try out prototype vehicles himself. In fact, his granddaughter Kathy, who lives on Islay and runs the Kilchoman whisky distillery with her husband Anthony Wills, has several photos showing the Wilks family home in Warwickshire with oddball Rovers parked outside – everything from a Marauder sports car to a Pininfarina-bodied Rover P4 and various incarnations of the ill-fated Road Rover concept.
‘THE LANDY PLUNGES INTO THE GLOOP, SLITHERING AS THE RUTS TAKE HOLD, BUT I KEEP MY FOOT IN’
Recirculating ball Suspension Front and rear: live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, telescopic dampers Brakes Drums
Weight 1339kg Top speed 68mph
‘ROVER EXPERIMENTED WITH A TRACTOR-LIKE CENTRAL DRIVING POSITION FOR THE LAND ROVER’
Considering how important a figure he is in the history of Rover, very little has been published about Spencer Bernau Wilks. He became a captain in the Army’s Transport Corps during World War One and, while he was serving, he met an ambulance driver called Kathleen Hillman. Yes, Hillman as in the motor manufacturer: Kathleen was one of the six daughters of company founder William Hillman. Spencer and Kathleen married in 1916 and, when the war ended, Wilks joined his father-inlaw’s company, succeeding William in 1921 as joint managing director.
Spencer brought his younger brother Maurice into the company as an engineer in 1928 and the future looked rosy. But then the Rootes brothers made a successful takeover bid for Hillman, and Spencer jumped ship to Rover, joining as general manager in September 1929. Maurice followed him in 1931, becoming Rover’s chief engineer, and these two men would be the driving force behind the creation and development of the Land Rover after World War Two.
Before that, however, Spencer had to oversee a massive turn-around in Rover’s fortunes. The company was close to bankruptcy in the late 1920s and had embarked on an ill-fated attempt to build an economy car called the Scarab. When Rover’s managing director, Frank Searle, failed to return from a trip to New Zealand in 1931, Spencer stepped up and set Rover on a new course. He’d realised the one great truth in car
manufacturing: you make more profit on bigger, expensive cars than on small, cheap ones, so he canned the Scarab project and tasked Rover with producing only quality cars for the middle classes. It was a policy that would serve the company extremely well until the ruinous takeover by British Leyland in the late 1960s.
The story of how the Land Rover came about has practically passed into folklore. Maurice owned a farm on Anglesey, and after World War Two he kept an ex-US Army Jeep there as a runabout. He appreciated its ability to go just about anywhere, but was frustrated by frequent breakdowns, and by the fact that spare parts had to be bought by the pallet-load from war-surplus sales.
When Spencer asked Maurice what he was going to replace the wornout Jeep with, the pair realised that there was a niche here waiting to be filled. A Jeep-like vehicle would be popular with farmers and ideal for export. Moreover, it could be bodied in easily formed sheet alloy rather than in steel, which was in short supply.
Rover experimented with a tractor-like central driving position for the prototype of what Maurice dubbed the ‘Land-Rover’ (with hyphen), but reverted to a conventional right- or left-hand-drive layout for production vehicles, which arrived in 1948. The Land Rover made its world debut at that year’s Amsterdam Motor Show.
Clockwise from top left The IIA’s interior – complete with preproduction padded
dashtop – is plush compared with that of earlier Land Rovers; writer Mark explores Islay.
‘SPENCER WILKS WOULD BRING HOME PROTOTYPE VEHICLES FROM THE FACTORY TO TEST THEM’
Spencer and Maurice Wilks remained at the helm during Land Rover’s golden years and, even after Spencer retired as chairman in 1962, he stuck around in an advisory role as president of the board. ‘Spencer really used his vehicles on his family estates,’ says Mike Bishop, ‘and he would regularly bring home prototype vehicles for a weekend or longer to test them. When his Warwickshire house was sold after his death in 1971, the main picture on the estate agent’s flyer showed a Series II parked outside. I’ve recently identified it as a 1958 diesel, chassis six, which was allocated to Rover’s engineering department.
‘Wilks was always looking to the future and this Series IIA has a couple of development features that hadn’t yet been fitted to production vehicles. It has turn-key ignition rather than a starter button, a padded dashtop, and self-parking windscreen wipers operated from a single motor rather than individual ones.’
I ask Mike what happened to the Series IIA after Spencer Wilks passed away in ’71.
‘It was passed down to his son Nick,’ Mike says. ‘Not long after Spencer died, Nick was using it to tow a trailer, and the trailer unfortunately jackknifed into the Land Rover and damaged the rear tub. So Nick went and got a replacement tub from the factory, and then he tucked tub and vehicle away in a shed. The Landy just sat there until 2008, when Land Rover’s Roger Crathorne suggested we should resurrect it. Well-known restorer Ken Wheelwright rebuilt it in 2008, and then it was put into our Heritage fleet. Its first outing was an appearance on the BBC TV series Coast, with Dick Strawbridge.’
GXC 639C still looks fresh and it also drives incredibly well. The steering is light and sharp, and the engine is beautifully sweet – a reminder that Rover engineering was top-quality even when the company was building utility vehicles.
At idle, all you can hear is a very faint ticking from the valvetrain; once you’re on the move, the engine is silky-smooth, and even the gearbox and transfer box are quiet. The clutch take-up is high, though, and because I’m wearing metrosexual trainers rather than farmer’s wellies, a couple of
times my right foot slips off the polished steel strip that is the accelerator pedal, leading to a rapid loss of forward progress. Sorry, Mike.
Shifting from two- into four-wheel drive requires a quite deliberate set of actions. Normally, on the road, you’ll be in high-range two-wheel drive, and if you’re approaching a surface that looks moderately slippery you can keep moving and push down a yellow-topped rod to engage fourwheel drive. Once safely through, you disengage four-wheel drive by pulling a red-topped lever and then pushing it forward again, which causes the yellow rod to pop back up.
You need to be careful, though, because the red lever selects high- or low-ratio gearing. While you can use either two- or four-wheel drive in high range, low range is always four-wheel drive and pulling the red lever back will automatically engage that. Generally, it’s best to stop and take a moment before setting off in low range, because it limits the speed of the vehicle to an extent that means a completely different mindset is required of the driver.
Off-road, GXC scores very highly by being both narrow and short. It also has an exceptionally good steering lock for a 4x4. Although the Series IIA is wider from the waist down than its forebears, underneath the bodywork you find that the chassis rails are set the same distance apart as on the Series I. Incredibly the width between the centrelines of the chassis rails did not change in Land Rover production from 1948 right up to the end of ‘classic’ Defender production in 2016.
And on-road performance? Well, even the most ardent fan of the Series vehicles will admit that they are not ideal for tarmac roads, particularly for long journeys. But don’t listen to the naysayers who dismiss them as too slow to be entertaining. On country lanes – and, indeed, on city streets – they are a delight to drive, with unrivalled character. Bumbling around Islay in GXC 639C is the most fun I’ve had in ages. Well done, Land Rover, indeed.
THANKS TO Mike Bishop, and to Kathy Wills at the Kilchoman Distillery on Islay (kilchomandistillery.com).
Left and above Wilks’s IIA crosses the sand on Islay; its four-cylinder petrol engine, restored and running beautifully.
FAMILY HISTORY
A brief walk through the story of the Series Land Rovers
1948
Where it all began – well, almost, for the Centre Steer prototype was scrapped soon after its testing duties were over. The vehicle pictured is a replica, built by Bill Hayfield.
The Centre Steer carried over the Willys Jeep’s 80in wheelbase and used a Jeep transfer box, driven by a Rover 1.6-litre engine mated to a Rover P3 saloon car gearbox. The bodywork was formed from Birmabright alloy, as with production Land Rovers, but the central driving position wasn’t adopted. Conspiracy theorists maintain that the Centre Steer was hidden and still survives. If only.
1958
Arguably the archetypal Landy in terms of looks, the Series II was more deliberately styled, with barrel-sided flanks that covered wider-track axles, and sill skirts to disguise the chassis.
Stocks of the Series I’s 2-litre engine were used until a 2.25litre (actually 2286cc) unit came on stream; a diesel version of the 2.25 appeared in 1961, at which point the Series II was renamed Series IIA. Remember the old Land Rover driven by bumbling aristocrat Tom in Four Weddings And A Funeral ? It’s a IIA, the ultimate in classless transport.
The vehicle registered HUE 166 was the very first Land Rover, chassis R01, and one of a batch of 48 pre-production vehicles that were built between March and May of 1948.
‘Huey’ and its sisters (or should that be brothers?) were powered by detuned, 1.6-litre Rover P3 saloon engines and had permanent four-wheel drive, with a freewheel system in the front driveline to prevent transmission wind-up in corners. Note the Sage Green paint, the headlights behind the front grille and the lack of external door handles (you reach in through a canvas flap to open the door).
1968
The so-called Lightweight, more accurately known as the Air Portable Land Rover, was a reworked Series IIA (the picture shows a Series III version but, headlamp position aside, they’re the same) made narrower so two vehicles could sit side-by-side in a military transport aircraft.
It was only lighter with nonessential parts (doors, upper rear body and more) removed. In this state it could be lifted by helicopter while remaining drivable. It was used by the Dutch and Danish armed forces as well as the British Army.
1949
1957 1947
By 1949, sales were going well: 8000 Land Rovers were sold in the 1948-49 model year (5000 had been the target) and twice as many were sold the year after.
This 1949 Series I retains the ‘lights behind the grille’ front end but has the Deep Bronze Green paint that was standard from here on. Engine capacity was increased to 2.0 litres in 1951 but the 80in wheelbase still didn’t allow much room for loads, so in 1953 it was extended to 86in. A long-wheelbase 107in pick-up was also introduced in ’53, and these later Series Is are easily recognised by their recessed external door handles.
1971
The Series III was an evolution of the Series IIA, readily identifiable by its moulded ABS grille and outboard-mounted headlights (the latter feature also seen on Series IIAs from 1969).
The interior was modernised with a plastic dash pod in front of the driver, while the drivetrain gained a heavy-duty clutch and an all-synchro gearbox, and the compression ratio of the 2.25litre engine was raised from 7:1 to 8:1. A big seller; it was during Series III production in 1976 that the millionth Land Rover rolled off the line.
Land Rover quickly diversified with a range of alternative body types, and this Series I 107in Station Wagon was one of the quirkiest, its galvanised body cappings giving it a distinctive Meccano look.
Station Wagons also had a ‘Tropical Roof’, which consisted of a second skin fitted on top of the vehicle, with vents to allow air to circulate. The idea was to keep the interior cool when the temperature climbed, and to reduce condensation in cold weather. In 1957 the 86 and 107in wheelbases were lengthened to 88 and 109in, respectively, to cater for a new diesel engine.
1979
A petrol straight-six had been an option in long-wheelbase Land Rovers since 1967, but while Range Rovers had been using the ex-Buick 3.5-litre V8 since 1970, it wasn’t until 1979 that the V8 was offered in a Land Rover. Hoping to boost sales in the Middle East, Land Rover brought in the Stage 1 V8 with a softly tuned version of the engine, which necessitated a new, flat front end – anticipating styling changes that would come in across the board in the early ’80s as the Series vehicles gave way to the One Ten and Ninety.
The Land Rover had proven itself to be a stalwart o -roader, but the growth in popularity of cars such as the International Scout, Ford Bronco and Jeep Wagoneer had illustrated the market’s readiness for a comfortable 4x4 that was as good on the road as it was o it.
Land Rover had toyed with the idea in the past, but in 1968 the project got full backing and was developed by Charles Spencer King, Gordon Bashford and David Bache. Unlike other Land Rovers of the time, it used coil springs and disc brakes on all four wheels. The body was largely constructed from aluminium, but unlike Land Rovers (which used panels taken from a single sheet), like the Rover P6 the body panels were hung on a safety frame. Alongside the steel frame, the aluminium body added to the structural rigidity but maintained its corrosion-resistant abilities.
A er a series of pre-production Velars (as pictured), the first Range Rovers, though a lot more
refined than the Land Rover, were still a long way from the luxury machines we know today. Range Rovers remained two-door until the 1980s, when four-door conversions by Monteverdi and others were co-opted by Land Rover.
The Range Rover would move progressively upmarket over the years, most notably in 1984, which saw the availability of leather trim and a new four-speed ZF automatic transmission. A major restyle came in 1986, with the exterior and interior heavily revised and even greater comfort (especially for taller drivers). Such was the popularity of the Range Rover that it carried on for sale alongside the P38A replacement for a while, called the Range Rover Classic. One highlight of the range is the 200-strong CSK model, a two-door special edition launched in 1990 to celebrate 20 years of the model. It featured an upgraded 185bhp V8, anti-roll bars front and rear to improve handling, air conditioning and a six-speaker stereo.
Lea-Francis’s sporting side was revealed in 1925 with the Hyper, the first supercharged British production car.
Powered by a 1.5-litre Meadows engine with Powerplus supercharger, it made 85bhp and boasted a 90mph top speed – pre y much unheard for such a small engine in the late 1920s. Its sturdy ladder chassis, leafspring suspension and four-speed gearbox meant this lightweight and nimble car could be a true giant-killer. It won the 1928 Ulster TT against much larger, more powerful cars from Alfa Romeo and Bentley. In doing so, it became the first supercharged production car to win an international GP.
LISTER STORM
In the 1980s and early 1990s the relaunched Lister company had made its name with the thunderous 7.0-litre conversions for Jaguar V12s, most o en seen in the XJ-S.
Lister sought to build upon that with its own car, using a 7.0-litre V12 with direct influence from the Jaguar XJR-9 that competed at the Le Mans 24 Hours. It produced 546bhp and 582lb ; with a 0-60mph time of 4.1sec and a top speed of 208mph, it was for many years the fastest four-seat car in the world. Only four roadgoing examples were built, though the Storm lived on in endurance racing for more than a decade.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1927
Engine 1496cc four-cylinder, supercharged
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 85bhp
Top speed 90mph
LIGHT CAR COMPANY ROCKET
Conceived by Gordon Murray and Chris Cra , the Rocket was launched in 1991 as the closest thing to a road-going Formula car the public could buy. Just like a racing car, it used pushrod suspension, inboard coil springs and dampers, and double wishbones. It weighed just 385kg and had no power-assistance, anti-lock braking or traction control.
