Magneto Issue 23

AUTUMN 2024 £12.95 PRINTED IN THE UK

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Flying high with...

Six Mercedes-Benz gullwing greats

...the gullwing issue

Our Top 50 gullwing cars

Driving (yes!) the Thomassima III

D-type, Bugatti and more (no gullwing doors...)

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIM SCOTT

CONCOURSOFELEGANCE.CO.UK

PRESENTED BY

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19 S TA R T E R Aston Martin’s sons of Victor, Pininfarina family tree, Historic racing’s Laguna Seca reprieve, whirlwind Bugatti and more

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MERCEDES-BENZ G U L LW I N G S

THOMASSIMA III DRIVES AGAIN

S AV I L E R O W CONCOURS

ECURIE ECOSSE D -T Y P E R E V I VA L

Celebrating 70 years of the 300 SL Gullwing, tracing its full flight path from W 194 to Vision One-Eleven

Marc Sonnery burns rubber in a dream drive of Tom Meade’s final wildly unique Ferrari-based creation

The stylish symbiosis of bespoke tailoring and very fine collector cars on London’s best-dressed street

One of the Scottish racing team’s six competition Jaguar D-types reveals all in bare-metal restoration

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RACE SUITS OF CHAMPIONS

B U G AT T I T Y P E 57 S AT S P E E D

A C T I V E M AT T E R : A R T T H AT M O V E S

TOP 50 G U L LW I N G S

A selection of cockpit garb from 1960s two-piece cotton overalls to today’s Nomex billboards

Lapping Millbrook’s Alpine circuit in a Bugatti Type 57S, and asking, is it the hypercar of its time?

Revs Institute founder Miles Collier on the need to keep our collectable cars working and moving

The most interesting, significant or successful prototype, concept and production cars to ever sport roof-hinged doors

187 ACQUIRE Buying a Ferrari Testarossa, collecting red wine, HispanoSuiza stork, Frank Wootton art, books, products and more

212 T H E L AW Y E R: INQUISITIVE MINDS

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214 T H E C U R AT O R : SHOOTING CARS

216 THE RACER: DANCING WITH CARS

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THE INTERVIEW: A N D R E A Z A G AT O

1936 Delahaye 135 S Compétition Estimate: £1,000,000 – £1,500,000 GBP

LONDON | 2 NOVEMBER 2024

LONDON’S CALLING: PENINSULA HOTEL TO HOST CAPITAL AUCTION UK +44 (0) 20 7851 7070 FRANCE +336 13 55 05 29 GERMANY +49 172 7151 251 ITALY +39 02 9475 3812 info@rmsothebys.com

Editor’s welcome

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My plan was to begin this issue’s introduction piece by writing “I think we got a bit carried away”... except I realised just in time that I started the previous issue of Magneto with the exact same phrase. Seems like it’s becoming a theme.

Anyway, where the last issue was all about Gandini designs, this one started off as a simple 70th birthday tribute to the Mercedes 300 SL ‘Gullwing’, and quickly escalated, largely thanks to deputy editor Wayne’s love of concept cars.

Before we knew it, the 300 SL had been joined by five other gullwing-door Mercedes, four of them concepts, and our Top 50 feature had changed to feature all manner of gullwing cars.

I am still amazed that Wayne found 50 of them, while he is losing sleep over those he couldn’t include. There’s a masochistic streak that runs through the Magneto team.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, a famous gullwing-door Ferrari special, Tom Meade’s Thomassima III, emerges for its first test drive in decades. How could we say no?

So there you go. I hope you like gullwing-door cars... but if you don’t, there’s plenty more to read, including a great piece on historic race suits, and a fantastic article by Miles Collier, renowned car collector and founder of the Revs Institute.

You’ll also see that we once again own the International Historic Motoring Awards, which publishing director Geoff Love launched back in 2011. We’re relaunching it for 2024, with the big night on Friday November 22. See you there?

David Lillywhite Editorial director

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Contributors

Illustrations Peter Allen

MILES COLLIER Owning one of the world’s greatest car collections isn’t enough for Miles Collier; his passion is the examination of the car’s place in history and its use, restoration and conservation. He’s founder of the Revs Institute and author of The Archaeological Automobile; in this issue he writes on ‘Active Matter’.

SAM CHICK As the photographer behind the images of both the Ecurie Ecosse D-type and the Bugatti 57S in this issue, Sam has been kept busy. The two jobs couldn’t have been more different; he’s been visiting the D-type for two years to document its restoration, but he had only a few hours with the Bugatti.

MARK DIXON Having trained as an archaeologist, Mark made the logical leap to writing about old cars in 1989, and has done so full-time ever since. As the owner of a 1927 Model T, and having raced a ‘chain gang’ Frazer Nash, he was the ideal choice to try the 1930s Bugatti 57S in this issue; his first feature for Magneto.

SIMON ALDRIDGE Motoring obsessed since before he can remember, artist and architect Simon has been writing about cars for over a decade. When he saw the Ecurie Ecosse D-type in restoration, his artist’s eye picked up on the beauty of the bare metal as well as the history told in each rivet, which he relays in detail in our feature.

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Early Highlights From The Retro Motors Collection

T H E C H AT TA N O O G A A U C T I O N 1 2 O CTO B E R 20 24

Who to contact

Editorial director

Managing director

David Lillywhite

Geoff Love

Deputy editor

Creative director

Managing editor

Advertising sales

Wayne Batty

Peter Allen

Sarah Bradley

Sue Farrow, Rob Schulp

Staff writer

Designer

Accounts

Elliott Hughes

Debbie Nolan

Jonathan Ellis

Marketing manager

Marketing and events

Lifestyle advertising

Advertising production

Colin Gallimore

Jasmine Love

Sophie Kochan

Elaine Briggs

Contributors in this issue Simon Aldridge, Guy Allen, Jonathon Burford, Nathan Chadwick, Sam Chick, Miles Collier, Robert Dean, Mark Dixon, Richard Dredge, Max Earey, Martyn Goddard, Rob Gould, Rick Guest, Sam Hancock, Cameron Hayward, Anthony Hoskins, Matt Howell, John C Lutsch, Damon May, John Mayhead, Dennis Noten, Clive Robertson, Tim Scott, Lisa Sheehan, Marc Sonnery, Simon Thompson, Joe Twyman, Rupert Whyte Single issues and subscriptions Please visit www.magnetomagazine.com or call +44 (0)208 068 6829

Geoff Love, David Lillywhite, George Pilkington Unit 16, Enterprise Centre, Michael Way, Warth Park Way, Raunds, Northants NN9 6GR, UK Printing Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE, UK. Printed on Amadeus Silk and Galerie Fine Silk supplied by Denmaur as a Carbon Balanced product. Made from Chain of Custody certified and traceable pulp sources

Who to contact Subscriptions colin@hothousemedia.co.uk Events jasmine@hothousemedia.co.uk Business geoff@hothousemedia.co.uk Accounts accounts@hothousemedia.co.uk Editorial david@hothousemedia.co.uk Advertising sue@flyingspace.co.uk or rob@flyingspace.co.uk Lifestyle advertising sophie.kochan2010@gmail.com Advertising production elaine@hothousemedia.co.uk Specialist newsstand distribution Pineapple Media, Select Publisher Services

The making of Magneto SHOOTING FOR THE STARS

PL AYING THE LONG GAME

In planning the ultimate gullwing shoot, we aimed high and asked Mercedes-Benz for all six icons.

Quietly, we hoped for four or five, figuring it wouldn’t be logistically possible to assemble all six for a dream Magneto shoot with Rick Guest. We figured wrong! Huge thanks to Peter Becker and all at Mercedes-Benz and Akkodis Studio for making it a reality.

It was back in March 2022 that we started talking to CKL about its restoration of the famous D-type, XKD 561, just as the car was being stripped down. Although it had a known racing history, no one was sure how original the bodywork was. The bare metal revealed all – and now, we’re able to show off the finished car and explain the history that the work has revealed.

© Hothouse Media. Magneto and associated logos are registered trademarks of Hothouse Media. All rights reserved.

All material in this magazine, whether in whole or in part, may not be reproduced, transmitted or distributed in any form without the written permission of Hothouse Media.

Hothouse Media uses a layered privacy notice giving you brief details about how we would like to use your personal information. For full details, please visit www.magnetomagazine.com/privacy.

ISSN Number 2631-9489. Magneto is published quarterly by Hothouse Publishing Ltd. Registered office: Castle Cottage, 25 High Street, Titchmarsh, Northants NN14 3DF, UK. Great care has been taken throughout the magazine to be accurate, but the publisher cannot accept any responsibility for any errors or omissions that might occur.

The editors and publishers of this magazine give no warranties, guarantees or assurances, and make no representations regarding any goods or services advertised in this edition.

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THE GENUINE ARTICLE The Triple-Four Racing Chronograph. Sir Terence Conran’s last masterpiece, designed in homage to his family’s love of Brooklands circuit, and featuring details inspired by classic racers of the 1930s. A limited edition of 500 pieces. www.brooklandswatches.com

More from Magneto

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H I S T O R I C M O T O R I N G AWA R D S

SUBSCRIBE TO MAGNETO

Now it’s back with its original founders, the famed International Historic Motoring Awards is relaunched for 2024. The awards will take place on Friday November 22 at the prestigious new Peninsula London hotel, with revised categories for an even more relaxed and enjoyable evening.

Enter or book at www.historicmotoringawards.com

Don’t miss out on any issues of Magneto.

You can subscribe for one year for £54 including p&p (€62 or $68, plus postage), or two years for £94 including p&p (€108 or $120, plus postage).

Magneto is delivered in strong cardboard packaging. www.magnetomagazine.com or telephone +44 (0)208 068 6829

MAGNETO SLIPCASES

THE CONCOURS YEAR 2023

Slipcases are now back in stock. Each elegant slipcase holds a full year of Magneto magazines. They’re made from Colorado cloth with a Suedel Luxe lining, with ‘Magneto’ embossed on both sides. Keep your publications in pristine condition and easily accessible. www.magnetomagazine.com

More than 50 of the world’s best concours, detailing every Best of Show and class winner, beautifully presented in this large-format hardback book. Standard Edition: £75.00.

Publisher’s Edition – limited-edition slipcase: £115.00. www.magnetomagazine.com/product/concours-year-2023

Magneto

BY APPOINTMENT TO HM QUEEN ELIZABETH II PHARMACIST & PHARMACY SUPPLIES LONDON

29 St. James’s Street, London, SW1A 1HD www.drharris.co.uk

BY APPOINTMENT TO HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES CHEMIST LONDON

PURE ITALIANITÀ!

Scan and follow

THE NEW LIMITED SERIES UNVEIL

August 16TH, 2024

Aston Martin’s new Valour and Valiant blast into action

International Historic Motoring Awards get new look

Morgan and Pininfarina make Midsummer magic

New Tourbillon is most advanced oldschool Bugatti ever

Peking to Paris: ultimate Historic rally in numbers

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Words David Lillywhite

Photography Max Earey

THIS SPREAD Editor David Lillywhite tests the £1m-plus Valour, just two weeks before Alonso tried his own Valiant.

Meet the Sons of Victor Valour and Valiant build on the legacy of the 2020 Victor – and they are our favourite Aston Martins of recent years

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REMEMBER THE ASTON MARTIN Victor? It was the one-off, One-77 based, 836bhp beast that emerged from Gaydon in 2020, very much channelling the feel of the V8 Vantage of the late-1970s and ’80s – as well the 1970s ‘Muncher’ RHAM/1 race car.

And ‘The Sons of Victor’? That’s the unofficial nickname of the new Valour and Valiant, spawned from the Victor. Both are gloriously bonkers.

Just days before we drove the Valour you see here, news broke of its more track-focused brother, the Valiant, prompted by Aston Martin Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso’s requests for an even faster, lighter Valour: “We reviewed the list of things that I

wanted to change, and they said… maybe it’s better to make a full new car, with a new name.”

While daddy Victor was powered by the old One-77’s normally aspirated Aston Martin V12, breathed on by Cosworth, the Valour and Valiant are another generation on. They’re fitted out with the 5.2-litre twin-turbo AMG-sourced V12, driving through a six-speed Graziano manual transaxle and a mechanical differential; the Valour develops 705bhp and 555lb ft of torque, while the roughly 100kg lighter Valiant makes 30bhp more.

A mere 110 Valours are being made, each costing more than £1 million, and all are already sold to customers

Starter

around the world. There will be 38 Valiants, the first of which has gone to – who else? – Alonso.

Victor and sons unashamedly pull on the past for some of their looks, but there’s a very modern side to them, too. Looking around the Valour with director of design Miles Nurnberger, it’s clear that his team has mixed in many of the learnings from recent projects. The tail-light tech is straight off the Valkyrie and Valhalla, and the shark nose is made safety-regs friendly by incorporating a structural bumper under the carbonfibre ‘lipstick’ picked out in red on this car.

The extra grilles, the “cereal box” wheelarches, as Miles calls them, and the faux-louvred rear window are the design team’s modern-day take on what designers and modifiers would have done back in the era of the V8 Vantage, but combined with the latest aero tech – like the turning vanes on the ends of that low front splitter.

“We tried to be purposely a little bit Neanderthal in the way we did it, and then just refined it at the end to get some of these things,” says Nurnberger. Engineering head Simon

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ABOVE Valour is the supercar that doesn’t look like a supercar, and all the better for it.

ABOVE AND RIGHT Fernando Alonso put his new Valiant through its paces on Festival of Speed hillclimb.

Newton agrees: “It’s very analogue.

It’s not the infinitely variable, superrefined unit that we’ve spent a lot of time, money and effort integrating into the Vantage, for example.”

Driving the Valour, this all becomes clear. There’s something so real in the firm clutch, the positive gearshift, the faint hint of transmission whine and the sense of the differential working to deal with the huge torque loads.

The V12, though, is uncannily smooth and quiet, and the ride is no worse than firm even on poor surfaces. It’s a joy at any speed, but life-affirmingly wonderful under brutal acceleration.

What did Alonso make of his new Valiant at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the first public drive of the car?

“More or less, everything that we asked for is in it. I think the final product is a piece of moving art.”

Aston Martin is on a roll – and the two sons of Victor show what the Brit brand can really do. We’re looking forward to the next V-car, the Valhalla.

Read more about the Valkyrie, Valour and Valiant on the Magneto website at www.magnetomagazine.com.

A U C T I O N S & P R I VAT E B R O K E R A G E

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1937 BUGATTI TYPE 57SC ATALANTE The 1937 Paris and London Show Car Chassis 57573

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1934 BUGATTI TYPE 57 STELVIO Coachwork by Gangloff Chassis 57181

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Words David Lillywhite

Revamp for renowned global awards Now back with its original founders, the International Historic Motoring Awards is being relaunched with a new London venue and revised categories

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL Historic Motoring Awards took place at London’s St Pancras Renaissance hotel back in 2011, an event that we remember well because it was the brainchild of our publishing director Geoff Love, long before he left Octane magazine to co-create Magneto.

Now, having bought back Octane, we’re once again running the IHMA, to take place this year on Friday November 22. Under its new-old management, we are refreshing the format to further reflect that these are the only truly international awards in the historic car world, attracting attendees from around the globe,

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ABOVE The prestigious awards have a refreshed format and a new venue. BELOW Renowned logo designer Roy Smith has reworked the IHMA branding.

including the US and Australia.

First off, there’s a new venue: the stunning Peninsula London. Opened in September 2023, it is recognised to be the most prestigious hotel to come to the city for many years.

It is part of the Peninsula Group, chaired by the world-famous car collector Sir Michael Kadoorie, whose exquisite machinery graces so many concours events around the globe.

Sir Michael’s love of cars is reflected in the theming of Peninsula London, which includes the Brooklands by Claude Bosi – a spectacular Michelin two-star rooftop restaurant that pays homage to the classic eras of British aviation and motor sport, to the point of featuring the famed Napier-Railton and suspending a scale model of Concorde from the ceiling of the main dining room. In addition, two private dining areas – Napier-Railton and Mach II – continue the theme.

An equally prestigious presenting partner has also been added to the IHMA mix, in Lockton, the world’s largest independent insurance brokerage. There’s a new look for the awards, too, with fresh logos by renowned designer Roy Smith.

Just as importantly, the number of

award categories has been reduced to allow more time to celebrate the winners. The categories for 2024 are as listed below: Young Achiever Bespoke Car of the Year Car of the Year Club of the Year Industry Supporter of the Year Motor Sport Event of the Year Motoring Event of the Year Breakthrough Event of the Year Specialist of the Year Achievement of the Year Innovation of the Year Museum/Collection of the Year Media of the Year Restoration of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award Nominations are now open for all these, except for the Car of the Year, which will go to a reader vote from a selection given on the awards website, and the Lifetime Achievement Award, decided by the panel of judges.

Speaking of which, the experienced judges remain, focused to concentrate on their main areas of expertise. A new website is close to going live as we send Magneto to press.

See www.historicmotoringawards.com for nominations, entries and table bookings.

CLASSIC CAR SHOW BRUSSELS EXPO

1 1 0 Y E A R S M A S E R AT I

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Words Nathan Chadwick

Giovanni Carlo Farina (1884-1957)

Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina

Founded Stabilimenti Farina in 1906, employing not only his brother Battista, but also such talents as Pietro Frua, Felice Mario Boano, Alfredo Vignale and Giovanni Michelotti. Famed for building bodies for the Lancia Artena and Alfa Romeo 8C in the pre-war era.

(1893-1966) Brother of Giovanni Carlo

Attilia Farina (1908-1993) Son of Giovanni Carlo

Son of Giovanni Carlo

The first Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion in 1950, he drove for Maserati, Ferrari, Lancia and Alfa Romeo, and would later run Alfa and Jaguar dealerships as well as help at the Pininfarina factory.

He died in a road accident on the way to assist filming the movie Grand Prix.

Daughter of Battista

After Giovanni Carlo retired in 1948, Stabilimenti Farina was run by Attilia, building cars such as the Fiat 1100 and 1500, Jowett Jupiter, and some Ferrari 166s and a 212.

Renzo Carli

(1916-) Son-in-law to Battista Married Gianna Pininfarina in 1947, and graduated in aeronautical engineering from Turin Polytechnic.

Played a key role in developing not only Pininfarina’s production expansion, but also its research department in the 1960s and ’70s.

From Farina to Pininfarina Following the sad passing of Paolo Pininfarina, we take a look back at the famous Farina family and its involvement in the automotive world, which stretches back almost to the dawn of the motor car itself

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Paolo Pininfarina

Andrea Pininfarina

Studied mechanical engineering and spent time in the US with GM. Set up Pininfarina Extra in 1987, which launched Pininfarina into architecture, appliances, furniture, real estate and more. Became Pininfarina deputy chairman in 2006, and took over following Andrea’s death. Continued debtrestructuring process, curtailing mass car production. Organised the sale of Pininfarina SpA to Mahindra in 2015, and continued to serve as chairman.

Passed away in April 2024, leaving five children.

After graduating from Turin Polytechnic as a mechanical engineer, he spent a year in the US before joining the family business to manage the Cadillac Allanté project in 1983. Went up through the ranks and became CEO in 2001. In 2008, amid serious losses, Pininfarina sought new investors. The Pininfarina family agreed to reduce its holding to 30 percent of the company, maintaining control.

Just a few months later, Andrea died in a road accident close to the company’s HQ, leaving three children.

(1958-2024) Son of Sergio

(1957-2008) Son of Sergio

Sergio Pininfarina

(1926-2012) Son of Battista Joined the family firm in the 1950s, and began to take over day-to-day running from Battista, eventually becoming chairman in 1966. Oversaw Pinin Farina and then Pininfarina’s greatest years – most notably for Ferrari, but also for Peugeot, Lancia, Rolls-Royce, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Fiat. Further expanded production capabilities with two extra plants and a joint venture in Sweden with Volvo. In 1972, opened the first full-sized wind tunnel for cars in Italy.

SAM CHICK / EUROPEAN COLLECTIBLES

Giuseppe Farina (1906-1966)

Gianna Pininfarina

The tenth of 11 children, he stayed at Stabilimenti Farina until 1930, setting up Carrozzeria Pinin Farina to focus on car bodies. Absorbed Stabilimenti Farina in the early 1950s, and set up a decadeslong association with Ferrari after meeting with Enzo in a restaurant by chance. In the mid-1950s he expanded the firm into large-scale manufacturing with the Grugliasco plant, with cars such as the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider. He officially changed his name to Pininfarina in 1961, around the time Pinin Farina became Pininfarina.

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Morgan and Pininfarina’s Midsummer magic “From pint to prototype in 12 months” is Morgan design head Jonathan Wells’ playful summary of the flagship Midsummer project – but how did the Malvern firm come to work with Pininfarina?

DESPITE WHAT APPEARS TO BE a broadly familiar profile, the Midsummer – named after a hill near to the home of Morgan, as well as the height of the season – represents an exciting evolution in design language for a 115-year-old company whose rate-of-change dial was once stuck on ‘glacial’. Of late, though, Morgan has revealed an appetite for adventure and a growing desire to broaden its portfolio – witness the Super 3 and Plus Four CX-T. With this project, the firm has really cranked it up a gear.

Chief design officer Jonathan Wells explains the origins of the firm’s striking new Midsummer barchetta, and why it very proudly wears Pininfarina’s unusual Fuoriserie badge: “It started as an exploration into what it means to be a coachbuilder in the 21st century. Over the past few years, we’ve thought about partnering with another coachbuilder. A good friend of mine is chief designer at Touring Superleggera, and we’ve

Words Wayne Batty

spoken with Zagato in the past, but we’ve never quite found a project that wasn’t just us commissioning another styling department to do their version of our car. We felt it needed to have more spontaneous authenticity to be a proper Morgan product.

“And then, around 18 months ago, our CEO Massimo [Fumarola], formerly at Ferrari, introduced us to Pininfarina’s design team. They came here, and their chief design officer at the time was a Brit [Kevin Rice] who grew up near Malvern but had never been to the factory. We spent the day in Super 3s, driving around the hills in the rain, touring the facility and being immersed in all things Morgan. His young designers loved watching our team interface directly with the craftsmen here. At the end of the day, we went to a restaurant for a meal.

“Massimo left after dinner, but we carried on to a pub. It was a memorable evening. So we thought it would be cool to firstly return the favour by going to Cambiano to see what they were doing there, but also to get an idea of how their team might approach a Pininfarina Morgan. We worked independently for a couple of months, trying to imagine what they might do with the Morgans, and then returned to Turin to exchange ideas.

“During that trip, we visited their archive room, saw many historic Pininfarina vehicles and learned a lot about where the company is today and about this concept we had. Sitting around the meeting table, we decided it was worth pursuing. So, in essence, the Midsummer has a Pininfarina badge

Photography Simon Thompson

ABOVE Design counterparts Felix Kilbertus and Jonathan Wells.

RIGHT AND BELOW New Midsummer is the first Pininfarina design in over 60 years to wear the Fuoriserie badge.

on the side, but it doesn’t say ‘Designed

by Pininfarina’ like most of them do. It says ‘Pininfarina Fuoriserie’. This is a badge the company has not used on a car for over 60 years, and never on a production car. Essentially, it means ‘off the line’, or ‘out of series’, and signifies the traditional coachbuilding process as well as the uniqueness of the two-way collaboration.

“We recognised an opportunity to start broadening our portfolio with future flagship Morgans. So we shared our vision with Pininfarina’s current chief creative officer Felix Kilbertus and his team, along with some constraints with regards to proportion, steering wheels, lights, wheels and tyres, and style elements we believe are heading in the right direction for us. They’ve interpreted that with their eye on a celebration of European coachbuilding and the glorious heyday of the lightweight barchetta.”

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Words David Lillywhite

YOU

BELIEVE

THAT

there’s been Historic racing at the famed Laguna Seca track since 1974?

This year will see celebrations of that anniversary, but behind the scenes there’s even more to cheer for.

Laguna Seca hosted its first-ever race in 1957, following the end of the Pebble Beach Road Races. The first Historic racing at the track was the 1974 Monterey Historic Automobile Races, organised by Steve Earle. It attracted a mere 66 entrants, but a preview in Autoweek is said to have given the event just enough publicity to attract a crowd – and from there the meeting continued annually.

After circuit management took control of the event from Steve Earle in 2009, it was reorganised and modernised to become the Monterey Motorsports Reunion that we now know, attracting 400-500 cars every year. It’s one of Historic racing’s great success stories, but behind the scenes there have been difficulties for years.

The track is owned by Monterey County, which was never in a position to manage or fund a world-class race track, so it was overseen from its onset by SCRAMP (Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey

Fittest at 50?

Laguna Seca bounces back It’s been quite a year for California’s famed race track, as it celebrates 50 tumultuous years of Historic racing there

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Peninsula). In 2020 the relationship with SCRAMP came to an end, and the track began to rebuild under the new management of A&D Narigi Consulting, which faced infrastructure neglect and then the pandemic.

For a while it looked as though motor sport at Laguna Seca could come to an end. A non-profit organisation, Friends of Laguna Seca, which was originally formed to replace SCRAMP, was invited back by A&D Narigi as a concessionaire for the circuit. The situation was made worse by a lawsuit filed by a group of local residents who were unhappy with noise levels, traffic and other factors said to be generated by events at the now-67-year-old venue.

However, in March 2024 the lawsuit was settled, with an agreement between Monterey County and the Highway 68 Coalition of residents that allowed Friends of Laguna Seca to continue its 2024 season and operations as planned. This was on the condition that Friends of Laguna Seca undertook crucial assessments, including a previously planned soundimpact assessment, to make necessary improvements to the facility.

The good news continued, with

Friends of Laguna Seca confirmed as the non-profit concessionaire responsible for providing resources and oversight of the operation, maintenance and improvements of the park going forward, for the next 55 years, and A&D Narigi continuing as the day-to-day management company. Then, in July 2024, Friends of Laguna Seca received a very generous $500,000 donation from the Laguna Seca Raceway Foundation in partnership with the Monterey County Parks Foundation.

The upshot of this complicated tale is that racing at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca has been saved, and long-awaited improvements to the facilities continue. Already, the bridge over the start/finish straight has been replaced and the circuit resurfaced.

Visitors to this year’s Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, on August 14-17, will see the results – and be able to view the 50th Anniversary Exhibit centrepiece. This massive display will be supported by more than 400 Historic racing cars on track, spread over 13 groupings. It promises to be a fitting celebration of 50 remarkable years. www.weathertechraceway.com

An unprecedented opportunity to acquire the only two historic 1937 Miller-Gulf Race Cars in existence

1937 Miller-Gulf No. 002

1937 Miller-Gulf No. 001

Unique and singular tubular cooling system and side-mounted gas tanks, Exhibited at the 2021 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and 2023 Amelia Concours

Recognized as the most original survivor by Miller enthusiasts and experts, Exceptionally original example of Harry Miller’s creative genius

54th Annual Auburn Auction and Show WorldwideAuctioneers.com | +1.260.925.6789

Roderick C. Egan, Auctioneer - IN License #AU10000207 • John Kruse, Auctioneer - IN License #AU19900072 • Worldwide Auctioneers Company License #AC31400111

Starter

Words Anthony Hoskins

Photography Matt Howell / Spitfire AA810

A Spitfire on Savile Row The story of an historic aeroplane, an ambitious restoration project and a legendary tailor

VISITORS TO CONCOURS ON Savile Row are used to seeing some of the world’s most beautiful cars, but those who attended this year were not expecting to also see one of the most iconic designs ever to have graced the skies. Taking centre stage in Gieves & Hawkes, the iconic tailor at no. 1 Savile Row, was one of the earliest-surviving Supermarine Spitfire aircraft, which – as with many of the prestige cars outside in the street – has a unique story attached to its history.

Its life was shrouded in secrecy: from being built in an underground factory in Reading, to being transported at night in parts to a small field outside Henley-on-Thames for final assembly, Spitfire AA810 flew for the very first time in October 1941. An unarmed reconnaissance version of the fighter ’plane, it covered the most operational

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THIS SPREAD The underrestoration fuselage of Sandy’s Spitfire, AA810, was on show at Concours on Savile Row.

hours of any extant Mk1. Modified with extra fuel and oil, and all the latest innovations, it flew all over Europe with a range some four times greater than the fighters could manage.

Its pilots varied as much as its missions, from pre-war motor sport legend AFP Fane to 1940 Grand National winner Mervyn Jones. Pilots of all backgrounds and social standing piloted AA810 across the sky.

Deployed to Scotland on a mission to find the mighty German battleship Tirpitz hidden in the Norwegian fjords, AA810 fell to the guns of Lt Heinz Knoke on March 5, 1942. Crashing into the mountains, its last pilot, Scotsman Alastair ‘Sandy’ Gunn, parachuted to safety. Captured and incarcerated, he found himself at the notorious Stalag Luft III near Zagen. Keen to leave his barbed-wire prison, on the night of March 24, 1944 he became the 68th man to escape down tunnel Harry as part of what we now know as the Great Escape, immortalised by the 1963 Steve McQueen film of the same name.

Sandy, who spoke little German, rode out his escape sitting on train axle bogies, and after two days he was nearing the German port of Sassnitz when he was caught at a marshalling yard. Imprisoned in Görlitz, he retold his escape to his fellow internees, before his name was called along with five others to supposedly be returned to a camp. Minutes later, on the road to Breslau, he was murdered by an

unknown Gestapo officer. He was 24.

While a whole lifetime has passed since Sandy’s tragic end, his Spitfire remained on the mountain in Norway.

In 2016, aircraft engineer Tony Hoskins set about finding the aeroplane. After two years of research, the wreck was located in the summer of 2018.

Recovered to the UK, the aircraft’s rebuild began in March 2019, 77 years to the day since it had last flown.

This year, to mark 80 years since the Great Escape and the subsequent murder of 50 RAF officers, the fuselage of Sandy’s Spitfire in its final stages of restoration was transported from the project workshop on the Isle of Wight to Gieves & Hawkes. Set alongside Great Escaper Dick Churchill’s G&H Dinner jacket, the display attracted significant attention during the two-day event.

Via unrivalled craftsmanship and attention to detail, the aim is to return Sandy’s Spitfire to flight in early 2026.

Fundraising continues and is key to its completion to schedule. Working with the Association of Heritage Engineers, and with a global reach via plans for a National Monument to the allies’ aerial intelligence-gathering activities in World War Two, the project has already attracted a considerable amount of corporate and personal sponsorship support.

Visit www.spitfireaa810.co.uk for details, and for information on the Association of Heritage Engineers see www.association ofheritageengineers.co.uk.

A W O N D E R F U L P L A C E – A N I N C O M PA R A B L E W E E K

O C TO B E R 2 N D – 5 T H 2024

Concours d’Élégance – “The Grand” 2 different Rallys Supersportscar-Drive Sessions on Circuit Mallorca

J O I N U S N OW – T H E J O U R N E Y B E G I N S W W W.ICONSMALLORCA.COM

Starter

Words Nathan Chadwick

Golf GTI: The VW with balls The Golf, or Rabbit in the US, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year – and the most famous variant, the GTI, is still going strong. But how does the latest version compare with its forebears?

Mk5 (2004-08) Mk6 (2008-13)

Mk7 (2013-20) Mk8 (2020-on)

New car carried over Mk1’s 1.8-litre engine, but zestier rivals proved more exciting.

VW fought back with the 1986 GTI 16v in 1986 (1987 in the US), putting the car back to the top of the class.

VW focused on safety and solidity, rather than thrills. Against hot French opposition, the Mk3 and Mk4 were deemed under par.

Stunning return to form thanks to new platform, multi-link independent rear suspension and a fresh, clean design.

Still not the most exciting hot hatch, but one you’d count on...

Mk6 refined the build process for profitability, but still carried on rampant success.

The GTI has been usurped by the R as the most desirable Golf, but reviewers still saw the Mk7 as the best yet thanks to its lighter, stiffer MQB platform. Mk8 dialled up the tech, but some say it lost some of the magic. The latest 8.5 version was unveiled earlier this summer.

Early 1.6-litre models produced 108bhp, while 1.8-litre cars from 1982 kicked out 110.5bhp. The car’s light weight helped it hit 0-62mph in around 9.0 seconds and 113mph all out.

Early 1.8 8v cars had only 110bhp, but the 16v version doled out 137bhp. North American GTIs later used a 2.0-litre 16v engine from the Passat and Corrado.

Mk3 offered 116bhp (8v) or 148bhp (16v), while the Mk4 initially offered a miserly (for the time) 125-150bhp. A 2.0-litre version even offered just 115bhp.

Turbo’d 2.0-litre featured directinjection tech for 197bhp and a 6.9second 0-62mph time.

Mk6 (essentially a facelift) hit 207bhp.

Mk7s ranged from 217bhp to 242bhp, while the Mk8 offered 242bhp with 0-60mph down to 6.3 seconds.

However, more potent versions were soon to be available...

The 16 S Oettinger, available in France and Switzerland, featured a 16v DOHC cylinder head that delivered 135bhp.

The UK received the Campaign model, with special trim and body adornments.

The very rare GTI G60 appeared in 1990, blending the 8v 1.8-litre engine with a supercharger (below). We’d rather have a 16v, though...

An excellent Mk1 GTI will cost just shy of £20k, and the most recent Oettinger sold for €60,792.

An excellent 16v GTI will cost you north of £16k, according to Hagerty.

Mk2 (1984-92)

Teeing off...

Developed as a skunkworks project, the first GTI nearly didn’t happen after a prototype was described as “undriveable”. Use of the Audi 80 GTE’s fuel-injected 8v EA827 engine reduced noise and upped output.

VW said yes, and a legend was born...

Just how hot was it?

Which is the special one?

How much?

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Mk3 (1992-97) Mk4 (1997-04)

Mk1 (1976-83)

The 2002 Anniversary model boosted power to 180bhp with its turbo’d 1.8-litre motor, yet handled soggily.

They’re highly sought after by the VW scene today, but we’d choose a Peugeot 306 GTi-6 any day of the week.

We found a UK 2002 Anniversary for £6500, and reasonablecondition normal GTIs for a third of that. A normal turbo GTI offers easy tuneability, and you can get into one for as little as £1250.

Mk5 Edition 30 upped muscle to 227bhp courtesy of a forged engine and K04 turbo.

Mk6 Edition 35 took power to 232bhp.

Mint Mk5 Edition 30s are £12k and above, with normal cars around two-thirds of that. Good Mk7 E35s are thin on the ground. A standard Mk6 is around £13k.

Clubsport and Clubsport S models in both generations were stripped out for track fun, with between 261bhp and 306bhp.

The Mk7 Clubsport S could hit 0-60mph in less than 6.0 seconds, and lap the ’Ring in 7min 49.21 sec.

A Mk7 Clubsport S is now £31k-£45k, twice the price of a standard car thanks to just 400 made worldwide – 150 of which came to the UK. A new GTI is just under £40k these days...