Power came from an air-cooled Yamaha FZR1000 motorbike engine, a 1.0-litre inline four delivering between 143bhp and 163bhp at a screaming 10,000rpm. It was paired with a bespoke sequential manual gearbox, with either fi ve or six ratios. The result was 0-60mph in under 4.5sec, and a top speed of 150mph. Just 55 were built.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1991
Engine 1002cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 143bhp
Torque 77lb
Top speed 150mph 0-60mph 4.4sec
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1993
Engine 6995cc V12, naturally aspirated
Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 546bhp
Torque 582lb
Top speed 208mph 0-60mph 4.1sec
LOTUS SEVEN
Nothing sums up the fundamentals of Colin Chapman’s ‘lightness is everything’ idealism more than the Seven.
An evolution of the earlier Lotus Eleven racing car and the Mk6, the concept was simple: a car to drive to the track, race, and then drive home again. It was o ered as a kit in a bid to keep costs down, and was constructed from a simple spaceframe design of steel tubing clothed in aluminium panels and a glassfibre nose and wings. As a result, it weighed just 500kg. The lightness of the package made for a raw experience and delivered handling brilliance and unheard-of speeds for the price.
Chapman brought his racing experience to bear on the suspension, with double wishbones up front and a live rear axle. The first engine was the Ford sidevalve 1172cc unit from the 100E with 36-50bhp,
with a Coventry Climax FWA 1.1-litre all-aluminium twin-cam engine o ering 75bhp as an upgrade.
Series 2 models, built between 1960 and 1968, o ered a wider range of Ford engines, such as the 1.0-litre 105E Kent engine or the 1.3-litre OHV unit, through to the 1.5-litre and 1.6-litre pre-Crossflow and Crossflow engines. The Series 3 was produced between 1968 and 1970, and focused on the la er
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 36bhp Torque 52lb Top speed 77mph
two engines, with tuners such as Vegantune and Cosworth o ering upgraded camsha s and cylinder heads that could boost power to 70bhp and 120bhp in racing trim.
The Series 4 models built between 1970 and 1973 continued with Crossflow engines, though some were fi ed with 1.7-litre Holbay-tuned engines that could produce 120bhp. These cars were the heaviest and most road-oriented Sevens, with more comfort features (all things being relative) but they were rather controversially styled.
In 1973 Chapman saw the Seven as a negative influence on his vision to take Lotus upmarket, and sold the rights to the Seven to Caterham. Caterham has refined the Mk3 version ever since, and still produces it today.
LOTUS ELITE
The Elite was a bold step forward for Lotus – it wasn’t just the brand’s first proper road car, it was the first road car to use a glassfibre monocoque body/chassis structure. The body itself provided the structural rigidity, and the lack of a traditional steel frame meant a weight of just 600kg and thus exemplary handling. The swoopy body, styled by Peter Kirwan-Taylor with aerodynamic input from Frank Costin, had a drag coe cient of just 0.29Cd. The car’s 1.2-litre Coventry Climax FWE had ‘just’ 71-85bhp, but its low weight and sleek body meant it could sprint to 60mph in a lightning-quick (for the era and capacity) 11 seconds and reach 112mph all out.
Power 105bhp Torque 108lb Top speed 115mph 0-60mph 8.7sec
LOTUS ELAN
Lotus had proven it could build a spectacular road car in the Elite, but its follow-up would need to be a li le less uncompromising. Though it retained the glassfibre body, the Elan used a steel backbone chassis for greater practicality and durability.
The chassis was set up around a central spine with welded crossmembers that supported the chassis and drivetrain – Colin Chapman’s commitment to lightness meant that this weighed just 34kg alone, and the whole car weighed just under 700kg with independent suspension all round.
The engine started out as a Ford Kent item, but Lotus reworked it with a dual-overhead camsha aluminium cylinder head, giving birth to the famed Lotus-Ford Twin Cam. In 1.5-litre and 1.6-litre forms it produced 105bhp to 126bhp, which combined with the Elan’s featherweight credentials to o er a 120mph top speed and the 0-60mph dash in a whisker under eight seconds. Marshalling all this to the road was a much-vaunted four-speed manual gearbox and pin-sharp steering.
Lotus o ered the Elan in convertible and fixed-head coupé forms before adding the Elan +2 with slightly longer body and wheelbase, o ering a comparatively more refined car that could in theory transport a young family.
WE ARE A LOTUS SPECIALIST
We will continue to off er all the services we were
At Classic Sports Cars we cover all aspects of Lotus ownership from servicing, repairs, restorations and motorsport preparation while offering a professional and friendly service to our customers.
SERVICING AND REPAIRS
ABOUT US
Classic Sports Cars owner Tim Garrington previously worked for the well-known Lotus Specialist Paul Matty where he gained years of experience on all Lotus models covering servicing, repairs, restorations and preparation of road and race cars.
With Paul’s retirement, Classic Sports Cars will be looking after Paul Matty Sportscars existing customers using the same staff who will also be moving across. This will mean the same familiar faces, with the same extensive knowledge, providing the same quality services to customers.
While also having a great understanding of classic, sports and race cars of all ages and with a reputation for reliable, quality work at competitive prices.
Located in Stourport on the Wilden Industrial Estate, Classic Sports Cars offer Lotus and classic car servicing and restoration, along with race car preparation in a facility with easy access and ample customer parking.
LOTUS SPECIALISTS:
With our well-equipped workshop and experienced staff, aspects of servicing and repairs that your Lotus or classic includes the latest wheel alignment geometry setup and on car
When it comes to Lotus cars, we have vast experience gained from servicing and repairs of every model such as Seven, Elite, Elan, Europa, Excel, Esprit, Elise, Exige & Evora.
RESTORATIONS
SERVICING & REPAIRS:
With our well-equipped workshop and experienced staff, we can handle all aspects of servicing and repairs that your Lotus or classic car may need. This includes the latest wheel alignment geometry setup and on car brake disc cutting.
When it comes to restorations, we can offer part or full ground-up of both road and race cars to include chassis replacement, transmission rebuilds for which we have received awards quality of the restorations undertaken.
If you have a workshop related enquiry, please contact us via telephone, email or our website enquiry form down below.
RESTORATIONS:
COMPETITION PREPARATION
When it comes to restorations, we can offer part or full ground-up restoration of both road and race cars to include chassis replacement, engine and transmission rebuilds for which we have received awards for the quality of the restorations undertaken.
MOTORSPORT PREPARATION:
We have knowledge and skills in preparing both circuit and GT and single-seater many of them Lotus and we can also car builds and setup. This knowledge and experience has customers to win numerous championships. Classic Sports Cars ltd. Unit 35. Wilden Industrial Estate, Wilden Lane, Stourport
We have knowledge and skills in preparing both circuit and hill climb race cars, GT and single-seater many of them Lotus and we can also offer complete race car builds and setup. This knowledge and experience has enabled our customers to win numerous championships.
enquiries@classicsportscarsltd.co.uk
If you have a workshop related enquiry, please contact us via telephone, email or our website enquiry form down below.
An unforgettable road trip to Cortina, where For Your Eyes Only was filmed in 1981, reveals just why the Lotus Turbo Esprit was once James Bond’s car of choice
Words Harry Metcalfe Photography Justin Leighton
This is going well. The derestricted A7 autobahn we’re barrelling down is almost empty, so the car’s speedo needle has been hovering around the 130mph mark for a while now. Sunlight is pouring through the glass roof above me, but it’s cold out there, the outside temperature hovering just below freezing. In the distance I can just see the Austrian Alps, and above their snowy caps is a cloudless blue sky. It’s all so perfect that the scene ahead could be a movie set. Funny, that.
The engine of the 1987 Lotus Turbo Esprit HC I’m driving might be merely a 2.2-litre turbocharged fourcylinder, but it’s gorging itself on the chilled air and is delivering enough punch that whenever I encounter another car, there’s no question about who has occupation rights to the outside lane. Mercedes and Audi and BMW mobile boardrooms, ordinarily the rulers of the road, move aside deferentially.
The only thing limiting my rate of travel is the increase in wind noise around the B-pillars at high speed. Well, that and the fact that I don’t want to stress the engine too much before we reach our destination – still 240 miles from here, after all. And now, I guess, I should explain why I’m driving my Esprit so quickly down a German autobahn on this crisp winter’s day. The reason is Bond –James Bond.
Wind back the clock to Sunday 4 January 1981, and two Lotus Turbo Esprits almost identical to mine set off from the Lotus factory in Hethel, heading for the Dolomites. By the end of the next day, the cars needed to be delivered to the chic ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo, where filming was taking place for the new James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, starring Roger Moore. The two drivers chosen for this mission were Dave Minter, head of dynamic engineering at Lotus, and Don McLauchlan, whose role was to organise all marketing and PR activities, and who had been responsible for getting the Esprit into the Bond movies in the first place.
The cars were perfectly behaved on the long trip from Hethel to northeastern Italy, but Minter and McLauchlan didn’t have much luck with the weather: the roads down to Cortina from Austria on that January weekend were blocked by heavy snow. Instead of motoring through Germany and then dashing across Austria and down to Cortina, the two men were forced to stop in Calais and put the Esprits on a transporter train, which took them overnight to Nice. First thing on the Monday morning, our heroes struck out from Nice for Cortina, driving towards Genoa first before turning north in the direction of Milan, and then steaming up to Cortina from the south. I was keen to take the more direct route, as I’d been told that the journey via Austria was spectacular.
Left and right Harry’s 1987 Turbo Esprit, equally at home on twisting mountain roads and on derestricted sections of the German autobahn.
The 100 greatest British cars: Lotus Turbo Esprit
Clockwise from left Harry hustles the Turbo Esprit along the roads around Cortina; checking in at the Miramonti Majestic Grand Hotel, which hosted Roger Moore and the rest of the For Your Eyes Only crew; turbocharged fourcylinder engine; the Giugiaro-penned lines of the car look good from any angle.
As we approach the Austrian border, the high-speed shenanigans come to an end and we’re funnelled into a tunnel and then out onto a regular two-lane highway, heading first towards Innsbruck, then up into the mountains. Our speed may have dropped dramatically, but the scenery outside has ratcheted up several notches. If you look on a map, you’ll see that Austria is shaped a bit like a sausage laid horizontally between Germany and Italy, and all we need to do is the short dash straight across the middle in order to reach the Dolomites.
Unfortunately, we now have a convoy of trucks for company, so while the scenery is fantastic, the drive through the mountains is tedious in the extreme. But as we reach the Italian border, two things happen. First, the draconian speed limits disappear. Second, the trucks clear off. Turns out they were heading for everywhere but Cortina, and now we have the wonderful SS51 to ourselves for the run down to the town. Bliss.
I often think my Esprit is the most surprisingly talented car in my garage. It’s a featherweight at only 1146kg on my scales, despite being equipped with such luxuries as air conditioning and a removable glass roof, and all the important bits have been tuned to deliver maximum feedback and enjoyment.
OK, the footwell is a bit tight (when asked why, Chapman joked that Lotus customers don’t wear hobnail boots when driving), but the brake pedal is reassuringly solid and is perfectly positioned for heel-and-toeing. The steering is unassisted and annoyingly heavy when parking, but on this twisting Alpine road it lightens beautifully and becomes a precision tool. It seems to sense the perfect line through corners, allowing you to feel the slight camber change as you kiss an apex before you light up the turbo to power down the next straight.
I’m buzzing; this stretch of road could have been made for the Esprit, which has been dancing along without even once threatening to get out of shape, thanks to its stupefyingly high levels of grip and stubborn resistance to both under- and oversteer.
The road bursts out of a pocket of trees clinging to the mountainside and now there are a few more signs of civilisation around us, and we spot a Cortina d’Ampezzo sign in the distance. The final approach to Cortina was very different for Minter and McLauchlan. Here’s an extract from the report Don McLauchlan wrote after returning to Hethel: ‘We only stopped twice for fuel/ coffee, and after dark turned off the motorway into the Dolomites. It suddenly became very cold, and it snowed. The roads were very icy and we had already been driving hard for several hours so we decided to really ease off. Just as well, as the road suddenly petered out and we had 100 miles of zig-zag hairpin bends and precipices ahead of us. We arrived in Cortina at 8pm and were met by the film crew, thankful to see us on time and in one bit.’
It’s late afternoon when we arrive in Cortina, and after a fill-up at what I later discover is the most expensive fuel stop in town, it’s time to find our digs, the Miramonti Majestic Grand Hotel. Which just happens to be where Roger Moore stayed during the filming of For Your Eyes Only back in 1981.
Cortina is unlike any other ski resort I’ve ever been to: there are no signs of anyone actually skiing, nor are there any visible lifts up to the slopes. It seems just like any other very pretty Italian town, nestling in a valley and ringed by spectacular rocky mountains, which are turning orange as the sun starts to dip below the horizon.
The hotel turns out to be on the outskirts and is accessed via a winding driveway. It’s a huge old building; it must have several hundred bedrooms, I guesstimate, and that’s before we spot a whole other wing around the back. Yet when we park up outside the impressive façade, there’s no-one else to be seen. A porter pops out and cheerfully takes our bags and leads us inside.
There must be very few guests staying here tonight, as everyone is remarkably helpful and seems to have plenty of time on their hands, which is not what I expected at the height of the ski season. Our room turns out to be down several kilometres of corridor and is decorated in what we’ll call a ‘period style’. It’s fair to say that it hasn’t been touched in decades, and when we venture downstairs for a drink in the evening, the feeling of having travelled back in time continues. The bar is almost empty, but in one corner a silver-haired gentleman sits at a grand piano, crooning songs from a bygone era. I should have a Martini (shaken, not stirred, of course) but I order a beer instead.
WE WAKE in the morning to more clear skies and, after a long walk to breakfast and back, it’s time to check out some locations used for filming by the James Bond crew.
My Esprit, as you’ll have observed, is white, while the one seen in Cortina in For Your Eyes Only is finished in Copper Fire. That colour was requested by the production team after they became concerned that the white Esprit used (and blown up) in an earlier scene in the movie wouldn’t show up too well against the snow in Cortina. There’s no mention of the colour change in the movie: Bond spots the damaged Esprit in Q’s workshop and comments that he’s glad it’s getting rebuilt, but says nothing about the paint. Today’s moviegoers would go nuts over such an obvious continuity faux-pas. You won’t be surprised to hear that I think the white car should have been used throughout, and now we have a chance to see how it might have looked on-screen.
We head first for the Trampolino Olimpico, just a couple of kilometres away from the hotel, and frozen in time. This ski-jumping hill was built in 1955 for the 1956 Winter Olympics, but it has sat unused since 1990, when it lost its FIS (International Ski Federation) certification.
‘THIS ROAD COULD HAVE BEEN MADE FOR THE ESPRIT’
Clockwise from right
The ski-jump so memorably featured in For YourEyesOnly; Roger Moore is flanked by Lotus’s Dave Minter (on right) and Don McLauchlan; the copper-coloured, Esprit used for the scenes filmed in Cortina, and the car’s unfortunate white predecessor.
If you’ve seen For Your Eyes Only, you’ll know there’s a famous scene in which Bond ends up having to go down the ski-jump. Now I’m here, all I can say is rather him than me! It’s a mighty intimidating structure. I make my way to the take-off point of the ramp and look into the landing area below. Incredible to think that if one of today’s top ski-jumpers took off from here, they’d fly so far that they’d miss the arena completely and crash-land on the hillside beyond it.
Next, I’m keen to visit Cortina’s Olympic ice rink, the location for a night scene starring the Copper Fire Esprit. Bond arrives, parks, and leaves a contact sitting in the car while he goes to meet someone else inside. But when Bond returns, his contact is dead, slumped in the passenger seat. We won’t be re-enacting that bit. Here are Don McLauchlan’s notes on the filming of the scene.
‘It was a night sequence establishing Roger Moore in the car as he arrives at the ice rink. The snow was brought in by truck and carefully laid on the approach road for the car. We filmed until 8pm and it was cold – very, very cold. Minus 25 degrees. Roger Moore and yours truly were the only poor sods not able to wear Sno-Boots, as you can’t drive a Turbo in “elephant feet” boots. By 6pm your feet were painful, by 7pm numb. By 8pm they seemed just cold – until you went back to the warm hotel, and then they were agony for an hour. Good fun, this filming business.’
When we arrive at the ice rink it’s in bright sunlight, so we have no such worries. In fact the weather is so nice that we decide to head out of town and up towards the craggy
cliffs that surround Cortina on all sides of the valley. The road is busier than I’d expected, but mostly with skiers on their way to the lifts. The lifts are not centred in one location but scattered over several kilometres as you climb up what turns out to be the beginnings of a mountain pass.
It’s astonishingly beautiful here; of course this place would be used as a location for a Bond movie. I seem to be the only one looking at the scenery, though. Everybody we encounter on the road is more interested in the Lotus. But then, how often these days do you see a Turbo Esprit halfway up a mountain?
As we reach the summit, I spot a gentle piste to our left and, with few people around, I dare myself to drive onto the crinkly, freshly-bashed snow. Of course, this could end in tears…
Phew! My theory that the Esprit is so super-light that it should be fine proves to be correct. Not wishing to tempt fate, however, I soon bring the car to a stop and get out to marvel at both the landscape and the wonderful lines of the car, which were drawn by Giorgetto Giugiaro. What a piece of design; no wonder the Esprit is one of the most fondly remembered Bond cars of all.
The Lotus had such broad appeal, too, I think, because it was the plucky underdog among the great sports cars of its time. Go back to when my ’87 Turbo Esprit HC was new, and its list price was £24,980 – little more than 60% of the £39,975 that Ferrari charged for its 328 GTS, yet the Lotus was every bit as glamorous as the Ferrari and was just as quick from zero to 60mph.
‘THERE’S A FAMOUS SCENE IN WHICH BOND ENDS UP HAVING TO GO DOWN THIS SKI-JUMP. RATHER HIM THAN ME!’
turbocharger Power 215bhp @ 6000rpm Torque 221lb ft @ 4250rpm Transmission Five-speed manual transaxle, rear-wheel drive Steering Rack and pinion Suspension
Front: double wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar. Rear: trailing arms, transverse links, coil springs, telescopic dampers Brakes Vented discs
Weight 1146kg Top speed 152mph 0-60mph 5.6sec
Today the price gap between the two cars is even wider and, I can say from experience, not even remotely justified if the only thing that matters to you is driving pleasure. Having owned both cars, I can also say that the Lotus is much cheaper to maintain.
Even if the purchase and running costs were the same for both cars, I’d choose the Lotus over the Ferrari because it’s on-road dynamics are that much better. The Turbo Esprit actually feels rather like today’s splendid Alpine A110. The only criticism I have is that the four-pot engine sounds pretty ordinary at lower revs, but once you have it spinning above 3500rpm it morphs into a wonderfully smooth unit that’ll happily rev to 7000rpm (there’s no redline) – and I smile every time I hear the car’s old-school soundtrack of turbo whistle and wastegate chatter between shifts.
I’ve loved every minute of this 1000-mile trip to Cortina, and the Esprit has proven itself to be a fine travelling companion – much more of a GT than any of the current Lotus models, and impressive enough that I’d like to think the car would have been a roaring commercial success even without the endorsement of 007.
What a coup it was, though, for the Lotus to score a role in two Bond movies. No contract between Lotus and the production team was signed, which is astounding given the sums paid since by manufacturers to get their cars featured in the Bond series. Here’s Don McLauchlan on the meeting at which the deal was done, which took place before filming began for 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me
‘We had lunch, and Cubby Broccoli said what he wanted to do with the new Bond film and asked if we wanted our Lotus to be in it. We never signed a contract, never had letters of agreement. A gentlemen’s handshake, and we were in the film. We supplied seven Esprit bodyshells and lots of bits and pieces. They took one of the shells to a company that specialised in submersibles and they turned it into the submarine.
‘The total cost for all the bodyshells, materials and the two roadgoing cars – which remained our property –came to £17,500 from my PR budget. That would have paid for one page of advertising in a glossy supplement. If you consider how much publicity James Bond’s Lotus generated around the world, and still generates, it was worth millions.’
From left
With acres of red leather the cabin is characterful – and, tight footwell apart, it’s comfortable, too; the skis attached to the roof did little to help the Lotus blend in with regular traffic in Cortina. It drew a crowd everywhere Harry parked up.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1996
Engine 1796cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 118bhp Torque 122lb
Top speed 124mph 0-60mph 5.9sec
LOTUS ELISE
The decade a er Colin Chapman’s passing had been a rollercoaster ride for Lotus – from a potential tie-up with Toyota to a last-minute acquisition by GM, then the wilderness years of the early 1990s, when the front-wheel-drive Elan M100 was outshone by the Mazda MX-5, a car directly influenced by the original Elan.
Within Lotus, it was felt there was a need to return to the company’s founding principles of lightweight sports cars. Developed on a small budget, the Elise used groundbreaking construction techniques to deliver the performance and handling demanded. The key to this was the extruded and bonded aluminium chassis that used know-how from the aerospace industry. The result was a backbone that was incredibly rigid without the need for traditional welding, yet very light – just 68kg. To keep costs as low as the weight, glassfibre was used for the body, and the whole car tipped the scales at just 725kg.
Behind the cockpit sat a mid-mounted 1.8-litre Rover K-Series engine that delivered 118bhp.
Thanks to the Elise’s light weight, this was enough to take the car to 60mph in under six seconds. Over time limited editions would push the power further upwards, to 145bhp and then 190bhp.
An even more hardcore version, the 340R, would follow in 2000 that featured a radical doorless, roofless body for ultimate power-to-weight ratio gains. The engine from this car would also go into the Exige, launched the same year. In essence a hardtop version of the Elise, it was available with either a 177bhp or 190bhp engine.
The Elise would also be adopted by General Motors for the Vauxhall VX220/Opel Speedster, which replaced the K-Series engine with either a 145bhp 2.2-litre naturally aspirated unit from an Astra, or a turbocharged 2.0-litre unit that produced between 200bhp and 220bhp.
The Series 2 Elise appeared in 2001, using a mixture of Rover K-series engines and Toyota units. A Series 3 model appeared in 2010, with various Toyota engines used; production finally wrapped up in 2021.
STILL THE BENCHMARK
Octane columnist and longtime McLaren F1 owner Jay Leno explains why the F1 remains in a class of its own
Photography Charlie Nucci / Getty
IN ALL THE YEARS I’ve been writing for Octane, I’ve mentioned my McLaren F1 more than anything else. And when the magazine celebrated its 100th issue back in 2011, I put the F1 at number one in a list of the top ten cars I own.
It’s such a focused car. I love the fact that it was designed first, by Gordon Murray, and then styled, by Peter Stevens; the body is just poured over the chassis. And it was designed as a road car first, even if it became a race winner. [Read on for more on that…] You could drive it from England to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, win the race in it, and drive it back again. It’s probably the last car like that.
I find that people who know what it is really know what it is. People who don’t know, don’t know. It doesn’t appear tobe a 12-year-old boy’s fantasy. There’s no giant wing on it; it doesn’t look like a huge, stalking insect; it’s just a car. It does get dramatic, though, when you hit the door and it opens. Then you see that you sit in the middle, and then you put the key in and you flip up the aircraft-type switch and you hit a red starter button, and the whole thing has a wonderful sense of theatre to it.
It does feel light at really high speed, but I’m not a racer, and with the F1 it’s all about what happens between 40 and 110mph. Driving it makes you realise how used we’ve become to electronic driver aids: I was on the freeway the other day and I nailed it in third and shifted quickly into fourth, and wheeuy, it started to slide sideways. That V12 really is a powerful motor. But it’s also very under-stressed in this application, and I reckon it will easily be good for 75,000-100,000 miles. I’ve done about 12,000 so far, and when I first got the F1 I used it as my everyday car. It never overheated, never broke down.
I love the central driving position. When I’m in my Ford GT, I’m always worrying if there’s a kid on a tricycle in my blind spot, and in a wide car like a Viper it’s easy to put a wheel over the centre-line, but in the McLaren the A-pillars are set right back, so you can position yourself right in the middle of the road.
The other great thing is that there’s still enough mechanical-ness to the F1. We’ve fixed the VANOS unit here in the workshop, and we’ve made a new gearshift fork. It’s probably the last British car to come with a proper toolkit, which is made of titanium. It weighs nothing. You pick it up and it’s like picking up a piece of typewriter paper.
It’s not a perfect car. To change the fuel cell you have to take the engine out first, and we’ve done that twice now. That’s just crazy. And with the ethanol in fuel these days, we’re going to be doing that more and more frequently. People say ‘Oh, just use race fuel,’ but in California all fuel, including race fuel, has to have 10% ethanol, and you’ll get fined if you’re caught buying fuel without it.
There was a gas station here in the Valley selling race fuel at, like, a dollar more a gallon, and I thought, ‘I’ll fill up with that.’ Then I got ten miles down the road and the engine started misfiring and going bang! bang! because of course hardly anyone bought the fuel and it had been sitting in the underground tank for a year. So I thought, ‘Hell, I’m not going to ruin my car with that.’
Running an F1 is expensive, but not as expensive as running, say, a Bugatti Veyron, with its age-limited wheels and tyres. Because I only drive my F1 on the street and I don’t drive it excessively, I don’t obsess about tyre choice. I just fit whatever’s available – I think the car’s on Michelins at the moment.
I used to take the F1 to a McLaren service centre, and I once wrote about how they wanted to replace the wiper blade. I said to the guy, ‘Well, there’s really no need to change it. I live in California and it never rains, and I don’t take the car out in the rain, anyway.’ So he said, ‘Well, as a matter of course we change the blade,’ and I asked how much is it. It was 1500 dollars! ‘Y’know, don’t change it, OK?! The wiper blade is fine!’
That was maybe 15, 20 years ago. These days a guy named Pani, who travels all around the world for McLaren, gives me a call when he’s in LA and then he comes to the garage. We have all the equipment he needs, and we put the car up on the lift and stand by while he does his thing, and it’s kind of fun having an expert there.
Truth be told, I probably have more fun in my McLaren P1 than I do in the F1 these days. The 1990s are a long time ago now. (I was listening to a 22-year-old intern who works on my show the other day, and he was talking about the ’90s as if they were medieval times!) Parts are easier to get for the P1, it’s seamless, everything like the air-conditioning just works. But the F1 is still the car that you measure every other supercar against. And I guess that’s why I love writing about it so much.
The 100 greatest British cars: McLaren F1
THE ACCIDENTAL HERO
In 1995 a McLaren F1 defied the odds to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This is the story of how a road car was turned into a world-beating racer…
Words Paul Fearnley Photography Patrick Gosling / McLaren
At every stage of its development, the cutting-edge McLaren F1 GT was judged by the least scientific measure imaginable: would you want to drive this car to the South of France? And at no stage did designer Gordon Murray envision the car making a 24hour detour around Le Mans.
Murray regarded the creation of the F1 – at once the world’s fastest road car and a comfortable tourer – as a welcome opportunity to get away from racing after spending two decades working in Formula 1, first for Brabham and then for McLaren.
‘I had to forget about motorsport,’ he says. ‘But you can’t unlearn what you know. That’s not to say I designed a racing car. I didn’t. If I had, I would have given it much longer overhangs, a wider track and a better option of venturi shape.’ Well, of course.
‘So I wasn’t that interested when I was first approached about racing it,’ he continues. ‘And Ron Dennis definitely wasn’t. It was the cars’ owners who made the decision for us. They planned to race it with or without our help, and I was worried that they might make it unsafe, slow and unreliable.
‘We had to fit a rollcage because the governing body wouldn’t accept the carbonfibre structure. That pissed me off: it was plenty strong enough. We fitted fire extinguishers, spent one day in a wind tunnel and did a new nose, stuck a wing on the back, adjusted the springs and ride height – and went racing.’ For context, the original road car spent 1100 hours being honed in the wind tunnel.
The new GTR iteration won the first six rounds of the
1995 BPR Global GT Championship, and its success inevitably gave excitable F1 owners ideas about racing on the grandest stage: at Le Mans. The car, however, was unproven beyond four-hour races and McLaren was again reluctant – but again it acquiesced. An ‘endurance kit’ that included carbon brake discs was swiftly put together on the understanding that all the owners would buy it, and also test it for 24 hours at Magny-Cours at the end of May.