SCOTTSDALE FALL

OCTOBER 10-13, 2024

SCOTTSDALE

JANUARY 18-26, 2025

SAMMY HAGAR’S 2015 FERRARI LAFERRARI One-of-one custom 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari was built and designed for Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Sammy Hagar. Powered by a 6.3-liter V12 engine with an electric motor for a combined 949hp and 664 ft/lbs of torque.

SELL YOUR COLLECTOR CAR WHERE THE BIDDERS ARE OVER 230 AUCTION RECORDS ALREADY BROKEN IN 2024 Consign today at Barrett-Jackson.com or call 480.421.6694 to speak to a consignment specialist.

Experience the Barrett-Jackson Auctions live exclusively on A+E Networks’ FYI and HISTORY channels.

ALL THE CARS, ALL THE TIME. Streamed live on Barrett-Jackson.com

The ex-GeorGe reed, SebrinG 12 hour, inTernATionAl Period hiSTory, mulTiPle rAce WinninG, 1962 SheLBy coBra MK1

The ex – Tony SeTTember, 2nd in The AuSTriAn GrAnd Prix 1963 Scirocco BrM SP1 1.5-Litre V8 ForMuLa 1

The ex - mArio AndreTTi, elio de AnGeliS And niGel mAnSell, TWo-Time Podium PlAcinG 1980 LotuS 81 Ground eFFect ForMuLa 1

T. +44 (0)1285 831 488 / E. cars@williamianson.com / www.williamianson.com

The ex-delAGe TeAm, mAurice béqueT, hAnS mATTi, niGel Arnold-ForSTer 1923 Grand Prix deLaGe – the Béquet

The ex-Sir mAlcolm cAmPbell, bernArd KAin, 1926 BuGatti tyPe 35B

The ex-Plimley moTorS, Jim rATTenbury, STArr cAlverT, cAnAdiAn rAcinG,

1955 JaGuar d-tyPe – Short noSe

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Starter

Words David Lillywhite

YOU DON’T GO FROM HAVING TO borrow $400 to print the first copies of your magazine start-up, to being worth an estimated $760 million, if you lack vision. Beyond becoming a publishing powerhouse, a real-estate magnate and a seriously astute businessman, the late Robert Einar Petersen’s enduring vision was to build an automobile museum with an educational bent – one that would inspire and excite the generations.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Petersen Automotive Museum – absolutely, a dream made real.

No. 6060 Wilshire Boulevard – on Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile, California’s first shopping district designed with the car in mind – became the home of the Petersen museum on June 11, 1994. The building’s story, though, began 22 years earlier. Designed by prolific LA architect Welton Becket, 6060 first opened as the Seibu Department Store, selling luxury Japanese goods. It failed, which in turn opened the doors for popular American chain Ohrbach’s to move in. Midway through 1986, however, Ohrbach’s itself was shuttered.

Abandoned for nearly eight years, the old premises caught the eye of Robert E Petersen and friend Bruce Meyer. They figured they would be able to persuade the Natural History Museum – curator of a fine but mostly hidden collection of unique vehicles

ABOVE More than 100 tonnes of freeform stainless steel mimics air flow around a car.

BELOW 1964 Chevrolet Impala Gypsy Rose stars in the popular lowrider exhibit.

30 years of the Petersen Automotive Museum LA’s legendary automotive treasure trove marks milestone with major exhibits and more to come

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– to partner with them. The board agreed; 6060 Wilshire, right across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the La Brea Tar Pits Museum, would soon be home to a 200,000sq ft-plus automotive museum named in Petersen’s honour.

He called on the Russell Group to refurbish the building. Googie-style architecture, best described as The Car meets the Space Age, provided the inspiration. The result was a fourstorey building adorned with ten steel fins that stood 21 metres above the sidewalk. With the new exterior housing an amazing collection of vehicles, the Petersen Automotive Museum was off and rolling.

Two decades later, in October 2014, the museum underwent a radical transformation by architect Kohn

Pedersen Fox. The finned building made way for a bold red structure organically encased in 308 stainlesssteel ‘ribbons’ – a marvel of modern architecture funded in part by the Petersen Membership and Checkered Flag 200 programmes. On December 7, 2015, the Petersen reopened its doors. With a wildly diverse string of hit exhibitions over the years, it’s more than earned a place on the shortlist of World’s Greatest Car Museums.

Current exhibits, attracting record ticket sales, include: Best in Low, with icons of lowrider culture such as the 1964 Chevrolet Impala Gypsy Rose; Splendor and Speed, starring the exotic 1925 Rolls-Royce Round-Door Phantom I; and GM’s Marvelous Motorama, featuring dream cars from the Joe Bortz Collection.

Imminent displays will also prove unmissable, such as Modern Concepts: Future Visions from the Recent Past (think Ford GT90, Cadillac Cien and Chrysler ME Four-Twelve), and Alternating Currents, a fascinating look at the fall and rise of the electric vehicle, with cars such as the Zagato Zele 1000, 1991 BMW E2 concept and 1992 GM Impact on display.

To top it off, there’s the Vault, where 250-plus additional rarities live beneath the museum. With regular rotations, you’re bound to learn something new.

Robert E Petersen would be so proud. www.petersen.org

13th Edition

23th - 25th August 2024

For further information: www.passione-engadina.ch

Starter

Words Joe Twyman

The Object Blue Bird’s tailfin Panel from Malcolm Campbell’s early Land Speed Record exploits is among exhibits at National Motor Museum

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO Malcolm Campbell secured his first Land Speed Record, at 146.16mph on Pendine Sands in Wales. He was driving a Sunbeam 350HP painted in his favourite shade of Azure Blue and called Blue Bird – a name that would become synonymous with him, with subsequent cars also given the title.

He went on to break his own benchmark in 1925, and then for the next decade engaged in a back-andforth battle for the record with compatriots Henry Segrave, JG ParryThomas and George Eyston. He held the crown a further eight times up to 1935 (301.129mph), and in 1931 King George V presented him with a knighthood for his achievements.

Between 1927 and 1935, the second Blue Bird’s chassis and body went through dramatic changes as the car evolved — this piece of aluminium sporting the Union Flag is part of the tailfin that was removed as part of an update for his final 1935 recordbreaking run. The panel has been in the custodianship of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, alongside cars from both Sir Malcolm and his son (also a record-breaker) Donald.

This patriotic representation by photographer Rick Guest is also on display in print form at Beaulieu until September 8, 2024, as part of a wider exhibition of wonderful artefacts that come to life when blown up on a grand scale.

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Photography www.legacyandart.com

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Starter

Words David Lillywhite

Our French favourite has big ambitions Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille is growing; organiser Patrick Peter explains his plans for the future

“WE WANT TO CHANGE Chantilly,” said Patrick Peter earlier in the year. Magneto was sitting down with him and wife Sylviane, as they explained the ins and outs of Peter Auto, the huge events business founded in 1978, and responsible for many of the biggest Historic race series, the legendary Tour Auto and, of course, Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille.

With Chantilly looming – it’s on September 12-15 – it’s fascinating to see how the plans for its continued growth have come together, while keeping the most popular elements: the three concours (for classics, concept cars and club cars), fashion shows, dressage displays and more.

“Car makers are not happy that there are no more [successful] motor shows in Europe,” continued Patrick.

“Geneva has gone, Paris Mondial is like that [he made a dismissive

‘We have such a special location at Chantilly, and Mortefontaine is just 15km away’

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gesture], Frankfurt is finished...

“We wanted to do something just with the high-level car makers; the minimum would be Audi, MercedesBenz and BMW, and we were interested to have Aston Martin, Ferrari, Bugatti etc. We have such a special location at Chantilly, so close to Paris, and [the banked race track] UTAC Mortefontaine is just 15km away.”

He went on: “We proposed to manufacturers that they bring smallsized displays, because they are allowed to spend too much money at motor shows. Hospitality would be for everyone, so the manufacturers can reserve just one or two tables each, and they can allow their customers to test drive the cars on the banking at Mortefontaine and on the road route.

“Chantilly has always been on Saturday and Sunday; Saturday for the small rally in the morning and the afternoon for the judging, then Sunday for the parade. But now it will be Thursday, Friday, Saturday for the car makers and Sunday for everyone.”

These plans have already been put into action to some extent, but expect

THIS PAGE Patrick Peter’s flagship event features a stunning venue and exquisite line-up of cars and attractions.

Chantilly to continue to grow in future years. As for 2024, the big public day will still be the Sunday, with three rallies on Saturday including a new one especially for club cars.

The classes for Sunday’s concours d’etat have just been announced, too, and include: 100 years of the Bugatti Type 35 – Tribute to Peter Mullin; Lancia in rallying; Lancias with special post-war bodywork; Mercedes SL; Lamborghini Countach; Tribute to Carlo Chiti; Formula 1 from 1965 to 1971; and BMW Boxer motorcycles. www.chantillyartsetelegance.com

Finance solutions as unique as your car Dedicated support, expert knowledge, and personal service.

It’s specialist car finance from the people who understand specialist cars.

Talk to our car expert team today.

Call: 0116 366 0800 Email: classiccars@ccbank.co.uk Visit: www.ccbank.co.uk/magneto Cambridge & Counties Bank Limited. Registered office: Charnwood Court, 5B New Walk, Leicester LE1 6TE United Kingdom. Registered number 07972522. Registered in England and Wales.

We are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Financial Services Register No: 579415

Starter

Words David Lillywhite

Photography Cameron Maynard

THIS PAGE Delahaye 135 and Bugatti Centodieci front the tiered lawns, BarnatoHassan Special hits Horsepower Hill and judges team up to find Best in Show.

Judging at the UK’s bestkept secret Judging at Heveningham gave David Lillywhite a pink jacket and a glimpse at the workings of one of the UK’s best car events 44

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HEVENINGHAM CONCOURS. YOU have probably heard of it, but have you been? It is surely the most lowkey, and the most tucked-away, of all the UK’s top-end automotive events. And yet… the special guests come from all around the world.

And the cars. Oh, the cars!

How about an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300, the Bentley Barnato-Hassan Special, the 1934 RAC TT-winning Aston Martin Ulster, a Delahaye 135MS bodied in the style of the Bugatti Aérolithe, a Pebble Beach classwinning Lagonda V12, an ex-Jean Behra Maserati 250F and ex-Behra and Moss 300S, the unique double-bubble Maserati A6G/54 2000, the ListerJaguar prototype, an ex-Salvadori Cooper-Maserati [pauses for breath]...

Or the Ford Escort RS1800 that won the 1981 World Rally Championship, the Aston Martin Nimrod, Bugatti Veyron 16.4 prototype, Montoya’s 2006 McLaren-Mercedes MP4-21A, the newly road-legal Jaguar C-X75 Spectre stunt car, a Bugatti Centodieci, the Mercedes-AMG ONE… You probably get the idea. And that was just a selection of more than 50 cars shown off on the tiered lawn of Heveningham Hall’s Capability Brown-designed gardens. It’s not a huge display, yet it’s definitely worth the trip to rural Suffolk.

But actually, the concours cars are only part of the attraction. If it’s all looking a bit serene for you, there’s Horsepower Hill, on which a selection of supercars and classics go tearing into the distance as the crowd listens out for how soon they lift off for the deceptive bend near the top. There’s a stunning aircraft concours and the obligatory flypasts. And there’s also a large country fair, which is actually

the main event of the weekend for the majority of visitors. It’s not often you spot camel racing in the distance while gazing across gleaming bonnets.

For the car owners, the attraction is less about the camels and more about the magnificent, Goodwood-plus levels of hospitality offered by Heveningham Hall owners Lois and Jon Hunt: accommodation on the estate, a car tour preceding the event, parties, dancers, stunt riders and more. Oh, and of course they come for the excellent concours judging, carried out by designers Peter Stevens and Tony Hatter, racer Marino Franchitti, Prodrive founder and Motorsport UK head David Richards, event chairman Max Hunt… and me, bringing down the success demographic a touch.

We were looking not only for condition and presentation, but for provenance and story, too, across eight classes. From the class winners we had to choose a Best in Show, which was a tough call given the variety and quality of the entries. The 1939 Lagonda V12 Rapide Drophead Coupé was stately and stunning, and the 1956 Maserati 250F teemed with race history, while the 1968 Alpine 220 had Le Mans provenance plus extra appeal through being the only such car that’s road-registered.

But it was the early (one of the first 17 built) 1961 Jaguar E-type Series 1 Roadster that made Best in Show, with its stunning 4500-hour restoration and fascinating history involving Bruce McLaren and Jim Clark. Sometimes the ubiquity of the E-type goes against it when judging concours, but this was a worthy winner at a truly special event.

Full report on the Magneto website, and see www.heveninghamconcours.com.

Starter

Words Elliott Hughes

Bugatti turns clock forward with hybrid hypercar Analogue dials, 16 cylinders and three electric motors – welcome to the Tourbillon, the most advanced old-school Bugatti ever conceived

CLASSICAL MUSIC FILLED THE air outside Château St Jean, the historic home of Bugatti in Molsheim, France, as a large number of guests – including former owner Romano Artioli and his grand-daughter Elisa – gathered. They had not come to admire the elegant Type 57 Atalante, gargantuan Type 41 Royale or even the ballistic Bolide displayed outside, but to witness the reveal of the Tourbillon, instead. The first all-new series production Bugatti in almost ten years is also the first new model to emerge since the marque merged with Rimac in 2021, and the first since the EB110 not to be powered by the venerable 8.0-litre W16 engine.

Fans of the old ways, who might have speculated that the W16’s death and the involvement of Rimac would result in the first battery-powered Bugatti, can rest easy. Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac is quite adamant that development was “guided at every step by the marque’s 115-year history”. As

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THIS PAGE Tourbillon is French for ‘whirlwind’, but in horological terms it’s a device that is meant to improve the accuracy of a mechanical watch.

such, the naturally aspirated engine in the Tourbillon still has 16 cylinders, although now in the form of a Cosworth-developed 8.3-litre V16 that develops 986bhp and revs to 9000rpm.

The addition of three electric motors more than compensates for the missing turbos. Combined, the powertrain generates 1775bhp. Much of that power is sent to the rear wheels via an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.

As expected, performance is staggering: the car does 0-62mph in 2.0 seconds and 0-186mph in less than 10.0, with a claimed top speed of 276mph.

A 25kWh battery feeds the electric motors, which, in addition to the usual torque fill and power benefits, also provide torque vectoring and four-wheel drive. Bugatti is confident the final car will be marginally lighter than its predecessor, despite roughly 300kg of added hybrid components.

Aesthetically, the new model tracks the evolutionary trajectory adopted from Veyron to Chiron, but the step is more progressive. It’s sharper edged,

with more menace to its elegance.

Electrically actuated dihedral doors add drama, and can be opened remotely. A lush, predominantly analogue cabin awaits, inspired by the world of horology. Crafted from titanium, ruby and sapphire gemstones, the gear-driven instrument cluster has been assembled from 600 parts with the expertise of Swiss watchmakers.

It remains fixed in place while the steering wheel rotates around it.

Navigation, entertainment and car information are displayed on a central screen that remains hidden from view unless summoned by the driver. The centre console is milled from a single piece of aluminium, decorated with crystal glass and intricate switchgear, including an ‘Engine Start’ pull lever.

All in, it’s an exquisite environment for very brisk travel.

The Tourbillon is completing preproduction testing, before customer deliveries in 2026. Only 250 examples will be hand-built by Bugatti Atelier, priced from €3.8 million.

29 September to 13 October 2024

A two week competitive rally across Europe from the snow-capped Austrian Alps to the ancient city of Athens on the Aegean Sea. Asphalt and gravel roads, a variety of Tests and Regularities, and an adventure through some of the lessexplored parts of the Balkans.

28 to 30 March 2025

12 to 15 May 2025

Exclusively for crews from different generations.

Sixth running of this hugely enjoyable event for pre-war cars. Stunning Irish scenery, hospitality and charm.

This time based in North Yorkshire.

22 June to 3 July 2025

Smooth traffic-free roads, olive groves, high mountain ranges and fine sea views are on the menu on our sixth Carrera, with Tests on local circuits adding spice. We start and finish in Málaga for sociable days and twelve nights of exceptional hotels.

18 September to 16 October 2025

Rally the Globe will embark on our third Marathon rally in Autumn 2025. An incredible, month-long journey with time to explore the cultural and topographical landscapes of Japan.

Sponsored by:

For full details see www.rallytheglobe.com or contact us on info@rallytheglobe.com or +44 113 360 8961 Subject to change

Images: shutterstock.com, gerardbrown.co.uk & K-Design

Starter

Words and photography Martyn Goddard

THIS PAGE On hand to record the 959, from first view in 1983 (left) to Nürburgring launch in ’86 (above).

Eye witness Porsche 959: Group B or not to B How Porsche’s would-be foray into rallying left a big impact on snapper Martyn Goddard

IN 1983, I’D BEEN WORKING ON assignments for US magazine Car and Driver for a couple of years. The main difference to working for CAR in the UK was the power of numbers. Car and Driver could boast a monthly circulation of one million, which meant my American client was in pole position when it came to exclusive scoops.

So it was that, in October ’83, I found myself standing on a wet skid pad at the Porsche Development Centre in Weissach, setting up my tripod to shoot the Group B show car for a cover story. Earlier that day, technical editor Don Sherman and I had been given the full one-to-one mission statement on the Group B project, from manager Manfred Bantle and various hands-on engineers.

The company line was that the 48

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Group B Porsche would be the test bed for four-wheel drive, turbocharging and a six-speed gearbox – and if it could make a customer world-class rally car, all the better. In the early 1980s, Audi, Lancia and Peugeot were the high-profile WRC players, and Porsche hoped that customer cars would grab some PR glory along the way. Indeed, a certain René Metge drove a 4WD-equipped 911 to victory in the 1984 Paris-Dakar rally. Another objective was to grant the 911 another 20 years of sports car immortality, thanks to all these technical upgrades.

When the ‘white bar of soap’ show car rolled out of the transporter, all the earlier talk made sense. Its styling was based on the 911’s heritage.

Despite cold, wet conditions, I was able to produce a good set of images

featuring reflections on wet road surfaces and a stormy grey sky, which made Car and Driver’s February cover.

Fast-forward to April 1986, and I was back in Germany with the magazine to photograph the launch of 200 homologation cars at the new Nürburgring. The international press gathered in the darkened museum, which at a prescribed time lit up to reveal examples of all the Group B development cars that were to become the 959. There was little time to take these in, before we were seated for a full technical briefing by Porsche’s development chief and the force behind the 4x4 programme, Professor Helmuth Bott. Photographers find Q&As of little value after the initial portraits are shot, so I ghosted around the car displays shooting details of the engines and transmissions.

Early the next day we were bussed to the paddock, where each journalist would have a lap in a 959 with a Porsche test driver, and then 20 minutes’ track time. To ensure we didn’t overrun, the PR department gave us all black Swatches. The driving commenced, and there was a photo frenzy as all the snappers tried to grab exclusive images in the paddock area between drives. Things didn’t quite go

to plan, however, when an Italian journalist changed down from fifth to second gear at more than 100mph, turning the $30,000 ’box to mush.

The incident reduced the number of cars, so 20 minutes became 15 – not much time to drive the 959 and shoot a set of tracking images. This could have been a disaster, but such was the power of Car and Driver that we were invited later that week to drive a 959 around Stuttgart and the Swabian Alb. What was amazing is that the Porsche at the time could not be exported to the US as a road car, because it lacked the necessary safety certification.

I shot the 959 twice more. The first was for C&D, which tested the car on the Hockenheim GP track, and also with 190mph Autobahn runs. My last, more leisurely road trip was for CAR on the roads of the Black Forest. The Porsche was a technical tour de force, every aspect refined and beautifully engineered. Even the spanner and wheel-nut-removal tool were made like a Swiss watch, with planetary gearing to multiply the torque required.

In 1986, fatal accidents heralded the demise of Group B, so sadly enthusiasts never got chance to witness 959s take on Audis and Lancias on the classic WRC stages.

1988 Rouse Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth Group ‘A’ GUIDE PRICE £240,000 - £280,000

2001 Lamborghini Diablo VT 6.0 SE Coupé # 9/42 - 564 miles from new £400,000 - £500,000

23rd - 25th August 2024

SILVERSTONE FESTIVAL SALE Collectors’ & Competition Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia

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Starter

Words David Lillywhite

The greatest motoring adventure?

WE’VE BECOME SO USED TO tales of derring-do on the Peking to Paris over the past couple of decades, it’s easy to forget just how remarkable it is that the rally even takes place, let alone that competitors actually make it to the finish.

HERO-ERA’s 2024 running of the event was as action-packed as ever; take a look at the statistics here, and then consider that in the final days of the rally, there was only one minute between first and second places.

It seemed as though the 1939 Chevrolet Master Deluxe Coupe of Richard Walker and Faith Douglas would be uncatchable, until alternator failure delayed it just before France.

Instead, Peking to Paris debutants Andy Buchan and Mike Sinclair took first place in a 1928 Bentley 4½ Litre Le Mans (pictured), with the 1974 Leyland P76 of Matt Bryson winning the Classic category for the fourth time.

The oldest car, the 1914 American LaFrance, was all but destroyed by fire to the dismay of its crew: HEROERA chairman Tomas de Vargas Machuca and Royal Automobile Club chairman Ben Cussons.

And after all that? It’s happening all over again next year. Madness!

Find out more at www.hero-era.com.

WILL BROADHEAD PHOTOGRAPHY

The eighth Peking to Paris is complete – with many dramatic moments and mind-boggling statistics over 37 days

14,500 10

21

86

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km – or, if you add up the journeys of every rally car and support vehicle, it is the equivalent of 3.4 times to the moon or 32 times around the earth

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countries and hundreds of miles of desert

cars – the oldest a 1914 LaFrance, the youngest a 1975 Australian Ford Fairlane

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different time zones Magneto

special tests of speed and driving skill

borders crossed, many extremely remote

nights spent under canvas

support staff and officials along the route

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support vehicles

different nationalities competing from around the world, including US, Norway, Canada, Chile, Turkey and Czech Republic

Route was halfway around the globe – across the world’s largest landmass

A SELECTION OF RACE AND RALLY ENTRIES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

1931 Bentley 4½litre Team Car Specification 1978 McLaren M26 ex-James Hunt 2000 Ferrari 550 Maranello Prodrive 1952 1962 Jaguar E-Type 2006 Aston Martin DBR9/5 1952 Jaguar C-Type ex-Ecurie Ecosse 1968/1969 Brabham BT26/BT26A 1934 Triumph Dolomite 8C

14 Queens Gate Place Mews London SW7 5BQ T:+44 (0)20 7584 3503 E:cars@fiskens.com W:www.fiskens.com

Starter

Words Nathan Chadwick

Photography Simon Thompson

More than Alfa chance of success While Alfa finds itself in a spot of bother, its museum is going from strength to strength

TO SAY ALFA ROMEO HAS HAD a turbulent time of late is an understatement. The reaction to its new small crossover model was muted, yet vitriolic politically. Calling the car Milano when it’s being built in Tychy, Poland, turned into a national scandal – so it’s now being called the Junior.

In the Italian Alfisti social media environs, there’s also been a little ill feeling about the Museo Alfa Romeo – and some have even voiced doubts about its future. Yet this came as a surprise to its original exhibit designer and current curator, Lorenzo Ardizio.

“During the pandemic we were really worried for the museum – 60 percent of our visitors come from other countries – but I never had this question when I was actually concerned,” he chuckles. “That period is gone, 2023 was a record year, we are still growing in 2024 and we’re working on new projects.”

Underpinning that programme is the backstage conference series, which has been running for five years. “Our monthly conferences tell stories about famous aspects such as anniversaries, or cars with a direct link to what is happening now,” Lorenzo says.

“Alternatively, we’ll describe or explore something related to unknown aspects, solutions and technologies.”

These talks have built up a loyal following, and are available on YouTube in Italian and English; the museum

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ABOVE Museum is just as splendid ‘behind the scenes’ – and ongoing plans should keep Alfisti happy.

has also had successful Sunday family days. As Magneto reported in issue 17, the storage rooms of cars not on general public display are now available for guided tours, with further innovations in store: “We have ‘lights off’ events, where we open the museum until midnight with the lights switched off, leaving you to walk around with a torch,” Lorenzo says.

Despite these successes, some have criticised a perceived lack of rotation of the main public display. However, as he explains: “Our permanent display was conceived to tell a story, and we carefully chose cars that tell that story – and some of those are impossible to replace, such as the 33 Stradale and P2. We are keeping the permanent display more or less the same because it works – we’re working on temporary events and developing other areas of the museum.”

These temporary exhibits include next year’s 70th anniversary of the Giulietta, as well as a winter exhibit examining Alfa Romeo’s heritage with skiing, in advance of Milan hosting the Winter Olympics. “Since the

beginning, Alfa Romeo had a good connection with skiing, sailing and tennis – not football,” Lorenzo smiles.

At the moment, the museum isn’t restoring any currently non-running cars – the priority lies elsewhere, bringing iconic and rarely seen prototype engines out of storage. “We want to tell the Alfa engineering story,” he says. “It has a great legacy in engines, engineering and technology.”

The museum is also into the second year of providing professional and semi-pro maintenance courses – however, the aim is not to create a restoration school: “It’s more of a daily maintenance school – ours is

‘2023 was a record year, we are still growing in 2024 and we’re working on new projects’

the first Italian car collection that has been protected by the state as a piece of art; this creates some constraints in not only moving the cars, but in approaching restoration,” Lorenzo explains. “It would be illegal to have a student working on one of our cars.”

The immediate future continues with more talks, including learning what it takes to be an Alfa test driver, followed by the story of the 916 GTV and then that of the Carrera Panamericana. There’ll also be another chance to see the Carabinieri and Alfa Romeo Hydroplane exhibitions that were severely restricted in numbers during the pandemic.

For Lorenzo, however, it’s clear that Alfa Romeo is committed to the museum, despite internet naysayers: “Are you able to separate the Alfa brand from its history – no, of course not. After the pandemic, the Tonale was presented here, as was the new 33 – every day we work with our colleagues from HQ. It’s not a matter of commitment: we’re the same thing.” www.museoalfaromeo.com

Starter

The events of 2024 Gear up for a full season of fantastic events – on the road, on the track and on the showfield MONTEREY CAR WEEK

WHEELS MARIËNWAERDT

August 9-18 Street displays, racing at Laguna Seca, The Quail, Lemons, Concorso Italiano, Pebble Beach Concours, auctions and much more. www.seemonterey.com/events

September 13-15 Concours and automotive festival in Beesd, Netherlands. https://wheelsatthepalace.com

PASSIONE ENGANDINA August 23-25 St Moritz-based concours and rally through the Swiss Alps. www.passione-engadina.ch

SILVERSTONE FESTIVAL August 23-25 With more than 1000 entries, it’s the world’s largest Historic racing festival. www.silverstone.co.uk

SAN MARINO MOTOR CLASSIC August 25 Premier automobile showcase in Southern California. https://sanmarinomotorclassic.com

SALON PRIVÉ August 28-31 Concours, supercars and more at stunning Blenheim Palace, UK. www.salonpriveconcours.com

CONCOURS OF ELEGANCE August 30-September 1 Concours, rally and displays at Hampton Court Palace, London. www.concoursofelegance.co.uk

LIME ROCK PARK HISTORIC FESTIVAL August 30-September 2 Glorious, Historic racing cars in Labour Day Weekend action. https://limerock.com

GOODWOOD REVIVAL

COBBLE BEACH CONCOURS D’ELEGANCE September 13-15 Tenth anniversary of Canada’s premier concours. www.cobblebeachconcours.com

YORKSHIRE ELEGANCE September 16-18 Concours, driving tour and fun at Grantley Hall in the heart of UK. www.thefastlaneclub.com

RALLYE PÈRE-FILS September 20-22 Classic car rally through southern France for father-and-son teams. www.happyfewracing.com

AUSTRIA TO ATHENS CHALLENGE September 23-October 3 Competitive rally across Europe from the Alps to the Aegean. www.rallytheglobe.com

SAHARA CHALLENGE September 23-October 5 HERO-ERA rally through Morocco. www.hero-era.com

ISLANDS OF JAPAN MARATHON September 24-October 23 Month-long journey from Hokkaido to Kyushu. www.rallytheglobe.com

ABOVE Come November, all eyes will once again be on the Concours Wynn Las Vegas showfield.

INTERNATIONAL ST MORITZ AUTOMOBILE WEEK September 25-29 Bernina Gran Turismo hillclimb, supercar rally, sprint and more. www.i-s-a-w.com

CONCORSO D’ELEGANZA VARIGNANA 1705 September 27-29 30 of the best cars at Palazzo di Varignana, in Italy’s Motor Valley. www.palazzodivarignana.com

THE BOSTON CUP September 29 High-calibre car show on the historic Boston Common. www.thebostoncup.com

AUSTRIA TO ATHENS CHALLENGE September 29-October 13 Two-week competitive rally across Europe. www.rallytheglobe.com

RALLYE PÈRE-FILLE October 4-6 Father-and-daughter motoring event in southern France. https://en.happyfewracing.com

CHATTANOOGA MOTOR CAR FESTIVAL October 11-13 Concours, road rally and Luftgekühlt. https://chattanoogamotorcar.com

AUTO MOTO D’EPOCA October 24-27 Italian cars and automobilia. https://automotodepoca.com/en-GB

CONCOURS WYNN LAS VEGAS November 1-3 Celebration of the automobile against the dynamic backdrop of the iconic Strip. www.lasvegasconcours.com

HILTON HEAD ISLAND CONCOURS November 1-3 South Carolina’s largest concours is one of the nation’s best. www.hhiconcours.com

ICONS MALLORCA

LONDON TO BRIGHTON VETERAN RUN

October 1-6 A week of community and cars on the largest of the Balearic Islands. www.iconsmallorca.com

November 3 Celebrating the oldest, finest cars on public roads. www.veterancarrun.com

September 6-8 Celebration of Historic racing and period style on iconic circuit (right). www.goodwood.com

AMERICAN SPEED FESTIVAL

INTERCLASSICS BRUSSELS

October 3-6 At M1 Concourse, Michigan. www.m1concourse.com

CHANTILLY ARTS & ELEGANCE RICHARD MILLE

AUDRAIN NEWPORT CONCOURS & MOTOR WEEK

November 15-17 Classics, youngtimers and supercars at the Brussels Expo. www.interclassics.events

September 12-15 Concours, rallies and fashion at the Château de Chantilly, Paris. www.chantillyartsetelegance.com 54

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October 3-6 Rhode Island hosts East Coast’s answer to Pebble Beach. www.audrainconcours.com

CAVALLINO CLASSIC MIDDLE EAST December 6-8 Canossa Events’ classic Ferrari showcase in Abu Dhabi. www.cavallino.com

PEARL OF INDIA

Classic Car Rally | 16 February - 8 March 2025 Join us on this enigmatic and possibly life changing event; rally with us to discover a wealth of cultural, spiritual, natural and gastronomic delights, whilst accessible navigation for all abilities will see us driving on some of the most remarkable, and least well known roads that traverse this mythical country.

High-end accommodation will round off this exclusive journey through this ancient and intriguing land.

LENGTH OFROUTE:

6,000 Km LENGTH OF EVENT:

20 Days DAILY DISTANCE:

300 Km VEHICLE ELEGIBILITY:

Pre 1986

HERO-ERA.COM world famous classic car rallies @heroerarally | t. +44 (0) 1869 254979 | info@hero-era.com

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Disco Volante, Godzilla, Moby Dick, Rote Sau... who doesn’t love a great automotive nickname! For car enthusiasts, these epithets are so intrinsically linked to their respective icons that no further identifiers are required. And so it is with the Mercedes-Benz W 198 300 SL, a car so synonymous with its flügeltüren (wing doors) that, despite an aviary of imitators appearing over the past 70 years, it is the only one known by all as the Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx

Gullwing.

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The idea to extend the entry aperture up into the roof and hinge the doors from there may have been mooted back in 1939 on a Jean Bugatti drawing, and actually implemented on Gomolzig and Trippel prototypes a decade later, but it was Mercedes-Benz that, in 1952, gave wings to the idea, and then in ’54 let it soar.

Although an undeniably glamorous addition to the SL-Class’s already considerable charm arsenal, the doors were born of necessity. Their roots lie in Mercedes-Benz’s post-war motor sport return with the W 194 series 300 Super Light (later shortened to SL) endurance racing car. It’s the Super Light bit that inadvertently created the legend. To live up to the moniker, passenger car research boss Rudolf Uhlenhaut oversaw the creation of a lightweight tubular frame weighing just 50kg.

To achieve the necessary torsional rigidity, his thin-gauge steel-alloy spaceframe required wide box-section sides. Initially, these were as tall as the car’s waistline. Any thought of conventional doors went out the window, so to speak. Drivers faced the prospect of having to post themselves into the cockpit via top-hinged Plexiglas hatches.

This would have made running starts at Le Mans particularly comical. Fortunately, the only workable solution – to cut into the roof and hinge the ‘doors’ closer to the car’s ‘spine’ – proved an elegant one.

After test drives at tracks across Germany, the fully developed W 194 was presented to the media on the motorway between Stuttgart and Heilbronn in March 1952. With its low-slung, pebble-smooth aluminium body and large threepointed star dominating an integrated radiator grille, it looked like no other Benz before. Simply sensational, it won over the press even before it started winning on the race circuit.

W 194s raced in this guise at the Mille Miglia, finishing second and fourth. But, as the Le Mans 24 Hours drew near, Uhlenhaut and his team redesigned the spaceframe to allow the doors to cut down into the sides. The additional fold, and their increased length, lent even more of a ‘bird on the wing’ look. Symbolically, the 300 SLs were now really able to fly, taking first and second in the great race. The ‘gullwing’ legacy had begun.

For over 70 years, gullwing doors have been singular symbols of Mercedes-Benz’s sporting heart, yet they are anything but one-dimensional.

Stuttgart’s gullwings have lived triple lives; as dedicated race cars (W 194, SLS AMG GT3), as series production icons (W 198 and SLS AMG), and as experimental prototypes (W 194 ‘Hobel’, C 111, C 112 and Vision One-Eleven). If they weren’t taking chequered flags or gracing celebrities’ driveways, they would be hogging the limelight at motor shows or pounding proving grounds as experimental testbeds for a range of new ideas.

So, to celebrate the definitive 1954 Gullwing’s 70th anniversary, we proposed a spectrumspanning gathering of all the in-house superstars it subsequently inspired, and one that came before – no mean feat. Fortunately, Mercedes-Benz and its wonderful Heritage division were all-in.

BELOW Radical gullwing doors were developed for practical reasons only; iconic styling status came further down the line.

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IN ALL, TEN W 194S WERE BUILT TO compete in the 1952 motor sport season, achieving considerable success in the process.