‘The car hardly missed a beat and I thought the owners would be happy,’ says McLaren’s customer support co-ordinator Jeff Hazell. ‘But they were glum. They said, “We thought we were going to Le Mans to have a thrash and be back at our hotel in time for dinner. Now we’re going to have to buy more spares, take more people and take it a lot more seriously.”’
Crew chief Paul Lanzante, however, thought it all a joke – to begin with, at least. ‘We had put on a good show in BPR’s GT2 category with a Porsche 911 but, because we were a new team, we hadn’t received an invitation to Le Mans. We’d done a lot of restoration work for McLaren and so I knew Ron Dennis. He said there’d be a bonus in it if we won. Yeah, right. I thought he was just winding me up.’
McLaren’s established privateer teams were not amused that Lanzante had been co-opted to run an extra GTR under the banner of Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing – despite the fact that its main sponsor was Ueno Clinic, a circumcision specialist! There were murmurings about it being a works effort, which is something that Lanzante, who was then a Le Mans novice, has always refuted.
Left, from top
The Ueno Clinic F1 GTR on its way to a famous win, steered by (from left) Masanori Sekiya, Yannick Dalmas and the otherwordly JJ Lehto, who was over 20 seconds a lap faster than his quickest rival in the wet.
He had just six weeks to prepare the refreshed test mule after his designated chassis was commandeered to replace the one crashed by GTC Gulf Racing at Jarama in April.
‘For the official photo after scrutineering at Le Mans, we called in our catering staff and some mates to make the team look bigger!’ he says. ‘There were only half-a-dozen of us –but we were not understaffed. I had asked for, and got, the number one McLaren mechanic. Then there was Dermot Walsh, a friend of mine at McLaren; I wanted him because he knew the engineers and could act as go-between.
‘I copped some flak. The truth, though, is that we had neither more nor less than the customer outfits. The mistake the others made was that they thought they could do better than the factory. They wanted the credit. Personally, not knowing the car as well as those teams, I took advice from the factory.’
Lanzante’s drivers were Frenchman Yannick Dalmas (a prototype Tom Kristensen with two wins and a second place from four starts since 1991); the experienced Japanese Masanori Sekiya (so fond of Le Mans that he got married in the city in 1987); and Finn JJ Lehto (the potential loose cannon). Lehto was undeniably talented but had limited experience of endurance racing and low-downforce cars, and he was coming off a disappointing final season in F1 and a serious neck injury.
Lanzante’s expectations for the race were already low before an engine was buzzed and the lower rear wishbones bent over kerbs during qualifying. An agricultural stiffening mod was rushed through and flown over for the race – and only Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing fitted it.
Hazell was worried, too: ‘Yannick knew the race very well and is a very particular person. We needed that. I hadn’t worked with him before, but had got feedback about him from other engineers: that he was demanding, but right. In contrast, I wasn’t sure that JJ had the right credentials.
‘As for the team, I was assured that it would have a full crew and we were simply to provide our normal level of service. But it arrived with fewer people than I had been led to believe. Our other customers weren’t very happy because they could see more and more McLaren people in the Kokusai Kaihatsu garage as the weekend progressed.’
Those ‘works’ rumours were further fuelled by Lanzante’s decision to fit a new engine for the race. ‘I went to the support truck and there were two spares. One had done five hours; the other was brand new. I took the latter. Because of that another team thought we had a special engine. But they’d had the same option. Yes, we were coming in a lap earlier for refuelling during the race, though that was only because I was terrified about running out of petrol.’
Dalmas took the opening stint even though Lehto had set the fastest McLaren time in qualifying – good enough for 9th on the grid behind the open-topped sports-prototypes. Outright victory was far from the team’s mind. But it began to rain after an hour, and the GTRs, with their smooth and torquey BMW V12s with variable valve timing, now came into their own.
THE H EART OF A WINNER
Gordon Murray designed a road car that could beat the best racers – with a little help from BMW, explains Glen Waddington
During the development of the F1, Gordon Murray was in contact with every supplier as he sought to pare away grammes in the pursuit of road-car perfection. Kenwood’s engineers no doubt recall with frustration being told to ‘just try harder’ with their CD player! But Murray enjoyed a particularly close relationship with BMW – and specifically with the F1’s engine designer, Paul Rosche, then technical manager at BMW Motorsport.
What began as a prospective adaptation of the company’s racing V12 escalated into a bespoke project for just 100 cars. Rosche asked what was really wanted and was given a list: a V12 of the biggest displacement in the smallest package possible, no more than 600mm in length or 250kg in weight, rigid enough to act as a load-bearing member, and with dry-sump lubrication. ‘Never use a 10mm bolt where 9mm would do; consider weight as driving the design,’ Murray commanded.
The target power output was 550bhp; Rosche found 627bhp in the prototype. With full emissions equipment, it weighed 266kg. A 6.4% weight penalty in return for 14% more power, then. And it truly is part of the car: with a bolted-on aluminium alloy subframe, the engine is the F1’s main rear structural member. Even the exhaust silencer is suspended on cables so it can help absorb impacts.
It dictated the body shape, too, as intake air is drawn through a slot on the F1’s roof via a venturi that forces it into the carbonfibre airbox at higher than atmospheric pressure.
Peak power occurs at 7500rpm, specific output is 103bhp per litre, there’s 398lb ft of torque at just 1500rpm, and at least 479lb ft spread from 4000rpm to 7000rpm. To ensure reliability, each of the 110 S70/2 V12s BMW built was subjected to 500 hours of bench testing. Perhaps that’s what made the engine so good at endurance racing. But here’s the irony: for Le Mans, the F1 GTR was detuned to 592bhp (600PS) by restricting those clever air intakes. Well, it was either that or run ballast…
The ultimate iteration of the S70/2 is found in the five F1 LMs built to celebrate the 1995 Le Mans win. Fitted with the GTR’s remapped ignition but without restrictors, it makes 680bhp. The LM found its own place in history with a 0-100mph-0 World Record run in 11.5sec while travelling a distance of only 828.4ft.
1995 McLaren F1 GTR
Engine 6064cc V12, DOHC per bank, 48-valve, electronic fuel injection and engine management
Power 592bhp @ 7500rpm Torque 480lb ft @ 5600rpm Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Steering Rack and pinion, unassisted Suspension Front and rear: double unequal-length wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers. Front anti-roll bar Brakes Brembo carbon-ceramic discs Weight 1012kg Top speed 240mph 0-60mph 3.2sec
The car shared by John Nielsen, Jochen Mass and Thomas Bscher hit the front on lap 16, and McLarens would trade the lead thereafter.
‘Our strategy was to push, but not like crazy,’ says Dalmas. ‘We were very careful with the gearbox; at every stop we added oil. We saved the car. I don’t want to be critical, but some of the others started very fast.’
Both Gulf GTRs were damaged (one survived to finish 4th, the other was sidelined on the spot), and the racefavourite Courage-Porsche wrecked its rear wing and rightrear suspension when Mario Andretti, endeavouring to join Graham Hill as only the second winner of motor racing’s Triple Crown, was wrong-footed by a slower car.
The conditions during the night were as bad as had ever been endured by five-time winner Derek Bell, who was co-driving the Harrods-sponsored GTR. Yet they didn’t seem to bother Lehto in the slightest. The Finn was more than 20 seconds a lap quicker than the next-fastest driver at times, and he hauled the stealth-black Ueno Clinic car into contention.
‘JJ was a bit above the others,’ says Lanzante. ‘There was one moment that I remember blew my mind. I could see on the TV monitor that he was hanging the rear end out. I radioed to tell him to take it easy. He was still drifting the car when he replied: “Paul, I said not to worry. It will be OK.”’
Says Hazell: ‘He was astonishing. We asked him to slow down and he said, “I have already. I’m having fun.” He was spinning wheels on the straight when shifting gears and was sideways, rally-style, in the chicanes. I didn’t think we needed to go that fast to win, but it was clear that this car would be a strong contender.’
Lanzante adds: ‘Having him was definitely in our favour. There’s a magnetism that draws engineers and mechanics to the quickest driver. Everybody wants to be a part of it. If a rival team saw that as us receiving beneficial treatment, I get it.’
Pressure was beginning to build now. The leading McLaren was delayed by clutch trouble (‘We had provided full written information about the correct set-up, but one team chose to ignore it,’ says Hazell.) and it promptly crashed a few corners after its return to the track, John Nielsen being caught out by cold tyres and brakes. The battle for victory then came down to the pair of McLarens dicing at the front, and the Courage-Porsche, which was closing relentlessly after losing half an hour to repairs.
Below and right
Three drivers took turns behind this centrally positioned steering wheel: Dalmas, Sekiya and Lehto; more switchgear than the road car, and less power, but more downforce.
‘I thought Paul’s team had less of a chance than our others, just because its crew didn’t know the car as well,’ says Hazell. ‘Paul had lots of info coming at him – from the drivers, from engineers, from tyre people, from BMW’s technicians and from McLaren. If you’re not familiar with how to
‘IT
WASN’T A RACE FOR US UNTIL FOUR HOURS BEFORE THE END’
– Paul Lanzante
prioritise all that information correctly, you can become overloaded and make a mistake. We could see it going off the rails at one point.’
Explanations for the dropping of the car onto its brake discs at a pit stop differ depending on whom you ask. There are also several accounts of what happened to precipitate the enforced departure of McLaren personnel from the Lanzante garage. ‘That’s when politics kicked in,’ says Lanzante. ‘Annoyed, I called Yannick and JJ in from our caravan; they were having a kip. I sat them down and said: “There’s a new plan. We are going to do everything we can to win.” Yannick was to take the last stint, as planned, but I explained that if we needed some extra pace then I would put JJ in for the final hour. It wasn’t a race for us until four hours before the end.’
Says Dalmas: ‘The motivation was strong. When you drive for a team, even if it is small, you must feel positivity from the people. We pushed a little more – but again with a certain philosophy. All the time we protected the car. To win? That was difficult to say. But we worked hard and believed more and more that success will come.’
Michelin began to believe, too. ‘They started to really get behind the car,’ says Hazell. ‘We had terrific support from BMW, but Michelin were the people who sealed the win. The conditions were changing a lot, from full wets to
intermediates to almost slicks, and they ensured that we always had the best tyres on the car.’
Meanwhile, the rival Goodyear-shod GTR – the car shared by Andy Wallace, Derek Bell and Justin Bell – began to suffer with an ailing clutch. The problem came to a head at the car’s final pit stop: no gear could be selected and three minutes were lost. So was the race.
‘We didn’t “win” Le Mans – but we could have lost it,’ says Lanzante. ‘It would have been easy to cock-up big-time. I’m not going to say that we did a better job than everybody else. It was just one of those things that clicked. It helped that we weren’t hungry to win from the outset. We were enthusiasts rather than bounty-hunters.
‘At the time, it was just another weekend’s racing. Absolutely. On the Monday morning we were back at work preparing our GT2 car. It was only much later that I realised what we’d done. Now I appreciate it more.
‘All the drivers did their bit but, if any single person deserved the credit for winning, it was JJ. Yannick was great, too. With his experience of Le Mans, he was our captain and was always telling JJ to be careful, waving his finger at him!’
Dalmas adds: ‘A team at Le Mans needs a leader with experience, with a vision of the race. But for success a team also needs three drivers that are very strong and who have a relationship that it is straightforward and friendly.
‘WE WON WITH A PRODUCTION GT AGAINST PROTOTYPES. THAT WAS PRETTY BLOODY SPECIAL’
– Gordon Murray
‘JJ did a really good job during the night. We modified the tyres a little – cut more treads for the rain – and he was really good on those. There comes a point in every race when one of the three needs to push hard when given the green light.
‘I have had the opportunity to drive for Peugeot, Porsche, BMW and McLaren. Every Le Mans for me was different –different car, different people and different drivers. 1995 is a strong memory because of the conditions and because we had not been very optimistic about winning. That success was a very special feeling. McLaren is a big name and, while I don’t want to get a big head, when you win with that name I think you go in the history books.’
The McLarens finished a remarkable 1-3-4-5 on debut.
‘We did so well because our car was essentially a road car, says Hazell. ‘It was waterproof, so it wasn’t going to misfire in the rain. We also had the right conditions – I’m convinced that the synchromesh gearbox wouldn’t have lasted in the dry – and the right drivers for those conditions.
‘I vividly remember Gordon Murray walking towards me, hand outstretched: “You are a star!” I was in tears. We never expected to go there with a test car and win. It was a fairy tale. Ron simply said, “Well done.”’
As for Gordon Murray, it’s his belief that winning Le Mans is more difficult than winning an F1 championship. ‘It’s a whole season’s worth of races without stopping. It wasn’t just that we won, however, it was the way we won: on debut, and with a production GT car against prototypes. That was pretty bloody special. I had been dead against it, but now I’m glad that we raced and I’m proud of it.’
You know what’s coming… ‘My only regret is that we didn’t drive the winning car there and back. That would have been the ultimate.’
Of course, that wouldn’t have been possible. Or would it? Lanzante: ‘You wouldn’t have wanted to drive the car there because of the risk factor. But it certainly could have been driven back. No problem.’
MCLAREN
MP4-12C
McLaren’s two road cars had involved heavyhi ing mainstream manufacturers, so when McLaren decided it was going to set up on its own as a standalone company separate from the F1 team, it was major news.
The MP4-12C would be a complete clean-sheet design, though the MP4 part was a clever nod to the marque’s heritage – the MP4/1 was its 1981 F1 car, the first to use a carbonfibre monocoque, and the 12C would follow suit. At the road car’s heart was the carbonfibre MonoCell chassis tub, which weighed just 75kg, yet o ered even greater structural rigidity and safety than a traditional steel chassis.
McLaren also eschewed an outside engine supplier, choosing to build its own with input from Ricardo. The M838T featured a 3.8-litre twinturbocharged V8 that developed 592bhp, marshalled by a seven-speed dual-clutch ‘Seamless Shi Gearbox’. All this in a 1300kg car meant it could sprint to 60mph in 3.1 seconds and top out at 205mph.
There was much more to the MP4-12C than just firepower: the presence of McLaren’s own semi-active suspension, Proactive Chassis Control (PCC), was a true step forward. There are largely largely conventional double wishbones and coil springs, as well as telescopic dampers that are adjustable continuously variable, but instead of anti-roll bars, the PCC employs a hydraulic actuator to control roll sti ness directly, adjusting all the time to maintain the comfort and ride balance. Very clever stu .