Still, Rudolf Uhlenhaut saw the potential for yet more, and set about developing the concept for the 1953 season on an 11th chassis, which was numbered W 194/010000011/53. It was fondly referred to as the ‘Hobel’ on account of its distinctive new nose, which Mercedes’ research engineers associated with a carpenter’s plane. The nickname stuck.

While it was never raced as intended, the Hobel quickly grew in significance – not just as a chassis-development tool for the übersuccessful W 196 series racing cars that followed, but also as the fundamental link between the earlier W 194 racers and the series production W 198 sports machines.

Essentially, Uhlenhaut focused on four key areas of improvement: engine output, rear traction, overall mass and aerodynamics. More power, less weight, better handling and reduced drag – a simple but highly effective recipe for a better race car. The engineers weren’t to know, but by concentrating on airflow, design, body construction and new engine ideas, the Hobel was already setting the broad-strokes template for all of the company’s experimental gullwingdoored prototypes and concept cars to follow.

The motor in the W 194, codenamed M 194, had itself been derived from the 3.0-litre M 186 series production unit. When nestled in the engine bay of the luxury 300 ‘Adenauer’ saloon, this OHC six-cylinder produced 115bhp. In drysump race trim, the M 194 delivered between 170bhp and 180bhp. Resisting the temptation to increase cubic capacity for 1953, Uhlenhaut ditched the three Solex downdraught sports carburettors for direct fuel injection. This boosted the power output to 215bhp.

He also moved the four-speed transmission to the rear axle, improving the car’s weight distribution. Other changes to the rolling chassis included cutting 100mm out of the wheelbase; fitting larger, 16-inch wheels; and lowering the pivot centres of the swing-axle rear suspension, which Uhlenhaut correctly insisted was necessary to balance the wheel lift caused by the new car’s narrower track.

Why exactly was it narrower? Well, as it was a given that minor tweaks to the W 194’s already super-slippery bodyshell design were unlikely to reap much aerodynamic benefit, more meaningful gains would have to be found elsewhere. Narrowing the track translated into a smaller frontal area, which is always a handy way to expedite drag reduction.

A narrower, redesigned nose with a more angular grille opening also allowed Uhlenhaut to optimise airflow through the engine compartment by channelling it out through new – soon to become signature – side vents. In measuring the combined effect of these changes, Uhlenhaut found that almost 30 fewer horses

‘Juan Manuel Fangio lapped Monza nearly 8.0 seconds faster in the Hobel than he’d managed in W 194/8’

were needed to maintain a speed of 155mph.

Coachwork designer Walter Gragert, formerly of Gläser in Dresden, was contracted to draw up the plans for the modified bodywork, which Uhlenhaut had targeted for weight-loss treatment.

The new car would be clothed in a magnesium alloy that was even lighter than the aluminium alloy used for the ’52 season cars. Further weight reductions came courtesy of a lighter transmission housing, shock absorbers, connecting rods and flywheel. There is even evidence that an aluminium crankcase was tested at some point.

While the exact amount of weight saving is hard to pin down, what is clear is that the performance of chassis 11 was markedly superior to that of the earlier ten cars. In a late-1953 test, Juan Manuel Fangio lapped Monza nearly 8.0 seconds faster in the Hobel than he’d managed in W 194/8.

And yet the carpenter’s plane, once sharpened for action, disappeared into the depths of the Mercedes-Benz tool box, all hopes of it being replicated snuffed out by the firm’s decision to return to Formula 1 in 1954. However, its shape, details, compactness and tech package directly informed the design of the W 198, earning it a place in the pantheon of great Benz prototypes.

Mercedes-Benz gullwings

BELOW Hobel prototype’s shape, details, compactness and tech package directly informed the design of the W 198.

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Mercedes-Benz gullwings

RIGHT The Gullwing made its debut at the International Motor Sports Show in New York on February 6, 1954.

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‘Elegance met sportiness with sleek body contours over a race-developed tubular lattice spaceframe’

IN JANUARY 1952, MAXIMILIAN HOFFMAN became the official importer of Mercedes-Benz cars to the US market. Initially at least, he was happy enough selling saloons, but when the brand’s far sportier (W 194) 300 SLs started making waves on the race track, Max wanted in.

Indefatigably persuasive, somehow he managed to convince the board to build a road-going version. Perhaps he offered to buy as many as they dared make? It’s also feasible they’d clocked Max’s impressive US sales of Porsche’s sportscar-only line-up. Either way, with the vast majority of production most likely destined for a Stateside showroom, a world premiere in New York made total sense. Time, though, was of the essence, so Mercedes dug into its tool box, pulled out the Hobel as reference and went to work.

The car known the world over as the ‘Gullwing’ made its debut at the International Motor Sports Show in New York on February 6, 1954. A placard placed alongside the vehicle, itself up on a round, slightly elevated and cloth-draped pedestal, listed the price, delivered to New York, as $6820 – a small fortune – yet the car looked the proverbial million. Refined elegance met overt sportiness with unique gullwing glamour and sleek body contours, over a race-developed lightweight tubular lattice spaceframe. From every angle, there was no doubting that the Friedrich Geigerstyled W 198 was a direct beneficiary of Mercedes-Benz’s motor sport DNA. At the front, the grille area featured more rounded edges, while the long bonnet sported more pronounced ‘power ridges’. Distinctive wheelarch splash guards now graced the flanks, and the Hobel’s side-exit vents were repositioned and given a unique identity. A family photograph in the company’s digital archive of a W 194 and a W 198 flanking the Hobel shows the clear progression from uncompromising race machine to beautiful everyday super-sports car.

Flush door handles that pivoted outwards when pressed were as innovative as the doors themselves.

Springs, concealed in elegant chrome tubes, eased their operation. These also held the doors aloft, freeing occupants to focus fully on making a more dignified entry. A small lever released the steering wheel, allowing it to pivot down and away from swinging legs. The doors made conventional wind-down windows impossible, so Mercedes engineered the side-glass panels to be removable – the only truly impractical aspect of the entire package. The inclusion of small

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‘There was no doubting that the W 198 was a direct beneficiary of MercedesBenz’s motor sport DNA’

ABOVE A W 194 and a W 198 flanking the Hobel shows the progression from uncompromising race machine to everyday super-sports car.

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rotating quarterlights were no doubt a welcome ventilation aid for any cigar-toting Hollywood film producer. The 300 SL was a glamorous car for glamorous people, but even more so, it was a genuine super-sports car for serious drivers.

That same show stand placard announced the 300 SL as “the world’s first production sports car with fuel injection”. The 3.0-litre six-cylinder motor first developed for the Hobel ‘race car’ had found its way under the bonnet. With 215bhp driving the rear wheels, a 155mph-plus top speed was on offer – sensational for a mid-’50s road car.

Production began in August 1954, and post testdrive praise was unanimous. Influential US title Road & Track wrote: “When a comfortable interior combines with remarkably good handling, with almost terrifying road-holding, light and at

the same time precise steering and a performance that matches or even exceeds that of the best cars to date, then there’s only one more thing to say: The sports car of the future has become reality.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before W 198s were being entered into road races, and winning.

Top-rung success in the Mille Miglia, European touring cars, Liège-Rome-Liège rally and American Sports Car Championship proved the model’s speed, versatility and endurance.

The car featured here is a predominantly steelbodied Mercedes-Benz Classic Center tribute to the 1955 Mille Miglia class-winning SL of John Cooper Fitch and Kurt Gesell. The real car no.

417 (indicating a 4:17am start time) was one of 30 aluminium-bodied W 198s that’s since disappeared.

These aluminium versions were at least 80kg lighter, and were made to special order for a hefty premium. Regular steel SLs also used aluminium, but only for the doors, bonnet and bootlid.

By May 1957, some 1400 units had been built at Mercedes-Benz’s Sindelfingen plant, one of which had a glassfibre-reinforced plastic body. For good reasons, it was never sold – it weighed more than the series steel model, and its saggy body would never have passed panel-gap QC muster. It now lives in one of Mercedes’ so-called ‘holy halls’, along with a healthy flock of legendary gullwings.

H K- E N G I N E E R I N G

OVER 40 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE SPECIALIZING SOLELY IN 300 SL

Your Partner for Mercedes-Benz 300 SL EVERYTHING IN-HOUSE ENGINE DEPARTMENT UPHOLSTERY BODY SHOP PAINT INJECTION PUMPS GEARBOX SPARE PARTS FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

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HK-ENGINEERING Handels GmbH Kirchplatz 1 | 82398 Polling | Germany H K- E N G I N E E R I N G

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MERCEDES-BENZ MAY HAVE WITHDRAWN its cars from all motor sport following the 1955 season, but the company’s sporting heart remained. So when the SLX design study for a new sports car first began, back in 1962, it was in answer to the prevailing mid-engined zeitgeist.

Led by Paul Bracq and Giorgio Battistella, the SLX took no visual cues from the 300 SL. Instead it adopted the sweeping curves of 1960s Porsche and Ferrari race cars. Sketches on the studio walls at the time portray it as a racing car, complete with competition numbers and helmeted pilots. Interestingly, another photo does show it nose-to-nose with a (W 198) 300 SL – adding yet more intrigue to its original context.

By 1965, the sketches and 1:5 scale models had become a realistically finished, full-scale wooden styling mock-up, which was subsequently presented to the board. Although ultimately unconvincing, this model still forms part of the company’s Heritage Collection. Two years later, Bracq had left Sindelfingen to ply his trade elsewhere, and the world was waking up to a new era in sports car styling led by the great Italian design houses. Marcello Gandini’s 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo by Bertone, with its extremely angular surfaces, edgy profile, eye-grabbing paintwork and dramatic scissor doors, kicked off a new wave of unbridled creativity. MercedesBenz was ready for a new aesthetic – and Italianborn Bruno Sacco was just the man to bring it.

From the first sketches and images of the Picasso-worthy C 101 mule, to the white C 111 press demonstrator revealed at the Hockenheimring on September 1, 1969, it was immediately clear that this was to be an altogether different Mercedes-Benz sports car. Bar gullwing doors and a three-pointed star, it shared nothing with the 300 SL. Wedge-profiled, mid-engined, sharknosed, low and wide, the C 111 was Sacco and his team’s radical response to the Carabo clarion call.

One week later, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, it even had its own distinctive paint colour – an arresting metallic orange that the Germans called Weißherbst. Even more defining, though, was its purpose: the press release described it as a “research and development car”, decisively adding, “the car, built only in a limited number of models, will not be offered for sale”. In effect, the C 111 was to be a mobile test lab exploring what Daimler-Benz called at the time “the two infant prodigies of automobile construction: the Wankel engine and synthetic bodywork”.

The latter meant a body constructed from fibre-reinforced plastic that was riveted and bonded to a steel-floor framework. DaimlerBenz engineers had a little experience here, but they were flying blind with the engine. Bearing the internal code M 950 F, the C 111’s three-rotor motor developed 276bhp, enough for a top speed of 162mph. Yet there was more to come.

In Geneva, just a few months later, MercedesBenz unveiled a thoroughly revised version that turned up the wick in every way, with significant

‘Wedge-profiled, mid-engined, shark-nosed, low and wide, the C 111 was a radical response to the Carabo clarion call’

refinements to aesthetics, aerodynamics and driver visibility. Not only that, but the engine had grown by a third. Developing 345bhp, the new four-rotor C 111-II promised startling performance.

Figures of 4.8 seconds for the 0-62mph sprint and a 186mph top speed were quoted.

“Die zukunft des automobils ist gesorgt” (the future of the automobile is assured) MercedesBenz had previously stated on its stand in Frankfurt. It’s easy to see why many interpreted this as hinting at a production future for the C 111.

With the C 111-II then upping the ante, enthusiasts’ hopes that it would become the spiritual successor to the 300 SL reached fever pitch.

It was not to be. The blame fell square on the innovative powertrain concept. When questioned three decades after the 1970 reveal, C 111 project lead Dr Hans Liebold conceded: “The Wankel engine was not yet mature enough to be handed over to customers in line with company standards.” While engineers had solved many of the rotary’s inherent issues, the concept’s poor thermodynamic efficiency remained. As with so many performance-oriented projects at the time, stringent emissions regulations and the 1973 oil crisis put an end to any hopes of a market launch.

Over the years, a total of 12 C 111 and C 111-IIs were built. The car pictured here is chassis no.

36, a one-off completed in September 1975 with a plastic-floor frame assembly. Its rectangular foglamps and narrower headlight units help distinguish it from its steel-floored siblings. One

of the C 111-IIs received a 3.5-litre V8 in 1970 to evaluate its acceleration and efficiency. This, restored by M-B Classic in 2012, has on occasion been made available to various motoring media for dynamic evaluation. The consensus is that a production C 111 would have redefined the super-sports car market in the 1970s.

The research aspect of the project lived on, with the focus shifting first to performance diesel tech, and later to the all-out pursuit of speed with a V8 petrol-engined true ‘silver arrow’. A mildly tweaked bodyshell and a 190bhp 3.0-litre five-cylinder turbo combined to form the recordbreaking C 111-IID. In June 1976, it lapped Italy’s Nardò circuit for 60 hours at an average of 156mph, establishing three world records. Two years later, the C 111-III with its radically streamlined silver body and a 230bhp turbodiesel, ran comfortably above 195mph, setting nine world records over 12 hours. 1979 saw the final iteration, the twin-tail-finned and bespoilered C 111-IV. Again at Nardò, but this time using a 500bhp 4.8 V8 petrol twin-turbo, the silver rocket set a track record speed of 403.978km/h.

Armed with added technical nous, MercedesBenz packed its winged toys away and started marketing sporty diesels and ever-faster V8powered saloons to an increasingly prosperous 1980s customer base. Crucially, too, it began to supply 5.0-litre V8s to Sauber from 1985-on, for its C8 and C9 Group C racing cars, a decision that hastened the company’s return to the race track.

BELOW A total of 12 C 111 and C 111-IIs were built; this is chassis no. 36, a one-off with a plastic-floor frame assembly.

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LEFT Imposing, Carrozzeria Coggiola-crafted bodywork featured a full-width wing, huge tail-lights, integrated exhaust outlets and twin diffusers.

‘The design reflected the task of creating a synthesis between silver arrow and the Mercedes design strategy’

BUILT IN COOPERATION WITH SAUBER for Group C racing, the Mercedes-Benz C 11 was pretty much unbeatable in 1990, winning all but one round of the World Sportscar Championship.

The C 11’s carbonfibre chassis, 740bhp (and far more in qualifying trim) M 119 V8, advanced aerodynamics and powerfully sleek styling sent its competitors back to their drawing boards.

It also inspired Mercedes’ head of styling Bruno Sacco, and Harald Leschke at the firm’s recently created Advanced Design studio, to take to theirs when tasked with creating a road-going two-seater supercar concept for the 1991 Frankfurt Motor Show.

Although not as mad-cap futuristic as some concept cars at the time, the resultant C 112 was every bit the show-stopper. Its bodywork was crafted in Turin by Carrozzeria Coggiola on an aluminium monocoque supplied by MercedesBenz. Visual highlights included a low, pointy nose with faired-in headlamps and active vent flaps, deep radiator inlets gouged into upright flanks, Group C-like cab-forward proportions and the glorious 6.0-litre V12’s intake manifold on view beneath a vast transparent engine cover.

A full-width wing, huge tail-lights, integrated exhaust outlets and twin diffusers completed an imposing rear. However, unlike the C 111, which had broken new stylistic ground for the marque, the C 112 was a confident and significant development of previous design themes, most notably the C 111-III. In an Auto & Design magazine interview, Sacco said: “When the C 112 theme was developed, we didn’t get lost in a labyrinth following the trends of the moment.

We have tried to continue with what we believe to be our design philosophy.”

Professor Peter Pfeiffer, senior VP for design at the time of the car’s creation, tells us today: “The design reflected the task of creating a synthesis between silver arrow and the Mercedes design strategy. Powerful lines, no playful exaggerations.

Each line had its purpose in terms of functionality, safety and aerodynamics,” adding that the C 112 was also meant to “transfer technical innovations and design solutions into the future” – just as the C 111 had done more than two decades before.

Another definite link to the past were the C 112’s doors. As an experimental Mercedes sports car, gullwing doors were a given, although for the first time these ‘wings’ were power-assisted hydraulic units with push-button operation.

Great... as long as there is enough electricity to start the car. Without assistance, as we

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encountered in the studio during our photoshoot, they’re barn-door heavy. Always conscious of safety, they were designed to come off if you somehow managed to turn turtle in your C 112.

Surely that’s the kind of detail engineering you wouldn’t consider without an element of production intent? Pfeiffer’s response: “In contrast to many design studies, the C 112 met all the requirements for worldwide approval.

Therefore, it could have gone into series production without major changes.”

If customers had been able to buy a C 112, they would have encountered a two-tone blue leatherlined cabin with contrasting red and blue piping, which promised to insulate occupants from much of the V12’s contribution to the conversation.

This was a ‘proper’ Mercedes, so a sense of refined luxury was to be expected. SL-Class (R 129) owners would have recognised much of the switchgear for the automatic climate control, electrically adjustable seats and mirrors, and the Becker Mexico 2000 cassette radio.

A riveted and glued aluminium monocoque

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‘In contrast to many design studies, the C 112 met all the requirements for worldwide approval’

chassis was developed by a crack team under the technical direction of Karl Hoehl. To it was bolted the M 120 E 60 engine, which, tuned for everyday usability rather than outright performance, sent 408bhp to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual Getrag gearbox. Top speed was 194mph, helped by the car’s aerodynamic prowess – a result of decoration-free surfacing, high-mount rear-view mirrors and electronically controlled active front spoiler and rear wing. The latter would dance on demand; extending rearwards, raising up and even pivoting aggressively enough to act as a 1955 300 SLR-style airbrake.

A long list of dynamic handling systems, safety and driver aids included rear-wheel steering,

ABOVE The purposeful, 194mph C 112 could easily have gone into series production without major changes.

radar collision warning, tyre-pressure monitoring and adaptive suspension with active body control, promising consistent neutral handling.

Reports suggest that hundreds of potential customers attempted to order a C 112, and that Mercedes-Benz may have even considered asking Sauber to build the cars. However, uncertainty around the Japanese financial crisis and (W 202) C-Class quality issues quickly killed its prospects.

Even if the XJ220 had been fitted with the concept’s V12, it is unlikely that Jaguar’s supercar would’ve found too many more mid-’90s takers, suggesting that the Daimler-Benz board may have dodged a bullet – although we’ll never really know.

At least we still have this one to dream about.

Stirling Moss 1956 Tour de France 300 SL Gullwing

Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing #55-00640 - “SPORTABTEILUNG”- 1 of 4 factory race car 2nd O.A 1956 Tour de France Auto • Drivers : Stirling Moss - Georges Houel

www.classicsportleicht.com

Mercedes-Benz gullwings

AS A TRUE ‘CAR GUY’, MERCEDES-AMG chairman Volker Mornhinweg must have reckoned his star was shining particularly brightly in late 2006. Not only was he heading up the division responsible for the fastest and sportiest products in the Mercedes-Benz line-up, but he’d also just been given the green light by Dr Dieter Zetsche, then board chairman of parent company DaimlerChrysler (yes, still a ‘merger of equals’ back then), to create a super-sports car that would inadvertently reinvent the gullwing for the 21st century.

The parameters set for the first production AMG designed and developed entirely in-house called for a lightweight, front-mid-engined twoseater with long-bonnet, cab-back proportions and a sub-4.0-second 0-60mph time. Crucially, it also needed to reflect Mercedes-Benz tradition.

The concept for the design originated with a sketch by the brand’s designer Mark Featherstone.

While it exuded the essence of the 1954 300 SL, it was no retro pastiche. Instead, it informed a final design that was more of a futuristic interpretation. Aiming for the stars, MercedesBenz design head Gorden Wagener said the team set out “to create a new design icon”. With current fascination for the SLS AMG rising in step with market value, it’s fair to say they succeeded.

From sketch to public introduction at the 2009

Frankfurt Motor Show, development took just 37 months. Starting with 14 shortened and modified Dodge Viper mules, and progressing to a fleet of 40 disguised prototypes, the test units covered a combined 2.4 million miles. Around 1000 simulated crash tests and 35 real-life ones helped define the car’s lightweight aluminium spaceframe, which incorporated reinforced A-pillars strong enough to support three times the model’s weight.

Beneath the vast bonnet sat a re-engineered version of AMG’s ‘regular’ 6.2-litre V8. Peak power was 563bhp – enough to shift the 1695kg coupé to 62mph in 3.8 seconds and on to 197mph.

The aviation-themed cabin offered a great pilot’s position, a tactile mix of leather and aluminium, and a fabulous view down the sculpted bonnet.

Despite vast performance reserves, the SLS was so accomplished and so dynamically sound that going fast was all thrill and little drama – but then, those beautifully engineered doors provided plenty of that when standing still.

Interestingly, Mornhinweg later said rather emphatically, that the SLS “was designed as a roadster first” (an idea supported by those beefy A-pillars), and that both traditional and gullwing doors were considered for the coupé. In the end, the SLS AMG was a very fine answer to a 55-yearold question of how to follow up on an icon.

LEFT The SLS AMG was no retro pastiche of the 1954 300 SL, but more a futuristic interpretation.

RIGHT The cabin is all white, orange and silver, with a ‘floating’ digital dash complete with 3D display.

YOUR FIRST SIGHT OF THE VISION ONEEleven is one you’ll not easily forget. It’s the colour that sucks you in – a deep swirling mass of liquid copper and metallic tangerine that sends your eyes skating across the voluptuous surfacing.

Bulging wheelarches erupt like boiling lava from a heavily tapered orange lozenge that is so wide and low it appears melted to its black undertray.

Viewed from the side, it’s one single arc from shark-nose ‘grille’ – it’s really a pixellated digital display – to Kamm tail – another display, unbroken by conventional daylight openings. A geometric ‘paint splatter’ affords partial lateral transparency. The effect lends the profile great solidity without the expected heaviness. From every angle the One-Eleven is a stirring piece, a magnificent concept car that, with its twin black bonnet vents, triple nose slats, side inlets and gullwings, honours the C 111 in detail design and aesthetics but cranks it up to… well, 11 (sorry).

“Our goal is not to do styling – our goal is to create icons,” is a phrase group chief design officer Gorden Wagener is partial to. If you want to create a new icon, it’s probably a good idea to start with an old one. “Our all-electric Vision show car is the modern-day interpretation of the

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C 111, which was avant-garde at the time.”

It sure was Gorden, but it wasn’t so avant-garde inside. In fact, arguably the only disappointing aspect of the 1970 C 111-II concept was its cabin’s severely sombre pragmatism. The Vision OneEleven’s cockpit more than compensates for that missed opportunity. On view through a magentatinted windscreen and expansive glass roof, the interior is a sumptuous mix of white honeycombpatterned polyester, coffee bean husk-tanned orange hide, polished aluminium and a diamondquilted silver fabric. It evokes thoughts of the Space Age silver-trimmed Lamborghini Marzal – one of the most wildly futuristic cabins of its era.

Aside from the high-resolution touchscreen to the right of a dial- and switch-heavy steering yoke, there’s not much going on at all below a ‘floating’ dash. Its sole purpose is to house a 3D display similar to those capping off each end of the car.

Highly pixellated, it presents information such as speed, while the two external units act as light bands. All three light up in a retro-futuristic style reminiscent of the early-1980s 8-bit graphics era.

Operated by a digital control tablet, they can be used to convey messages to other road users. Just imagine: You first! No, you first! How very English.

Cabins aside, the One-Eleven’s deep connection with the C 111 goes beyond colours, stylistic themes and reinterpreted details; the two share an experimental ethos centred around research

ABOVE The Vision One-Eleven is a worthy 21st-century addition to the gullwing family.

into groundbreaking powertrain tech. Where the earlier cars ventured boldly down the roads of rotaries and turbodiesels, the One-Eleven is a demonstrator for a new battery concept featuring high-performance liquid-cooled cylindrical cells with F1-inspired chemistry. These cells feed two axial-flux motors that drive the rear wheels. The motors, developed by Mercedes-Benz subsidiary YASA, are roughly one-third the size and mass of conventional radial-flux units, yet have the same power output, contributing significantly to enhanced design and interior-packaging freedoms.

There’s no doubt the Vision One-Eleven is a worthy 21st-century addition to the gullwing family, especially for how well it honours its predecessors. Yet this time there’s not even a hint of a series production future. So, Mercedes-Benz, if you really want to mirror the C 111 project, may we suggest swapping the experimental drivetrain for a petrol V8 and letting us borrow that tablet?

Thanks to Mercedes-Benz Classic, Collection and Design, especially Peter Becker, Dennis Heck and Oliver Lohmiller, and their respective teams, and also to the outstanding Akkodis Studio.

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RIGHT Meade’s last hurrah was the apogee of Modenese creativity.

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Thomassima III

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BELOW Interior trim was changed from red to blue in period.

Thomassima III

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Thomassima III

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RIGHT A wilder-than-wild creation immortalised as a cover star.

AS WITH MANY CAR ENTHUSIASTS, I'VE had a long-term fascination with US car designer Tom Meade and his outrageous Thomassima III. He was always on my interview wishlist.

Eventually we got together in May 1996 in a Santa Monica cafe, just along the eponymous boulevard, a couple of blocks from the beach.

It was to be an epic start: I had already been through two California earthquakes, including the major one in San Francisco in 1989, so when tiny cement fragments started clanging down on our metal table I bolted for the safety of the centre of the four-lane road. Tom, falling off his chair with laughter, shouted: “Marc, don’t get run over – it’s just pigeons on the roof kicking dust down.”

So started our friendship, with... a five-hour interview. A fascinating and colourful character, Meade could hold court about everything from patent ideas to the evolution of Italy.

His tale has been told often enough, so suffice to relate here that the 1939-vintage, Californiaborn, Australia-raised former naval aviation electronics engineer fell in love with a Ferrari 500 TRC he came across in Los Angeles. He was told there were plenty, going cheap, in warehouses in Rome. Spurred on, he hitched and worked his way across the Atlantic and on to Italy, only to discover the said warehouses were a myth.

After a brief spell as a film extra, Tom landed up in Modena. Visiting Maserati, he noticed a bare bodyshell under a tarp – a 350S, chassis no.

3503, which he insisted on buying. He rebuilt it at the carrozzeria of Medardo Fantuzzi, with whom he was staying at the time and from whom he would learn a lot. He also bought the remains of

a crashed Duntov racing Corvette from Lucky Casner, and fitted its engine into his baby. He created a hard-top, too, while learning on the go.

He loved the attention his self-built Maserati received, and was himself a popular character in Modena, but eventually the time came to ship the car across the Atlantic and head home. Soon after they arrived in California, however, a friend drove the Maserati over a cliff, writing it off.

Within a year Tom had returned to Italy, settling in Modena in 1961. Starting small, trading in used parts for Italian but mostly foreign clients, his business evolved steadily into selling used Ferraris and Maseratis to the US and northern Europe. After several years, he moved into larger premises near the Aerautodromo, and began to design his own car bodies.

Tom was the mastermind behind the Ferrari Nembo series. A Berlinetta and three Spyders were made by Neri and Bonacini – one of which, 2707GT, with a Chiti sharknose, was never completed. Of the others, the first, 1777GT, is considered by cognoscenti to be one of the most beautiful cars of all time.

With used car sales going well, life was busy for Tom, albeit not especially profitable. Often helped by his mother, who’d fly over from LA for a month at a time to do his accounting, he was emboldened by his relatively stable situation and the positive comments about the Nembos to create his own interpretation of sensuous Modenese sports car designs. His effervescent mind, talent and determination helped him acquire the skills of the very best craftsmen in this sports car mecca.

The initial, if short-lived, Thomassima I is the

least known of its breed, and yet it is one of the most interesting and dramatically shaped.

Contrary to Tom’s initial Modenese purchase in 1960, this was the first time he designed the body himself. Already, a clear pattern of style had emerged, comparable to taking the prevailing design standards of that era; like transforming a plump poodle into a rakish, muscular greyhound, he would begin with a longer, thinner, more aggressive yet very pure covered-headlight nose.

He came up with a radical roofline that went straight down from the top of the windscreen to the top of the bootlid. It looked sensational, like a rubber 275 GTB partly squashed by an elephant.

With an air intake on the bonnet, and numerous gill-like vents behind the front and rear wheels, it was quite a sight. Alas, after a trip to Benelux, where it was featured in a Dutch magazine, it was destroyed in 1966’s great flood of Florence.

The next car is often also referred to as the Thomassima I, but is also nicknamed the Anti Cobra. It was ordered by a Swiss Baron who was tired of being out-accelerated by Cobras. It had a Chevrolet V8 and, in a first, removable gullwing doors. It also boasted distinctive, curvaceous, short-tail styling, somewhat reminiscent of the initial Maserati Tipo 151 but far more handsome.

The mid-engined Thomassima II, based on a Cooper Type 43 chassis with a 250 GT V12, was ordered by Californian Harry Windsor, who wanted something akin to a Ferrari 330 P4. Tom agreed, on condition that he could reinterpret it his way – hence a longer nose, wider, more muscular rear haunches and an altogether more menacing look. Windsor displayed it at the 1968

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Thomassima III

Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance… but to Tom’s annoyance, he swapped Meade’s charging-goat bonnet emblem for a Ferrari badge, denying the car’s builder his rightful publicity.

The car seen here, the Thomassima III, was to be both Tom’s grandest achievement and his most famous one. Based on the drivetrain of a 250 GT PF coupé, chassis 1065GT sold new in Milan, it was in part an adaptation – in 1.5mm aluminium sheeting – of the T2 style to a front-engine layout with very low body and reclined seats. It projected even more sensuousness; as Road & Track put it somewhat gaudily when the car made the cover of the December 1970 issue: “Everything a Ferrari could be but with more sex added.” Quite.

Tom took it to numerous shows and concours in Italy, always making a grand entrance with both gullwing doors raised. Following a brief show season in California, he returned to Europe, where the car was also displayed in Turin’s Biscaretti museum. Meanwhile, the Road & Track story prompted the CBS television network to send a crew to film him, both at his workshop in Modena and also while out driving the car.

At age 31, this was to be the peak of his fame.

The Thomassima III was supposed to be sold – for $28,000 – to North Carolina car collector Norm Silver, but the broker, notorious criminal Gordon Tatum, eloped with the funds, although not before getting a Virginia number plate on it to impress Silver and blame Tom. There was some jealousy among certain dealers who ‘only’ sold cars, and who resented Meade’s creative streak and extensive press coverage. However, the comments of more appreciative observers swept that away. Even Shelby Daytona Coupe designer Peter Brock mentioned that Tom had great flair.

It should be understood that money was never Meade’s motivation; he sold cars only to survive and create his own designs. He didn’t really want to sell the Thomassima III – and, in the end, he held onto it all his life.

Tom’s memory was sometimes rose-tinted, and as the decades passed I must shamefully admit I had somehow never believed him when he said he had stored the car, along with others, in a warehouse in Italy. Yet the claim was thankfully proven true when, to the great surprise of many, in November 2013 the Thomassima III suddenly emerged at the

RIGHT Tom tested his car at the Aerautodromo.

Museum Ferrari Maranello in Fiorano, three months after Meade’s passing. The shock was that, firstly, the car still existed, now in the hands of Tom’s son living in Europe, and that, secondly, it had been recognised by Ferrari. After all these years, the renegade was welcomed into the fold. I had a chance to see it at the museum a year later, and it looked every bit as stunning and wonderfully mad in the metal. It was shown there until May 2018.

Fast-forward to 2023, and Tom’s son decided to reawaken his father’s most famous creation after its five decades of slumber. He then surprised me by calling to say I would get to drive it, in order to add to previous articles on his dad.

As explained by Walter Bertelle of Quality Cars, the workshop near Padova in charge of the Thomassima III, recommissioning it was quite a process. “We adjusted the body openings, we rebuilt the engine and gearbox 100 percent, we redid the wiring loom because it was incomplete, and we serviced the gauges,” he told me.

“Mechanically it is still a Ferrari, so that was a routine process. However, we had to adjust the bonnet, as it was a little too close to the carbs [disturbing their air supply – a common issue with bespoke bodies in that era].

“The firewall was not complete, while some of separation between engine bay and cockpit was asbestos and leather, so we closed any gaps with sheet metal. We cleaned the interior. It was blue, and you could tell it had been for a long time, so I assume Meade changed it from red early on.”

He continued: “We have an excellent provider of tyres, yet those on the car proved impossible to find. We fitted the closest specs we could, which work well. We raised the nose a little, too, because the outer exhaust pipes would touch the road otherwise; the way it is now is the lowest-possible setting. As to weight, we believe the car is about 100kg less than a standard, steel-bodied 250 SWB.” In fact, one period reference by historian

Griffith Borgeson states 1760lb (798kg).

Since the engine of 1065GT is now in the Thomassima II, ‘our’ car has another 250 GT V12, that of 3123GT. It should be noted that the concept of matching numbers is a recent invention born of speculation; there was zero consideration for that at the time. An engine was replaced like a lightbulb, as long as it was the correct type.

BEHIND THE WHEEL A few months later, the great day in Italy arrives.

A truck regurgitates the Thomassima III somewhere up in the hills west of Padova... straight into the rain and fog.

The car looks organic, alien, marvellously over the top... and as stunning as ever. Intemporal almost, because, as Tom himself said: “Round lines last forever.” Gill like, the various air intakes give it the feel of a living creature, and you do half expect it to ripple with anticipation. The deepdish Borrani wheels are spectacular, with spokes painted medium blue and the huge cast knock-offs sporting ‘Tom Meade Modena’ script and that charging-goat emblem. The cabin is visually more pleasant in the blue trim that Tom used to replace the initial red seen in the Road & Track article.

Squeezing my ample girth into the Thomassima III is not an elegant process. I had been concerned that the radically reclined seating position would have me drive with my navel as a rifle sight, but no; I am relieved that I just fit, and am actually comfortable, with one centimetre of headroom to spare. The tightest-fitting point? There is actually just enough room for my right thigh between seat and steering wheel. Of course, getting my hair caught in the door gap next to the hinge the first time the gullwing is closed teaches me to bow my head in future. Mind you, if your hair is caught, you won’t need a seatbelt – which is good, because there aren’t any…

The very small, spoked, thick-rimmed wheel is right where it should be for my 1.75m height,

Preserving the past, present and future:

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Thomassima III

likewise the gearlever. The usual gauges, of the type seen in Ferraris of that era, but with yet more ‘Tom Meade Modena’ script if you please, are lined up in front of me. Clearly Tom did his homework in carefully adjusting the driving position. Indeed, there are photos of him with the car still unpainted and without glass, testing at the Aerautodromo di Modena.

So the reclined ergonomics work, very well in fact... but where is the rest – the other switches and the ignition? In the roof. That, of course, was in homage to the era’s space race, a trend started by the Miura. There, right next to the rear-view mirror, is the headlight switch, with a second to choose between driving lights and high beam.

Then there’s one for foglights, radiator fan, fuel pump, reverse light, a button for the single, twospeed wiper, as well as a stalk for the indicators.

This is a slightly less extreme set-up than in the earlier rear-mid-engined Thomassima II, in which several functions such as ignition and indicators were installed on the actual body of the mirror.

In the Thomassima III, round vents are incorporated in the door glass and rear window to force air circulation – often a problem in GT cars of that era, as Tom well knew. Time to turn that key in the roof.

The Colombo V12 purrs – perfectly tuned, as are its battery of Webers. The gear linkage is impeccably adjusted, with reverse being easy to select. Its steering is light, even in parking manoeuvres. It is rather indirect, as I find out while immediately tackling a series of hairpins.

So here I am, driving this unicorn in the hills of Italy. A glamorous life you say... except the rain is pouring buckets, and the windscreen is so fogged up I can see neither where I am going beyond the outline of the front wings, nor where the chasing camera car is on these narrow, winding roads.

The surface is peppered with unseen hazards, while I feel I am operating a submarine. This very first drive is in imminent danger of coming to a brutal halt against a very solid object...

It's an eye-opening start to say the least, but the wiper works well, while cracking open the small triangular window helps. Thankfully the sun soon triumphs, the Tarmac dries and my concern is replaced with a smile... an everwidening one, in fact, because this creation really works. I am at ease, and nothing is hindering the sensuous flow of my driving, except perhaps the visibility to the side and rear three-quarters, which means at T-junctions I have to line up square in order to spot traffic. Meade initially attached two outer mirrors to the door glass, but he later replaced them with a more practical, single, driver’s-side unit mounted on the wing.

The suspension and shocks are set a bit firmer than in a 275 GTB, for example, but they are well adjusted and far from harsh. I can feel that a lot of 96

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ABOVE Enzo Ferrari welcomed Tom Meade, at first...

work has gone into the Thomassima III, and also that, decades later, it is reawakening. Temperatures stay reasonable even when it gets sunny and hot.

Emboldened by familiarisation and the nowideal conditions, on a twisty, traffic-free road worthy of being chosen for a hillclimb, I start to loosen the car’s leash. It is a delight. It does indeed feel very light, mixing precision, smoothness and ease of operation. For a moment I wish the exhaust was free of any silencers, as was the case when Tom ran the Thomassima III in period, sounding like a racing car escaped from the zoo. It would not be practical in the real world, however.

It is a delight to thread through the curves, although in hairpins as I wind the steering I wish it was more direct. In fact, catching a slide would be near impossible. Of course, Tom clearly chose the rather indirect ratio to allow for the small-diameter steering wheel to be turned without undue effort. He wanted that wheel, and it was also the only option due to the driving position and space available.

As I make one of many U-turns with ease, thanks to the light and precise controls, I feel that with EZ power steering installed unobtrusively, a more direct rack ratio would be possible, and truly transformative in spirited driving. I am sure Tom would be all for it – as I think he would be for a modern nose-raising mechanism for crossing garage ramps, allowing the front end to then be lowered back to where it should be.

Stopping for a break in a village square, in order to allow the camera car to catch up, I relish the experience. The Thomassima III is not only stunning, with locals soon crowding around it, but it works as transportation, it is as enjoyable to drive as it looks, and dreaming of travelling in it at warp speed is irresistible... Now where is that glamorous travelling companion and the map to

‘A last hurrah, the ultimate exploration of curvaceous design’

Portofino, and maybe even Gstaad? She could certainly fit enough luggage in the boot, much of which is occupied by the full-size spare tyre...

How about a space-saver rim, Tom? He would raise his thumb and say “cool, yes!”

In fact, as enthusiastic bystanders confirm, gawping and chattering excitedly, everything about the Thomassima III is impossibly cool – and the car gets away with its slightly kitschy excess by commandingly grabbing the popular vote...

The Road & Track article and CBS appearance were the peak of Meade’s fame, but alas, it was also his Icarus moment; he got too close to the sun, and that annoyed the establishment. The powers that be felt he was reaping significant publicity while stepping on their turf and using their cars, which ultimately triggered negative consequences. As with Lamborghini in the late 1960s, the William Favre GTO reproductions in the ’80s, Bugatti in the ’90s, Tom was no longer really welcome in town. Influences were brought to bear, craftsmen were encouraged not to work with him and he was blackballed out of Modena.

This was also a pivotal point in Modenese history, with the ongoing industrialisation of production. On top of that, the 1973 energy crisis came as a huge shock, and sports car sales simply collapsed. All of this meant Tom had to completely reorganise his life. Our car, along with his other projects, got stored away. He moved to Milan, then Bali, then back to LA. When I last saw him there for dinner in April 2013, he’d just bought a 333SP engine for his latest project. Despite a recent stroke, he explained his plans in thorough detail, as feisty and passionate as ever... Alas they did not come to fruition, because he passed away that August.

Tom’s influence in that era of automotive design is not to be underestimated. When the eponymous hero views a 275 NART Spyder in The Thomas Crown Affair, he is looking at a car Luigi Chinetti spawned having seen photos of Meade’s infinitely more dramatic Nembo Spyder I. In the US car scene, Tom’s name and his creations are very much remembered by an entire generation.

Ultimately, before the sharp lines of the 1970s and industrialisation took over, Meade’s work was a last hurrah, the ultimate exploration of curvaceous design, the apogee of Modenese creativity. The Thomassima III was his most advanced creation.

One block from the old Aerautodromo, in the workshop where Tom’s cars were crafted at 194 Via Emilio Po, now occupied by Carrozzeria Vincenzi, the office wall still retains photos of the bodywork Meade spawned there. These are cherished memories of an elusive, long-gone part of Modenese history... but, thanks to the Thomassima III’s roaring defiance, the legend lives on.

Thanks to the owner, Tom’s son – and no, the Thomassima III is absolutely not for sale.

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Spectacular cars, fascinating tailors’ displays, craftsmanship demos, talks, music and some

incredibly stylish visitors. The free-to-attend Concours on Savile Row 2024 didn’t disappoint

Beautiful cars

beautiful people

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Words Magneto team

Photography Matt Howell Martyn Goddard

THIS SPREAD Concours showcased the sights and sounds of stylish central London past and present.

Concours on Savile Row

THIS PAGE Car designers Ian Callum and Peter Stevens were among event’s visitors.

YES, IT’S MAGNETO’S OWN EVENT, SO forgive us if we appear biased, but the third edition of Concours on Savile Row felt like a triumph. If you’ve not been, here’s the score: with the cooperation of Westminster City Council and The Pollen Estate, we take over London’s most famous tailoring street for two days, roll out red carpet along its full length and place around 50 very special cars and motorcycles on it.

Then the tailors, shoemakers and shops open their doors to visitors and VIPs, and put on special displays, demonstrations and talks, while outside personalities from the car, bike, tailoring and art worlds take turns on the central stage, in between live-music sessions. Best of all, it’s open – and free – to all, but with special limited-access VIP areas for guests of sponsors or those who’ve bought the small number of available VIP tickets.

So what was there in 2024? It was a deliberately eclectic mix, covering the entire spectrum of motoring. With a 2024 Formula E GEN3 parked between a 1907 Mercedes 75 PS Spider and a 1950 Land-Rover Series 1 Tickford Station Wagon as just one example, the phrase ‘something for everyone’ was no exaggeration.

Two full days of high points included the global debut of the all-terrain CALLUM SKYE outside Edward Sexton. Design director Ian Callum introduced the striking 2+2, the company’s first own-brand vehicle, to an eager crowd, who were also able to watch a live clay-sculpting demonstration inside the Edward Sexton store.

There was a constant buzz around Huntsman & Sons, beginning with the 1939 Lagonda LG6 Rapide on display just outside. Formerly owned by the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, the car – which had not been seen in public in more than 40 years – complemented an exhibition inside the tailor featuring items from Watts’ own collection of Huntsman suits. A discussion about Charlie himself took place in the Huntsman lounge, organised by Hagerty.

Then there was the replica of John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce Phantom V, hosted by Daniel Hanson.

The original was regularly seen outside The Beatles’ Apple HQ at 3 Savile Row in the 1960s.

Cad & the Dandy was another popular destination for visitors, with in-store displays of Touring Superleggera’s beautifully restored Alfa Romeo 1900 Super Sprint (complementing its new Arese RH95 outside), an Ecurie Ecosse

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Concours on Savile Row

THIS PAGE Craftsmanship and sustainability are the event’s dominant themes.

C-type and an in-demand driving simulator.

Gieves & Hawkes showcased a Spitfire fighter ’plane fuselage (see page 32), while Holland & Sherry showed its appreciation for diminutive pedal-powered classics with a bespoke J40 created with specialist Austin Pedal Cars.

Other highlights included a Joseph Cheaney & Sons shoe-making demonstration inside JP Hackett, men’s grooming services offered by barber Truefitt & Hill and hosted by Henry Poole, English sparkling wine tasting in the Nyetimber Routemaster bus, bespoke cutting displays at Dege & Skinner – and much more.

Henry Poole and Huntsman & Sons both paid homage to the 70th anniversary of the MercedesBenz 300 SL. Henry Poole and Mercedes-Benz Classic also hosted a Craft of the Gullwing display that showcased disassembled elements of the legendary car, and Broad Arrow explained the 300 SL’s position in the market.

Two very well attended seminars were held at the Royal Academy of Arts, the first on approaches to restoration and preservation taken by the art, automotive and tailoring worlds, and the second around the future of fuel and the road to net zero.

Fascinating talks also took place on the concours’ main stage, with designer Peter Stevens, former Ferrari Formula 1 driver Stefan Johansson, model David Gandy and tailors Crémieux and Henry Poole, among others.

A stunning 1995 McLaren F1 formerly owned

by Michael Andretti was deemed Best in Show by the Hagerty Youth Judging Program students.

Charlie Watts’ 1939 Lagonda LG6 Rapide finished closely behind in the runner-up spot.

Meanwhile, the People’s Choice award, presented in association with Hagerty, was won by a 1956 Ferrari 500 TR. The 13th of 17 built, chassis no.

0640 MDTR was originally a Ferrari-owned car that was driven by Franco Cortese in 1956.

We think that 2024’s edition of Concours on Savile Row lived up to its vision, showing the famous street at its very best, celebrating British style and craftsmanship, and the art of bespoke; all thanks to the support of Westminster City Council, The Pollen Estate and sponsors EFG Private Bank, Aranyani, Hagerty, Royal Academy of Arts and Blick Rothenberg. Thanks to all – and thanks to everyone who came along. www.concoursonsavilerow.com

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Words Simon Aldridge

Photography Sam Chick

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As one of only six D-types contested by Scottish racing team Ecurie Ecosse, XKD 561 wears its well documented competition history with pride. In a stunning example of automotive archaeology, a recent bare-metal stripdown revealed the story of this unique Jaguar – and of the people who drove, repaired and restored it through the years

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HISTORY IS A WORD OFTEN USED IN connection with old racing cars. You expect the leather-bound volumes of period photos and paperwork – but in the case of Jaguar D-type XKD 561, history is writ in the metal itself. An opportunity to take the bodywork of this motor sport great back to bare aluminium revealed surprising originality.

Surprising, because rarely do cars of this kind survive with such integrity. XKD 561 was contested in front-line international competition up until 1960, and it has been a notable Historic racer since the 1990s – that’s 35 years of full-on track time. Its history also showed rebuilds in 1959 and 1994. How much originality could be left?

This D-type was delivered new to Ecurie Ecosse in 1956, and raced by the team during that season. Together with the famous Commer transporter, painted in the team’s distinctive Ault & Wiborg Flag Blue metallic livery, it has delighted fans of Historic racing since this iconic pair formed part of Dick Skipworth’s Ecurie Ecosse collection, and then again under the custodianship of Swiss racer Stefan Ziegler.

A Jaguar D-type is special. It’s a collector car

THIS SPREAD The stripdown revealed that the Jaguar was remarkably authentic, with “beautiful and period-correct original aluminium”.

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THIS SPREAD Resplendent in Ault & Wiborg Flag Blue metallic livery, the D-type and transporter make an historic pairing.

‘A Jaguar D-type is special. It’s a collector car that is also brilliant fun to drive on road or track’

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that is also brilliant fun to drive on road or track.

To put that statement into a modern context, it’s small – smaller than a first-gen Mazda MX-5 Miata – so it’s easy to place on the road. It weighs a mere 840kg, and it has secure and predictable handling provided by a stiff monocoque chassis, along with good braking from Dunlop discs – both world firsts for a production car.

The D-type Moss gearbox is satisfyingly accurate, and the first from Jaguar to have synchromesh on all four ratios. The Jaguar develops 250bhp-plus from one of the most charismatic production engines ever built – the XK, seen here in 3.4-litre form with triple Weber carburettors.

The tiny lightweight door swings open like the canopy of a fighter plane, and when you drop into the driver’s seat, you sit low with all the controls in the right place. You can imagine putting in long stints comfortably. To drive a D-type is to understand why the ‘XKD’ won at Le Mans three years running.

It’s these qualities that have made the D-type such a coveted car – and none more so than those that were part of one of the two teams which garnered those famous Le Mans wins.

Jaguar itself followed up on its outright victories in 1951 and ’53 with the first D-type triumph in ’55, but the second and third wins for the ‘D’ came from Ecurie Ecosse. These Le Mans victories in 1956 and ’57 remain landmarks in sports car racing, and in the history of private teams in the ‘greatest race on earth’.

Ecurie Ecosse – the ‘Scottish Stable’ – had been established in 1952 by flamboyant Edinburgh businessman David Murray, together with his long-time friend and mechanic Wilkie Wilkinson. Murray drove the team’s CooperBristol in the 1952 British Grand Prix, but he soon redirected his enthusiasm to the role of team manager, and focused on sports car racing.

Then, in 1956 at Le Mans, their short-nose Jaguar D-types achieved the ultimate win – outperforming all of the Works teams, including Jaguar itself. The victorious driver pair were Ninian Sanderson and Ron Flockhart, in sister car MWS 301, who triumphed after the Works Jaguars fell by the wayside.

The team campaigned only six D-types in total. XKD 561 was the latest and last of the short-nose cars, being delivered brand new from the Coventry factory in March 1956, registered MWS 303. The Jaguar was then used for 12 race meetings during the 1956 season, including at Goodwood, Snetterton, Oulton Park, Silverstone, Aintree, Rouen-Les-Essarts and Spa-Francorchamps.

Driven by Flockhart, Desmond Titterington, Jock Lawrence and Peter Hughes, the car achieved two first places and five seconds.

Titterington’s third place in the British GP support race on July 14 saw XKD 561 bettered 118

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only by Roy Salvadori in the Works Aston Martin DB3S, and outright winner Stirling Moss in the Works Maserati 300S. For ‘only’ a private team, Ecurie Ecosse really did compete – and clearly XKD 561 was often the D-type it chose.

As you would expect, XKD 561 has been professionally maintained by notable marque specialists. Since 2015, when it joined Stefan Ziegler’s collection, it has been looked after

by CKL Developments in Battle, East Sussex.

Maintenance has been ongoing to keep it in racing condition, with the car appearing regularly at the Goodwood Revival and Members’ Meetings. Driver line-ups have included Ziegler himself, Sam Hancock and Martin Stretton, during which time the D-type has achieved

multiple podium positions and victories.

A mechanical stripdown was carried out in 2021, which included a full crack-detection process and overhaul of the suspension. Then, in 2023, after noting that the paintwork was getting distinctly tired, it was decided that the car would benefit from a bare-metal repaint. This presented the opportunity to inspect the body for the first time in decades, to fully understand the previous, 1994 restoration, and to assess the car with today’s knowledge, techniques and expertise, particularly with regard to originality.

The history of XKD 561 was well known, and tells a story of a car crashed and returned to competitive form in period, and then restored again in the 1990s after a long period

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in storage. Back in 1957 the team sold its shortnose D-types, and this one went to 22-year-old owner/driver Max Trimble, who showed considerable promise in his early outings at Aintree and Goodwood. Then, at Spa that May, he crashed heavily during practice.

The badly damaged D-type was sold to Jaguar racer Maurice Charles in Cardiff, who eventually returned it to the track in 1959 for the sports car race supporting the British GP at Aintree. XKD 561 finished respectably in eighth place against much lighter and faster opposition from Cooper Monaco, Lister-Jaguar and Lotus 15 sports-racing cars.

In the Kentish 100 meeting at Brands Hatch, Charles came seventh ahead of Mike Anthony’s powerful Lister-Chevrolet and Michael Salmon’s sister D-type. Charles continued campaigning the car in 1960, and in the BRDC May Silverstone International he finished seventh, splitting the sister D-types of Ron Flockhart – driving the exEcurie Ecosse 1957 Le Mans-winning long-nose, XKD 606 – and Salmon, again in a short-nose, entered by the Gerrards Cross Motor Company.

After 1960, XKD 561 was retired from front-line

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competition. It was sold to Lancastrian enthusiast Clive Unsworth, who used it as a road car for the next eight years or so, before preserving it in storage. It was from this long hibernation that the car eventually emerged, and was sent to the respected specialist Pearsons Engineering for restoration and preparation for Historic competition in 1994. Although the paperwork told a continuous story, since that restoration the car has done nearly 30 years of Historic racing in the hands of some very competitive racers, including Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams. It had undoubtedly been repaired over the years, and acquired more and more body filler. It was not known how much of original 1956 metalwork actually survived after nearly 70 years.

What CKL Developments found during its more recent stripdown was remarkable. The

‘A detailed report describes every component, marking and stamped part number’

crash damage from Spa in 1957 was evident from the replacement front section of the bonnet, the front chassis subframe repairs and the substitute radiator, water-header tank and oil cooler. Other than that, though, the car was remarkably authentic. Even the replacement header tank appeared to be a repaired original. CKL managing director Mark Hews describes the moment: “We found what can only be described as beautiful and period-correct original aluminium.”

The bonnet was clearly genuine D-type.

According to Chris Keith-Lucas, founder of CKL, and one of the leading authorities on racing Jaguars of the 1950s: “The entire original top section is actually still there in one piece. We can even identify it by Jaguar’s characteristic spot welds (not rivets) that attach the internal cold-air duct, for example.”

Thankfully, the previous restoration by Pearsons Engineering in 1994 had retained as much original metalwork as was possible at the time. Only the new nose section of the body skin had been added, and the internal panels were riveted in place rather than spot welded, as would have been done by Jaguar

Ecurie Ecosse D-type

from the factory. CKL was able to subtly rework the nose, reshaping the skin and relocating the main air intake. Although the technology was unavailable in the 1990s, CKL has now invested in the machinery to spot weld the aluminium, as was done at the factory, and has perfected the art of spot welding 70-yearold material – something that would not have been feasible until recently.

The centre section had survived well, and by ‘reading’ the metal you can see the history of the car. As an example, new aluminium has been welded back into the original top skin in order to reverse the full-width FIA windscreen modification made by Maurice Charles to allow him to race the car in 1959-60.

“We can see where the full-width screen had been mounted at one time, and where the windscreen-wiper box would have been,” reports CKL Developments. “For instance, where the short-nose mirror faring was removed during the 1950s Appendix C screen conversion, and then replaced in the 1990s, resulting in two sets of overlapping rivet holes.”

Further interesting, unique identifying features of the centre section that the restorers found include the twin louvre panels mounted on the lower sill on the left side, which were intended to cool the dry-sump tank.

“We believe this is the only one of Ecurie Ecosse’s team of short-nose cars to have this feature. In Graham Gauld’s book Ecurie Ecosse, there is an illustration of David Murray (unusually) out and about driving an apparently unidentified D-type in an Edinburgh housing estate. The number of bonnet stripes is apparently not a guide, but from the louvres we can tell this is XKD 561.”

The tail section was reworked to adjust and correct the position of the headrest, and a steel roll hoop was hidden within the fairing.

With the entire bodywork subtly reshaped and replanished by CKL’s panel shop, it is exactly as Malcolm Sayer, Jaguar’s aerodynamicist, intended, and no longer required any filler before painting. As the pictures on these pages show, in the bare metal it is both perfectly formed and wears the scars of its long life with dignity.

A detailed, 35-page report written by CKL Developments describes each and every component on the car, the markings and stamped part numbers, and their significance. In short, every component and assembly was entirely consistent with the car’s history as a Workssupported privateer racing machine. For instance,

‘CKL has recreated the livery with true period verisimilitude, scanning known examples of the original colour’ the engine bears not one, but two, separate RAC scrutineering stamps, which were applied when the capacity was verified for a major international race such as Le Mans. The braking system’s master cylinder is identical to those fitted to the Works cars, and also to XKD 561’s Le Manswinning sister car – and it is immediately recognisable in the engine bay for its bright silver billet-aluminium construction, rather than the standard car’s black cast-iron unit.

As a team running three near-identical cars in competition, Ecurie Ecosse’s engineers would swap components as needed between vehicles, or even with the Jaguar factory on an exchange basis. According to CKL Developments: “This certainly applies to the team of Ecurie Ecosse short-nose cars: thus MWS 303 (XKD 561) was originally fitted with engine number E 2036-9. This motor now resides in the Le Mans-winning sister car MWS 301 (XKD 501), which we inspected a few years back and can confirm. MWS 303 is now fitted with engine number E 2010-9, which was originally fitted in MWS 302 (XKD 502).”

In a way, this amazing originality was really down to timing and expediency during the 1950s.

In 1959, when the car was sold to Maurice Charles in its crash-damaged state, he had already been racing another ex-Ecurie Ecosse D-type. The year before, Charles had crashed sister car MWS 302 in heavy rain at Le Mans,

and had rebuilt that model himself, incorporating good used long-nose body panels supplied by Lofty England of Jaguar, the marque having run out of spare short-nose body panels. For MWS 303 a year later, Jaguar had run out of spare noses altogether, and Charles’ rebuild had to take a different approach. As a matter of necessity, he had to resort to straightening out the distorted original chassis frame and bodywork as best he could, to go racing again in 1959-60. Thus, the original components were preserved and remained with the car.

Chris Keith-Lucas saw the car at Clive Unsworth’s garage after it was put up for sale from his estate, in the 1990s. At this point it had not turned a wheel for about 26 years. Keith-Lucas described it in his notes as “very much as it had left Charles’ hands” back in 1960. The unrestored racer was in truly time-warp condition, being virtually as raced in 1959-60. Thankfully, the Pearsons restoration didn’t take away any of that history, and CKL was able to apply its knowledge, skill and technical expertise to learn about, record and further refine the restoration.

Now, the car is returned to its original form in a manner that was unavailable to earlier generations of restorers. Documented in the photos on these pages as an unpainted but otherwise completed restoration, the originality and history of the Jaguar are clear to see.

The bodywork in its bare state was so beautiful that it almost seems a shame to have covered it up with paint. Every rivet, repair mark and weld can be seen in the surface of the aluminium, and each one tells a story of this car’s long life. It’s automotive archaeology – reading the history of the D-type in its metal form.

Of course, now that the Jaguar is painted in its original Ecurie Ecosse Flag Blue, it looks magnificent. CKL has recreated the livery with true period verisimilitude, scanning known examples of the original colour to produce an exact copy of the out-of-production hue. It also had its signwriter hand-paint the Ecurie Ecosse shield and race numbers. Thanks to these photos, we have the record of the bare bodywork, and we can also appreciate the finished car alongside the Commer transporter once again.

For many, it was a highlight of this year’s Rétromobile, when the pairing was displayed on the Fiskens stand along with the ex-Ecurie Ecosse C-type JWS 353. Who knows when such evocative machinery will be seen together again?

With thanks to CKL Developments (www.ckl.co.uk), Fiskens and Stefan Ziegler.

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Phil Hill – 1967 Jim Clark – 1962-63

This two-piece, dark blue, Dunlop-produced suit was a variant used for wet races. Compared with the lighter blue ‘standard’ examples, it is waterproofed, much like a Barbour jacket, and has a more robust collar, cuffs and zip to keep the driver dry. Clark was seen using this suit across 1962 and ’63, notably at the 1962 German GP in which he finished fifth in his Lotus 25, as well as at the nonchampionship Lombank Trophy at Snetterton, which he won. Because this suit would have been worn only when conditions were very poor, it allowed Jim to carry on using it over a prolonged period.

By 1967, Hill was nearing the end of his professional racing career. This twopiece Nomex suit by Hinchman would have been an early example of one with fireproof qualities. Phil used it in the Chaparral 2F at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Despite starting in second, he and teammate Mike Parkes failed to finish, thanks to transmission issues at 18 hours. The armband with the suit was given to drivers and team members to show their involvement in the event.

The suit was retained by the Hill family for more than half a century, and they recently sold it at auction as part of Gooding & Company’s A Life in Racing sale.

(Previous page) Stirling Moss – 1960

Moss used this two-piece in 1960, a year in which he won the Monaco and US GPs for Rob Walker’s privateer team. The suit was also worn to win the non-championship South African season-closer in a Porsche 718. In this era suits were generally plain, with the only emblems here being the Dunlop logo and BRDC badge so synonymous with the ‘most successful driver never to win the Formula 1 World Championship’.

Moss’s suit would have been similar to other drivers’, with no real differentiation between teams. These cotton overalls were very much simply protective from ‘race dirt’, with no other safety qualities built in.

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Graham Hill – 1968

1968 marked the first time sponsorship was allowed in F1, and the Gold Leaf Team Lotus 49s are perhaps the most recognisable combination from these primitive years. This Hinchman suit, which carries that Gold Leaf sponsorship as well as logos from Shell and Firestone, was used

by Graham Hill at the back end of ’68, when he clinched his second F1 World Championship.

The wear and tear, as well as oil stains, are a sign of the times, when a suit would still be used for multiple races.

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Jo Siffert – 1971

Fast fashion

Chris Amon – 1971

Amon wore this suit while he was driving for Matra during the 1971 season. Despite the pace of the outfit’s MS120B, the year proved to be a frustrating one for the team – and although Chris won the nonchampionship Argentine GP early on, he failed to clinch a result better than third in the championship events. The suit would have been one of a mere handful Amon used for the entire year.

Given that this suit is from the same year as the preceding Amon overalls, it is clear that Siffert was engaging with more sponsors than his Kiwi rival. Used throughout 1971, with both BRM in F1 and JW Automotive in its Porsche 917 and 908/3, the suit will have covered many racing miles.

During this year, Jo won the Austrian GP from pole position for BRM, but he was tragically killed in the nonchampionship Victory Race at Brands Hatch that October. Retained by the Siffert family, the suit is currently on display in Lucerne’s Swiss Museum of Transport.

Gilles Villeneuve – 1982 Jody Scheckter – 1979

Scheckter took the 1979 World Championship for Ferrari, his first season with the Scuderia. Wins came at Zolder, Monaco and Monza, and he scored a further eight points finishes, including three second places, to beat team-mate Gilles Villeneuve to the title.

This suit was used in the first part of the season, up to that victorious Belgian GP at Zolder.

It now resides in one of the world’s most significant collections of Ferrari memorabilia.

This season is associated with Villeneuve for negative reasons. Wearing this Simpson suit, he was leading the San Marino GP at Imola when Ferrari asked its drivers to slow down and maintain position. Ignoring the instruction, team-mate Didier Pironi overtook on the last lap to win. This led to a huge falling-out between the two, with Gilles vowing never to speak to Pironi again.

Sadly this was to prove the case: Villeneuve was killed two weeks later at Zolder while trying to beat his colleague’s time in qualifying for the Belgian GP. This suit was also worn on that fateful day, although in practice and not during that fatal qualifying run.

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De Angelis wore this Simpson suit to win the 1982 Austrian GP, famously snatching a Lotus victory from Keke Rosberg by just 0.050 seconds. It marked the first win for Italian Elio, the 150th for the Ford DFV, and the last time Colin Chapman would see a victory for one of his cars, due to his passing just four months later. The suit has most of the branding sewn on in the form of patches, with only the name delicately embroidered directly onto the fabric.

This OMP suit was used by Berger at the end of the 1989 season.

Driving the hideously unreliable Ferrari 640, the Austrian managed to finish only three of that year’s 16 races – and when he did, he either won or finished second.

The overalls have extra built-in internal padding to give the driver more protection when banging up against the car’s monocoque.

Gerhard Berger – 1989

Elio de Angelis – 1982

Nelson Piquet – 1987 By 1987, race suits were becoming more advanced on many levels. Better fireproof protection was being developed, while sponsors’ names were now being directly embroidered onto the fabric itself. Stand 21 produced these overalls, which Piquet used throughout ’87, his third and final championship year. Matched to the German GP, which Nelson won, this item would have also been worn at other events during the year, because even at this stage suit supply was limited.

Fast fashion

Mark Blundell – 1992

Blundell wore this suit to win the 1992 Le Mans 24 Hours. Alongside compatriot Derek Warwick and Frenchman Yannick Dalmas, he drove a Peugeot 905 Evo 1b to victory by more than six laps. The suit’s heavy discolouration is due to celebratory Champagne, which stained the fabric on that successful day at La Sarthe more than 30 years ago.

Lola T280 - Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0L Built in 1972 to take on the might of Porsche and Ferrari in endurance racing the T280 incorporated the DFV engine which was hugely successful in F1 into the sportscar design. One of only 10 similar cars built by Lola, it was driven to victory by Gerard Larousse and JP Beltiose in its first race the Paris 1000kms in 1972.

More recently the car has been completely rebuilt and raced in both Masters Series, Peter Auto CER2 and Le Mans Classic. The car also benefits from recently rebuilt Richardson DFV, comprehensive mileage records and current crack test and fuel cells. Highly competitive in Masters with the new 9500rpm limit - a well sorted and competitive car.

1981 Williams FW07B Built for the early races of the 1981 season, chassis 10 was driven to victory in the South African GP by Carlos Reuterman, and was used by Alan Jones in Long Beach and Brazil. Retained by Williams until 2004, this car has more recently been raced with great success in Historic Formula 1 races in the USA and Europe as well as the recent Monaco Historic Grand Prix where it finished an impressive 4th overall. Maintained to the highest standards by OC Racing in the UK, the Williams FW07 was the benchmark car F1 racing in the early 1980’s and is still the car to beat today. Please call for more information.

SPEEDMASTER SPECIALIST IN HISTORIC AUTOMOBILES Tel: +44 (0)1937 220 360 or +44 (0)7768 800 773 info@speedmastercars.com www.speedmastercars.com

By 2000, drivers were being given ever more suits every year – and, in many instances, one per race. This example was used by Coulthard at the Brazilian GP – in which he qualified second and then finished second, but was later disqualified for an illegal front-wing end plate. With sponsors changing, and indeed tobacco advertising banned at some races, suits would have seen quite a few variations over the season, allowing them to be matched more easily to each event.

David Coulthard – 2000

Fast fashion

Kimi Räikkönen – 2004 In the Ron Dennis era at McLaren, multi-year sponsorship deals meant suits were often consistent between seasons. This Räikkönen example is four years later than the previous Coulthard version, yet it looks remarkably similar save for a few logo repositions.

The fact that it was the 28th outfit provided for the 18-race 2004 run shows just how plentiful suit supply was during this period. Kimi scored a sole victory in the Belgian GP, in what was arguably his least successful season with the Woking team.

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In this era of Ferrari suits, OMP dated each belt on the inside to signify where the overalls had been used, making identification much easier. This particular suit was worn

by Schumacher to score an eighth place at the 2003 Japanese GP. While such a position was nothing to shout about, considering the German had 91 wins and 155 podiums, the single point it earned him was enough to clinch his record-breaking sixth World Championship.

Schuey suits are among the most collectable ever, with a similar 2003 example being sold by RM Sotheby’s in Las Vegas in 2023 for more than $100,000.

Fast fashion

Alpinestars is a brand associated with F1 and top-level motor sport from the 2000s onwards.

Alonso, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel have all won World Championships wearing its products. This suit, the tenth supplied, was used by Fernando in 2005, his second championship-winning year. Despite the overalls themselves being much lighter, they still weighed in heavier than was optimal, thanks to all the extra material generated by sponsor logos. That, however, was about to change...

Fernando Alonso – 2005

Michael Schumacher – 2003

Fast fashion

Max Verstappen – 2018

By 2018, suits had changed again, and were more akin to what F1 drivers still wear today.

Thanks to printed sponsor logos coupled with much thinner base overalls, this Puma suit is as lightweight as they have ever been. It was used by Verstappen at the 2018 Spanish GP, in which he finished third behind Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

As another highly collectable driver, Max’s 2023 suit was recently sold by F1 Authentics in an auction for £112,000.

Similar to the Max Verstappen example, this 2019 Puma suit was used

by Hamilton in what was his sixth championshipwinning year. Eleven victories, six podiums and four further pointsscoring occasions make this Lewis’s most successful season to date.

Lewis Hamilton – 2019

Bringing us almost up to date, this suit was used

by Ricciardo at the 2021 Monaco GP. Sporting a ‘one-off’ Gulf livery for the event, multiple examples would have been produced for the team. This particular version, however, was used by Australian Daniel in the race itself.

Daniel Ricciardo – 2021

Fast fashion

Thanks to Mike Fairholme, Guy Loveridge, Philippe Siffert, Ronald Stern, Joe Twyman

Words Mark Dixon

HYPERBOLIDE HYPERCARS ARE A 21ST-

CENTURY PHENOMENON, RIGHT? BUT THERE’S AN ARGUMENT FOR LOOKING MUCH FURTHER BACK – TO THIS 1937 BUGATTI TYPE 57S, FOR EXAMPLE

Photography Sam Chick

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‘EVERYTHING SITS DOWN LOW IN THE CHASSIS. BASICALLY, IT’S VERY SIMILAR TO THE BUGATTI 57s THAT WON LE MANS TWICE’

LEFT The Bugatti 57S was the pinnacle – the Valkyrie – of pre-war engineering.

Being driven is its raison d’etre.

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IT’S A MYTH THAT THE LATE LJK Setright coined the term ‘supercar’ about the Lamborghini Miura, but it’s an enduring one, and not without reason. The Miura certainly ticks all the boxes for a supercar – stunning looks, amazing engine and, of course, limited real-world practicality. But what would you nominate as the very first hypercar? The Bugatti Veyron of 2005? The McLaren F1 that had appeared more than a decade earlier?

Enthusiast and classic car broker William I’Anson, who grew up steeped in Vintage Bugattis through his father’s business, Tula Engineering, reckons you can go further back; a lot further back. He argues that this 1937 Bugatti Type 57S could rightfully be described as one of the first hypercars. A bold claim, but one that I’Anson feels he can justify.

“It is very important to realise that, although they share the same type number, the Type 57 and the Type 57S are two completely different animals – and that is why, along with the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900, the Type 57S was a true hypercar of the pre-war era,” he says. “It is as close as you are going to get to a Type 59 Grand Prix car for the road. Not only were they the most elegant cars on the road at that time, they were the fastest.