The MP4-12C also featured a form of torque vectoring that could apply braking force to specific wheels to allow the car to rotate or regain stability without the driver noticing, which worked in tandem with the car’s rear-wheel steering system.
Further enhancements arrived with the 12C HS, launched in 2012. It featured di erent wheels and revised aerodynamic features from the GT3 racing car, with an extra 75bhp. Only ten were constructed.
Transmission Seven-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive Power 592bhp
Torque 443lb Top speed 205mph 0-60mph 3.1sec
The 100 greatest British cars
MCLAREN
McLaren set out to redefine the hypercar – not only would it be one of the fastest road cars ever made, but also one of the most e cient and technically
The heart of the P1 is the familiar 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 as used in the MP4-12C, but with the wick turned up to 727bhp courtesy of larger, more e cient turbos, significant upgrades to the intercooler system and a lo ier redline. The engine was matched to an integrated hybrid system that provided 176bhp (bringing the total to 903bhp) but also provided instant torque alongside the V8. Fully lit the P1 could smack past 60mph in 2.8 seconds before running out of revs at 217mph.
Like the MP4-12C, it used McLaren’s Monocage carbonfibre monocoque chassis, allied to doublewishbone front suspension and a multi-link set-up at the rear, with hydraulic dampers. Stopping power came from carbon-ceramic brake discs, aided by a large active rear spoiler. This adjusts automatically, balancing downforce and drag; at high speeds it increases its angle of a ack to produce additional downforce, thus gluing the car to the road.
Only 375 standard P1s were built, but a further 58 P1 GTRs were built in homage to the firm’s 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours triumph. The engine was upgraded to 986bhp and the weight reduced by 50kg, with additional downforce courtesy of a revised aerodynamic set-up that included a fixed rear wing. Developed as a track-only car, Lanzante Motorsport has converted several to road use and has commissioned further P1 GTRs as the LM, in essence roadgoing versions.
McLaren also developed the P1 further, using it as the basis for 2020’s Speedtail. This employed a version of the twin-turbocharged V8 sourced from the 720S, upgraded to 729bhp, alongside a 306bhp hybrid system. In total it produces 1036bhp, is a three-seater like the McLaren F1 and can hit 186mph in 13 seconds. It has a top speed of 250mph, and just 106 were built.
Bristolian engineer and racer Jem Marsh and aerodynamacist Frank Costin formed Marcos by pooling their talent and contracting and combining their surnames in 1959. Their early e orts were very much track-focused, but by working with Dennis and Peter Adams they hit low-production gold in 1964 with the launch of the 1800GT, a simple yet enduring design that o ered the looks and handling of a car far more expensive than its £1500 price.
The Marcos 1800 employed a lightweight plywood monocoque that was derived from aeronautical thinking. Bonded and screwed together with aircra -grade adhesives, it was light and strong, helping the car to achieve a low overall weight of 750kg. Thanks to this and the swoopy, aerodynamically e cient glassfibre body that drew on company co-founder Frank Costin’s aircra background, the 114bhp 1.8-litre Volvo B18 engine powered the car to 60mph in under nine seconds, and on to a top speed of 115mph.
In various guises, the GT lived on in essence until 1990, with a gap from 1972 to 1980 and with the wooden chassis replaced by steel in 1969. It survived several company bankruptcies and came with a bewildering array of engines, ranging from a 1.5-litre Ford Kent to a 3.0-litre Essex V6. One of the novel features was that the driving position was fixed, with an adjustable pedal box.
Even Marcos’s later models with substantially larger engines used the GT as their foundation.
The K3 was developed to deliver MG to the front of the racing pack – and it duly delivered. Based on the earlier K1 and K2, the K3 was entirely dedicated to motorsport. It was based around a lightweight chassis and double-wishbone front suspension and a live rear axle, plus advanced, lightweight drum brakes on all four wheels. Though the frame itself had been shorn of all road car necessities and comforts, it was reinforced in the front bulkhead and rear axle mountings to withstand high-speed cornering forces.
The car also featured a low ride height and thus a low centre of gravity for optimised handling, while the K3’s wide track made it more stable. Such innovations and clever thinking would give the li le MG the edge over bigger and much more powerful cars of the era.
However, it was under the bonnet that the magic happened, with an overhead-camsha (rare for cars of that period) 1.1-litre six-cylinder engine
fi ed with a Roots-type supercharger. It produced 120bhp. MG was an early adopter of forcedinduction technology, which helped the K3 reach a top speed of 110mph. Though the engine block was made from cast iron, its cylinder head was made from aluminium to further reduce weight.
The aerodynamically optimised bodies were made from lightweight aluminium, and cra ed by coachbuilders such as Abbo of Farnham.
The car proved to be highly competitive in the racing arena: Tazio Nuvolari took an outright win at the Ulster RAC Tourist Trophy in 1933, and won the 1100cc class on the 1933 Mille Miglia with Captain George Eyston and Count Lurani. The K3’s best result was fourth overall at the 1934 Le Mans 24 Hours, driven by Charlie Martin and Roy Eccles. K3s also provided racing experience to a generation of drivers, from Sir Tim Birkin to Sir Stirling Moss. Only 33 were built, though many K1 and K2s have been developed into racing replicas.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1933
Engine 1087cc straight-six, supercharged
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 120bhp
Top speed 110mph
The 100 greatest British cars
MG TC
The MG TC is arguably one of the most influential cars ever to come from the UK. More than any other model, the TC kick-started the American love of British sports cars in the immediate post-war era. It was in essence a continuation of the marque’s pre-war designs and was intended to be small, inexpensive, compact and fun to drive. As such, it was ultimately bare-bones, using a steel frame chassis and leaf-spring suspension, with a long bonnet and a short rear end giving it a distinctively sporty look. Power came from a 1.25-litre four-cylinder OHV engine that produced 54bhp, enough to give it a nippy top speed of 80mph.
AMG had capitalised on the American appetite for British roadsters well, but knew it needed to up its game to stay ahead of the pack.
The MGA was a fresh design with a Pininfarina-inspired body styled in-house by Syd Enever. Its smooth yet sporty and aggressive look was a big leap forward in aesthetics for MG, and would go on to inspire MG designs for generations.
Power came initially from a 68bhp 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine that could crack 90mph and hit 60mph from rest in just 11 seconds. When the 1.6-litre Twin Cam appeared in 1958 it had more oomph, with power increased to 108bhp, though it gained a reputation for being temperamental. Its issues were later sorted out, yet sales never got above a trickle and it was dropped in 1960. The 1.5-litre engine was replaced with an 80bhp 1.6-litre single-cam OHV unit in 1959. This would grow to 90bhp by the time production ended in 1962.
Though the car’s mixture of independent front suspension and a live rear axle with leaf springs was conventional for the time, the MGA was renowned for its handling prowess, thanks largely to its rack-and-pinion steering and low centre of gravity.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1955 Engine 1489cc four cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 68bhp Torque 77lb
Top speed 98mph 0-60mph 15sec
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1962
Engine 1798cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 95bhp Torque 110lb
Top speed 103mph 0-60mph 12.2sec
MG B
The B was a major step forward not only over previous MG cars but also its big rival, the Triumph TR series. It employed monocoque construction rather than a separate body/ chassis system, though many of the mechanicals had been carried over from the MGA. These were tried and tested, and helped keep the car easy to maintain.
At its heart was the 1.8-litre B-series in-line four-cylinder engine, which could deliver a 0-60mph time of 11 seconds and a top speed above 100mph. These simple mechanical elements have made the car a highly popular classic among several generations.
Pininfarina was brought in to design the MGB GT, a crisply styled hatchback that o ered 2+2 seating under the fixed roof.
Two years later, the six-cylinder MGC joined the range, which o ered 145bhp. It was intended as a replacement for the AustinHealey 3000, but a botched launch with the wrong tyre pressures in press cars condemned the car to an indi erent critical response. The MGC never really recovered from this, and it was removed from sale a er two years.
In 1973, the Buick-sourced ‘Rover’ V8 was introduced to the GT model, delivering 137bhp and a 7.7-second 0-60mph time.
MG F / TF
The launch of the Mazda MX-5 ignited a resurgence of interest in sports cars, and in 1991 Rover set about relaunching the MG brand to take advantage. By the time the car was ready in 1995, however, the company was owned by BMW.
It was a triumph of ingenuity over budget, with its neat Hydragas suspension providing supple ride comfort and engaging handling. Power came from Rover’s innovative K-Series four-cylinder engines, which provided plenty of zest – it all combined to make for the nation’s favourite a ordable sports car.
A revised version appeared in 1999 that refined the car further and added a base 1.6 plus the 160bhp Trophy. The TF model of 2002 was restyled by Peter Stevens and did away with the Hydragas suspension in favour of conventional coil springs.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1995
Engine 1796cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 118bhp
Torque 112lb
Top speed 123mph
0-60mph 8.7sec
The 100 greatest British cars
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1950
Engine 2088cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 68bhp
Torque 113lb Top speed 85mph
0-60mph 15.6sec
MORGAN 3 WHEELER
The 3 Wheeler was a modern reinterpretation of Morgan’s iconic three-wheeled roadster, which originally debuted in 1909, blending vintage charm with contemporary technology and engineering.
The lightweight aluminium body encases a two-seat, front-engine layout that weighed just 500kg. Its 1983cc S&S air-cooled V-twin engine produces just 82bhp and 135lb of torque, but that light weight enables the 3 Wheeler to rip to 60mph from standstill in only six seconds. There’s a nod to modernity with independent doublewishbone front suspension.
Production wrapped up in 2021 a er 2500 were built, with the replacement Super 3 appearing in 2022.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 2012
Engine 1983cc V-twin, naturally aspirated
Transmission Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 81bhp
Torque 103lb
Top speed 115mph 0-60mph 6sec
MORGAN PLUS 4
The original Morgan Plus Four was developed to o er more performance than the 4/4, using engines derived from the Standard Vanguard and later Triumph TR-series cars. It used Morgan’s traditional ladder-frame steel chassis and ash frame to support the aluminium bodywork, providing a lightweight but strong structure, and retained much of the visual style of the earlier car.
At the front, Morgan retained its sliding pillar front suspension, a design dating back to 1910, but it more than did the job in providing engaging handling. The rear suspension was a live axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs.
Early cars featured 2.1-litre Standard engines, with around 68bhp – not a huge amount, but good for sprightly performance in a lightweight body. However, from 1953, most Plus Fours were powered by Triumph TR2, TR3, and TR4 engines, with outputs ranging from 90 to 110bhp, transforming the nature of the car into something rather more sporty.
The car was impressive in motorsport, most notably when Chris Lawrence and Richard Shepherd-Barron took a Plus Four Super Sports to a class win at the 1962 Le Mans, bringing the car home in 13th place overall.
MARK DIXON
PAUL HARMER
MORRIS MINOR
The Morris Minor was conceived in 1941 for the a ermath of World War Two. Morris Motors’ vice chairman Miles Thomas wanted to lay the groundwork for a time when Britain would be rebuilding its economy and infrastructure. That turned out as foreseen, and the country needed a ordable transportation. With the car industry under pressure to meet the demands of the everyday consumer, the Morris Motor Company was determined to produce a car that would cater to the average working-class family, and tasked Sir Alec Issigonis and John Thrupp to create it.
The Minor was innovative in its use of independent front suspension, which was rare for cars of its size at the time. This made for excellent ride quality and handling – to the point that racing legend Ti Needell learned the finer points of car control in his mum’s Minor.
The car was no performance hero – it was never intended to be – with its 918cc four-cylinder engine
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1948 Engine 918cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 27bhp Top speed 60mph
set up for reliability and e ciency. However it could manage 60mph, which was all it really ever needed to do.
The Minor saw several engine upgrades over time. In 1954 capacity increased to 948cc and then 1098cc in 1962, improving performance. Though still modest in terms of outright speed, the Morris Minor’s sheer rugged tenacity and reliability made it a useful rally car.
In addition to the saloon model, the Minor was o ered in several other variants, including a convertible, pick-up and a two-door van. One of the most treasured variants is the Traveller, an estate version with ash-framed bodywork. Inside, the Traveller o ered more space than the saloon, with a flat load floor and a folding rear bench.
The Morris Minor would prove popular around the world, and by the time it finally went o sale in 1975 1.6million of them had found homes. It is truly a national treasure.
The 100 greatest British cars
NAPIER 60HP TYPE 21
In the early days of motoring, a car was simply a car – but the Napier 60hp Tyre 21 helped to define the grand tourer. Its 7.7-litre six-cylinder engine was derived from Napier’s ongoing experimentation with large-capacity six-cylinder layouts, which the company had pioneered in 1904. The straigh-six was water-cooled and used separate cylinders cast in pairs, with mechanically operated valves and dual ignition for reliability and improved performance. Its 60bhp output was mighty for the time, and allowed it to reach speeds of 70mph. The ladder-frame chassis was o en bodied by the likes of Rothschild, Cann and Barker, and just 20 were built.
RAILTON TERRAPLANE
The Railton Terraplane was a unique Anglo-American hybrid that fused American muscle with British coachbuilding finesse. It was the brainchild of Noel Macklin, founder of Invicta, who aimed to create a highperformance British car at a more accessible price point than Bentley or Lagonda. At its heart was the 4.2-litre straight-eight engine from the Hudson Terraplane Eight, a side-valve unit producing 113bhp. The cars o en sported lightweight coachwork from the likes of Coachcra or Ranalah, and could sprint to 60mph in less than 13 seconds, making it one of the fastest cars of the era. Around 1400 were built.
The M600’s carbonfibre body was hung over a tubular steel spaceframe chassis, helping to keep weight down to around 1250kg. With minimal driver aids, the intention was to create a raw, visceral experience, which the Graziano six-speed manual gearbox certainly added to in an era of semi-automatic gearboxes. Add in unassisted rack-and -pinion steering, double wishbones front and rear and fully adjustable Öhlins dampers and Eibach springs, and it was quite a weapon. The all-aluminium 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 was sourced from Yamaha and based around a Volvo block, heavily reworked by Noble. Three di erent thro le maps o ered 450bhp for the road, 550bhp for the track and 650bhp in race mode. Just 30 were built.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 2010
Engine 4439cc V8, twin-turbocharged
Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 650bhp
Torque 604lb
Top speed 225mph 0-60mph 3.5sec
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1933
Engine 4168cc straight-eight
Transmission Three-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 113bhp
Top speed 100mph 0-60mph 13sec
RELIANT SCIMITAR GTE
The Reliant Scimitar GTE was one of the first truly practical sports cars: a sporting estate or ‘sporting shooting brake’ long before the term became fashionable.
Its design was based on the earlier Scimitar GT coupé but featured a completely redrawn glassfibre body by Tom Karen of Ogle Design. The big change was the estate-style rear with a large glass tailgate, folding rear seats, and a surprisingly capacious boot. Under the bonnet was Ford’s 3.0-litre Essex V6, shared with the Zodiac and Capri 3000GT, producing 138bhp in early models. This gave the GTE impressive performance: 0-60mph in under nine seconds and a top speed in excess of 120mph.
The GTE sat on a steel backbone chassis with independent front suspension and a live rear axle, which, while not particularly novel, gave it Lotusand TVR-style handling characteristics though without their impracticality.
The SE5a built between 1972 and 1975 refined and improved the concept, with longer bodywork and greater interior space, and an increase in power and braking capabilities.
The SE6a, built between 1975 and 1980, saw the car develop into more of a luxurious grand tourer, with greater rear room and luggage space, and options such as power-assisted steering and air conditioning.
The discontinuation of the Essex V6 meant a switch to Ford’s newer 2.8-litre Cologne V6 in 1980’s SE6b. Though it had slightly less power (135bhp), it was a smoother and more e cient engine. At the same time, a convertible version called the GTC joined the range.
The car went o sale in 1986, but the Middlebridge racing team acquired the rights to the GTE and GTC and set about updating the design. It received the latest 2.9-litre V6 engine from the Ford Scorpio, modified dampers, springs and anti-roll bars and a stainless steel exhaust system. Only 77 were built.
The MPH was one of the most technically advanced sports cars of its era at launch. The in-house design externally subscribed to the traditional British roadster format: a coachbuilt aluminium body over an ash frame, with a narrow, low-slung ladder chassis. The suspension employed leaf springs front and rear, with beam axles and friction dampers, though hydraulic units replaced the la er in some cars. Its low centre of gravity, wide track and compact nature meant it handled supremely well, but the cherry on the cake was its advanced twin-cam engine.
Four engines were actually made available – the 1.1-litre ‘Nine’ four-cylinder, the 1.5-litre twin-cam four-cylinder and a brace of ‘Big Four’ six-cylinders in 1.7-litre and 2.0-litre forms.
Of these engines, it’s the 1.5-litre twin-cam that was the most advanced. Though referred to as a ‘twin cam’, it wasn’t a dual-overhead camsha design in the modern sense; instead it was a high-camsha pushrod engine with two camsha s mounted high in the crankcase, one on each side. These cams operated the valves through short pushrods and rockers, allowing for short
valve-train geometry, reduced flex and improved high-rev breathing without the complexity of genuinely overhead cams.
Thanks to hemispherical combustion chambers with crossflow porting, inclined valves set at the optimal angle for gas flow, and a robust forged camsha , this free-revving engine delivered between 60 and 70bhp, with the tuning potential for much more. The technology was decades ahead of its time, and it soon became a favourite for coachbuilders and racers alike, with the 1.5-litre twin-cam powering everything from circuit racers to rally and trials cars. Though only 16 MPH models were built, it would prove competitive at Brooklands and the RAC Tourist Trophy, and served as the inspiration for a host of ‘specials’ in the following years, such as the TT Sprite.
The 100 greatest British cars: Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost
A NEW DAWN
ere is no more breathtaking example of the iconic Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost than this car, known as e Silver Dawn. Historian David Burgess-Wise tells the story of its extraordindary life and restoration
Photography James Lipman
The Rolls-Royce 40/50hp, or Silver Ghost, made a name for itself with a series of impressive and cannily promoted showings in longdistance trials. Most famously, in 1913 a quartet of Silver Ghosts starred in the gruelling, 1600-mile Alpine Trial. Two years earlier, a Silver Ghost had made headlines by cruising from London to Edinburgh and back in top gear only, be ering sti performance benchmarks established by the Napier 65hp. And in 1907, a team led by energetic Rolls-Royce managing director Claude Johnson had driven a Silver Ghost 14,371 miles in a fortnight to smash the record for ‘non-stop motoring’ (de ned as motoring without an involuntary stop).
Charles Howard Angas was no doubt aware of that record-breaking drive when, in 1908, he decided to order a 40/50hp Rolls-Royce from the company’s new factory in Nightingale Road, Derby. e card noting the sale of chassis 922 has a crossed-out reference to ‘Tozer’, which indicates that Angas, a resident of Australia, must have originally intended the car to be shipped to him by export agent Tozer, Kemsley & Fisher. But he changed his mind and decided to collect in person when the car was ready.
e Angas family were the most important landowners in South Australia. eir holdings of some 15 million acres were centred on the Barossa Valley and the town of Angaston, which had started life in 1842 as German Pass, with ‘one house and a number of
dugouts’. Under the aegis of the Angas family it had grown into a community of some 2500 people and more than 400 houses by the time it was renamed in 1857 by Charles Angas’s in uential grandfather, George Fife Angas.
Popularly known as the Father of South Australia, George was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1789 and started work in his father Caleb’s coachbuilding rm at 15. In 1824 he established the shipping business GF Angas & Company in London, importing timber from the West Indies and South America.
He took over the family rm when his father died in 1831, and the following year he helped to set up the National Provincial Bank. He was made a South Australian Colonisation Commissioner in 1835.
e next year he founded the South Australian Company and shipped an entire pre-fabricated bank building – complete with clerk and $20,000 in cash! –to the colony to establish the Union Bank of Australia; in 1840 he also founded the South Australian Banking Company. He bought 28,000 acres of land in the Barossa Valley and in 1843 sent his 19-year-old son John to Australia to manage the estate, following himself only eight years later once he had disposed of his English property.
George was a religious dissenter, a Nonconformist Protestant, and he encouraged like-minded folk to emigrate to the colony, and many undertook to work his land in exchange for free passage on ships belonging to the South Australian Company.
1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost
Engine 7428cc bi-block sidevalve straight-six, Rolls-Royce single-jet carbure or Power 48bhp @ 1200rpm Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Steering Worm and nut Suspension Front: beam axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, friction dampers. Rear : live axle, three-quarter elliptic leaf springs, friction dampers Brakes Contracting transmission brake, rear hub brakes Weight 1676kg (approx) Top speed 55mph
‘LIFE IN THE BAROSSA VALLEY MUST HAVE BEEN HARD: NEW FRONT SPRINGS WERE NEEDED TWICE IN JUST THREE YEARS’
AND SO BACK TO Charles Angas, born April 1861 in London, to John and wife Susanne, and by 1909 largely responsible for the Angas family’s agricultural empire in Australia. Early that year Charles travelled to England, accompanied by sons Ronald and Dudley, to buy breeding stock for his herd – and to pick up his new Rolls-Royce.
is wealthy colonial was obviously regarded as an important customer by Rolls-Royce, for he and his sons were met by the aforementioned Claude Johnson, who took them for a spin in his ‘Trials Car’ (Rolls-Roycespeak for a works demonstrator).
Johnson also lent the Angases a car, with a Barker Roides-Belges body, while their own Rolls-Royce was being nished o . His solicitude was rewarded with an order for a second Rolls-Royce, chassis 1126, within a ma er of weeks.
Chassis 922, which has always been known as e Silver Dawn, le the works on 3 March 1909. Brainsby of Peterborough, ‘one of the be er class of provincial coachbuilders’, ed a cream Roi-des-Belges body, and the car, registered R 562, was then used extensively for touring the UK before being shipped to Australia at the end of the year.
Its arrival was noted in the Adelaide Observer of 18 December 1909, and it wasn’t long before chassis 1126 reached Australia, too. Charles Angas would eventually acquire a third Silver Ghost, chassis 1524 – originally a ‘Royalty’ loan car with a Hooper limousine body, but amboyantly rebodied as a Brougham-style coupé de ville by the Grosvenor Carriage Company.
e chassis cards for 922 note that it was returned to England to be ed with Rudge-Whitworth wire wheels and new hubs in mid-1910. Life in the Barossa Valley must have been hard, even for a Rolls-Royce: new front springs and a pair of new dumb-irons were shipped to Australia in June 1911, followed by another set of front springs in January 1914.
By the time that second set of springs arrived, the car had already been sent back to the works at Derby for a radiator repair and a complete overhaul: the cylinders had been rebored and new cast-iron pistons ed, a new gearbox had been installed, and the nal drive ratio had been lowered from 2.4:1 to 2.9:1.
Opposite
From the big straight-six engine to the gorgeous, silver-plated brightwork, The Silver Dawn is perfect in every way following a three-year restoration.
Charles Angas, who was never quite a one-marque man and who became a fan of Delage cars in the 1920s, kept e Silver Dawn until 1919, when he sold it to an N Duval of Sydney. It next changed hands in 1922 and 1927, but it didn’t surface again until the 1950s, when it was spo ed, without axles and wheels and wearing a derelict two-seater body, in a suburban garden near Melbourne. ere it sat, with another neglected Silver Ghost,‘surrounded by rewood and chickens’.
In March 1963, it was discovered as a bare chassis and it passed into the ownership of Maurice Marko of Victoria, who had it restored and ed with landaule e coachwork by Sid Horner of Melbourne. e rebodied chassis 922 won the Ladies’ Choice and the Veteran Gas classes at the 1965 Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club of Australia Federal Rally, before being o ered for sale in July 1966 in the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club of America magazine, e Flying Lady, for $20,000.
e car eventually crossed the Paci c in 1968, a er it was bought by Richard C Adams of California. Four days a er arriving in America, it took part in the Veteran Motor Car Club’s Glidden Tour in Vermont, where it a racted a good deal of interest. It remained in the same family for the next 41 years.
AROUND THE TURN of the last century, the story of e Silver Dawn intersected with the stories of three great Rolls-Royce enthusiasts: Robert Gaines-Cooper; and twin brothers Paul and Andrew Wood, founders of Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialist P&A Wood.
e late Gaines-Cooper was then on the hunt for a very early Silver Ghost like chassis 60551, be er known by its registration, AX 201. is was the 1907 car in which Claude Johnson et al broke the record for non-stop motoring, and which gave rise to the ‘Silver
Ghost’ name by which all RollsRoyce 40/50hp cars would come to be known. Gaines-Cooper asked P&A Wood to assist him in his search.
Paul Wood, also sadly no longer with us, recalled: ‘Over a period of about ten years we found several Silver Ghosts dating from 1909 and 1910, but for one reason or another my brother Andrew turned them down. Some of them were not very original, others had something seriously wrong with them.
‘Chassis number 922 was found in California, ed with a rather ugly open-drive landaule e body. Andrew had the opportunity to go and look at the car and, in spite of the body, he thought it was by far the best we had seen. He raved about it being so original – it even had the original petrol tank under the front seats.’ e car was snapped up and returned to the UK in 2009.
‘ e idea was to rebuild it as near as possible to e Silver Dawn as it started life,’ Paul continued. We planned to build a Roi-des-Belges body similar to that ed to AX 201 – but then we heard about an original Roi-des-Belges body for sale, also in California, and we bought it. It was de nitely original and the dimensions were perfect; it had remarkably similar proportions to the original Brainsby body for e Silver Dawn.’
e body was unusual in that the curves of the Roides-Belges seats (inspired by the armchairs in the salon of the mistress of King Leopold III of Belgium) had been created not in the normal way, in sheet aluminium. Instead, bent strips of wood had been laminated together and laboriously planed and sanded into shape.
Despite the very di erent construction method, the end product is remarkably similar in shape to the body of AX 201, which was made by Royal coachbuilder Barker. It eventually came to light that the body found for e Silver Dawn was in fact also built by Barker.
Paul Wood again: ‘When the engine was dismantled, the crankcase and cylinder blocks were found to be stamped “1908”. e factory cast-iron pistons were in remarkably good condition and were re ed in the engine. e car is painted in a Silver Mink colour and all brightwork is silver-plated.’
‘THE CAR SAT, WITHOUT AXLES AND WHEELS, IN A GARDEN NEAR MELBOURNE, SURROUNDED BY FIREWOOD AND CHICKENS’
‘THE
POWER OF THE ENGINE MEANS THERE’S NO NEED TO CHANGE GEAR ON MOST HILLS’
Once The Silver Dawn had come home to England, it regained its original 1909 registration number, R 562, and the car was fully restored and back on the road by September 2012. It was ready in time, therefore, to take part in the Centenary Alpine Trial of June 2013…
This event would follow, as far as possible, the route of the 1913 Alpine Trial mentioned earlier – and even if today’s roads are rather better than those of a century and more ago, it would be a real test of men and machines. Of the 100 or so Silver Ghosts entered for the event, The Silver Dawn was the oldest…
Paul Wood, having invested so much time and energy in the car, was naturally aboard when the car lined up at the start. How did it fare?
‘The other cars on the Trial took the passes with their bonnets open to avoid overheating,’ he said. ‘While we did that because the others had done so, the car never showed the slightest sign of overheating, even though it has the early, small radiator.’
Nor did it baulk at the many passes on the route, which included the daunting Stelvio with its 48 hairpins and switchbacks; and the dramatic Loibl Pass, which rises 2300ft in three miles. Specially opened for the Centenary Alpine Trial, the Loibl gave drivers a taste of what the Rolls-Royce team experienced back in
1913: they had to scrap their way up a loose gravel track and around 13 hairpin bends to reach the summit, topped by twin obelisks that mark the border between Austria and Slovenia.
It’s on the less challenging roads of northwest Essex that I sample The Silver Dawn, and here the relentless power of the 7.4-litre straight-six means there’s no need to change gear on most hills. And that’s just as well, as the tricky ‘locking gate’ of early Rolls-Royces takes a little mastering. The layout is unusual, too: forward on the left for first gear, then back into second, right and back again for third, and forward into fourth. However, there’s really no need to use fourth gear, which is an overdrive. This ratio proved to be one too far for Edwardian roads, which had a blanket 20mph speed limit, and from late 1909 a normal three-speed ’box was fitted to Silver Ghosts. The Silver Dawn’s steering is firm rather than heavy and the turning circle good. It’s a wonderful car to steam along in, and you get the feeling that it would run all day without complaint – just like the Silver Ghosts that won headlines in the early years of the 20th century.