“It drives more like a Type 59 Grand Prix car than a regular 57, and that is because they are very closely related. The engine feels more alive,

‘ALL 57s ARE SPECIAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE SPECIAL THAN OTHERS. THE 57S DEFINITELY FALLS INTO THE LATTER CATEGORY’

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Bugatti Type 57S

it wants to rev; yet it’s also very smooth, with lovely long-legged torque and plenty of pull. The gearbox is nice to use and much quieter than those of earlier cars. The ‘S’ after the model number stands for surbaissé, which means lowered, an ethos that is carried throughout the design. With the same wheelbase as the Type 55, everything from the dry-sump engine to the rear axle sits down low in the chassis. Basically, it’s very similar to the Bugatti 57s that won Le Mans in both 1937 and 1939.”

Fair points, and that’s before you take into account the car’s looks, which are surely among the most elegant of any pre-war machine. They’re the work of English coachbuilder Vanden Plas (originally Belgian, of course, but subsumed into its UK subsidiary in 1923), and they are simply stunning, particularly when finished in the car’s original colour, a mid-grey that shows the purity of the lines off to best effect and accentuates the brightwork highlights.

Admittedly, this 57S has some stiff competition in the visual drama stakes, even among its own ranks. The regular Type 57 was one of Bugatti’s greatest successes, several hundred being built from 1934 until the outbreak of World War Two, and it underpinned the most extraordinarily dramatic and beautiful coachwork of the 1930s, not least the Atalante coupés, the Aérolithe prototype coupé and its spin-off Atlantic coupé siblings.

Equally gorgeous roadsters and coupés were offered by the likes of Gangloff, Corsica and all the usual suspects such as Figoni et Falaschi and Saoutchik. Basically, the Type 57 coachbuilder list is a Who’s Who of upmarket automobile couturiers.

Wealthy Brits loved the 57. Record-breaker Malcolm Campbell, who bought chassis no.

57531 and had it bodied by Corsica, was quoted in 1937 as saying: “If I was asked to give my opinion as to the best all-round super-sports car which is available on the market today, I should without hesitation whatever say it was the 3.3[-litre] Bugatti. It cannot fail to attract the connoisseur or those who know how to handle the thoroughbred. It is a car in a class by itself.”

Even if you take Campbell’s pronouncement with a pinch of salt, since he made money from selling cars, and so his loyalties tended to follow commercial imperatives, his view was later supported by the impeccable Bugatti authority Hugh Conway, who wrote: “The Type 57 was the most celebrated non-racing car that Bugatti ever produced.” It may not have been the most technically advanced car of its time – hydraulic brakes were not introduced until 1938 – but it was a great driver’s machine, with, as you’d expect, a superb engine at its heart.

To misquote George Orwell, therefore: “All 57s are special, but some are more special than others.” The 57S definitely falls into the latter 156

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‘AS I’ANSON POINTS OUT, THIS IS NOT A RAW, CRACKLING KIND OF ENGINE LIKE A TYPE 35’S; IT’S MORE LUXURIOUS, MORE LAID-BACK’ category. Its 3257cc straight-eight featured twin overhead camshafts and was related to the unit in the contemporary Type 59 GP car, producing around 140bhp in standard unblown form.

Also as with the 59 racer – are you starting to see William I’Anson’s point? – it had a wide track and a lower, shorter chassis for better roadholding. To help the engine achieve a low profile in the chassis, it was dry-sumped, and it was tuned with a higher compression ratio to give up to 170bhp. That’s before you add the optional supercharger, which literally boosted the power output to 200bhp. Only 43 Type 57S chassis were built, of which 22 were fitted with factory-commissioned bodies (mostly Atalantes and Atlantics), the others with whichever coachwork the customer preferred.

Vanden Plas clothed only two Type 57S chassis, and records show that the coachwork for this car was ordered by Ettore Bugatti himself.

The body was painted grey with red accents, and cost £275. The handsome 57541 was even pictured in the company’s 1937-38 catalogue.

It seems curious today, when the new £3million-plus Bugatti Tourbillon hypercar can sell out seemingly within moments of it being announced, that 57541 took a while to find its first

owner. Ordered by US concessionaire George Rand through Bugatti’s London agent, Colonel WL Sorel, the chassis was due to be despatched on March 10, 1937 but was not actually sent until May 29. After being completed by Vanden Plas, it was shipped to Rand and Collier, New York – the only Type 57S that went new to the US. Photos of the 57S wearing a front bumper but no rear spats, and a New York licence plate, 4C 96-23, at Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island suggest that Rand may have driven it to the races on September 25. He clearly didn’t attract a buyer, because by October 1938 the car was still unsold and it was back in London, to be exhibited at the Earls Court Motor Show. Presumably that did the trick, because on November 3, 1938 the 57S was registered with the UK number FGW 384.

It’s not known for certain who was the first owner of FGW 384, but Paris-based banker Herman H Harjes Jr seems a good bet. Even though he was only in his mid-20s, he clearly had the necessary disposable, because the July 1939 issue of Bugatti Owners Club magazine Bugantics mentions him as having had a 57S and a 57C “foursome coupé”, and that he was in the process of acquiring Colonel Giles’ 57SC Sezanne in some kind of part-exchange deal with his own 57C. It is thought that the 57S mentioned was 57541.

It seems likely that the car never left the UK, though, since when it next resurfaced, in 1947, it was in the hands of Surrey-based dealer Continental Cars. A thirsty Bugatti luxury motor can’t have been the easiest sell in petrol-rationed, cash-starved, post-war Britain, and the 57S seems to have circulated between the company’s various directors at the time. One of them, Brian Finglass, recalled in 1990 that he’d bought it from fellow director Jimmy McAlpine, and sold it on to an enthusiast called Jack Robinson.

Finglass had advertised the car in The Autocar’s September 30, 1949 issue for £750, describing it

1927

1928

H.M. BENTLEY’S PER SONAL CAR

H . M. B EN T L EY’S FIN ES T

1927 THE L A ST HA RRISON T OURER

BL U E R N

S P EED MO DEL 200B H P L E MANS RE P

L E MAN S R EP N U MBER 7

Bugatti Type 57S

as a “1939 [sic] Bugatti 57SC… superb body by Vanden Plas as new throughout, genuine road speed up to 125mph and 17mpg”. Besides the error about the car’s year, what’s notable is its designation as a 57SC – the ‘C’ for compressor – because by now 57541 had been fitted with a Type 35B supercharger. A couple of 57Ss were supercharged from new, but 57541 had not been one of them; it was very common to fit a blower post-sale, though.

Jack Robinson would be 57541’s most flamboyant owner, and the one who had the car longest. While a student at Cambridge University, he’d owned a Bugatti Brescia that had been tuned to rev to 7000rpm and could beat a Type 37 or even a 35 around Brooklands, according to legendary Vintage car man David ‘Bunty’ ScottMoncrieff. After an unsuccessful stint in the London motor trade, Robinson emigrated to his parents’ sugar plantation on Trinidad, and started up a much more profitable garage business there.

Before decamping to the Caribbean, however, he bought 57541 in late 1949, at which time he recalled it was fitted with a triple-lobed 35B blower and a Zenith barrel-type carburettor.

Locally registered in Trinidad as PB 3377, chassis 57541 was pressed into service as Robinson’s ‘race on Sunday, drive to work on Monday’ car. He swapped the carb for a Zenith 48UY, but then ended up rebuilding the engine with a new block, crankshaft and pistons. At some point all four wings were removed and set aside (to be refitted), to reduce drag, and extra louvres were let into the bonnet tops (the traces survive to this day). Taking off the front wings also allowed ugly but doubtless effective telescopic shock absorbers to be mounted on tall vertical brackets sticking straight up from the chassis dumb-irons, in place of the original De Ram units.

These remarkably still remain with the car today, although thankfully are not fitted.

With or without these mods, Robinson would compete against Jaguar XK120s and the like at Trinidad’s aerodrome, reputedly achieving speeds of over 110mph; his friend Leonard Porter recalled that “he’d drive it to business and then straight to a club meeting on the racetrack there”. Robinson ended up keeping the car for some 30 years, before passing it via Porter to the well known collector Peter Agg in 1985.

The sea-change in attitude towards Vintage Bugattis (and their values) by the mid-1980s was reflected by Agg having the car totally restored, including an engine rebuild by Crosthwaite & Gardiner, and refinishing it in a period-correct if non-original light metallic blue. Now registered DXP 970, it became a familiar sight at Prescott and various race circuits, before Agg sold it in 1995 to the Samsung Collection, which kept it on display at the Blackhawk Museum in California, until it 158

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‘CARS LIKE THIS NEED USING. THEY’VE DONE THE CONCOURS CIRCUIT; NOW IT’S TIME TO GET THEM ONTO THE ROAD’ was acquired by the current owner in March 2016.

Three decades on from Peter Agg’s restoration, this new owner embarked on his own rerestoration – and one that in turn showed a further generation’s-worth of evolved knowledge and respect. Originality, of both parts and finish, was the keyword here: not just a colour change back to the 1937 livery of grey with red accents, but restoration with genuine Bugatti parts to the condition they left the factory, rather than how they might be bulled-up for a concours field. If tool marks had been visible then, they wouldn’t be covered up now; if metal (such as the engine block) was unpolished when new, it would remain like that today. There is no plush carpet on the floorpans, just simple rubber mats and insulation pads, as it was from new, that leave the body’s inner sills exposed – and, yes, bearing the hammer marks of those pre-war craftsmen.

Credit for this exacting work has to go to pre-war car expert restorer Evan Ide and his Massachusetts-based Historic Vehicle Services, which did the bulk of the restoration, including retaining all the original body panels and only correcting previously repaired areas – for example, the backs of the rear wings, which were found to be four inches higher than they were when the car was built. The body was then prepped and painted by Wayne Carini’s F40 Motorsports in Connecticut – using authentic nitrocellulose paint, of course – and retrimmed by Interior Motives in dark red leather; even the hood and tonneau’s cotton-based materials were dyed in such a way that they will fade naturally over time.

Holman Engineering rebuilt and tested the engine, reuniting 57541’s original crankcase – stamped with the number S29 – with a genuine Bugatti iron block, an item not commonly used in modern restorations. The mantra was wherever possible to source a 1930s Molsheim part rather than a 2020s reproduction. The only concession to usability has been the addition of a modern electric fan, necessitated by the relatively small frontal area of the original radiator and the shoehorning of the engine inside a tightly wrapped bonnet.

It’s very much a car of the 1930s rather than a

decade earlier. Starting is easy and quick: retard the ignition and set a light throttle using the matching plated levers that project through the dash – which are inconveniently unmarked, so make sure you remember which is which – and then pump the Ki-gas plunger a couple of times.

With the ignition off, turn the engine over for a few seconds to get oil sucked up from the dry sump and into the bearings. Then press the button and off you go. “That’s the joy of a Bugatti like this,” grins I’Anson. “It’s basically a get-inand-drive kind of car. They’re not complicated.”

Obviously you should still be patient and let the fluids warm through before moving off. It’s a chance to appreciate the gorgeous exhaust note of the straight-eight. It is, to be frank, very sexy.

There are some thoroughbred mechanical valvetrain backing vocals, but the main theme is carried by the six – count ’em – peashooter exhaust tailpipes, which emit a pleasant eightcylinder rumble, discreet but with just a hint of underlying menace. As I’Anson correctly points out, this is not a raw, crackling kind of engine like a Type 35’s; it’s more luxurious, more laid-back – until you step on the accelerator.

Now, 57541 is still fresh from its total restoration, and everything is still bedding in, but there’s potentially 200bhp here to propel a car that weighs less than a tonne. It feels livelier than a regular 57, but with depths of torque that mean you rarely need to drop from a higher gear to pull away; when you do, however, the four-speed gearbox is easy to handle, aided by a pleasant clutch. Out of respect for the car’s out-of-the-box state, modest revs are the order of the day – but I’Anson reckons that slick changes are easier the higher up the rev-range you go. It’s also noticeably quiet in all ratios, unlike earlier Bugatti gearboxes, since it houses constant helical-mesh gears.

The ride is engaging yet not overly soft, while the steering proves accurate, if a little heavy at low speeds, and the car never wanders. Only the brakes lack a bit of bite, which I’Anson reckons is simply due to lack of use; the brake shoes may have glazed, and a few fast miles on an open road should help sort that out.

“Cars like this need using,” he enthuses.

“They’ve done their stuff on the concours circuit; now it’s time to get them off the showfield and onto the road. It was great to see Fritz Burkard driving his Delage D8-120S – which was Peninsula’s Best of the Best in 2023 – in the snow at this year’s ICE St Moritz. The Bugatti 57S and the 2.9 Alfa were the pinnacle of pre-war engineering, the Valkyrie of their day. Driving them is what it’s all about – or should be.”

Thanks to William I’Anson for his help with this feature. Contact him via www.williamianson.com or by calling +44 (0)1285 831488.

Words Miles Collier

Illustration Lisa Sheehan

Miles Collier, the Revs Institute founder and automotive archaeologist, on why it’s imperative that we keep our collectable cars – and watches and guitars – working and moving. Caring for, conserving and using Active Matter by keeping it alive is not only essential for its preservation, but the only way to prevent such functioning items becoming mere curiosities of lost potential

Active Matter

RIGHT The Beast of Turin Fiat on track is Active Matter at its breathtaking best – like witnessing a Space Shuttle from 1910.

THE NEED TO PRESERVE ‘STUFF’ IS PART of human experience and instinct. Remember how you felt when your mother threw all your trading cards away while you were a freshman at college? For as long as people have created, used and kept things, they have cared for them, repaired them, displayed them and, yes, sold them.

In today’s world, ‘saving stuff’ often includes keeping articles we might properly call ‘Active Matter’. Active Matter are those things that do something. They don’t just sit there on a shelf in the deep background space when you are on a Zoom call. Essentially, the purpose of any bit of Active Matter becomes clear only when you see the thing operating: a watch’s hands move – it tells time; a cake mixer mixes batter; a musical instrument makes sounds when played; a nuclear submarine glides through the deep.

And, of course, there is the automobile – that thing of time and space, motion and sensation, which transports people and things. While automobiles are our primary focus here, there are some additional examples of ordinary Active Matter, such as mechanical watches and electric guitars, that we will briefly encounter below.

The purpose that animates Active Matter is doing something. When that activity is stopped by time or neglect, Active Matter’s meaning largely disappears. The car, guitar or watch that doesn’t function is only a thing of lost potential, a mere curiosity.

Caring for, conserving and using Active Matter by keeping it alive in the world is essential not only for the preservation of such things, but for the preservation of memory about those things. Things not only tell us who we are and where we come from, but literally sustain us physically, mentally and emotionally. And equally important, Active Matter can inform, educate and even entertain us.

Beats there a heart that doesn’t thrill to the 162

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‘Its true diabolical nature is lost on us until we see it go, its driver sawing at the wheel at the edge of potential immolation’ sight of Duncan Pittaway at the wheel of his truly frightening, 28-litre Beast of Turin Fiat record-breaker, snaking around the Goodwood Motor Circuit, wreathed in smoke and flames from its stub exhausts? That is Active Matter at its breathtaking best. It is like witnessing a Space Shuttle from 1910. And, as is so typical of Active Matter, the true diabolical nature of the Beast of Turin is lost on us until we see it go, its driver sawing at the wheel at the edge of a potentially fiery immolation.

So, why distinguish Active Matter from its static, and easily understandable, counterparts such as furniture, Georgian silver, sculpture or stately homes? Well, because Active Matter is fundamentally different. Consider the static Eames chair from which you sometimes contemplate your active 1965 MGB over a beer in the garage.

First, the difference of Active Matter things requires that we think about them, well, differently from static things. Their very activity is the kernel of their existence; if they don’t go, they have no meaning. We’ve all spent countless hours trying to coax some recalcitrant banger into life. Why aren’t we satisfied with it as a lawn ornament?

And this brings us to a notable point.

Understanding the special nature of Active Matter will make us both better stewards of

historical automobiles, and more fulfilled as owners, operators or even spectators. More than an art-glass paperweight, Active Matter does things for us, it moves us literally and figuratively – but here’s the point: while we rely on Active Matter, Active Matter also relies on us to remain alive in the world. That’s why you were down in the garden tuning your MG. Active Matter obligates us to fuel it, tune it, repair it, clean it and, yes, even restore it. In our industrialised culture, we could not survive for long without Active Matter.

In return, Active Matter needs us to function. You could say we are entangled with things, and have been from the deepest reaches of time.

This cycle of mutual benefit and obligation is one of the defining characteristics of Active Matter. We wear it out, we break it, we modify it to do its job better, we repurpose it and, ultimately, we throw it away. For very fortunate items of Active Matter, we collect, restore, repurpose, enjoy and value them. While these aspects apply to much inert matter as well, Active Matter is at the very heart of our convoluted relationship of mutual obligation with things.

This continuous cycle of mutual benefit between us and the MG may be caused by a variety of factors. First, by human wants: this weekend, let’s install those tube shocks for better handling. Second, by mischance: oops, backed it into the tyre wall even though it had the new tube shocks. Third, through the working of time itself: maybe it wasn’t the shocks that let us down, but these hardened old brake hoses.

It follows that if we must maintain our 1965 MGB, then at some point we will be introducing replacements for those hardened brake lines we mentioned. Taken to the extreme, there will come a day far in the future when the state of our MG will shift from ‘mostly original’ to ‘mostly replica’, through the sheer weight of new components. If we have also been modifying

Montlhéry Midget Offered for sale

1931 MG C Type Chassis # C0278 suppliyed to Jarvis & Sons. (J A Palmes and G E T Eyston) Factory racing body from chassis # C0284

Order your Goodwood Revival sustanable racing fuel from us.

the car for improved usability, improved performance, or just because we can, the rate of transition from authentic to replica increases. If we crash or otherwise damage the car during its life, another layer of replication is added.

Of course, the obvious question is: “If our MG retains its original look and specifications, and operates in the same manner as when new, what does it matter?” Well, if your standard is authenticity of function, it doesn’t. But then, a replica with accurately duplicated performance should serve you just as well. If your standard is authenticity of fabric, having the very same matter that saw the light of day in 1965, then this transition makes all the difference in the world.

The fact remains with all Active Matter objects; in time, the whole shebang will eventually fall to bits irrespective of care and maintenance. Active Matter is not just active in function, it is also active in its own transformation from usable thing to relic, to rubbish and, ultimately, to nothing.

Said another way, all use involves consumption, and the product of consumption is always waste.

Let’s consider the evolving value dynamics of rare and important automobiles. Cars, indeed all forms of Active Matter, have two natures: the first is material, the second is function. All historical vehicles consist of material from the past. They are relics that have endured through the years or decades to arrive in our present.

But cars are also phenomena. They operate and do things as a function of their power and mobility. We experience these active aspects by seeing, feeling, hearing, experiencing and, if we are lucky, driving them.

Because all automobiles are a mixture of these two properties, matter and motion, we can think of cars as points on a matter/motion scale. A fresh-from-the-dealer Ferrari inhabits some central area of the scale as a balanced presentation of a stylish, impressive and prestigious object, and eye-watering performance.

Historical automobiles, especially valuable ones, are found closer to the matter end of the scale, as we will explain in a moment.

At the other extreme, ‘beater’ Toyota Hilux pickups are almost all phenomena. Provided they work, no one cares about them or values them for their historical matter. As certain cars become ever more valuable and revered for their non-utilitarian, collectable functions, they drift inexorably to the matter end of the scale. Yes, we want them to run.

Yes, we enjoy driving them, but it’s their original historical matter that brings the cash.

It is axiomatic that monetary value privileges matter. That’s why ‘originality’ and ‘numbers matching’ are so important in today’s collecting world. When these cars were first bought as collectables for the vintage racing scene, 30, 50 or 70 years ago, they were a lot closer to our 164

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RIGHT Hotrodded Black Strat is an evolving tool documenting David Gilmour’s performing life.

Toyota Hilux – valued less for their matter, their artefactual purity, and more for their motion, the experiences they could confer through racing, touring or just blasting up the road.

With Active Matter, there is an inherent tension between what the thing does and what the thing is made of. Continuing activity always comes at the expense of originality. To keep that old MG going, new parts are required as original ones wear out or break. The car gradually embarks on a journey away from matter (defined as the original stuff of its manufacture) towards phenomenon, towards being a thing valued purely for what it does, for the fact that it goes. In the world of collections, such a journey away from originality destroys monetary value, dependent as that value is on the

originality of the car. Is there any surprise that the life cycle we are now beginning to see in important historical automobiles, shows them transitioning towards valuable matter, and away from valued motion? Don’t look for these cars to return to vintage racing grids.

Quite the opposite. They are becoming relegated to museum collections, concours and perhaps the occasional tour, provided the events offer the level of security such valuable machines demand. ‘Birds of a feather’ events with narrow, one-make-and-model entry criteria have turned such automobiles into membership tickets to exclusive gatherings distinguished by the participants’ common ability to acquire such monetarily formidable entries.

Consider the Ferrari GTO, McLaren F1, Alfa Romeo 8C, Lamborghini Miura and other rarefied gatherings. Ultimately, such cars will gradually progress to ever less functional use and ever more symbolic employment as ‘art’, with all the attendant overtones of the car’s agelessness, and the owners’ wealth, status, connoisseurship and social signalling. This trend should explain the growing phenomenon of replicas in vintage racing (all the motion with none of the matter), or of ‘weapons grade’ machines, comparatively valueless cars with good performance.

Now, let’s expand our horizons a bit by looking at some other forms of Active Matter – mechanical watches and electric guitars – and then wrap up by noting what’s similar and what is different in the culture of their possession, collecting and use.

There are two kinds of Active Matter: first, objects valued for their utility, especially if used for competitive or expressive purposes; and second, those functional objects that are valued for their non-utility. This latter category is art or art-like things. Practical things often evolve individually over time and use, to become better suited and more effective for their purpose. We install tube shocks on our MG. This is not to say that all objects used in a competitive way go on to be improved or developed. Often such things are replaced with brand-new and more effective counterparts. The point is that utilitarian Active Matter objects can be, and often are, individually modified and refined with time and use.

In the other case, Active Matter intentionally made as art is different. The source of its value and desirability lies in its unchanging nature, in being a complete statement to be preserved for eternal appreciation exactly as made. The action of Active Matter conceived as art is an integral part of the art itself. Consider an Alexander Calder mobile, or the example we will use here, an elite-level mechanical watch.

In today’s world, those watches are functionally useless, because almost everyone has a digital

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device with timekeeping capabilities vastly superior to any mechanical watch and the equal of any digital model. Today’s digital devices have built-in timekeeping as part of their functional architecture.

That function, however incidental to the product, easily eclipses the abilities of traditional mechanical watches. Indeed, such timepieces can now be seen as an inferior ‘one-trick pony’ in a world of smart, multi-functional devices.

Today, we have versatile digital assistants such as the Apple Watch, which can do so much more than precise timekeeping: health and sleeppattern tracking; exercise monitoring; streaming music; finding your iPhone; taking screenshots; working as a ‘Dick Tracy’ wrist radio; use as a remote car key... The functions are almost limitless. With each new app, the practical need for a traditional, specialised, single-function timekeeping device declines. Functional obsolescence has left the demand for traditional watches dependent on the wholly non-functional appeal of ‘wearable’ art, with all of art’s display of taste, wealth, status and more.

‘Collectable’ watches exhibit art-like characteristics, where cutting-edge technology is designed into them purely for appreciation, and not for timekeeping precision. Of course, highend mechanical watches will keep excellent time, just not that of digital precision. The change in the focus of watch engineering from improving the timekeeping function of a utilitarian device in the past to today’s functionally superfluous adornment representing connoisseurship, status, luxury and taste, has resulted in the paradox of non-functional adornment spurring mechanical watch technology to new heights of sophistication (and accuracy) undreamt of when mechanical watches had a utilitarian purpose. Today, connoisseurship, the ability to identify and appreciate tiny differences among makes, models, even individual pieces that make for great differences in desirability, characterises the collectable watch market.

As with automobiles, watches are distinguished by make, model, date of manufacture, condition and provenance (ownership history). Similarly, important and interesting stories associated with a specific watch can increase value. Included in the value of vintage pieces is the aspect of documentation, ‘box and papers’, to prove authenticity and originality. Indeed, we see the same impulse in the ‘delivery-mileage only’ trend among high-end collectable automobiles, with their emphasis on the untouched and pristine originality of an art piece rather than on the functional utility of a luxurious usable object.

While the Apple Watch and its ilk might be pushing ‘traditional’ watches into functional oblivion, they are also making luxury mechanical watches and clocks, such as an Audemars Piguet 166

Magneto

ABOVE Active Matter is not passive, contends Miles Collier. It creates experiences and memories.

or Glashütte piece, exceptionally valuable and prized as expressions of human ingenuity, technological brilliance and, yes, art. We see watches with diabolically complex tourbillon escapements that increase timekeeping accuracy by reducing gravitational effects on the running mechanism. And, indeed, if a one-tourbillon watch is special, a two-tourbillon instrument is all the better for its conspicuous excess. Factory originality is the key criterion collectors seek in all Active Matter intended as art. And because watches are art, any modification to them in the aftermarket is anathema. Woe unto the collector who has changed the crystal, refinished the dial, or even allowed anyone but the factory to open the case.

Certainly, what is true of competition cars is equally true of objects such as musical instruments, which are intended, designed, used and altered to express musical expression. To see what I mean, watch rock icon Jimi Hendrix play Purple Haze. In the quest for special effects, many electric guitars, say David Gilmour’s Black Strat, have been ‘hot rodded’ by their owners in the quest for a signature sound or to accommodate a particular playing style. Different strings, pickups, fret boards and necks, amplifiers and more are adjusted or changed to suit.

Likewise, the great Cremonese violins of the 18th century are commonly ‘tuned’ to generate a larger, more voluminous sound to accommodate modern theatres and the

‘Unlike static things, Active Matter advocates for itself in the most eloquent way through its very activity’

preference of today’s audiences. It is not uncommon for pipe organs to be ‘revoiced’ for the same reasons. And, of course, racing cars are the very embodiment of continuous evolution.

But guitars differ from historical competition cars in one important way. Due to evolving technology, historical automobiles are no longer usable for their makers’ original purpose of winning modern races. Think of the Beast of Turin, which, however fabulous, is no longer fit for record breaking. By contrast, electric guitars are still working because they remain technologically functional for their original music-making purpose. And so, some musicians will not only play vintage guitars of historical distinction for personal pleasure, but will also use them at concerts, or to make recordings. In contrast to pristine art watches, but much like famous cars of famous drivers, the personal modifications to David Gilmour’s Black Strat guitar greatly increased its value, because those modifications were part of the instrument’s value as an evolving tool documenting Gilmour’s performing life.

It is probably safe to say that all guitar collectors play guitar after some fashion, just as all automobile collectors drive their cars after some fashion. For certain collectors of both objects, however, playing the selfsame guitar used by John Lennon, or driving the very same car once used

by John Surtees, is a major part of the collecting appeal. Historical guitars with a provenance involving a rock god such as Hendrix, Gilmour or Bonnie Raitt inevitably show patina, the physical signs of use during a life of performing, just as we see similar signs of use in historical competition cars. At the highest level of desirability are those important automobiles and guitars that still retain their original working appearance, but which has been tempered by use, continuing care and good storage conditions. Every scratch, chip or scuff can be related to the object’s life as the tool used to win races or make musical history.

False patina – artificial aging to create a look of time and use beyond blending a repair area – is undesirable in the field of automobile collecting.

Yet quite remarkably, false patina, ‘relic-ing’ as it is called, is common in the field of vintage guitars, to the extent that manufacturers offer brand-new, exact duplicates down to every scratch and blemish of their historically important celebrity instruments. The key point is that every bit of wear and damage is meticulously reproduced to produce a simulacrum of the unique historical original.

Active Matter is like you and me. It is something alive in the world. Unlike static things, Active Matter’s storyline is not just passive. It creates experiences and memories; it advocates for itself in the most eloquent way through its very activity.

Think about that the next time you go to the old-car races, or motor down a country lane in that MGB.

DAMON MAY / REVS INSTITUTE

Active Matter

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THE TOP 50

Initially a practical, rather than an aesthetic, design choice, the gullwing door is perhaps the ultimate

GULLWINGS

automotive styling trope – and it appears on more cars than you might imagine. Here are our favourites

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Siva S 530

Lancia Mizar

AFTER stirring visitors to London’s 1971 Racing Car Show with his Siva S 160, designer Neville Trickett accepted a Daily Telegraph weekend magazine challenge to build a car for the British Motor Show that November.

Unlike the Volkswagen Beetlebased S 160 kit car, the larger S 530 used a revised Dulon F5000 chassis, along with a 5.3-litre fuel-injected V8 supplied by Aston Martin.

Visually similar to the S 160, the S 530 again had gullwing doors, pop-up headlights and a heavily louvred rear engine cover. The standout feature of its neat but minimalist cabin was a square steering wheel.

The S 530 remained a one-off, though, after Aston’s alleged early interest waned.

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WHEN two gullwing doors aren’t enough to turn a humdrum Lancia Beta 1800 Berlina into a stylish concept, you might have to give it four, and throw in pop-up headlights, too. That’s pretty much the route Studio Michelotti followed with the one-off Mizar, which made its debut at the 1974 Turin Motor Show.

To make it more special, Michelotti added some ‘1970s wedge’ to the profile, and turned it into a proper hatchback. Safety was a central theme: the bodyshell had an integrated roll bar and the gasstrut-assisted doors included side-impact barriers. The theme continued inside with a large, visibility-aiding glasshouse and well padded surfaces – but, bizarrely, no seatbelts.

MacMinn Le Mans Coupe

A LE Mans-ready sports coupé conceived by a car-magazineediting engineer, drawn up by a design lecturer and built by an inspired bunch of enthusiast fabricators. It’s the stuff of dreams – but that’s exactly what happened in 1960, when Marvin Horton and Ed Monegan, together with glassfibre expert Alton Johnson, actually built the John Bond and Strother MacMinn Le Mans Coupe.

Using off-the-shelf parts and a Corvette V8, fixed to a bespoke chassis and clothed in MacMinn’s sensational body, the gullwing-doored Coupe was Road & Track’s August 1960 cover star. Destroyed in a freak accident, the project lay dormant for decades – but a new one, built from an original shell, revived the dream (featured in Magneto 22).

Minicars RSV

IN 1975, the US’s fledgling Department of Transport and even-newer National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked car makers to explore vehicle safety and fuel efficiency for 1985. Independent outfit Minicars, Inc led the way with its advanced RSV (Research Safety Vehicle) four-passenger sedan concept.

Several prototypes were made, with promising results achieved across all tests.

Constructed from foamfilled steel box sections welded into a single unibody, and wearing a fibre-reinforced plastic body, these Honda 1.6litre-powered vehicles made no concessions to style; even their counterbalanced gullwing doors were chosen on practical grounds. All were ordered to be destroyed, but reports suggest two escaped that fate.

Lincoln Navigator concept WHILE most of its rivals seemed intent on making the loudest visual statements possible, Lincoln’s 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show star was a full-size, Range Roverdwarfing SUV designed around the brand’s concept of “quiet luxury”. Painted Storm Blue, with teak finishes and clean lines, the suggested luxury sailing yacht inspiration would have been plausible had the Navigator not been closer in size and spirit to a cruise ship.

Lincoln’s most spacious interior yet featured six separate, 30-way adjustable seats and a custom wardrobemanagement system. Excited sailors could access the light blue leather-wrapped interior through giant, powered gullwing doors and deployable concertina steps. Or should that be gangway...?

FORD’S purchase of Italian design house Carrozzeria Ghia in 1970 resulted in a string of weird and wonderful Blue Oval concept cars. The Corrida was one such oddity, first unveiled at the 1976 Turin Motor Show in orange and black paintwork.

Based on the mechanical underpinnings of the then-new front-wheel-drive Fiesta, the straight-edged Corrida had double-jointed, hydraulic, strut-assisted gullwing doors, pop-down headlight covers and a bespoke stacked box-themed dashboard.

The unusual folding doors allowed exceptional cabin access, but also necessitated fixed side windows – smoking not recommended. The boot was accessed via a top-hinged glass hatchback and a trick, bottom-hinged tailgate that incorporated the tail-lights and could be locked ‘open’ to extend the load capacity.

Trippel SK-10

HANS Trippel’s story, from his early days in Gross-Umstadt, Germany to his release from jail in 1948, is best left unexplored here, except to say that it involved amphibious cars. His fascination with the schwimmwagen continued into 1950, when he displayed the SK-10 TE106 prototype at a show in Hanover, Germany.

Powered by a 600cc Horex motor, the SK-10 coupé was a truly tiny tot, memorable perhaps only for its passengerside gullwing door. Why? It meant you could open a door while out on the water. More than one report suggests that representatives from MercedesBenz were at that 1950 show – make of that what you will.

Four-Rotor Corvette

DeLorean Alpha5

Fiat 850 Vanessa Ghia

FIRST shown at the 1973 Paris Motor Show, Chevrolet’s mid-engined Four-Rotor Corvette was a visual bombshell. Pointy at both ends, with a dramatic V-shape windscreen, transparent side louvres, bi-fold gullwing doors and turbine wheels, it showcased advanced aerodynamics. Silver paint on a silver interior, dark-smoked digital dials and an innovative four-rotor engine further underlined the Space Age feel.

Overwhelmingly positive reaction from all quarters placed the car in pole position to become the next Corvette.

However, oil crisis and Wankel don’t mix. What’s more, GM’s development team realised they couldn’t produce the car without wrecking the design.

After a small-block V8 engine transplant and an ‘Aerovette’ rebrand, it was relegated to perpetual show-car duty.

WERE it not for the fact that the Alpha5 was designed

by Giorgetto Giugiaro, was displayed as a real-life prototype at Pebble Beach and is marketed as a DeLorean with all the nostalgia that implies, this gullwinged EV might not have appeared here at all. After all, both the company, DeLorean Motors Reimagined, and the huge fourseater itself have precious little in common with the DMC-12 we’re generally all quite fond of.

Gullwing doors aside, the Alpha5 is an all-wheel-drive, 300-mile-range EV with supercar-besting performance – 0-60mph in less than 3.0 seconds and a 155mph top end.

The DMC-12 took years to get anywhere, and ran out of juice crossing a parking lot.

A CONCEPT from a different era, Ghia’s 1967 Geneva special was officially presented as: Vanessa. The car for the woman. Around the chassis and running gear of a Fiat 850 Idromatic, a young Giugiaro fashioned a smooth and stylish two-door body with a removable glass sunroof and a single top-hinged hatch on the kerb side. This surprise gullwing door offered quick access to the rear bench – and whichever offspring occupied its built-in child seat.