THANKS TO P&A Wood (pa-wood.co.uk), and to the family of Robert Gaines-Cooper.
Below
The Silver Dawn reaches the top of the testing Loibl Pass on the Centenary Alpine Trial.
1913
A stunningly original car in a style that defines the Edwardian period.
£800,000
£640,000
Magnificent coachwork on a ‘L to E’ chassis. £P.O.A.
ROLLS-ROYCE SILVER GHOST LANDAULETTE BY BARKER
ROLLS-ROYCE PHANTOM III
The final pre-war Rolls-Royce was its most technically ambitious and complex. It was the first to use a V12, the all-aluminium engine using overhead pushrod-operated valves, twin ignition and a cranksha supported by seven main bearings, plus hydraulic tappets for quieter operation. Cooling and lubrication were advanced for the time, with a thermostatically controlled radiator and dry-sump lubrication.
In another first for Rolls-Royce, the front suspension was independent with coil springs, although the rear retained semi-elliptic leaf springs. A hypoid-bevel final drive allowed the propsha to sit lower meaning a lower floor and more interior space and comfort, as well as be er handling and roadholding.
There was a mechanically driven servoassisted braking system, licensed from Hispano-Suiza, plus one-shot chassis lubrication. Operated by a foot pump, it sent oil via copper lines to over 30 chassis points, reducing maintenance time and ensuring all vital joints remained greased. It also used dual SU electric fuel pumps and a thermostatically controlled grille whereby a wax capsuleoperated system opened and closed vertical radiator slats as needed, helping maintain ideal engine temperature in all conditions.
A 6750cc engine capacity is all the new Phantom had in common with recent predecessors when it was launched in 2003. VW had pipped BMW to the ownership of Crewe-based Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in 1998, so BMW instead simply licensed the name from jet engine maker Rolls-Royce Plc and spent the next fi ve years developing a car worthy of it. This was the second Phantom powered by a V12 engine, in this case a twin-turbo upgrade of BMW’s flagship 6.0-litre. It was a step-change at least the equal of the Silver Shadow nearly 40 years earlier, with a brand new factory on the Goodwood Estate in which this brand new car was put together with a hand-finished aluminium body on a brand new platform, featuring rear-hinged rear doors. Within, it brought modern connectivity to the trad leather party. A drophead and coupé followed.
Fun facts: BMW planned a 9.0-litre V16 but late-substituted the ‘more economical’ V12; the ‘RR’ logos on the wheelhubs remain upright at all times.
The Silver Shadow was a big step forward for Rolls-Royce – it was the first car from this storied brand to employ monocoque construction.
It also showcased several other technical advances, such as Citroën-licensed hydropneumatic self-levelling for the suspension system, which itself was fully independent, featuring coil springs front and rear, as well as anti-roll bars. As a result , the Silver Shadow delivered refinement, ride quality and handling abilities far ahead of those of its predecessors.
In another first for Rolls-Royce there were disc brakes all round: the Silver Shadow featured a highly complex and e ective hydraulic braking system, adapted from Citroën’s technology. As part of a triple-circuit layout, two independent high-pressure hydraulic circuits supplied the brake calipers, each powered by an engine-driven hydraulic pump.
There were several updates over the years. In 1968, Rolls-Royce replaced its in-house four-speed automatic with the General Motors TurboHydramatic 400, a three-speed automatic. The initial 6.2-litre V8, derived from the Silver Cloud III’s, was increased in capacity to 6.75 litres in 1970. And the 1977 Silver Shadow II replaced the earlier recirculating ball steering with a rack-and-pinion system for greater precision and feedback.
Despite its weight, the 6.75-litre Shadow could hit 60mph in 11 seconds – perfect for the plutocrat in a hurry. Around 30,000 Silver Shadows were built.
The 100 greatest British cars
ROVER P5B
The P5B marked the end of an era – before the ‘issues’ that arose in the BL age. Its graceful, distinguished styling represents another era of Britishness, too, explaining its enduring appeal.
The P5 had been in production for some time, but the introduction of the Buick-sourced V8 – hence the ‘B’ in the name – elevated the car to Jaguar levels of comfort, performance and prestige. The 3.5-litre aluminium V8 was light, compact and torquey, delivered 158bhp and, perhaps more importantly, 210lb of torque for overtaking on the then-new UK motorway network. Compared with the six-cylinder it replaced, it was more refined, smoother and lighter, despite the two extra cylinders. The P5B was the ‘Rover’ V8’s debut, and it would be a mainstay of British motoring for many decades to come.
The ladder-frame chassis with independent front suspension and rear leaf springs was hardly sporting, but it endowed the car with a serene, so ly sprung ride. Within, the P5 was an expression of true luxury, with wood panelling, thick leather and Wilton carpets. The British elite took to it with gusto: Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and Queen Elizabeth II all enjoyed the P5B’s talents.
ROVER P6
The P6, distinctively styled by David Bache, was a huge departure for Rover, being firmly targeted at the emergent younger middle-class buyer for whom its previous cars had proven to be a li le old fashioned.
Its construction was particularly advanced, with a ‘base frame’ structure – a stressed steel skeleton to which non-structural outer body panels were bolted. Inspired by aircra , this allowed for easier panel replacement, be er crash protection and improved torsional rigidity.
The suspension was also novel, with laterally mounted coil springs up front operated via bell cranks to make room under the bonnet for a gas turbine engine (which never came to pass) and, later, the V8. At the rear was a de Dion axle located by radius arms and a Wa ’s linkage.
It also broke new ground in terms of safety, with crumple zones, a padded dashboard, floor-mounted fuel tanks and a split-level braking system with servo assistance.
Performance was brisk in 2.0-litre fourcylinder form, especially the twin-carb TC, but the turning point came in 1968 with the P6B. Fi ing the V8 made this saloon a genuinely fast car, capable of 0-60mph in less than nine seconds – and a favourite of the police.
Transmission Four-speed manual/three-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive Power 108bhp Torque 120lb Top speed 95mph 0-60mph 12.5sec
ROVER SD1 VITESSE
The Rover SD1 had been a true design sensation. This David Bache-designed fi ve-door hatchback took its influence from the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 and GTC/4, and the Citroën CX. It won the European Car of the Year title in 1977, but it would be another fi ve years before the SD1 got the performance its svelte looks promised.
The Vitesse was powered by the same established Buick-designed 3.5-litre V8 engine already fi ed in the SD1 as well as the Range Rover. However, in this case it was modified for be er performance, delivering 190bhp and 195lb of torque, which dropped the 60mph sprint to 8.2 seconds. Rover upgraded the suspension with sti er springs and dampers, a lower ride height and larger anti-roll bars to create a much sharper driving experience than the standard car o ered.
The most potent evolution of the SD1 range was the Vitesse Twin Plenum – a 500-o homologation special built to take the fight to the Germans in Group A Touring Car racing during the mid-1980s. While the standard Vitesse employed a Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection system with a single intake plenum chamber, the twin-plenum Vitesse featured a bespoke inlet manifold, developed by Lucas and BL Motorsport. O cial power figures remained unchanged, though in race trim it could produce more than 300bhp.
Adrian Squire was a young and ambitious engineer who’d worked for Bentley and MG and dreamed of creating a no-compromise, high-performance sports car that could rival Buga i and Alfa Romeo for both speed and elegance – but with the polish and civility expected of a British grand tourer. The resulting eponymous car used a light but strong tubular steel frame with independent front suspension and hydraulic brakes, both advanced features in the mid-1930s.
At its core was a supercharged twinoverhead-cam 1.5-litre engine sourced from Anzani, mated to a four-speed pre-selector gearbox. Though it was small in capacity, a Roots-type supercharger allowed it to produce around 110bhp, an impressive figure for its day, especially in a car weighing just over a tonne.
Performance was brisk: 0-60mph in under ten seconds and all out you could hit 100mph, placing it on par with larger and more powerful rivals. This straight-line ability was thanks in part to its aerodynamic two-seater body, cra ed by British coachbuilders such as Vanden Plas and Corsica. Sadly only a handful were built thanks to its high purchase price, and the company folded in 1936.
The bloodline of Jaguar cars starts with this car – William Lyons’ vision of a sporting luxury car that tested the boundaries of performance. Indeed, its name comes from its top speed, though it would wear the Jaguar name (adopted from a saloon car in the range), and it would also become the first car on which the famous Jaguar ‘leaper’ bonnet mascot would be seen.
At its heart, the SS 100 used a version of the Standard Motor Company’s straight-six, heavily reworked by Harry Weslake with a crossflow cylinder head and twin SU carbure ors. Those carbure ors were bolted directly to the cylinder head. Thanks to Weslake and William Heynes’ modifications to the engine, it could produce 100bhp, and this grew to 125bhp as the engine was enlarged to 3.5 litres in 1938. Stopping power came via 12-inch Girling mechanical drum brakes.
The engine had great potential for tuning, with race versions using dry-sump lubrication, and while the chassis, suspension and brakes weren’t particularly novel, they were set up beautifully, which meant the SS 100 proved its worth in motorsport events such as the Alpine Trials and RAC rallies. Just 198 2.5-litre models and 116 3.5-litre examples were constructed.
SUNBEAM 3-LITRE SUPER SPORTS
Developed by the highly respected Sunbeam Motor Car Company, then under the umbrella of the Rootes Group, the 3-Litre Sports was a direct descendant of Sunbeam’s GP and land speed record heritage and one of the most advanced inter-war British sports cars. At its heart was a twin overhead-camsha straight-six using aluminium pistons and a cranksha supported by seven main bearings.
The 3-Litre benefited from precise construction and well-matched damping, giving it excellent road manners. Sold as a rolling chassis, it was bodied by the likes of Thrupp & Maberly, Cross & Ellis or James Young. Though not explicitly intended to be a racing car, it nonetheless proved its worth in various reliability trials and speed events .
SUNBEAM TIGER
Recognising the demand for more power, especially in the US market, Rootes enlisted Cobra instigator Carroll Shelby to beef up its Alpine. The first Tiger used Ford’s 164bhp 260ci V8 for a 0-60mph time of 7.5 seconds, while the Mk2 used the Ford 289ci V8, delivering 200bhp. The front suspension and transmission tunnel were strengthened to deal with the extra weight and power, and an uprated rear axle, tougher gearbox and rack-and-pinion steering were also fi ed. The car was a smash hit in the USA, with around 80% of the 7085 cars constructed heading across the Atlantic. Just 633 Mk2s were built, due to Sunbeam’s acquisition by Chrysler, which was averse to using Ford power.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1938
Engine 2993cc straight-six, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 105bhp
Torque 145lb
Top speed 100mph 0-60mph 11sec
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1964
Engine 4210cc V8, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 164bhp
Torque 240lb
Top speed 120mph 0-60mph 6.4sec
TALBOT SUNBEAM-LOTUS
The Talbot Sunbeam-Lotus fused unlikely ingredients into a package that punched far above its weight: a compact hatchback turned rally-bred monster.
The Sunbeam was simply a shortened Avenger, but its small dimensions and rear-drive set-up made it the perfect choice for rallying at the time. The engine bay played host to a 2.2-litre 16-valve twin-cam four-cylinder, based on the Type 911 unit used in the Lotus Esprit. Producing around 150bhp in road trim, and over 240bhp in rally spec, it gave the featherweight Sunbeam astonishing straight-line punch. It duly did the business on the rally stages, winning the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers in 1981.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1979
Engine 2172cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 150bhp
Torque 155lb
Top speed 120mph 0-60mph 7.7sec
TRIUMPH DOLOMITE 8
Unveiled at the 1934 London Motor Show, the Dolomite 8 was Triumph’s a empt to rival the very best from continental Europe. The key ingredient was its advanced engine, designed by Donald Healey. This 2.0-litre straight-eight featured a twin overhead-camsha layout more commonly associated with the likes of Alfa Romeo or Buga i GP cars.
A Roots-type supercharger took power to a 140bhp, phenomenal for the time given that the MG K3 made 125bhp and the Bentley 4½ Litre ‘Blower’ needed twice the displacement to make a similar output. The engine employed an aluminium cylinder head and crankcase to save weight and aid cooling, while a counterbalanced cranksha ensured smooth running. It also featured dry-sump lubrication to avoid oil starvation during hard cornering and sustained high speeds.
Ultimately the Dolomite 8 proved to be a step too far for Triumph. The complexity and cost of pu ing the engine into production meant just three prototypes were made, one of which was in a collision with a train en route to the 1935 Monte Carlo Rally. The standard Dolomite featured a distinctive ‘waterfall’ grille and remained in production until 1940.
TRIUMPH TR2/3/3 A
The TR2 marked a turning point for the Standard Motor Company and laid the foundation for the entire Triumph TR sports car lineage.
Engineers Harry Webster and Walter Belgrove cra ed a clean, no-frills roadster on a simple ladder chassis with independent front suspension (coil and wishbone) and a live rear axle suspended on leaf springs. It was minimal, robust, and tuned for driving pleasure.
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 150bhp Top speed 104mph
Power came from a 1991cc inline four, a slightly detuned version of the unit used in the Standard Vanguard. Fi ed with twin SU carbure ors, it produced 90bhp, which gave the lightweight TR2 a top speed of 105mph and a 0-60mph time of around 11.9sec – figures that would help the car prove its worth with spirited performances on events such as the Mille Miglia, Le Mans 24 Hours and the Alpine Rally.
For the TR3, Triumph refined the formula into something slightly more civilised, yet more powerful. Still using the rugged 1991cc four-cylinder, Triumph increased output from 90bhp in the TR2 to 95bhp in the early TR3 by tweaking the twin SU H6 carbure ors and improving the cylinder head design. This nudged top speed to around 110mph, with a slightly quicker 0-60mph sprint time of 10.8sec.
Crucially, in 1956, the TR3 became the first British production car to o er front disc brakes as standard, giving it a major advantage in braking performance over rivals from MG and Austin-Healey. These 11-inch Girling discs were a game-changer, especially in motorsport.