Other conveniences in the mauve-coloured interior included a short-skirt-friendly swivelling driver’s seat, multiple storage cubbies and a dashboard devoid of distracting conventional instruments – apparently warning lights were all a girl required.

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Ford Ghia Corrida

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Mazda RX-500

THE RX-500’s cabin doors don’t fit our definition of gullwings. However, as with the De Tomaso Mangusta, the engine bay’s pair of roof-hinged panels certainly do. Mazda’s response to the era’s incredibly creative Italian concepts was the ultimate Kamm-tailed wedge. Unveiled at the 1970 Tokyo Motor Show, the RX-500 used lightweight plastic panels, a steel-tube spaceframe and a compact, mid-mounted, 247bhp twin-rotor Wankel engine to great effect: total weight and top speed were claimed to be 850kg and 150mph respectively.

Japan’s penchant for colour and fun manifested itself as a cascading set of white, green, orange and red tail-lamps.

Green lit up under acceleration, orange at constant speeds.

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Hofstetter Turbo MARIO Richard Hofstetter was only 27 years old when he presented his prototype Hofstetter at the São Paulo Motor Show in 1984. Eighteen production models followed, featuring a bespoke tubular backbone chassis, a Garrettblown 1.8-litre VW engine (later cars were 2.0-litre turbos) and a plethora of components seemingly sourced from every other marque active in the mid-1980s Brazilian automobile market – the single windscreen wiper was off a Mercedes-Benz bus.

Dramatically angular 1970s concept car-inspired glassfibre bodywork incorporated large gullwing doors and pop-up headlights. A leather and black suede-covered interior boasted air-conditioning, digital instruments, an oval steering wheel and an air-extraction system activated via the ashtray – useful in a car with no opening windows.

Oldsmobile Golden Rocket

THE prize for the smallest gullwings goes to Oldsmobile’s 1956 Jet Age dream car, the Golden Rocket. Sleek and unadorned save for its gloriously ballistic corners, the Motorama missile was over 200 inches long but barely 50 inches tall. Flaps in the roof popped up automatically whenever the lower sections of the two-part doors were opened. This entry-easing feature worked in conjunction with seats that rose and swivelled outwards to accept or ‘eject’ occupants.

Upholstered in blue and gold leather, the cabin also featured a speedometer on the steering wheel, along with aircraftthemed pedals and lapbelts.

Painted bronze metallic, the glassfibre body housed a 275bhp V8 and an off-theshelf automatic transmission – which was about the only conventional thing about it.

Ford Cougar 406

Mercedes-Benz F 125!

FORD’S headline act at the 1962 Chicago Auto Show was never destined for production, despite company vice-president Lee Iacocca calling it “more down to earth than a dream car”. Ford’s official marketing material labelled it: “Plush excitement for the automotive bounty hunter.” Quite! The metallic turquoise two-seater’s streamlined body, hidden headlights, short tail fins with built-in stop lights and bumper-exiting exhausts were all reminiscent of the Jet Age. As ever, though, it was the electrically operated, tophinged doors that made the biggest impression. Unusually, these included jalousie-style side windows. Meanwhile, the Cougar’s cockpit revealed an aircraft-style control panel and recessed bucket seats, while a console-mounted automatic transmission was paired with Ford’s powerful 406ci V8.

Repainted in a bright shade of red, the beautiful two-seater was subsequently featured in the 1963 comedy Under the Yum Yum Tree.

DESPITE the presence of gullwing doors, MercedesBenz’s 125th anniversary gift to itself at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show wasn’t quite a celebration of its rich heritage, but instead a look ahead to a future premised on “fascination and responsibility”. That’s marketing speak for an appealing EV, which is something the curvaceous coupé appeared to be – on paper, at least.

Four wheel-mounted electric motors, powered by a 10kWh lithium-sulphur battery – charged via either the car’s onboard hydrogen fuelcell system or inductively – promised diesel-like range while emitting only water vapour. The motors offered all-wheel drive and active torque vectoring, both aimed at delivering optimal traction and sporty dynamics. Full air suspension allowed continuously variable damping, speed-dependent ride-height adjustment and the expected ride comfort – this was a Mercedes-Benz, after all.

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PORSCHE’S cancellation of its front-engined four-door 989 sedan in 1992 inspired Nuccio Bertone to explore an independent concept for a four-passenger Porsche. Free from corporate restraints, Bertone left the engine of the second-hand 911 he’d bought in the rear, but extended the Type 964’s wheelbase by 20.7 inches to accommodate two full-size back seats. The 1994 Karisma wore Bertone badges and was definitely no ‘911 pastiche’.

Curvaceous surfacing and flush, faired-in headlight covers defined the short nose, while the windscreen swept expansively into the roof. The omission of B-pillars meant acres of fixed side glazing, with powered window insets.

Decorative plastic covers – marked ‘Powered by Porsche’ – on the rear bootlid were graphic reminders of the pistons boxing below.

Oldsmobile Incas

FIRST revealed in 1986, the Giugiaro-designed Incas was a mid-engined, wedge-profiled, five-door, four-seat sports coupé from Italdesign. It was powered by a turbocharged 2.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine generating 233bhp, and featured four-wheel drive.

Similar in front-end style to the great man’s 1984 Ford Maya and Lotus Etna, for the Incas Giugiaro added more streamlining to an extended glasshouse, a pair of gullwing doors (for second-row seat access) and transparent door panels below the shoulder line.

The interior was a Knight Rider KITT meets private-jet affair, with puffy armchairs, a vast digital instrument display and an aircraft-style control yoke for a steering wheel so direct it offered full lock at 90º from centre.

Thurner RS

IN 1969, Munich-based insurance salesman and motor sport enthusiast Rudolf Thurner introduced the Thurner RS. Built around a tubular-steel frame mounted to the shortened chassis of a NSU 1200 C and clothed in a glassfibre-reinforced plastic body, the RS was a stylish two-seater sports car featuring gullwing doors and a Porsche 904’s screen. It also borrowed the NSU TT’s double headlights, positioned behind faired-in plexiglass covers. Power, all 65bhp of it, was provided by NSU’s 1.2-litre four-cylinder, while a race-ready 135bhp RS-R model could also be had.

Yet another oil-crisis victim, Thurner ceased operations in 1974 – but not before around 120 cars had been built.

Marcos GT Xylon

CONCEIVED by Jem Marsh and Frank Costin in 1959, the Marcos GT Xylon (the name comes from the Greek word for wood) was one of the first ‘production cars’ after the 300 SL to incorporate gullwing doors. Just nine were built, in Dolgellau, Wales. Challenging aesthetics, courtesy of an awkwardly tall cockpit and a four-part windscreen, meant its ‘ugly duckling’ nickname was more than justified.

However, the Xylon’s USP was the use of spruce and marine plywood for the body and chassis. Light and strong construction, allied to Ford’s 997cc OHV four-cylinder motor plus Triumph Herald steering and suspension, resulted in a car with credible sporting intent. How credible?

Three-time Formula 1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart won some of his earliest car races in one.

Apollo Intensa Emozione BORN from Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur’s ashes, Apollo Automobil’s first limited-production hypercar, the 2017 Intensa Emozione (IA), is as sharp-suited as they come. Created by Apollo’s head designer Jowyn Wong while still in his 20s, the IA’s wildly sculpted, aggressively styled body, bespoke chassis, subframes and rigid tub are all made from carbonfibre.

Gullwing doors open to reveal just as wild an interior, featuring milled metal, leather, a button-heavy steering wheel and loads more carbonfibre.

Tuned to produce 769bhp, the car’s mid-mounted 6.3-litre V12 is a development of the engine found in the Ferrari F12. Refreshingly, this limited-production hypercar does without hybrid-electric assistance or turbocharging, and revs to 9000rpm.

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Bertone Porsche Karisma

Top 50 gullwings

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Ferrari Dino 206 Competizione DESPITE its name and the fact it was built on the race-proven 206 S chassis, Ferrari's 1967 Frankfurt Motor Show prototype was an aesthetic exploration, a pure styling study. Designed by a young Paolo Martin of Pininfarina, the 206 Competizione was a beguiling blend of soft curves, wild contours, full haunches, concave rear buttresses and gullwing doors – all capped off with a fighter-jet-style transparent canopy.

Perfectly faired-in headlight covers, and organic-looking bonnet vents and side inlets, appeared skilfully integrated, whereas the two black spoilers at either end looked like hastily applied aerodynamic ‘fixes’.

They’d probably have proven their worth on the track, though.

That’s likely also true of the mechanical package. All-round independent suspension, a strong yet lightweight steel spaceframe, four-wheel disc brakes, 218bhp from an allaluminium 2.0-litre V6 and a 635kg kerbweight still sounds like a race-winning combo.

With its aluminium outer shell painted in shocking yellow, the 206 Competizione simply would not be ignored.

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Volkswagen Scooter WE reckoned you’d be wondering what a tiny VW three-wheeler is doing here, so here’s our argument…

When it comes to ultraefficient, micro-sized personal automotive transport solutions that don’t leave you soaked in the rain (motorcycles) or make you look a little silly (every microcar), it seems no one has quite managed to find a stylish solution. Even the great Gordon Murray fell at the style hurdle with his T25.

But cast your mind back to the 1986 Geneva Motor Show, and the reveal of the VW Scooter. Usually, threewheelers need to look like they’re repurposed World War Two fighter planes to be cool, but here was a serious and slick two-tone two-seater that, with its gullwing doors and bikestyle exhaust, possessed more than a hint of aviator-meetsbiker attitude. Even today, it still looks like a surprisingly successful merging of car and motorcycle.

A transverse 1.0-litre fourcylinder petrol engine drove the front wheels, delivering up to 90bhp with direct injection.

That’s not bad for a 3.2m-long car with only 635kg (plus driver) to lug around.

Kodiak F1

IN the early 1980s, Mladen Mitrović of Speed & Sport Cabrio-Verdecke GmbH set about building a premium sports car. His mid-engined two-seater had a Kevlar epoxy composite body bonded to a tubular chassis, plus gullwing doors, flying buttresses, popup headlights, a truncated rear with Porsche 944 tail-lights and F1-style suspension.

Bought-in components were from top brands – Eibach, Koni, Brembo, Pirelli and ZF – and the engine was a Larry Ofriablueprinted 350ci Chevrolet V8 good for 320bhp. The Kodiak F1’s cabin had leather, air-con and a 22-speaker stereo, with Mercedes-Benz gauges.

A 1983 Frankfurt Motor Show debut that also featured the Porsche Gruppe B study (aka 959 prototype), Audi Sport Quattro and BMW M635CSi wasn’t ideal. Still, Mitrović had just received California road approval with prototype no. 2 before a fire at Badische Waggonfabrik, outsourced to construct the body, brought the project to an abrupt end.

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Ferrari 250 P5 Berlinetta Speciale

THE Vision One-Eleven is compelling evidence of the C 111’s enduring power to inspire. As a reimagining of the concept first shown 1969, its sleek and muscular shape, gullwing doors, copper-orange Alubeam paint, matte black details and general visual impact perfectly bridge the 55-year design gap. Prime examples are the flexible external displays that reference the C 111’s traditional front mesh, and slatted rear grille elements.

And, just like its forebear, the One-Eleven is also a technology pioneer. This is especially true in terms of its drivetrain, which combines lighter, radically more compact axial-flux electric motors with a liquid-cooled cylindrical-cell battery.

The spacious and tech-laden interior, never a focus point of the C 111 project, is a genuine paradigm shift. Materials used include white, honeycombpatterned, recycled polyester, bright orange leather, polished aluminium and a diamondquilted silver fabric for the seats.

An experimental user interface incorporates augmented reality in conjunction with a pair of proprietary Magic Leap 2 AR glasses – probably useful only when parked or in full autonomous mode.

IT was a toss-up deciding between the Ferrari and its Alfa Romeo 33/2 Coupé Prototipo Speciale cousin.

Despite the obvious visual similarities these two gullwingdoored Pininfarina creations share, it’s likely that Magneto readers are more familiar with the inescapably yellow Alfa.

In the end, though, we opted for the one that came first.

Unveiled in Geneva in 1968, the Ferrari was built on a righthand-drive factory chassis, and featured a mid-mounted 3.0-litre V12 on permanently glorious display beneath an extensive transparent engine cover. Initially shown in red (repainted white for Turin), the concept was an exploration of future Ferrari forms and a study in advanced aerodynamics.

Its design was led by the great Leonardo Fioravanti.

A radical mix of voluptuous surfacing, racy glasshouse and stacked linear elements, it certainly invited intrigue. A distinctive concave nose that housed a strip of headlights and bridged two protruding pontoon-style wings, did split opinion. At the Paris show the following year, the V8-engined Alfa had a smoother debut – the P5 had paved the way.

Melkus RS 1000

IN 1959, armed with knowledge gained from constructing and successfully racing several eponymous Formula 3 cars, East German motor sport hero Heinz Melkus built a road-going sports car. The RS 1000 name referenced its Wartburg 353sourced two-stroke 1.0-litre triple, which produced 70bhp.

It drove the rear wheels via a five-speed manual gearbox.

Gullwing doors aside, Melkus stuck with the proven glassfibre body over traditional ladderframe chassis. The reward for keeping it (mostly) simple was a kerbweight of 680kg, light enough for a 12second 0-62mph time. Some cars used a more powerful 1.2-litre engine, while heavily modified racing-spec variants developed a heady 118bhp.

Beginning in 1969, a total of 101 units were assembled at the Melkus factory in Dresden, East Germany. The last RS 1000 was completed in 1979, and the firm wound up operations in 1986. A 2009 revival petered out in 2012 after 25 units of the Lotus Elisebased RS 2000 had been built.

Thomassima III

THE last in a series of rebodied Ferraris, the 1969 Thomassima III (featured in this issue of Magneto) was California-born electronics engineer turned coachbuilder Tom Meade’s crowning achievement. Built on a Ferrari 250 GT PF chassis, it used the Colombo 3.0-litre V12, a five-speed gearbox and vented disc brakes. Meade crafted a sensationally low, long-nose aluminium body with full haunches, distinctive side vents, gullwing doors, writhing side-mounted exhaust pipes and cross-spoke centrelock wheels with spinners bearing his charging-goat logo.

Inside, truly laid-back seating made the impossibly acute windscreen angle and outlandish profile possible.

A deeply dished cast steering wheel and equally recessed gauges lined the dash.

The Thomassima III was an outrageous exercise in skilful stylistic exaggeration, a Hot Wheels model for the road. Hot Wheels owner Mattel agreed, producing the T3 in four colours between 2000 and 2005.

Mercedes-Benz C 112 TWENTY-one years after the C 111-II caused a storm in Geneva, Mercedes-Benz displayed another gullwingdoored heartbreaker in the form of the Group C-like V12engined C 112 silver missile.

A product of the new advanced design department, led by Bruno Sacco, the C 112 was a fully fledged road-legal machine designed around a complex and sophisticated aluminium monocoque with steel subframes covered in a body fashioned from aluminium and Kevlar. The engine, a new 6.0-litre V12 made from exotic metals and alloys, delivered 408bhp.

The C 112 sported active aerodynamics and suspension, plus advanced driver and safety aids including radar distance monitoring. Its cabin offered climate control and a Becker Mexico 2000 stereo, along with powered doors, windows, seats and exterior mirror. Although ridiculously large deposits were offered, and a production future involving Peter Sauber’s new factory discussed, the C 112 project was ultimately abandoned. The 1991 Frankfurt Motor Show star would go no further, serving as a future tech demonstrator instead.

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Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven

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Porsche Tapiro FIRST revealed at the 1970 Turin Motor Show, the Tapiro was Giugiaro’s take on a wedge-era Porsche sports car. Based on a 914/6, the prototype retained that car’s mid-engined, rear-drive layout and flat-six engine – albeit bored out to 2.4 litres and fettled to produce 220bhp.

Perfectly on trend, Giugiaro crafted a sharply angular body with a low, castellated bonnet, a steeply raked windscreen and a gently falling roofline that ended in a Kamm tail.

Flared wheelarches and an assortment of slatted vents and inlets on the wings, B-pillars and roof added visual detail to a compact and geometrically disciplined shape. A T-top-style roof bar extended all the way back to a large rear glass panel.

Off this central roof structure, Giugiaro hung four gullwing doors, the rearmost two providing easy access to the boot and engine bay.

After a stint as a well travelled show car, the Tapiro was sold off, before suffering total fire damage. Today, the burned-out shell is still in private hands, awaiting a possible phoenix moment.

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Matra Laser

BEST known for niche sports cars such as the M530, threeseater Bagheera and Murena, and for winning both 1969 F1 titles, French maker Matra also yielded this gullwing-doored concept in its association with Giovanni Michelotti.

Based on the lauded M530’s mid-engined chassis, the Laser was introduced at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. In a goldtoned yellow with polishedchrome panel insets, its razorsharp body was a stellar exercise in 1970s wedge design. A low and pointy nose, expansive glazing and cut-off rear were pure sports car, with a hint of racy speedboat thanks to gullwing doors, high sills and a strong beltline. A 1.7-litre Ford V4 sat behind a cabin that boasted padded seat sections (inspired by insects’ exoskeletons), an oval steering wheel and a super-slim dash.

After receiving body tweaks and a silver paintjob, the Laser reappeared at the 1972 Montreal Auto Salon, before becoming a tragically underappreciated collection piece.

Gumpert Apollo IN 2001, former Audi engineer Roland Gumpert set out to build “the perfect synthesis between road vehicle and track car”. By 2005 he’d pretty much achieved that, with the fully homologated Apollo supersports car. Its chassis was a chrome molybdenum steel frame around a carbon monocoque safety cell. Power was provided by a twin-turbo version of Audi’s 4.2-litre V8, which could develop 641bhp789bhp depending on model.

Even the base unit had a 225mph top speed, and all were connected to a tall-levered, sixspeed, sequential transmission.

By no means pretty – race cars seldom are – the Apollo’s exterior was aerodynamically honed to generate considerable downforce both above and below the body. A tight cockpit and wide sills likely made gullwing doors a necessity.

Race-biased features included adjustable suspension and ride height, a removable steering wheel, and fixed seats with adjustable pedals and wheel.

Established in 2004, Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur built around 90 Apollos, but it filed for bankruptcy in August 2013.

Jiotto Caspita

Bricklin SV-1

A PRODUCT of the late-1980s Japanese car design boom, the Caspita was the dream of the respective presidents of lingerie maker Wacoal and race car builder Dome. Designed by jointly owned Jiotto Design’s Kunihisa Ito, the Group Cinspired model was unveiled at the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show, where its avant-garde styling, active aerodynamics and gullwings stunned onlookers.

Made from a high-tech carbonfibre aluminium sandwich material, the monocoque chassis was very rigid and light. The doublewishbone suspension featured electronically controlled ride height and shock stiffness.

On paper, the mid-mounted 3.5-litre Motori Moderni-built Subaru flat-12 promised much, but it delivered precious little.

By the time a heavily revised, fully developed Caspita 2.0 came along in 1993, a more reliable Judd V10 had been swapped in. A limited production run was mooted, before the Caspita became yet another victim of the Japanese financial crisis.

WITH curious parallels to the later DeLorean story, Subaru of America founder Malcolm Bricklin, backed by New Brunswick Government money, created a gullwinged two-seater sports car in Canada in 1974.

The Bricklin Safety Vehicle One’s colour-impregnated, bonded-acrylic glassfibre body cloaked an array of innovative safety features such as energyabsorbing bumpers and a steel safety cell. A well appointed interior did without an ashtray or a cigarette lighter, omitted on – yup! – safety grounds.

Most later Bricklins used a 5.8-litre Ford Windsor 351 V8, but early cars had an AMC 5.9 V8. Performance was on par with the Corvette’s. Still, all eyes were on the powered gullwings. Weighing 90lb each, electro-hydraulic actuation proved essential, but also problematic if the battery died.

By late 1975, Bricklin had simply run out of money. Leaky door seals, poor build quality and an ever-steeper price tag didn’t help. Just 2854 were built.

Top 50 gullwings

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Aston Martin Bulldog

DE Tomaso’s follow-up to the Vallelunga was designed by the great Giorgetto Giugiaro.

It made its debut in prototype form at the 1966 Turin Motor Show as the De Tomasobadged Ghia 5000 Mangusta.

It was one of the automotive world’s great shapes – a wide, ground-hugging, sleek and sexy sports coupé that made it into production virtually unchanged. Highlights included a sharknose grille (incorporating fixed headlights), a low fastback roofline, gullwing engine covers, flared wheelarches and cast-alloy Campagnolo wheels.

Giugiaro’s Mangusta body was mounted onto De Tomaso’s so-called ‘spine chassis’, a pressed-steel box-section and tubular backbone affair that housed a 306bhp, 4.7-litre Ford V8 in a mid-engined, longitudinally mounted layout.

Soft leather seats, airconditioning and electric windows gave the interior a luxury GT feel. It was tight in there, though, and hard to see out of, while inherent chassis flex made the handling ‘tricky’.

But the Mangusta was fast – 155mph, and 0-62mph in a shade over 6.0 seconds – extremely pretty and reasonably cheap. Around 400 examples were produced, the last in 1971.

TASKED in the late-1970s with designing the ultimate Aston Martin, a mid-engined supercar intended to be the world’s fastest car, William Towns answered with the extraordinarily brutal Bulldog.

It was unveiled at the Bell Hotel in Aston Clinton in 1980. All flat panels and acute angles, this long, wide and low beast was the ultimate expression of straight-edged wedge.

Unusual features included a central bank of five headlights that appeared from behind a dropdown panel, brake-cooling turbine-style wheel trims and a massive pair of powered gullwing doors that afforded generous access to the walnut and leather-lined cabin and its LCD instrument displays.

Beneath the car’s angular aluminium body panels and acres of glass lay a tubularsteel chassis suspended by double wishbones and a de Dion axle. A twin-turbocharged and fuel-injected version of Aston’s familiar 5.3-litre V8 was placed behind the driver. It was good for at least 650bhp, and its raison d’etre was to propel the silver battleship beyond 200mph – which a recent 205mph effort proved would have been possible at the time.

Isdera Commendatore 112i

AS an impressively engineered, sensational-looking, V12engined, 210mph-plus dream car with gullwing doors and engine covers, Eberhard Schulz’s greatest creation could have easily featured higher up this list. The Commendatore 112i debuted at the 1993 Frankfurt Motor Show to wide-ranging critical acclaim. It even made Automobile Year’s 1993-94 cover.

Created using Isdera’s well established formula of glassfibrereinforced, aerodynamically optimised body over spaceframe chassis, it used a mid-mounted 6.0-litre Mercedes-Benz engine and a six-speed manual ’box.

To this, Schulz added variableride-height active suspension and an active air brake. The streamlined, flat-floored, longtail shape suggests he may have had designs on a Le Mans entry.

Plans to produce up to 12 units a year at a $600,000 each were scuppered by a hardhitting recession. As such, this Isdera remained a one-off.

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GETTY IMAGES / RAINER SCHLEGELMILCH / RM SOTHEBY’S / RICK GUEST / AMY SHORE / EVAN KLEIN

De Tomaso Mangusta

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BMW Z9

FAR more than just a soft introduction to the flamesurfaced Bangle-butt era 6- and 7-Series models BMW would soon unleash, the 1999 Z9 gran turismo concept introduced innovative features inside and out. For starters, the indicators used neon, while the tail-lights incorporated LEDs – one of the technology’s first outings.

It was powered by a 3.9-litre turbodiesel V8, the firm’s most torque-strong motor at the time.

Inside the four-seat cabin, just a starter button and a light switch messed with the dash’s zen, as the virtually buttonless cockpit saw the debut of BMW’s Intuitive Interactive Concept rotary controller: the iDrive.

Access was via motorised gullwing doors, operated by a button on the key. For a less flashy entrance, each gullwing also came with a built-in conventionally hinged front door. Alas, the E63 6-Series that the Z9 inspired did without gullwings – but it kept iDrive.

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Lamborghini Marzal

Isdera Imperator 108i

CRACK young designer Marcello Gandini’s 1967 Geneva Salon follow-up to his ’66 Miura show-stopper was a shocker, but in the very best way. Where the Miura was all sweeping lines and voluptuous curves – the pinnacle of a design idiom that had shaped sports cars for decades – the Marzal was from another dimension. Its sharp lines and flattened surfaces heralded something altogether new. These alone would have dropped jaws, but here was a mid-engined four-seater with mostly glass gullwing doors and an interior upholstered in Space Age silver material.

The futuristic theme didn’t stop there. As if to emphasise the new geometrical design language, Gandini weaved a hexagon motif into various aspects of the cabin – the dash, instruments and steering wheel, and repeated the pattern on the rear window louvre.

Such was the Marzal’s influence that not only did it directly inform the design of the 1968 Espada but, perhaps more importantly, it inspired many of the incredible concepts that emerged in the decade immediately following its debut.

SPYDERS and crazy 16-cylinder Autobahnkurier AK116i aside, every Isdera has featured gullwing doors. Even company founder Eberhard Schulz’s first car, the Erator GTE, had them. That 1969 prototype was so well engineered, it landed him a job with Porsche. In 1978, he partnered with Rainer Buchmann of famed tuning company bb-Auto to build the Mercedes-Benz-badged (but not sanctioned) CW311.

Schulz would eventually put a larger, thoroughly reworked and modernised version of the CW311 into limited production in 1984, as the Isdera Imperator 108i. Dramatically wedgy and edgy, the Imperator’s glassfibre body was bonded to a tubularsteel spaceframe. Interiors were well appointed and featured various components from Porsche’s 928.

Early cars were powered by a 296bhp 5.6-litre MercedesBenz V8 bolted to a ZF fivespeed manual gearbox; AMGtuned 32-valve versions in 5.6- and 6.0-litre capacities came later. Performance was top tier; even the slowest Imperators were capable of 176mph and 0-60mph in 5.1 seconds. It’s believed a total of 30 cars were built to order between 1984 and 1993.

WITH Germany’s post-WW2 aviation sector ban in place, light aircraft designer Herbert Gomolzig looked to the car world. Putting his engineering, lightweight construction and aerodynamics skills to use, he set about building an innovative streamlined coupé.

The first, rear-engined, twoseater prototype appeared in 1949 with an aluminium boxsection monocoque chassis and aluminium panels. Its front and rear sections were hinged to allow access to the engine and storage areas. But the standout feature was its gullwing doors – three years before the 300 SL. There were two further prototypes; the final one, the 1951 Taifun Stromlinienwagen, was based on a VW Beetle chassis. Again, each half of the split windscreen, being fixed to its respective door, would pivot in unison. What’s more, the fabric upper ‘roof’ sections of each door could be unclipped and rolled away, turning the car into a T-top cabriolet.

Bristol Fighter

IN 1999, Bristol announced a new V10-engined, 200mphplus, gullwing-doored supercar. Understandably, given that the marque hadn’t built anything truly all-new in decades, and nothing remotely akin to a supercar ever, the idea was met with a certain scepticism. Somehow, though, a functioning prototype appeared at the 2003 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Built on a box-section steel structure with an aluminium honeycomb floor, and wrapped in an elegant aluminium and carbonfibre body, the 8.0-litre V10 Chrysler Viper-engined Fighter looked ready to rumble.

Exceptionally aerodynamic (0.28 Cd) and unusually light (1540kg), the two-seater delivered the promised performance, hitting 0-60mph in 4.0 seconds and exceeding 200mph in stock 525bhp guise.

Regrettably, not even the Bristol-fettled 628bhp S or the bonkers 1012bhp twin-turbo T could prevent a 2011 insolvency.

By then, Fighter sales had barely reached double figures.

Aston Martin Valkyrie

Pagani Huayra

Mercedes-Benz C 111-II

ANNOUNCED in 2015, delivered eight years later; the Valkyrie is the result of an obsessive pursuit of perfection from all involved, not just from its chief designer Adrian Newey. The term ‘F1 car for the road’ has never been more apt.

The evidence is everywhere; from the 40 micron-thick aluminium Aston Martin badge and smallest-possible brake light, to the Space Programmeinspired single wiper and six-point seat harness.

Then there’s the naturally aspirated powertrain, a 6.5-litre Cosworth-developed V12 marvel that revs to 11,100rpm, supplemented by a 141bhp axial-flux electric motor giving a total of 1130bhp. Right from idle, it’s so loud that all were sold with helicopter-grade, noise-cancelling headphones.

The all-carbonfibre monocoque and monocell wear carbonfibre panels incorporating a radical aerodynamics package that includes barge boards, ‘ground effect’ venturi tunnels, side-vision cameras and horn-like-when-open gullwing doors. Production was limited to 150 units: all are sold.

SEVEN years in the making, Pagani’s follow-up to the Zonda arrived in 2011. Dubbed the Huayra (after the Andean god of wind), the entirely new car’s only nods to its forbear were quad bi-xenon headlights and Pagani’s signature four centrally grouped tailpipes. The muscular, more dramatically sculpted body featured gullwing doors and active aerodynamics in the form of four independent, computercontrolled flaps positioned on each corner of the car.

These, together with active suspension up front, delivered an always-optimal aerodynamic balance between drag and downforce.

Beneath the skin sat a carbon-titanium monocoque bolted to a 6.0-litre, twinturbocharged V12 developed

by Mercedes-AMG exclusively for Pagani. With 720bhp and 1000Nm of torque at its driver’s disposal, the 1350kg Huayra hypercar could hit 0-60mph in 3.0 seconds and top out at 238mph.

Far from having a strippedout, racer-type cockpit, the reality is that an outstanding, extravagantly styled interior comprising carbonfibre, leather, aluminium and Alcantara awaits those lucky enough to own one of the 100 Huayras built.

WHAT started out as an exploration into a replacement for the 300 SL ended up as a diverse series of experimental research prototypes spanning 11 years of development, three types of engine and five distinct bodywork designs.

Every one of the C 111 series cars, from rudimentary C 101 prototype to the 250mph speedrecord-setting C 111-IV, had gullwing doors – but it’s the C 111-II that is most iconic.

Introduced at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show in signature orange metallic ‘Weissherbst’ paintwork, it featured a four-rotor 345bhp Wankel engine that propelled the steel-framed, glassfibrereinforced, plastic-bodied wonder to 186mph. With its sensational performance and design, would-be buyers threw money at Mercedes-Benz in the hope that the car would be built.

Even Stuttgart’s finest could not solve Wankel’s ‘drinking problem’, however. A switch to V8 power seemed logical. One such car was built, in December 1970, before the looming oil crisis sent engineers on a highperformance diesel development quest instead. A sports car dream, the C 111-II is as evocative and inspiring now as it was then.

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BONHAMS

Gomolzig ‘Taifun’ Streamliner

BMW Turbo PAUL Bracq’s visionary 1972 Turbo concept, with its lowslung futuristic design, large gullwings and electric twotone paint, did so much more than just mesmerise visitors at the ’72 Paris and ’73 Frankfurt Motor Shows. For starters, it heavily influenced the designs of BMW’s iconic M1, Z1 and 8-Series, and ushered in the firm’s signature shark-nose era.

Its digital dash and driveroriented cockpit and centre console also offered a foretaste of future series BMWs. Pop-up lights, integrated bumpers, rear wheel covers and state-of-theart underfloor design were a study in radical aerodynamics.

With 276bhp on offer from the 2.0-litre turbo – mounted transversely behind the twoseat cabin – the concept could hit 0-60mph in just 6.6 seconds and top out at 155mph. Both a sports car and a mobile safety lab, it featured ABS, a radarbased distance-alert system, a collapsible steering column, novel crash structures, seatbelt sensors, hydraulic shockabsorbing bumpers and highvis paint. Highly creative and arguably technologically more influential, the Turbo was the ideal response to Merc’s C 111.

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Tesla Model X

THE Tesla marketing machine calls them ‘falcon wings’, but as they hinge from the roof they’re clearly gullwings to us.

Why the SUV features so high on our list isn’t quite as clear.

Gimmicky? You bet. Especially when you consider the front doors open conventionally, rendering Elon’s ‘closely parked cars’ demonstration irrelevant.

Just what motivated the Marmite maverick to insist on them says a lot about Musk. The costly additional engineering and development required was enough to significantly delay the car’s launch, while a supplier lawsuit and a flood of falcon door-related complaints made them even harder to justify.

However, the unhindered rear access and street theatre they provide elevate the X from just a bulbous SUV to one with spectator appeal and technical intrigue. Besides, the courage to put these double-hinged gullwings into high-volume production on a family car that, had it failed to sell in sufficient numbers, would have killed the brand, deserves respect.

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG SOME 52 years after the final 300 SL left the factory, its maker finally put a new gullwing car into series production – and would you believe it, it was worth the wait. For starters, the SLS AMG was shaped not as a pastiche of the original, but rather as one that reimagined the W 198, almost to perfection. A long bonnet, set-back cab, wide radiator grille with three-pointed star, wing-shaped grille slat, bonnet fins and finned side vents were all subtle heritage clues. The SLS AMG’s stubby rear end, though, was no match for the 300 SL’s elegant rump.

Then there was the engine, a thumping great 6.2-litre V8 that sent 563bhp to the rear axle via a seven-speed

dual-clutch transmission.

Finally, there was the way the SLS AMG drove. An aluminium spaceframe and body, doublewishbone sports suspension, a low centre of gravity and a 1695kg kerbweight offered thrilling dynamics and performance – 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds and a maximum speed of 197mph.

Things were just as thrilling inside the aviation-inspired cabin, with its wing-profile dashboard and jet-like airvent nozzles. In short, the SLS AMG nailed the brief.

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Autozam AZ-1

DeLorean DMC-12

MAZDA’S ambitious midengined Kei car project began back in 1985. Exploratory sketches, scale models and a running Daihatsu-powered prototype (W140) all preceded the successful 1989 Tokyo Motor Show reveal of the AZ-550 Type A, complete with gullwings, pop-up headlights and Suzuki’s 547cc F5B motor mounted behind the driver.

English outfit Hawtal Whiting, of Basildon in Essex, was tasked with developing the concept for production. Three years later, the AZ-550 emerged as the production-ready AZ-1.

It still sported gullwings, plastic panels and mini-supercar looks, but now had a steel monocoque (the prototype used aluminium), fixed headlights and a 657cc version of Suzuki’s turbocharged triple.

The engine produced 63bhp, enough to propel the 720kg sports car from 0-60mph in around 10.0 seconds and on to an electronically limited maximum of 81mph. However, the car’s real strength lay in its sweet steering and top-drawer handling dynamics.

Production of the AZ-1, and its Suzuki Cara sibling, was outsourced to the Hiroshimabased Kurata firm, which went on to produce just over 4400 units in total, in Siberia Blue and Classic Red. This was far short of expectations, however: blame the failing Japanese economy, a high price tag and a JDM-only sales policy.