A 1957 faceli , colloquially known as the TR3A appeared with a few trim updates and more power in later examples. The last-of-the-line examples, known as the TR3B, were produced for the US market only and featured the 105bhp 2.1-litre engine from the upcoming TR4.
PARTS & ACCESSORIES
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TRIUMPH TR4-6
Designed to appeal to an increasingly styleconscious and comfort-aware market globally –especially in the US – the TR4 retained the mechanical toughness of its predecessors but added modern design, improved usability, and broader refinement.
Italian design maestro Giovanni Michelo i penned a new body that was sharp, angular, and thoroughly modern, with a wider stance and
TRIUMPH DOLOMITE SPRINT
crisper lines. It also had a more spacious cockpit, wind-up windows and an optional hardtop with a removable centre panel.
Under the bonnet, the TR4 initially used the 2.1-litre inline four from the US-market TR3B, producing 105bhp. The TR4A saw the original car’s Hotchkiss drive rear axle replaced with independent rear suspension, though a version that retained a live rear axle was made available
for the US market. However, the independent rear suspension would prove its worth at the Sebring 12 Hours of 1966, with TR4As taking the first three places in their class. A total of 40,000 TR4s of all kinds rolled out of the factory gates.
The TR5 of 1968 saw the introduction of Triumph’s fuel-injected 2.5-litre straight-six, which produced 150bhp and provided a super-quick 0-60mph time of just 6.5sec – not far o the much more expensive Jaguar E-type. Due to pricing problems and emissions standards, a lowerpowered carb-fed version was sold in the US, known as the TR250. Just under 3000 TR5s and nearly 8500 TR250s were constructed.
A er a year the TR5 was replaced with the TR6, which sported a much more modern, sharper and aggressive look courtesy of Karmann, though it retained the mechanical make-up and much of the body tub from the TR5. The TR6 was amazingly popular overseas, with many of the 91,850 cars built finding their way to the US.
The Dolomite Sprint was a quantum leap forward for the small saloon car – designed with competition in mind, its engine was a true revelation for the sector.
At the heart of this sporting Dolomite was the world’s first mass-produced 16-valve four-cylinder engine, an evolution of the existing Dolomite unit but with four valves per cylinder driven by a single camsha . Developed under the guidance of Spen King and with input from Harry Mundy and the engineers at Coventry Climax, it produced 132bhp and 118lb of torque, giving the Sprint a top speed of around 115mph and a 0-60mph time of just 8.7 seconds –exceptional for a saloon car in the 1970s, especially one with a practical rear seat and a good-sized boot.
The Dolomite used a four-speed manual overdrive gearbox and Triumph also uprated the anti-roll bars and dampers for sporting verve. The car would soon prove its worth in competition, with Andy Rouse taking a Broadspeed-prepared Dolomite Sprint to British Saloon Car Championship glory in 1974. It would become a popular choice for saloon racers and in rallying, and remains a regular sight in historic racing today.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES Introduced 1973 Engine 1998cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Power 130bhp Torque 130lb Top speed 115mph 0-60mph 8.4sec
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With only four prototypes built – three closed cars and one convertible – the TVR Trident remains one of the most elusive yet alluring cars of its era and one with a powerful influence even today.
Blackpool glassfibre kit-car maker TVR was a perhaps unlikely source of such a project, especially given its rocky finances and multiple bankruptcies. Yet in 1962, the Anglo-Italian designer Trevor Fiore (who had graduated from Standard Triumph and would go on to create a ra of cars, most notably Alpine A310 and Citroën Karin concept) was commissioned by then co-owner Brian Hopton to come up with something completely new. And Fiore did so in spades.
Fiore’s Trident proposal was a delicate wedge shape in steel or aluminium with a huge glasshouse and, most influentially, a single swept line from nose to tail that would be picked up even by the likes of Marcello Gandini. Built on a stretched TVR
Gri th 200 chassis by Carrozzeria Fissore and powered by a Ford 289 V8, it immediately got the thumbs-up from TVR’s Bernard Williams, but nothing was ever that simple at TVR and the Trident’s gestation was painful. When it finally hit the show circuit two years later, it was a hit, but TVR was going through yet another change of ownership and it somehow got lost in the changeover to Martin Lilley’s reign, his priority being to keep TVR afloat.
The Trident name and silhoue e re-emerged when TVR dealer Bill Last set up Trident cars to build V8-powered glassfibre sports cars based on an Austin-Healey and with a vaguely familiar look. Between 1966 and 1978, Trident manufactured 39 V8 Clippers, 84 V6 Venturers and seven straight-six Tycoons and it is easy to understand how the public (and everyone else) confused the two, but Fiore vehemently argues that there was no connection.
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The 100 greatest British cars
TVR TUSCAN
The TVR Tuscan V8 debuted in 1967 as a roadgoing derivative of the TVR Gri th 400, a car that had already earned a reputation for being dangerously fast and marginally civilised. American dealer Jack Gri th had shoehorned a Ford V8 into the Grantura chassis, creating a brutal beast that was exhilarating but flawed. The Tuscan was TVR’s e ort to refine the concept, creating something more usable yet still ferociously quick.
At the heart of the Tuscan was a multi-tubular spaceframe chassis, developed from the Grantura but sti ened and reinforced to handle V8 power. That V8 would come from Ford – the same 289ci Windsor unit that powered the AC Cobra, and depending on tuning could produce up to 306bhp. That made it phenomenally quick, with 60mph in a blink at 5.5 seconds on the way to a top speed of 150mph. It was available in long-wheelbase and short-wheelbase form, and the ultimate version was the LWB SE, of which ten were built. These featured a 302ci Windsor V8.
A V6 model appeared in 1969 o ering more accessible performance, with the engine sourced from the Ford Capri. The 3.0-litre Essex powerplant produced 138bhp and 182lb , and could hit 125mph. TVR built 73 V8 cars, mostly for the USA, while 101 V6s were constructed, which were not o cially exported to the US.
TVR GRIFFITH 500
The Gri th had been a revelation when it made its debut at the 1990 Birmingham Motor Show – a dramatic change from the wedges of the prior decade, a statement of intent from Peter Wheeler. Its tubular backbone chassis was adapted from the Tuscan racing car, and clothed in a lightweight glassfibre body. It featured double wishbones with coil springs front and rear, and nothing in the way of driver or safety aids. Early models used a 4.0-litre or 4.3-litre version of the Rover V8, but the launch of the Gri th 500 in 1993 elevated the car to an entirely new level.
While the engine’s architecture remained the same, TVR Power bored and stroked the engine to 5.0 litres and the block casing was reinforced to handle the increased stress and heat. Within, the engine received forged pistons and con-rods and a bespoke TVR cam profile, while the cranksha and main bearings were beefed up to deal with the rampant torque (350lb ). TVR retained the Lucas 14CUX fuel injection, but used a larger, high-flow aluminium radiator and upgraded oil cooler, improved oil galleries and high-capacity oil pump. Each engine was hand-assembled by TVR Power in Coventry, and the results were astonishing: 340bhp at 5500rpm and a 0-60mph time of 4.1sec – 0.4sec faster than the far more expensive Porsche 911 Turbo of the time. Around 2300 were built before production ended in 2002.
Power 340bhp Torque 350lb Top speed 167mph 0-60mph 4.1sec
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1913
Engine 4493cc six-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 98bhp
Top speed 90mph
VAUXHALL 30-98
Vauxhall’s bid to compete with luxury marques produced one of the most remarkable cars of the era, and one of its most advanced engines.
While the 30-98 engine’s sidevalve design wasn’t necessarily cu ing-edge in comparison to overhead valve (OHV) engines, the way it was engineered and built provided exemplary performance, namely by using a larger capacity and higher compression for the period. It also employed two Zenith carbure ors to maximise e ciency and power output, plus a double-roller timing chain for greater reliability and robustness. There was also a high-capacity oiling system with an integrated oil pump that ensured the engine would run smoothly even at high temperatures and under heavy use.
Most importantly, the block was cast in one single piece and featured a fully integrated cranksha and one-piece crankcase, leading to a very tough engine. This enabled it to run a very high compression ratio for the era, and deliver an exceptional 98bhp in a comprehensively luxurious package.
This would give the Vauxhall the edge in competition, most notably with its strong performance at the 1913 and 1914 RAC Tourist Trophy, but also a host of hillclimbs, sprints and endurance trials.
VAUXHALL FIRENZA HP DROOPSNOOT
The Vauxhall Firenza was a distinctive two-door, but the introduction of the dramatically styled HP, colloquially known as the Droopsnoot, elevated the car to legendary status in the otherwise conservative 1970s with motorsport supremacy the aim of the game.
American designer Wayne Cherry was responsible for its look, which was intended to give the car the edge in competition. The glassfibre front end was carefully engineered to o er both style and performance benefits, allowing for improved air flow and reduced drag, a feature that was notably rare in massproduction cars at the time.
It was powered by a 2.3-litre version of Vauxhall ‘slant-four’ engine, and fi ed with twin 175 Stromberg carbure ors, a high-li camsha , and free-flow tubular exhaust manifold. The combination yielded a heady 131bhp.
Ride height was lowered and the suspension made firmer, with coils instead of leaf springs at the rear, while the brakes were also upgraded. A much stronger fi ve-speed ZF manual gearbox was also fi ed.
Though the car proved successful in racing, the arrival of the 1973 fuel crisis made selling the Firenza HP very di cult, and in the end only 204 were bought. Nevertheless, its bold styling would go on to influence several other motorsportorientated cars, particularly from Ford.
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1973
Engine 2279cc four-cylinder, naturally aspirated
Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 131bhp
Torque 150lb
Top speed 120mph
0-60mph 8.5sec
RICHARD FAULKES
The 100 greatest British cars
ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Introduced 1990
Engine 3615cc straight-six, twin-turbocharged
Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power 377bhp Torque 419lb
Top speed 170mph 0-60mph 5.1sec
VAUXHA LL LOTUS CARLTON
A tabloid newspaper moral panic on four wheels, a folk hero and an absolutely legendary performance car: the Lotus Carlton reset the bar when it came to performance saloons.
As General Motors owned both Vauxhall and Lotus, the idea of combining the knowledge of the two resulted in a four-door car that could go toe-to-toe with a Ferrari Testarossa.
At the heart of it was a 24-valve straight-six taken from a regular Vauxhall Carlton bored out to 3.6-lites, but further developed and augmented by two Garre T25 turbochargers, taking the base engine’s power from 168bhp to a truly monstrous 377bhp. To give you an indication of its potency, the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, which is no slouch, used just one Garre T25.
The external webbing on the engine block, plus cranksha , pistons and rods were upgraded and reinforced to handle the added stress from the turbochargers, while the cylinder head was modified to accommodate the turbochargers and improve airflow. The valve timing was adjusted,
and the valve springs were upgraded to handle the additional stresses caused by the increased power output, and a custom-engineered ECU kept things running smoothly. The exhaust manifold was redesigned to minimise turbo lag; Lotus also fi ed a larger intercooler courtesy of Behr.
The results were truly stonking: 0-60mph took 5.1 seconds, while the top speed was a police helicopter-troubling 170mph.
However, Lotus also paid a ention to the car’s handling, with the famous Hethel chassis knowhow brought to bear via sti er springs and Bilstein dampers, and 328mm Portland Engineering vented disc brakes with AP four-piston calipers. Marshalling all this fury to the road came via a ZF six-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip di erential from the Holden Commodore V8.
The car was a sensation, drawing the ire of police chiefs and politicians, and the unwanted a ention of ram-raiders. However, it was launched into the eye of a global recession and in the end only 950 were built.
OF THEM ALL? GREATEST THE
Each member of the extended Octane team was given the di cult task of ranking the cars featured in this publication, taking into account not only performance and aesthetics, but also historical, cultural and technological signi cance, and commercial success, too. A rst-place vote earned a car 100 points, a secondplace vote was worth 99 points, and so on.
Read on to discover which car came out on top when all the points were to ed up – and to nd out how you can put right any grave injustices (or glaring omissions) by submi ing your own list of the 100 greatest British cars. We’ll collate all the responses, and later this year we’ll reveal the o cal Octane Readers’ 100 Greatest British Cars.
100 Daimler SP250 ‘Dart’
99 Bentley Continental GT
98 MG F / TF
97 Lagonda V12
96 Railton Terraplane
95 Sunbeam 3-Litre Super Sports
94 Triumph Dolomite Sprint
93 Allard K1
92 TVR Trident
91 Hillman Imp
90 Rolls-Royce Phantom VII
89 Reliant Scimitar GTE
88 Alvis TC 108G
87 Jaguar XJ220
86 Lea-Francis Hyper
85 Vauxhall Firenza HP ‘Droopsnoot’
84 Ariel Atom
83 Sunbeam Tiger
82 Rover SD1 Vitesse
81 Squire
80 Aston Martin Lagonda
79 Morgan 3 Wheeler
78 Lister Storm 77 Healey Silverstone
76 Bristol 400
75 Jaguar F-type
74 Napier 60hp Type 21
73 Talbot Sunbeam Lotus
72 Rover P5B
71 Gine a G4
70 Daimler Double-Six
69 Aston Martin V8 Zagato
68 Marcos 1800 GT 67 MG TC 66 Light Car Company Rocket 65 Lotus Seven 64 Lagonda LG45 Rapide
63 TVR Tuscan
62 Triumph Dolomite 8
61 Gordon-Keeble GK1
60 Rolls-Royce Phantom III
59 Aston Martin ONE-77
58
56
Jaguar E-type
Range Rover Lotus Elan Lotus Elise
Austin Seven Aston Martin DB4 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost
Mini Cooper S McLaren F1 Land Rover
1973 JAGUAR ETYPE SERIES 3 V12 ROADSTER A UK RHD manual example. Special order black/black interior. 35,000 miles. Restored to the highest standards. Immaculate and unmarked throughout.
1998 BENTLEY CONTINENTAL T An exceptional late production example featuring the 420BHP engine along with a myriad of detail upgrades. 45,000 miles and very well sorted with a full and comprehensive history.
1972 LOTUS ELAN SPRINT DROP HEAD COUPE Elan perfection! A really special example restored by all the right people for ace driver and collector, Steve Soper. Extensive history and an amazing drive.