THE DeLorean DMC-12 back story is an oft-told tale of woe – one where hype and hope quickly turned to despair. All told, nearly 8600 DeLoreans were assembled at the British Government-funded factory in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland before John Z DeLorean’s world came crashing down towards the end of 1982.

Costly development delays, an inexperienced workforce, constant build-quality issues and an ultimately underwhelming final product didn’t help.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. A V6-engined sports car with Giorgetto Guigiaropenned lines seemed to have everything going for it, especially considering an expected initial price tag of $12,000. Already an attractive proposition, its radical brushedstainless-steel cladding and limelight-stealing gullwing doors added only to the desire.

Tellingly, the original television ads featured seagulls in virtually every frame. Each door weighed a hefty 45kg but opened with ease, thanks to torsion bars and gas struts.

They cut deep into the roof, giving exceptional cabin access. Small, poweredwindow insets in the fixed side glass proved handy at toll booths. The interior was an odd mix of European sports

car austerity and American luxury. Factory options were limited to a choice of black or grey trim, and a five-speed manual or three-speed automatic gearbox.

Mounted way out back, the 2.9-litre V6, jointly developed

by Peugeot, Renault and Volvo, was catalytically choked to a measly 130bhp. It would never be enough to hustle the 1266kg DeLorean. Even with 65 percent of that weight over the rear axle, the unassisted steering was hard work. The DMC-12 did ride well, though.

Still, a $25,000 showroom price seemed to drive the final nail into its coffin.

But then came 1985’s Back to the Future. Suddenly the DeLorean began to live its best life. On the silver screen no one could see any technical, quality or dynamic deficiencies. Consequently the car’s legacy grew unbounded.

Much like its creator, the DMC-12 lived larger than life.

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Mercedes-Benz 300 SL

THERE can be no debate as to which is the greatest gullwing-doored car. The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W 198) is so synonymous with its doorhinge position that most know it simply as the Gullwing. Now, it’s safe to say that the outfit from Stuttgart did not invent the idea.

Both Gomolzig and Trippel showed working prototypes some time before Benz’s 1952 racing SLs – Jean Bugatti even imagined fitting them to an unfinished Type 64 in 1939. But, it was Mercedes-Benz that had the courage and the desire to put them into series production.

Exactly who inspired who, though, is moot, for as the old saying goes: necessity is the mother of invention. The ‘flying’ doors were not some 184

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flashy indulgence, although the look-at-me theatre they add is undeniable, but an engineering solution born out of necessity, instead. As with the earlier W 194 race cars, wide and unusually high side sills were required to adequately stiffen the tubular spaceframe beneath the body, rendering side-hinge doors unworkable.

It didn’t matter; the doors caused a sensation during the 300 SL’s debut at the early-1954 International Motor Sports Show in New York. Although both it and the 190 SL (W 121) roadster it shared the stand with were important new products aimed at the US, the 300 SL utterly outshone the latter. Blame those doors.

Not just aesthetically

pleasing , the gullwings were beautifully engineered, too, with cleverly recessed handles and top-mounted springs – ‘hidden’ in chrome tubes – to facilitate easy operation and to keep the doors in full flight when needed. As with nearly all gullwings, wind-down windows could not be accommodated.

Mercedes’ solution was removable glass sections that could be stored in the boot.

Although the entry apertures were of reasonable size, actually getting into the SL could still be quite challenging.

To improve access to the footwell, Mercedes engineered a tilting steering wheel, which helped – a little. Once ensconced, dedicated smokers must have been relieved to find

rotating quarterlights.

But it was not only the unique doors that stood out; the W 198 inherited much of the technology and advanced features developed for the Mille Miglia-, Le Mans 24 Hours- and Carrera Panamericana-winning 300 SL/SLR. From its suspension and ideal weight distribution to its innovative six-cylinder engine, the W 198 was a thoroughbred super-sports car.

Fittingly, it was the first to feature the large three-pointed star front-end design that would signal the sportiest of Mercedes-Benz models for decades to come. It was also the firm’s first series production car to use direct fuel injection, which raised the power output

of the new 3.0-litre straight-six to a heady 215bhp. This, allied to the lightweight construction – the complete car with spare tyre, tools and fuel weighed only 1295kg – meant that, depending on the final drive ratio, the 300 SL could reach a top end of between 146mph and 161mph. These speeds were unheard of for a road car in the mid-1950s.

Official records state that between August 1954 and May 1957, some 1400 units were built at its Sindelfingen factory, 29 of them with a light-alloy body and one test vehicle with a glassfibre plastic body. Seeing a Gullwing today is still a thrill.

We can only imagine how those New York showgoers might have felt 70 years ago.

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Market Watch: Buying a Ferrari Testarossa

Watches and art: Universal Genève and Frank Wootton

Automobilia: Famed Bazin Stork mascot uncovered

Collecting: It is time to pour the red wine?

Books and products: Latest must-reads and luxury goods

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M A R K E T WAT C H

Ferrari Testarossa

By Richard Dredge

Straked Italian stallion is a pop culture icon, as well as a seriously impressive performer and a grand tourer par excellence. Here’s what to look out for

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injection system was adopted in place of the previous Magneti Marelli ignition and Bosch injection set-up. These changes, along with modifications to the pistons, intake and exhaust, led to the power jumping to 422bhp and the top speed rising to 194mph.

The fitment of a redesigned subframe allowed the substantially changed engine to be lowered, along with the ride height, noticeably dropping the centre of gravity. The adoption of alloy front stub axles, rear hubs, damper bodies and steering joints cut the kerbweight by around 50kg, while the bodyshell was re-engineered to improve torsional stiffness by 12.5 percent.

In place of the previous 16-inch wheels, there were now 18in rims wearing wider, lower-profile tyres, with Ferrari also fitting stronger brakes, a beefed-up clutch and a strengthened gearbox. In addition, the cabin was overhauled with new seats, instruments and switchgear.

The steering was also now more direct, with 3.2 turns between locks in place of the previous 3.4. At first anti-lock brakes weren’t available, but in 1993 they became standard fit.

The final round of updates came

‘The Testarossa is one of the most striking and aggressive supercars ever’

in 1994, when the F512M (for Modificato) picked up the baton.

The most obvious change was a move to faired-in headlights, while the grille size was reduced and there were also four circular rear lights in place of the previous square units nestling behind slats.

Ferrari also managed to shave 40kg from the overall kerbweight, plus there were new 18in Speedline wheels, and the interior was titivated with a fresh steering wheel, revised pedals and a redesigned gearknob. The cabin architecture remained the same as before, however.

By the time manufacture of the F512M was wound up in 1996, Testarossa production totalled 7177, of which 438 were right-hand drive. Numbers for the 512TR ran to 2280 (88 RHD, including 38 ABS models) while just 501 F512Ms were built – 41 with the steering wheel on the right.

Tony Worswick Automotive Engineering, based in Lancashire, specialises in Ferraris. Proprietor Tony has owned or driven every model in the Testarossa range, covering significant mileage in all of them. He says: “My first was a white Testarossa, which I loved, but its brakes were not up to the rest of the car. The 512TR mostly solved that and many other minor issues, especially the examples with ABS, which had a much better front-torear braking balance. This system was carried over to the F512M, which is very similar to a late 512TR mechanically, and to drive.”

He continues: “The changes

MAGIC CAR PICS

FEW CARS SUM UP 1980S excess like the Ferrari Testarossa – and few models of the time had as high a profile, either, thanks to the antics of undercover detectives Crockett and Tubbs in global TV smash Miami Vice.

Decades of collaborating with Italian design house Pininfarina had produced one sensuous Ferrari after another, but 40 years ago the gloves came off, and one of the most striking and aggressive supercars ever created was unveiled at the 1984 Paris Auto Salon.

Leonardo Fioravanti had led a team briefed with fixing the many faults of the Boxer, which had been introduced in 1973: poor highspeed stability; a paucity of luggage space; and a cabin that was prone to overheating because the coolant pipes ran through the interior, from the radiator in the nose of the car to the engine behind the driver.

While the powerplant was carried over (it’s still the only flat-12 ever to be fitted to a production car), the cooling and timing systems were revised, and there were new fourvalve cylinder heads along with a fresh fuel-injection system.

That 12-pot engine pumped out up to 390bhp and could push the Testarossa to beyond 180mph, despatching the 0-62mph sprint in less than six seconds along the way.

The problem was that the motor sat above the gearbox, raising the car’s centre of gravity and impacting on the handling in the process. But there was reasonable practicality, courtesy of a boot in the nose and some space behind the two seats; these ensured the Testarossa was a grand tourer par excellence.

The earliest Testarossas featured knock-on central-nut alloy wheels and a single mirror halfway up the driver’s side A-post, lending these early cars their ‘Monospecchio’ nickname. By 1985, Ferrari had switched to a pair of door mirrors mounted at the base of the A-pillars, while from 1988 the wheels were held on by five studs.

There were more far-reaching changes to come in 1991, when the Testarossa gave way to the 512TR. This used the same flat-12 engine, but there was an increase in compression ratio, from 8.7:1 to 10.0:1. Also, an integrated Bosch Motronic 2.7 electronic ignition/

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between the Testarossa and its successors are much greater than is immediately apparent. My personal favourite is a late 512TR; some of the V8 models are as quick and maybe handle better, but the 512TR is more than a car. It is an event, a special occasion – and if speed limits did not exist, it would be one of the best ways of covering big distances on fast roads.”

He goes on: “Practicality is excellent; you could easily go away in one of these cars for a week, because they’re such great cruisers and there’s plenty of luggage capacity. Reliability is also generally very good with few weak spots, but maintenance costs are high because there are no shortcuts, and the price of parts, particularly body panels and trim, is very high – even

by Ferrari standards.

“At least these cars are easy to work on in most areas, probably with the exception of a cambelt change and any gearbox work. The

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ABOVE This is a 1990 Testarossa, with five-stud wheels and twin mirrors – the most affordable of the range.

‘Demand for lowmileage, top-spec cars in excellent condition is very strong’

latter needs several special tools, and it is a complicated ’box as well.

But the rest could be done by a competent home mechanic.”

T H E VA L U E P R O P O S I T I O N Hertfordshire-based Bell Sport & Classic is run by a dedicated team of people who were almost all working within the Ferrari main dealer network when these cars were new, or had just entered the second-hand market. Co-founder and director Matt Wilton says: “Until recently, serious collectors were not interested in these cars, but they are now buying the best examples they can find, which is pushing up values.

“Now the starting point for ordinary Testarossas is £100,000, with the best cars edging closer to £200,000 or even a bit more for a really special Monospecchio – although these earliest models are very rare and hugely sought after, which means they seldom

come up for sale. As always with Ferraris, the mileage, condition, colour scheme, service history and the number of previous owners all affect the value.”

He continues: “The 512TR starts at £150,000 and goes up to £250,000, but relatively few examples change hands in the UK, and many that do are sold out of sight. It’s even harder to accurately value the F512M, because these sell even more infrequently, and once again they often change hands between collectors. Expect to pay at least £300,000 for one, but they sell so rarely that the market can shift between sales, and any sale can be an anomaly. We know of quite a few F512Ms, and they’re all low-mileage examples in superb condition.”

Hagerty’s John Mayhead says: “The Ferrari Testarossa has always been a firm favourite with Generation X buyers in particular, and it has very strong cultural

VA LU E S F R O M H AG E RT Y P R I C E G U I D E UK values

US values

£250,000

$250,000

512TR

£200,000

£150,000

$150,000

£100,000

$100,000

£50,000

$50,000

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references from those who grew up in the 1980s. It’s powerful, the cabin is very period, spacious and not cluttered, and it does without the ostentatiousness that some more modern Ferraris have.”

He goes on: “Testarossa prices first rose sharply about a decade ago. The UK Hagerty Price Guide Condition 2 (Excellent) value in September 2012 was £75,000; three years later it had almost doubled to £145,000. Then prices levelled, and dropped as demand subsided. After Covid it picked up again, and prices are now starting to climb, with right-hand-drive cars demanding a premium in the UK.” Prices for the 512TR have always been above those for the Testarossa.

However, in 2022-23 Hagerty saw a huge rise in values, especially in the US. This started with private sales and was tracked through increased insurance quotes, then translated into some record auction sums, peaking at $582,000 (around

2020

TIMELINE

£0

512TR

$200,000

TESTAROSSA

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1984

Testarossa unveiled in Monospecchio form, with single door mirror mounted high on A-pillar.

1985

Two door mirrors now fitted at base of A-pillars.

1988

Five-stud wheel hubs supersede previous knock-on units.

1991

512TR replaces Testarossa, with more power and higher top speed, sharper steering, stronger brakes and lower centre of gravity.

1994

F512M supersedes 512TR, with new front and rear lights.

1996

F512M production wound up.

$0

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TESTAROSSA

2015

2016

2017

2018

£450,000) in March 2023, with other cars selling for over $400,000 across the Atlantic.

In the UK, prices haven’t reached that level yet, but it shows that demand for low-mileage, topspecification cars in excellent condition is very strong. The outlook for the model is fair; they were produced in such numbers that there will always be a large delta in value between the best and the worst examples, but they will continue to be collectable.

Matt Wilton agrees: “In the long term, these cars will continue to go up in value, even though more of them are coming to market in collectable condition. However, there aren’t many people who know these cars really well, because most experts have retired. You need to know what you’re buying, because there are things specific to each derivative that you have to know about. A lot of these cars aren’t maintained properly, and some

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get shunted back and forth between traders. Tread very carefully before buying, because there are more tired Testarossas out there than you might think.”

T H E N U T S A N D B O LT S The gearbox is the Achilles’ heel of what is otherwise a largely bombproof model. Second and sometimes first ratios can become noisy due to the tooth surface ‘picking up’. You’ll hear it ages before it causes a problem. Better parts are available now to fix things, but fitting them is a big job, best combined with a cambelt service.

Also, the original differential case was manufactured in two halves welded together. Eventually the weld fractures, which causes the differential casing to spread, putting the crown wheel and pinion out of mesh. This causes major damage if not caught very quickly.

The 512TR differential is the same, but the F512M gearbox has a

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A big issue for many of these cars is that they are rarely used, which leads to dried-out seals, hardened O-rings and gaskets, plus gummed-up injectors and perished hoses. Metering units on the early Testarossa (but not on later versions) are unreliable on infrequently used examples. When these Ferraris are left standing for ages and rarely serviced, a whole heap of costly recommissioning work is often needed when the time comes to sell.

Any such cars that Bell Sport & Classic sells will typically soak up £30,000-worth of work before it’s handed over to its new owner. This will include overhauling the fuelinjection system (£3000-£4000), while a cambelt change costs the same. So if the car you’re buying has done very few miles in recent years, pay for a professional inspection that will highlight the size of any likely bills.

Aside from the steel roof and doors, the bodyshell is made from aluminium. Underneath this is a steel frame that rarely corrodes, but check the alloy panels for flaking paint, which can peel off. Look for bubbling along the door bottoms and the wings, where they meet the A- and B-posts. Check for accident damage, too. Those distinctive side strakes are a nightmare to repair, so ensure all five fins are straight and parallel, as well as that the front and rear bonnets are aligned properly and close easily. If they don’t, it may simply be that the catch needs to be adjusted.

While the flat-12 powerplant is strong, it needs specialist care.

An annual service (or every 6250 miles, whichever comes sooner) is essential, as are fresh cambelts every 15,000 miles (or three to four years); the engine has to come out to replace these. See if the motor fires from cold; it should start immediately, unless it hasn’t been run for a few weeks. Expect the powerplant to idle at 2500rpm until warm, at which point it should settle to a nice, even 1000rpm.

The five-speed manual gearbox is strong, but you won’t be able to engage second gear until everything has properly warmed up. Testarossa clutches typically last around 10,000-15,000 miles;

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ABOVE While initially divisive, the Testarossa’s wide body and side strakes have become symbolic of the 1980s.

T H E D E TA I L S 1984-1991 FERRARI TESTAROSSA ENGINE: POWER:

NORMALLY ASPIRATED FLAT-12, FOUR-CAM, 48V, 4942CC 390BHP

TOP SPEED: 181MPH 0-62MPH:

5.8SEC

1991-1994 FERRARI 512TR ENGINE:

NORMALLY ASPIRATED FLAT-12, FOUR-CAM, 48V, 4942CC

POWER:

422BHP

TOP SPEED: 194MPH 0-62MPH:

4.8SEC

1994-1996 FERRARI F512M ENGINE:

NORMALLY ASPIRATED FLAT-12, FOUR-CAM, 48V, 4942CC

POWER:

434BHP

TOP SPEED: 195MPH 0-62MPH:

4.7SEC

replacement is straightforward.

While you are at it, think about converting to a 512TR set-up, which lasts twice as long.

The car’s heft takes its toll on the suspension system. There are six dampers, all of which can quickly wear out, while the suspension bushes perish. Replacing any of these isn’t too costly, though.

Inside, check the leather dash top for shrinkage, especially in the corners, and ensure all of the electrics work. The items most likely to give trouble are the airconditioning, lights and windows.

THE FINAL DECISION The Testarossa and 512TR might appear to be different shades of the same colour, but they are quite dissimilar to drive. For many years Nicky Paul-Barron was a circuit instructor for the Ferrari Owners’ Club, and he has driven most Ferrari models on the track.

He tells us: “It’s only in this environment that you can really appreciate the difference between the various iterations of Testarossa.

None of them is short of power, and they are all very fast, but the transition from Testarossa to 512TR brought much greater security thanks to the lower centre of gravity. It’s only really on track or

in fast road driving that you can truly appreciate the work Ferrari did to turn the Testarossa into a car with much greater stability.

“The 512TR also brought a significant amount of extra power, but you have to explore the upper reaches of the rev range to make use of it. That’s not a chore, though, as this is an engine that thrives on being revved. But, crucially, you don’t have to rev it if you don’t want to; any of these cars will potter along in fifth gear with plenty of torque and ample flexibility.”

Tony Worswick sums it up: “These cars are defined by their engine, and although there are more powerful Ferrari powerplants, this remains one of the most effortless and smooth units ever made, with a thirst for revs that belies its capacity. The power just builds as the revs increase, and when the V8s are sounding strained, the flat-12 is just asking for more. The engine being positioned above the gearbox does ultimately limit the handling, however, and this is a fairly big and heavy machine, so unless you are good, or feel lucky, it is not a car to throw around.”

Thanks to Tony Worswick, Nicky Paul-Barron and Bell Sport & Classic on www.bellsportandclassic.co.uk.

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M A R K E T A N A LY S I S

By John Mayhead, Hagerty

HISTORIC CLASSICS, GOODWOOD

WHAT’S A STICKER WORTH? The cost price of a small vinyl decal is probably a few pence, a pound or two at most, but the value… that’s another thing. There are some stickers, when attached to a car, that are very valuable indeed.

Look inside the cockpit of any Historic racing machine, and you will see what I mean. Anything with credibility will be plastered with small, white rectangles of paper, all curling at the edges, often laid on top of one another. Each one tells a story, a time when the official scrutineers pored over the vehicle before it took to the track. Each is a notch on the racing bedpost, a tangible record of the automotive duels completed – and people want them.

Technical stickers, especially the green Fédération Internationale des Véhicules Anciens (FIVA) and barcoded FIA Historic Technical

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The Goodwood effect In the classic motor sport world, a small sticker can make a huge difference to both historic worth and monetary value. Here’s why...

Passport (HTP) decals, show that the car has officially been inspected and sanctioned as a vehicle of significant historical importance, and their worth is such that they’re made to be tamperproof. Even the tiny, green ‘105’ decibel sticker gained from a full-bore track day in the UK, or an outline of the Nürburgring, shows a certain pedigree that announces: “This isn’t just a road car.”

Then there are the event stickers.

Almost every show in the world now comes with a decal of some sort. Some are massive roundels, covered with sponsors’ names and marked with a racing number, but the clever ones are more subtle: small, instantly recognisable logos that display involvement in one of the world’s top automotive meetings.

Stickers that, once applied, will almost certainly never be removed.

Some are simply ‘verification’

decals, confirmation that the car has jumped through the correct hoops to be even considered for entry to an event. But others are true markers of involvement in the most exclusive, the most prestigious events on the planet. Of these, the little red arrow of the Mille Miglia, marked with the car’s entry number, is the motoring equivalent of Caesar touching the shoulder of a gladiator, or of a king solemnly tapping his sword to anoint a new knight. This shows not only that the car reached

‘These stickers show the world that the owner of the car has real automotive clout’

the required Historic standard, and also that the entrant paid the (substantial) entry fee, but that the selectors deigned both car and driver acceptable to take part.

That can be a difficult hurdle to pass, even for the most high-profile names, as the representative of a top European collector, who wished to remain anonymous, told me: “It is always hard to understand the selection process for the Mille Miglia. This year I guess we had a lot of luck, as last year we had at the same time a rare model rejected.”

There is one other decal that has such status it will rarely leave the flanks of the car once applied: the silver oval of the Goodwood Festival of Speed entrant. These are affixed to cars that take part in the world-famous hillclimb, whose register of competitors since its 1993 inception is an automotive Who’s Who covering every era of motor sport, and top road vehicles from the earliest to the latest.

Goodwood is an invitation-only event, and although being a major sponsor helps, each car must still fit in with the themes of the day.

Fundamentally, one man has the final say: the Duke of Richmond.

That’s what makes the silver oval so powerful and long-lasting; owners of important Historic racing cars who would not normally allow anything as gauche as a piece of adhesive vinyl near their glistening paintwork proudly affix year-afteryear of ‘FoS’ stickers, overlaying each other like medals on a chest.

In the past few years, another Goodwood decal has joined its illustrious sibling: the Members’ Meeting house badge. Every competing car is assigned to one of four ‘houses’, or teams, each with their own crest. Aubigny, Darnley,

ABOVE Entry into the Duke of Richmond’s events conveys a certain status – and potential rise in value.

Methuen and Torbolton are all titles owned by the Duke, and the crests are derived from his coats of arms.

Again, when applied, these are rarely removed. The Goodwood Revival, although there’s no similar, obvious event decal, gives the same effect once a scrutineering sticker is affixed.

These stickers represent more than just attendance at an event; they show the world that the owner of the car has real automotive clout.

And, when it comes to sell, that translates into increased interest, as Martin Chisholm, proprietor of The Classic Motor Hub, told me: “A lot of the value in these cars is in the story, the perception of what the new owner might do in it. They won’t think about driving on a cold winter’s night or sheltering under a

motorway bridge from the rain. They will imagine the fun times: driving through the mountains in the sunshine, racing on a world-famous track or touring through Italy.”

He continued: “These stickers give instant recognition that the car has been noticed by someone else.

We [as dealers] can stand there and shout until we’re blue in the face that this is a fantastic car, but history from events such as Goodwood, the Mille Miglia or Le Mans Classic gives an independent verification that the car is special. That really enhances the ‘motoring daydream’ and adds depth to the story of the vehicle.”

To quantify what that interest in popularity means in real terms, the Hagerty analysts found 37 Historic cars with recent Goodwood history that have changed hands over the past five years, their values confirmed through either public sales or insured values. They then

compared those prices with the equivalent value of the same model in the Hagerty Price Guide.

Although we accounted for history when valuing the ‘standard’ equivalent, many of these vehicles are, by nature, racing cars that competed in period, so differentiating the impact of their drivers and races from the ‘Goodwood effect’ is tricky – yet all but six showed an increase in value, and there was an average uplift of 59 percent across the pack. That’s a pretty compelling guide to the impact that Goodwood history has on car values.

There is another ‘Goodwood effect’ that is harder to pin down but possibly more relevant to the general enthusiast, and this one, too, comes with a sticker: the ‘Pre’66’ paper slip that is affixed to the inside of a classic car’s windscreen, to denote that it qualifies for the most prestigious parking at the

Revival. Contemporary racing was stopped at Goodwood in August 1966, and when the event was launched in 1998, it was decided that this ‘magical step back in time’ would be limited to cars that could have competed at, or conveyed spectators to, the circuit in period.

That rule remains to this day, and despite all classics over 40 years old now being allowed into the Revival Car Show parking zone, the Pre-’66 area still takes the forward parking spot, right next to the entrance. This is the place to be, and tickets, still free of charge, run out many months in advance of the event. If you find a local advertisement for a pre-’66 car with space for friends and a picnic, a level of vintage opulence and a roof – this is the south of England, after all – chances are it’ll be advertised as “perfect for Goodwood”.

See more at www.hagerty.com and www.hagerty.co.uk.

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WAT C H E S

By Jonathon Burford

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Universal appeal With a rich history and imminent revitalisation, the future looks bright for Universal Genève

SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, NEWS emerged that had been somewhat expected and was highly anticipated.

One of the most storied and historic brands in Swiss watchmaking, one that had been somewhat dormant for many years, had been purchased and was about to be revitalised.

Universal Genève’s history goes back to 1894, when it was founded in Le Locle, Switzerland, as Universal Watch. Pretty soon it opened a branch in Geneva, and it officially changed its name to Universal Genève in the 1930s. By then, it was already making waves in the watch industry with its chronographs, micro-rotor movement, and the Compax line and Polerouter range.

But as with so many Swiss brands in the 1970s, Universal Genève was hit by the Quartz Crisis. It tried a joint venture with Bulova to leverage tuning-fork tech, before embracing the quartz movement that caused its downfall. Despite its efforts, the Universal Genève of the 1970s and ’80s just couldn’t keep up with big names such as Rolex and Heuer.

In 1989, Hong Kong-based investment holding company Stelux Holdings bought Universal Genève.

There have since been relaunches (for its 100th anniversary in 1994, and again in 2005), but nothing seemed to move the needle for this much-loved brand. The watches it makes today do not come close to their historical counterparts in terms of design or romance, leaving the brand floundering.

Despite this, collector interest in vintage Universal Genève has remained strong, and for many, it has been a gateway into collecting vintage watches. The community was both excited and nervous about the acquisition of UG by the owner of Breitling, Partners Group, which will come under the management of industry veteran and CEO Georges Kern (previously of A. Lange & Söhne, Jaeger-LeCoultre and IWC).

Under his leadership, Breitling has successfully leaned into its heritage for current models, and it is safe to assume he’ll replicate this approach with Universal Genève. The two names I expect to see relaunched will be the aforementioned Compax line of complicated watches, and the Polerouter, one of its most storied and unusual watches.

There is no designer in the watch

industry whose name resonates more than that of Gérald Genta.

While he is best known for the Royal Oak and Nautilus watches from the 1970s, his first foray into design was with Universal Genève.

When he was 23, Universal asked him to design a watch in honour of Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS) opening a route from Copenhagen to Los Angeles over the geographical North Pole, cutting the flight time from 36 to 22 hours.

Flying over the pole introduced serious magnetic issues for both navigation and timekeeping. The watch Genta designed to counter this magnetism was the Polerouter, with the in-house calibre 138 SS bumper automatic movement, a 34.55mm case and bombé-style lugs.

The first watches were presented to SAS pilots and crew on arrival at LAX, and featured the SAS logo on the dial. Over the years, a number of variations were introduced, including the Date, Jet, De Luxe, Compact and Sub, among many more. There were movement upgrades, including one of the first micro-rotor calibres, 215, preciousmetal versions and multiple dial configurations. However, for me, the real beauty of the Polerouter is in the simplicity of its design layout.

Any successful relaunch of Universal must include a Polerouter model, alongside the Compax and Tri-Compax complicated watches.

These combine the technological advances the company was known for with some of the most classically designed and readable multicomplicated watches.

The Tri-Compax models (the ‘tri’ refers to the three complications: chronograph, calendar and moon phase), and those in Compax form (chronograph only), have become some of the most recognisable chronographs of the 1960s and ’70s, worn by the likes of Eric Clapton and Nina Rindt.

Renewed exposure to the brand will also, I hope, increase the visibility (and possibly market price) of the company’s vintage range – some of the most accessible, delightful and charming collectable watches you can find.

Writer Jonathon Burford is SVP and specialist at Sotheby’s watch department. For its ongoing watches sales, see www.sothebys.com.

MOTORING ART

By Rupert Whyte with thanks to Tony Clark

FRANK WOOTTON OBE, renowned for his remarkable contributions to aviation art, also produced significant automotive works. Born in 1911, he demonstrated a versatile artistic prowess that extended beyond his renowned works in aviation, in capturing the essence of automotive culture and motoring scenes of the 1930s through to the early 1960s.

In the ’30s he worked as a commercial artist, creating advertisements, book illustrations and art for sales brochures for motor manufacturers such as Ford. He rarely signed pieces of this period, so early work is now difficult to identify.

After the war, Wootton worked as a commercial artist for various studios, focusing increasingly on motoring art. He created pieces for multiple makers, primarily the Rootes Group, and suppliers such as Lucas. Notable among his works are paintings of English landmarks and villages illuminated by car headlights. His motoring art was also used for some of Country Life magazine’s front covers.

During this period, he took on assignments for The Motor, covering events such as the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Monte Carlo Rally, and producing charcoal or pencil sketches and vibrant, colourful final works after receiving approval for his initial ‘rough’ sketches.

By the 1960s, Wootton was dedicating more time to aviation art, particularly creating travel posters for airlines such as BOAC. He explained that commissions for travel posters were more lucrative compared with those for motoring art.

It’s regrettable that he did not produce more motoring art, because his drawing skills were unparalleled and his colour work always exuded vivacity and speed. He had a talent for making even an ordinary car look grand

Wheels and wings How the automotive and aviation fields provided Frank Wootton with a rich source of inspiration

and significant, by incorporating smaller-than-life people.

Although many credit Wootton with pioneering this technique, other artists were employing it before the war.

His charcoal drawings were exceptional, some of which were featured in his book How to Draw Cars, first published in 1948 and later reissued in 1955 with variations in the illustrations.

Wootton’s artistry was of such high calibre that many contemporary commercial artists emulated his style, and to this day numerous veteran motoring artists hold his work in high

regard as their favourite.

Frank died in 1998, but his legacy extends beyond his celebrated works in aviation art, encompassing significant achievements in the automotive field. His skill in capturing the allure and dynamic energy of what are now classic cars along with Historic motor racing, has left an indelible mark on the artistic representation of motoring culture, earning him a well deserved place of distinction among automotive art enthusiasts and collectors.

Writer Rupert Whyte runs Historic Car Art, www.historiccarart.net, selling original works and posters.

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AUTOMOBILIA

By John C Lutsch

IN 1922, WHILE EXPLORING the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, top archaeologist Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb.

When his financial patron Lord Carnarvon, who was looking over the Briton’s shoulder, asked if he could see anything inside, Carter replied: “Yes, wonderful things.”

The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum’s restoration and storage facility in Cleveland, Ohio may share little in common with the Valley of the Kings, but it contains many “wonderful things” in a host of rooms inaccessible to the public.

One space reveals shelf upon shelf of carefully stored vintage headlights, from oil- and acetylene-fuelled to electric-powered units. Nearby are many corresponding glass lenses, glimmering like jewels. Another room contains a trove of silver trophies, marking achievements from aviation’s golden age and classic automobile racing, as well as awards garnered by some of the Crawford’s most noteworthy cars.

It was in a rather dark corner of a small storage area that the subject of this article was discovered, surrounded by other rare and beautiful objects. It is an original casting of La Cigogne (The Stork), created by French sculptor François Bazin in 1920. Not only is it a stunningly executed bronze work of art, it’s the prototype for the ornament that famously graced the radiator caps of all Hispano-Suizas from 1920 onward. It is an iconic image familiar to most vintage car enthusiasts, and it has been reproduced in all sizes and materials throughout the past century.

Bazin’s inspiration for the sculpture was the image that adorned the flanks of the aircraft of

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Raiders of the lost art Among the Crawford Museum’s treasures is this iconic stork of Hispano-Suiza fame

French flying ace Georges Guynemer during World War One. Bazin served in the fighter squadron led by Guynemer, and the artist wished to create a tribute to his commander, who was lost in action in 1917.

(Coincidentally, the black prancing horse seen on all Ferrari automobiles was given to the automaker by the mother of the Italian fighter ace Francesco Baracca, who carried the symbol on his aircraft and was also killed, in the last year of the war.)

The stylised image of a flying stork was not exclusive to HispanoSuiza, however. The wildly exquisite French Bucciali cars, produced from 1922 until 1933, had the bird emblazoned on each side of the engine cowling, creating a unique and unforgettable impression of speed and elegance. Buccialis are among the rarest and most desirable of the great classics from the golden age of motoring.

Bazin went on to become a very successful artist, creating many significant works in bronze and porcelain during his long career. In addition to La Cigogne, he was responsible for several additional

THIS PAGE La Cigogne was inspired

by Guynemer’s aircraft insignia.

sculptures that eventually became bonnet ornaments for automobiles.

To own one of Bazin’s ornaments is a collector’s dream, but to have one of the original sculptures on which they are based is quite extraordinary. La Cigogne is cast in a dark, low-lustre bronze, and is affixed to an elliptical veinedmarble base. It stands 13in tall, and is 16in long and around 6in wide. Its weight is approximately 20lb. The artist’s signature appears cast into the ‘cloud’ base supporting the stork. It clearly is part of a small edition of sculptures, but the exact number is unknown.

In the near future, the Crawford hopes to have the exquisite La Cigogne on display for everyone to enjoy. As with the Bucciali, it is indeed one of the rarest of birds.

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COLLECTING

By Nathan Chadwick

“THERE’S NORMALLY A STORY behind why people go for a certain vintage – whether it’s an anniversary, or they drank it at their wedding and want the same wine,” says Zoë Awcock, procurement specialist for wine-investment firm Vin-X. “Wine has been around hundreds of years; we can trace it back to medieval times – it’s a great subject to talk about for people,” adds Guy Bolland, Vin-X’s senior portfolio manager. “It’s a big love affair.”

It is a love affair that’s been through a rocky patch over the past 18 months, however, with the market down an average of 15 percent, according to Guy. Not a great time to sell, concedes Edward Stevens of Waud Wines – but it might just be the right time to buy: “Most of our clients see these ups and downs in investments – it’s important to see these dips as a time to double down rather than to get scared and sell out.”

After all, wine collecting confers several advantages over other asset classes. “The wine market is generally uncorrelated to financial markets, so if you are after diversification, that works well – it tends to have less volatility than stocks and shares,” Edward says.

“Investors also store their wine in a bonded facility, so it’s free from VAT, import duty and capital gains tax – and then there’s the returns you can make.”

Prior to the past 18 months, the market had seen ten years of growth through to 2022 – Edward recalls that some Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) could appreciate by as much as 100 percent per year. That’s not the case now – Burgundy has been hit the most, says Guy, but Bordeaux

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Red alert The red wine market has been bearish for the past 18 months.

Is it time to get on the wagon, or to drown your sorrows?

has also struggled, thanks largely to waning Chinese relations with the West, according to Edward.

“In the UK we have seen really high inflation rates, and thus high interest rates from banks,” he muses. “However, with interest rates falling, the market should start to grow again.”

The dip has not stopped true collectors, though, according to Zoë: “People have been going for value rather than for big names – and if they still want to go for big names, they will go for the ‘second’ wine out of a [maker’s] collection, not the first.”

Guy still sees both Bordeaux and Burgundy as the bankable investment wines, but some of the big Californian vineyards are also growing in stature: “Then there’s the Tuscans; Italian wine has definitely been en vogue this year – some people have looked to Italy as almost an alternative to Burgundy.”

Looking at the long term, the effects of a changing climate might be seen as an existential threat to the endurance of these household names. Not so, Zoë believes.

“Speaking to wine producers in Bordeaux in April, they were really optimistic – there is so much technology they can use to help them,” she explains. “One producer has taken to replanting its vines at 5mm angles to normal, to protect the grapes with leaf foliage so as not to change the grape variety.”

Hot weather doesn’t necessarily mean a terrible, high-tannin, alcoholrich wine, according to Edward.

“The summer of 2022 was really hot, and I thought 2022 Bordeaux would be undrinkable – but they actually produced their best vintage since 1982,” he says. All three experts see

RIGHT Some Romanée-Conti could appreciate by up to 100 percent per year until recently.

‘The worst-case scenario? You can have a really nice dinner and drink the stuff’

wildfires, and thus smoke tainting, as more of a concern.

Whatever happens, Edward has perhaps the best way to look at investing in wine. “It’s not like stocks or shares, where when it crashes or the firm’s gone bust, you’ve lost it all,” he smiles. “The worst-case scenario with a bottle of wine is that it’s not gone up as much as you thought it would, and you can have a really nice dinner and drink the stuff.”

For more information, please see www. vin-x.com and www.waudwines.com.

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DIVERSIONS Compiled by Nathan Chadwick and Sophie Kochan

NORTON AND SONS RACER JACKET PPE101, a Jaguar XK120 with historic links to Savile Row’s Norton and Sons, took part in this year’s Mille Miglia, with team outfits by the tailor itself. These include jumpsuits and a selection of jackets. This £1160 racer jacket (above) is cut from cotton twill, with hand-stitched stripes, patches and logos. https://www.nortonandsons.co.uk

CHOPARD MILLE MIGLIA CLASSIC CHRONOGRAPH JX7 This is Chopard’s seventh collaboration with the legendary driver Jacky Ickx. The midnight blue dial is inspired by Jacky’s helmet, while the Dunlop tread motif also now comes in midnight blue. It’s limited to 250 editions each, in Lucent Steel (£9280) and 18carat yellow gold (£10,900). www.chopard.com

BANG & OLUFSEN FERRARI COLLECTION

TRUEFITT & HILL ‘THE GENTLEMEN’ In conjunction with Netflix’s The Gentlemen, venerable London barber Truefitt & Hill has released a male-grooming range. Infused with the essence of sandalwood, it mirrors the charisma of the series’ Duke of Halstead.

Choose from a cologne, shaving cream, preshave oil and aftershave balm (above, £45). www.truefittandhill.eu

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Bang & Olufsen’s latest kit, in the Maranello marque’s trademark red, includes wireless earphones, headphones, a portable speaker and the Beosound 2 360º home speaker (left).

Designed to allow for floor, table or shelf placement, its anodised aluminium body features the Ferrari emblem. It costs £4449. www.bang-olufsen.com

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This Austin J40 Continuation Holland & Sherry collaboration Owners may choose from an almost unlimited colour SherrySherry cloth.cloth. brings together two iconic brands to create the ultimate palette, have the option of specifying bespoke elements Each as J40 Each Continuation J40 Continuation is built is to built order, to order, with build-slots with abuild-slots nowofnow This exclusive This collaboration launches launches bespoke a bespoke combinationexclusive of collaboration automotive design andaSavile Rowdesign style,design such luggage racks or wing mirrors and have choice the the open open for reservation. for reservation.

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DIVERSIONS

LAUDO RACING MODELS FIAT 124 SPORT SPIDER Fiat’s Tom Tjaarda-penned 124 Sport Spider was the gateway drug to Italian sports cars for many collectors, and this series of 1:18scale resin models recreates it well. Colours include Positano Yellow (above), white, green, pale blue and red, at €116.90 each. laudoracing-models.com

PATEK PHILIPPE 5330G WORLD TIME Using Patek’s new 240 HU C automatic calibre, with a white gold case, this is a new World Time generation. It has a date display indexed to local time, that of the zone selected at 12 o’clock and indicated by the hands.

The dial is opaline blue-grey, augmented by a handstitched, denim-patterned calfskin strap. It’s £65,600. www.patek.com

MONDAINE GRAND CUSHION Mondaine has turned the iconic Official Swiss Railways Clock design into a timeless watch collection.

Its Grand Cushion has a 41mm stainless-steel case, and dials in three colours: white, deep ocean blue and forest green. The white dial (right) is paired with a black, vegan grape leather strap, and it costs £450. https://uk.mondaine.com

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TAYLOR OF BOND STREET TSC ESSENTIALS BUNDLE Taylor of Bond Street has curated this £100 Traditional Shaving Company kit. It has an Ivory Pure Badger brush and stand, ten Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge blades, an Osma Alum block, Sandalwood cream and aftershave balm, Limes lotion and a Merkur 30C safety razor. www.traditionalshaving.co.uk

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BOOK REVIEWS

By Nathan Chadwick

“CURVES ARE ACTUALLY bullshit,” Giorgetto Giugiaro is rumoured to have said in an interview some time back. However, it’s only a few years ago that the prevailing view in the world of classics was that the folded-paper style he and Marcello Gandini pioneered was not ‘proper’ in the same way chrome and curves were.

That’s all changed now. Not only are wedges worth a significant amount of, well, wedge on a level equal to chrome and curves, but the cars are now in demand on concours lawns across the world. This year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is running not one but two wedge classes, for example.

This timely book from Gautam Sen takes an exhaustive look at a style that sliced through automotive design like a Jimi Hendrix guitar lick through a choir recital. However, as with many styling shifts over the years, the change is slightly more gradual; while Gandini’s Carabo was a true revolution, previous evolutionary leaps through design (via Ercole Spada’s work for Zagato) and mid-engined construction (via the Matra Djet) opened the door to ever lower, pointier designs, noting also the influence of Chevrolet’s Corvette and Corvair concepts.

Gandini’s own Miura and Marzal designs for Lamborghini, Sen believes, are not quite wedges, but certainly opened the door for the Carabo and its immediate followers.

That car takes pride of place on this 480-page book’s cover, but Sen’s authoritative view on the subject pays due reference to the key players who elevated the style: Giugiaro, Tom Tjaarda, Leonardo Fioravanti, Paolo Martin and others who contributed so much. Sen develops

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When Wedge Had the Edge Gautam Sen’s sharply written tome takes a new angle on the folded-paper style that’s still so influential today

the wedge’s growing influence, from show-car stunners to production reality via the De Tomaso Pantera and Lamborghini Countach, through to the everyday road cars that clearly took their pointy cue from the Carabo’s genesis.

However, this book is about so much more than the Italian vanguard – the wedge design idea caught the imagination of designers around the world. Indeed, some of the wedge’s greatest and most controversial exponents were the British. William Towns and Oliver Winterbottom are duly given credit for designs that, while not quite as heralded as Gandini and Giugiaro’s, certainly deserve a wider appreciation for bravely pushing the envelope.

Of course, defining what is and isn’t a wedge provides plenty of food for thought. For example, is Ferrari’s 365 GTB/4 Daytona a wedge? Alfa’s 75/Milano? Our views all differ, but Sen’s argument about a raising beltline makes sense – the Daytona is not a wedge, whereas the 75 is. However, I doubt few concours events would share my unbowed appreciation for Ermanno Cressoni’s boxy saloon brilliance.

Featuring incisive input from the designers themselves, taken from interviews with the author over many years, this is an excellent guide – and celebration – of an automotive artform that still informs design to this day, brushing off the late-90s and early-00s dalliance with retrofocused design along the way.

Although it is light on bespoke photography, this exhaustive tome is a superb profile of what remains the leading edge in automotive style in design houses across the globe.

It is good value at $150. www.daltonwatson.com

FROM RIGHT Wedgy wonders are discussed in detail in Gautam Sen’s exhaustive new book.

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BOOK REVIEWS

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Car Racing 1970 Luxuriant photography, beautifully delivered – a true feast for the eyes

IT TAKES ONLY A FEW PAGES into Manou Zurini and Alain Pernot’s book on motor sport in 1970 to be transported into a very different age. Within a decade, the culture of competition would be transformed – more corporate and, ultimately, less dangerous.

As memorably described in Le Mans (which Zurini and Pernot documented), motor sport was a professional blood sport, and the DPPI Agency, a tiny outfit based in Paris, was there to document its many forms, from Formula 1 to endurance racing plus the rapidly growing world of rallying. In only its fifth year, the agency was on the spot to catalogue a foundational year for Porsche – the team’s first of many Le Mans victories – as

well as Ford’s rallying successes with the Escort.

However, while the persistent danger was never far away – Jochen Rindt would win the F1 World Championship posthumously, and both Piers Courage and Bruce McLaren died in the same year – what this book captures, and what makes it so refreshing, is the joy of motor sport. For all the moralising and focus on the macabre with several other books covering this era, the drivers still found the wherewithal and reasons to get behind the wheel.

This beautifully illustrated – if somewhat chaotically arranged – book brings the joy of motor sport to life in an engaging manner, helping to illustrate why the drivers

took that ultimate risk. The camaraderie between those brave men is evident – Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni goofing for the camera is a particular highlight.

On the other hand, the image of Rindt in a seemingly intense conversation with a thumbchewing Colin Chapman at Monza, believed to be one of the last images captured prior to Jochen’s untimely death, is utterly chilling.

The varied nature of DPPI’s 1970 assignments is part of the joy – while the spit-and-sawdust nature of the pit complexes of the time is hardly a revelation to those well versed in the era, seeing Tyrrell mechanics rolling around in, essentially, a gravel car park still prompts an intake of breath. DPPI was also

invited to Indy 500 and NASCAR events, and even found time to take in drag racing; the juxtaposition of such disparate worlds makes the book difficult to resist.

However, as with many carphotography books, it’s the human side of the sport that makes the difference. We loved the candid photos of hunter and gun collector Henri Pescarolo visiting Mr Buck’s gunsmith workshop during the Daytona 24 Hours, François Cevert grinning at Hockenheim, and Porsche engineers peeking at the back of the Ferrari 512 S during the Le Mans test day – and this is just the first four pages. That gives you a hint of the treasures awaiting you in this €129, 312-page book... www.cercledart.com

LOOKING FOR THE REAL WEASEL

ONE LAST TURN

FORMULA 1 – CAR BY CAR 2000-09

Roy James may have reached infamy for his part of the Great Train Robbery, but he was an accomplished racing driver against the likes of Stirling Moss and Graham Hill.

Indeed, at the time of the heist he had no need to get involved, his racing career was going so well: he appeared to relish it, along with many other bonkers criminal schemes. Rich Duisberg takes an entertaining approach to unearthing the truth behind the man, managing to annoy Bernie Ecclestone along the way. This 188-page self-published book is £8.75. www.amazon.co.uk

Martin Rudow and David Gaddis pay tribute to the men behind the stars, with personal memories of the Can-Am era’s mechanics, tuners and crews. This is a timely celebration of their efforts. The mechanics’ lot is not one of glitz and glamour, although it is full of incidents and casual meetings – such as Enzo Ferrari handing out scarves and watches, to hitching a ride with Bruce McLaren across the cockpit of an M6A to check out the rear suspension. An engaging 400-page read, and excellent value at $135. www.daltonwatson.com

GIORGETTO & FABRIZIO GIUGIARO: MASTERPIECES OF STYLE

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Updated to include the Giugiaros’ new work under GFG Style up to 2023, this is a welcome overview of a family name responsible for some of the most extraordinary supercars ever and, equally, some of the topselling cars. It follows Giorgetto from meeting Nuccio Bertone through a varied career that’s seen him design for almost every brand in the world. Fabrizio’s life is also detailed, with notable success rightfully championed. Well illustrated across 264 pages, it costs €55. www.giorgionadaeditore.it

Wind back 20 years, and F1 seemed to be in a familiar place – a dominant driver and team, awkward missteps from rivals and off-track politics and intrigue. Even Ford was in the game, via the ill-fated Jaguar project. Peter Higham’s 304-page, £50 book profiles every season and team, providing a good overview of how the sport progressed during turbulent times in the wider car industry. While certain subjects – McLaren Spygate, for example – deserve a more thorough look, this is a great jumping-off point for F1 fans. www.evropublishing.com

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BOOK REVIEWS

Texas Legend: Jim Hall and his Chaparrals A journey from tragedy to the world stage via tenacity, ingenuity and drive

GAZE AT ANY SLIPPERYshaped Formula 1 car, or even any road-going hypercar, and you’ll see Jim Hall’s influence. Outside of the US his name might not be as well known as, say, Chapman or Ferrari’s, but that says more about the insular nature of European motor sport.

Look at the innovations Hall introduced with his Chaparrals in the 1960s: composite chassis, sidemounted radiators, semi-automatic gearboxes, driver-adjustable wings and net downforce. All concepts he brought to bear on the motor sport world – it’s no wonder Giampaolo Dallara, Adrian Newey and many other motor sport designers cite him as an early inspiration.

George Levy’s 484-page official biography charts Hall’s ascent to the

top of the motor sport world, a story beset with tragedy. By 18 he’d lost his mum to cancer and his father, sister, stepmother and stepsister to an aeroplane crash. You get the sense that although this was all horrific, Hall’s coping method was to focus on the next task, giving him the necessary drive to succeed.

A year later he attended his first race, and he soon began working for Carroll Shelby’s dealership via a link with his brother Dick. He soon absorbed not only the driving experiences of the world’s best sports cars, but also how to lead a team.

Frustrated at his racing efforts being limited by driving customer cars that were up to a year out of date, he decided to build his own.

While he’s more famous for the cars

he produced, this book rightly points to his great success, particularly in 1965, when he led all but two of the 20 races he entered, winning ten.

In 1966 he came to Europe with the 2D, and won at the Nürburgring, but it was the 2E that changed it all.

Designed for the SCCA CanadianAmerican Challenge Cup, its six innovations revolutionised motor sport design, most notably the high wing, but also in-car adjustability of said wing and side-mounted intakes.

There was much more on the way – the ground-effect Can-Am 2J, so far ahead of its time that a fan car has only just been made available on the road. It was undoubtedly controversial, prompting lobbying from Lola and McLaren, and an FIA ban. For Hall, it felt like he, and all

the innovations he stood for, had been banned. He took a sabbatical, but his return in single-seaters led to even more success.

It’s the 1960s Chaparrals that beguile the most, though – the shock of seeing them race for the first time is palpable among those quoted, who had to compete against them.

Beautifully illustrated with 486 photos and car-by-car illustrations, this book is great value at £60. It’s a truly rich reading experience, full of insight from Hall himself, but also from those who drove for him and helped make his vision a reality.

Jim Hall’s name should be up there with the best the world has produced in terms of racing ingenuity. This book shows why. www.daltonwatson.com

PORSCHE DECADES

ALFA ROMEO ALFETTA GT/GTV/GTV6

DEREK WARWICK: NEVER LOOK BACK

SOLD!

The GT and GTV are among the most beloved 1970s and ’80s Alfas, garnering the devotion of Jeremy Clarkson, among many others.

Umberto Di Paolo’s 350-page, £75 book is extensively researched, with rarely seen archival documents that track the car’s development and tech innovations. The Alfa was highly successful in motor sport, on both circuits and rally stages, and the book contains so many exciting images you can almost hear the Busso V6 howl through the pages. www.eaurougepublishing.com

Derek Warwick went from stock cars to F1 and the pinnacle of sports cars, and he’d have won more than his two World Championships (in very different disciplines) were it not for bad luck. Despite being firsthand witness to some of motor sport’s darkest days, this is an engagingly told story of a driver who relished every opportunity to drive.

Co-authored by David Tremayne, this £60, 432-page book doesn’t flinch from self-criticism, but there’s plenty of fun along the way. www.evropublishing.com

The past 24 months have seen a whole host of Porsche tomes – unsurprisingly given the brand’s unceasing popularity and birthday celebrations. Jay Gillotti’s 356-page book may not break the mould in terms of content, but it does provide a colourful and well presented starting point for anyone wanting to take a deeper look at the marque.

It’s also refreshing to see all models celebrated. While more bespoke photography would have been good for $135, this US-leaning take on the marque is a welcome addition. www.daltonwatson.com

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Charlie Ross is one of the auction world’s most beloved figures – and if you’re a fan of dry English wit, you’ll enjoy this £20, 256-page autobiography. Written with brother Stewart, it charts Charlie’s rise from aspiring dentist to chicken auctioneer. From there, it takes you through trials, tribulations and belly laughs right up to his status as Gooding & Co’s go-to gavel man.

Packed full of entertaining stories and asides, much like Charlie’s beloved cricket it’s impossible not to be bowled over. www.bleanbooks.co.uk

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Every watch we sell comes with the reassurance of a 24 month guarantee.

Buying, selling or need advice? www.watchesoflancashire.com Telephone 01254 873399

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ONE OF ONLY TWO COMPLETELY PERFECT COPIES OF THE 1962 BUILT ASTON MARTIN PROJECT 214

Built originally to the highest standard and well maintained ever since. Powered as were the original cars by a DB4 GT specification engine built by Warren Heath Engineering and producing in excess of 385 BHP. Built with a bespoke roll cage adding chassis rigidity and thus greatly improving road holding with the suspension set up originally by the late and much missed Colin Blower.

I have now had nearly two decades of fun racing this exceptional motor car at most of the British and European circuits and in 2011 at Laguna Seca where I carried home the trophies.

Other results include wins with Equipe GTS in their Pre 63 GT races and first Aston home at the Le Mans Legends in 2007 as well as numerous class wins. In 2023 it was entrusted to Rex Woodgate Engineering for a full chassis check and general preparation for the season. Only now for sale due to advancing years, potentially a regular winner in the right hands.

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In establishing a classic car’s provenance, inquisitive minds will be much rewarded

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single models, and marques as a whole.

Archives are, of course, a top source of invaluable material evidence, such as letters, reports, notes, memos, correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, blueprints and photos. The archives at Beaulieu’s National Motor Museum house approximately 300 collections, comprising more than 100,000 items.

At Gaydon, the British Motor Museum keeps historical records of many of the major British marques, including Aston Martin, Land Rover, MG and Triumph. For a small fee, a certified copy of a car’s factory record will be produced. In Pall Mall, the Royal Automobile Club houses the Collections, including the institution’s library, paintings and trophies, all of which will be available shortly through a collected online catalogue.

In this context, another primary source of detail resides with extant constructors of classics, such as Alfa, Ferrari, Ford and Jaguar, while those who have gone to the wall, including AC and Bristol, gave custody of their history to the respective clubs, or in the case of Allard, to an individual: Gavin, grandson of founder Sydney.

Continuing with the one-make club, the registrar will invariably turn out to be the expert bar none on all matters relating to their chosen model. Large

clubs will also have a DVLA liaison officer, with specialist knowledge of the dark art of vehicle registration.

An application to alter the chassis number of an Alfa Romeo 8C from the early 1930s was made on behalf of a client. The officer led extensive correspondence between the parties, and was called to attend two inspections of the Alfa. Consequently, the DVLA representative was able to locate the true chassis number. The V5C registration document was duly amended, thereby correcting a 75-yearold error. The contribution made was pivotal to the successful outcome of the application. Furthermore, club officers can be called upon to give expert evidence in court proceedings.

Attitude is a key fundamental to successful research. If there is any hint, any suspicion that what is being presented does not ring true, then go further, dig deeper, ask awkward

‘If there is any hint that what is being presented does not ring true, then go further, dig deeper’

questions. The written word, in particular, carries great weight, whether in print or online. The burden of disproving that which is written falls upon the man on the Clapham omnibus. Progress often lies in disproving accepted wisdom.

Certainly, in the world of classics, material produced decades ago may require close scrutiny. This should include manufacturers themselves.

Returning to the Alfa 6C mentioned above, the client, in trying to prove that he was the owner of the original car, was unamused to discover that the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, Milan was displaying the self-same ‘original’ race machine. Upon inspection, it transpired that the Arese car was stamped with a post-war chassis number, and was therefore simply a mock-up.

Back in 2022, the Mercedes-Benz Museum decided to refresh its 1924 Targa Florio winner, no. 10, driven

by Christian Werner, which had been on display for 37 years. During the dismantling process, and after much expert scrutiny of the museum’s archive documents, it transpired that the car had indeed taken part in the race – but it was car no. 32, driven by Christian Lautenschlager, who came tenth and ninth respectively in the two-part race. The restoration will be proceeding, presumably with a revised description plaque.

Having referred to my most recent AC, I will conclude with my first AC, an Ace purchased for £24,000 in 1999.

My research revealed that VPG 600 was the poster car in the original factory brochure. It later transpired that the model had been put to use as a Works car in the hands of Ken Rudd. Meticulous restoration to better-than-new condition had been undertaken by JD Classics when the car appeared for sale in the company’s Mayfair showroom in 2018, at a price just shy of £550k. I was not the seller.

Clive is a solicitor and consultant with London law firm Healys LLP. Contact clive.robertson@healys.com.

WILL BROADHEAD

WHEN IT COMES TO VALUING A classic vehicle – and apart from structural and mechanical condition – provenance, being a guide to authenticity or quality, is the next most important factor to be considered. A car with no history would reduce in value by half, if indeed it can be considered as saleable at all.

In these terms, provenance comprises the sum of the car’s existence, which resides in its documentation, including registration documents, service records, photos, previous owners’ notes and anecdotes; in short, anything material recorded in whatever media. Before embarking on any quest relating to provenance, thought should be given to the prospect of engaging an expert.

Almost every aspect of a car draws and creates an expert. Until recently I owned an AC Aceca. The original green continuation logbook showed it as registered on December 15, 1955 with a Bristol engine, while five days later the factory ledger recorded it as an AC-engined car. A fellow AC owner recommended Nicholas Young, an expert on the UK registration system.

Nick’s labours produced an eightpage opinion, which proved that the factory entry could only have been made because of a clerical error.

Advances in metallurgy and paint analysis mean experts can now date a chassis by its ferrous content and its coachwork by spectral analysis. A client believed he owned a 1939 Alfa Romeo 6C with a celebrated historic race history. There had been some interesting cars coming out of South America that were less than the sum of their parts. Prompted by a shout of “fake” at an auction in Germany, the market took the view that this was one such car. A sample was then taken from the chassis, which settled that it was constructed from metal cast in 1939.

On the subject of experts, mention must be made of those noble creatures who devote their life’s work to authoring tomes given over to the history of

BELOW Precisely – or not – compiled factory records are just one way to research a classic car’s provenance.

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The Curator Robert Dean Shooting cars, for stills or on film, involves a lot of professionalism and a few tricks of the trade

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machinery to 1980s and ’90s turbos.

Next, we took the bodywork off a car, and I bounced on the chassis so they could film the wishbones and springs moving. This was not simply up-and-down bouncing; I had to make everything move like it would on a circuit, with someone occasionally turning the wheel at the same time.

It never ceased to amaze me how terrific the film turned out in the edit.

The camera never lies… or does it?

In 2009, I took 24 of Bernie’s cars to Bahrain for an exhibition. Snapper Ben Nicholson set up a temporary studio on the Bahrain International Circuit. Starting very early in the morning, I pushed each race machine onto the pad for him to shoot. His idea was to photograph each car, starting with the earliest, and to have a set time to complete the images. He’d then move on to the next year of car.

This meant as each model was shot the sun moved round the sky, creating a feeling of the years going past, until the newest car was photographed at dusk. It all seemed to work very nicely, and created a super-nice effect as the shadows changed and lengthened.

The next day, Ben asked if we could take two cars, the Mercedes W125 and Brabham BT56, and photograph them on the start-finish straight. The

cars were angled towards each other, with the straight stretching out behind them – but when I looked through Ben’s viewfinder, it just wasn’t accurate enough. I knew Mr E well enough to understand what an incredible eye for detail he has, so with some slight changes of angle and moving the cars just a little at a time, we got it perfect.

So much so, the photo was made into a poster, framed and put in Mr E’s office at the circuit. After the race, we found that he had taken it home with him for his office in England.

Classic Team Lotus once entrusted me with two of its cars to photograph, again with the F1 TV chaps. All went well until the photographers’ HDMI cable failed and they found they had no spare. After even asking in some of the location’s electronics workshops, to see if we could borrow one, the guys said all they could do was to go home and come back another day. This

‘We had to tank tape a broom to the rear door strut to keep it open while driving…’

wasn’t an option. So, with disaster staring us in the face, l took the failed cable and said: “We’ll have to fix this one then.” “Oh, that can’t be done,” they replied. “The ends are all sealed.”

I then slit open the USB end, and found that the earth lead had become detached. I borrowed a soldering iron and some heat shrink wrap, and, to their amazement, I soon had the film crew back in action. A year or so later I met a couple of the guys once again, and they had kept the repaired cable as a back-up, which they told me had saved them any number of times.

I also once spent a happy few hours testing several front-engine GP cars, following my buddy Peter Renn (senior lecturer in photography at Farnham Art College) as he hung precariously out of the back of an estate car. We had to tank tape a broom to the rear door strut to keep it open while driving…

What larks! Now, of course, any racer can buy a GoPro with stabilising systems, and record everything with very professional results.

Take pictures of your machinery – and print them. These are so much nicer than having all your images crowded onto a device.

Former Ecclestone Collection manager Robert now runs Curated Vehicle Management. See www.c-v-m.co.uk.

BEN NICHOLSON (SNAPPYBEN.CO.UK)

WHEN READING A MAGAZINE OR watching a film featuring our favourite vehicle, be it car, motorcycle, steam engine or whatever, most of us never really think about how all those pictures and footage we drool over are produced. Some are the result of studio photo sessions with very high production and detail values, or of outside shoots using natural backgrounds and skylines. After that, film takes over, and everything becomes really quite complicated.

I have done many photo and film shoots with cars, and have even been filmed a few times myself. In addition, Tom Ford did a very nice article about me back in 2007, when Mr Ecclestone sold his road cars through RM Auctions in Battersea, London.

In the early ’90s, Bernie’s collection was stored in an aircraft hangar alongside the embryonic Formula 1 TV centre. A lovely guy called Jono Nicholas came to me, and explained that he wanted to film an introduction with a silver cup spinning slowly on a base. Could I help him?

I love a challenge, and I thought about how I could make a spinning stand. As luck would have it, I found a broken office chair in the skip, so I removed the backrest and screwed a level wooden base to it. Then we draped it with a black-out cloth, and I lay on the floor with my arms under the chair, gently spinning it round, with Jono saying “faster” or “slower”.

Much to our surprise it looked perfect, because the camera only saw the top of the base and the silver cup.

Another time, Jono asked whether we could film suspension going up and down, pedals being pressed and steering wheels being turned, for the intro film for the 60th F1 season. I donned my race kit so it looked like a racing driver’s leg and hands, then they set up cameras and filmed me pressing the clutch, brake and accelerator, with gearchanges and the like. We did this in all the years of cars, from front-engined Grand Prix

BELOW Mercedes W125 and Brabham BT56 shot in Bahrain ended up as a poster in Bernie Ecclestone’s office.

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The Racer Sam Hancock In his final Magneto column, Sam reflects on what really makes taking part in motor sport worthwhile

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fellow scribe, Gaby Von Oppenheim, reminded me what this great hobby is really all about, and made me wonder whether those of us embroiled in the ceaseless pursuit of performance, podiums and – dare I say – profit, have lost contact with some of its most fundamental joys.

To hear Gaby eulogise about her cars, and the driving experience they provide, with such passion was almost enough to make this Englishman blush. The sheer delight with which she articulated her “dance with the steering wheel” was intoxicating and often poetic.

“It is poetry!” she exclaimed, when I pointed this out. “Having a connection with a car you love, learning how to guide it to an apex, feeling for its response, listening to its feedback, can be like a ballet.”

I’m no twinkle toes, but I have watched enough Strictly to know that a good lead can initiate a blur of

physics-defying artistry with the slightest prompt – and, now that I think about it, driving a racing machine is no different. When the car is balanced, and our positioning, our rhythm, our inputs all meet in perfect harmony, it can indeed salsa beneath us with nothing more than minimal input from the cockpit.

But it’s not only the painting of a perfect racing line (“like an artist’s brush stroke”) that enthrals Gaby, as the glee with which she praised her cars’ aesthetics revealed: “I adore my little Alpine A210. It has the most

‘By all means seek pace and podiums, maybe even a profit – but don’t forget to enjoy the dance’

beautiful shape, like that of a dragonfly.” I was soon convinced that she derives as much pleasure from her racing steeds while they are stationary as when they are in motion.

Conspicuous by their absence in our conversation was any mention of how competitive they were, or their values in the current marketplace: two topics I spend most of my waking hours discussing or contemplating.

And yet it was abundantly clear that Gaby gleans tremendous value from her cars, more than many perhaps – it is just that her denominations can’t be measured on a stopwatch or spreadsheet.

So if I may, dear readers, leave you with one final thought, it is this: by all means seek pace and podiums, maybe even a profit – but above all, don’t forget to enjoy the dance.

Sam is a professional racing driver, coach and dealer in significant competition cars. See www.samhancock.com.

JULIAN BROAD

GIVEN THE RELATIVE BREVITY of these columns, you might be surprised to hear that I often agonise over them for days, sometimes rewriting draft after draft from scratch before finally submitting my copy to Magneto’s brilliant (and patient) editorial team, whose definition of ‘deadline’ I have no doubt tested to breaking point.

And since adding ‘used car dealer’ to my now verbose job description, the available time for further wrestling with the blank page has come under increasing threat – such that I sadly now need to ‘box box’ and retire my contributions to this fabulous magazine.

It has been the greatest privilege over these past few years to see my musings nestle among such beautifully crafted passages, and I thank the team hugely for entrusting me with such prized real estate from which to share observations from my little corner of the motor-racing world. For those of you who have followed along, I thank you, too, and I hope you’ve found some of it informative or entertaining.

For this final column I have, quelle surprise, spent more time than I care to admit searching for a suitable topic with which to wrap things up. As I write, I have at least six separate drafts open on my screen, with subject matter ranging between the most recent, exhilarating Le Mans 24 Hours and the question of whether Balance of Performance mechanisms undermine the race’s credibility; the headwinds facing Historic Group C grids, and why now might just be the perfect time to scoop up a car; the surprising politics of Italian GT racing, even at amateur level; and why is it that coaching racers to find that last half a second is so darn hard?

All potentially worthy candidates for this final tour, I hope you’ll agree.

Yet all such topics were parked in an instant when, at a recent dinner party, my Historic racing buddy and

BELOW Racing should bring you joy above all else, says Sam; all the rest is secondary.

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24/05/24 07:53

The Interview Andrea Zagato

Words Nathan Chadwick

It’s all shaping up nicely for Zagato: a new partner, fresh projects and a return to its natural home, the racetrack

How do you feel about manufacturers setting up bespoke entities?

The key change came from Jaguar Land Rover’s SVO operation a few years ago. The fact that Alfa Romeo is doing Bottega shows that elements in big companies are thinking that having small units dedicated to special projects make sense – this is precisely what I need, because a big problem for coachbuilders is how to interface with a big group.

I was at Alfa Romeo yesterday; it was a great meeting, but it was a little different from what I was foreseeing. We are working on more than one project.

We hear you are now working on something 8C-related?

The most ‘winning’ car in the marque’s history was the 8C, and we did all the models: the longwheelbase, the intermediate Mille Miglia, the short-wheelbase Monza…

All the cars were done by us for Scuderia Ferrari between 1929 and 1948. I suggested something out of their perspective, and they liked it – so we are going to work on that.

What other Alfa ideas do you have?

We have a Sanction Lost project, again based around an 8C, bringing

to life a car from Zagato’s history that no longer exists. It was an aerodynamic, teardrop shape – it was one of the most beautiful bodies we did in the 1930s. The car was mentioned in every movie of the time, but it doesn’t exist anymore.

What was behind the idea to restructure the company, and bring in a new partner?

The decision was to reduce risk. I don’t have children, I’m in my 60s; I didn’t want to have all the risk solely on my shoulders. I was looking for a partner, and I didn’t want to go in the direction of an automotive group – it may have some advantages, but you end up killing the brand because you work for only one manufacturer.

The characteristic of coachbuilding is versatility – you can jump from our latest project on the AGTZ Twin Tail with La Squadra, to Porsche to Ferrari. This is the freedom of the job, with your own language; that is the essence of coachbuilding.

And where does your new partner company come from?

It comes from the world of luxury and fashion, which raises the opportunity for brand extension. The Group is attentive to the values of heritage and craftsmanship, which allows us to safeguard the consistency of the brand and gives us the opportunity for new synergies with other brands.

Will we be seeing Zagato return to its spiritual home – the racetrack?

When we worked with Aston Martin with its V12 Vantage Zagato, Ulrich Bez raced the car at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, and he took it to the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este

ABOVE Andrea is third generation Zagato, following grandfather Ugo – who founded the company in 1919 – and father Elio.

three weeks later. That was the very essence of Zagato. However, despite this positive experience, it’s not easy for us to return to the track – the cost is unbelievable. Yet the DNA of Zagato is racing…

We’re collaborating with an as-yetunnamed British racing driver on a project that will be revealed in a year’s time. We’re designing a car that’s entry level for anybody who wants to learn how to race – it’s a simple car with no turbo or electronic controls, but with advanced technology for safety. The look is great, because it brings back memories of older Zagato cars, and it will offer the right feeling about knowing the limit of not only the car, but also of yourself.

‘The freedom of the job, with your own language; that is the essence of coachbuilding’

How do you feel about the future?

This is the new adventure we’re starting for the third millennium – we have to do something new.

To read more about the new AGTZ Twin Tail, with interviews with Andrea Zagato and La Squadra’s Jakub Pietrzak, please head to www.magnetomagazine.com.

Magneto (ISSN No: 2631-9489, USPS number 22830) is published four times a year – in February, May, August and November – by Hothouse Publishing Ltd, UK. Magneto is distributed in the US by RRD/Spatial, 1250 Valley Brook Ave, Lyndhurst NJ 07071. Periodicals postage paid at South Hackensack NJ and other additional entry offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Magneto c/o RRD, 1250 Valley Brook Ave, Lyndhurst NJ 07071.

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JOHN WYCHERLEY

What challenges do coachbuilders face in the 21st century?

In the old days, you went to Ferrari and spoke to Mr Ferrari, and when you went to Aston Martin you spoke to David Brown or Victor Gauntlett.

But when brands group together, you have a whole group to speak to. Today OEMs change the CEO quickly, and then the decision-making process is wider.

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