BESPOKE AUTOMOTIVE

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The original 504 Break Riviera was a concept built by Pininfarina for the Geneva Auto Show in 1971. With the prototype’s fate unknown, a private collector commissioned HC Classics to build this model based on a Series 1 504 Cabriolet, retaining the car’s distinctive styling cues. While the front is unchanged, the rear flanks now better embrace the shooting-brake design. Much of the donor’s interior has been revived, but the back seats have been remodelled, while there’s varnished wood with aluminium rails at the rear. The chrome tailgate hinges subtly complement the sporting roof rails.

Chassis WRB 2 was originally assigned to a Mrs Millicent Ella Hesketh-Wright via HR Owen, and then to Major GJ Lucas of Aylesbury. He didn’t go through with the purchase, so the car was finally assigned to Mr George Formby in Lancashire, who took delivery in

November 1938. George would become Britain’s highest-paid entertainer in the 1940s. He kept the Wraith for only a year, because war had broken out. A further four owners are listed in the factory records until 1955. The Wraith was fully restored ten years ago by a specialist.

This Austin-Healey began life as a normal 3000, albeit one with its motor bored out to 3.1 litres. It regularly competed in hillclimbs and on track, but it came a cropper at Silverstone, hitting the new pit wall at Woodcote in 1964.

At Delta Garages, Douglas Wilson-Spratt designed a lightweight, aerodynamic GT shape that was built by Robert

Peel Sheet Metal Works. The WSM was soon in competition again, but it was stolen from a London garage, later to be found undamaged in Hull.

It was sold and used as a rally car, before being laid up in the early 1970s. The current owner has spent the past 12 years restoring the car; this is the first time the WSM has been seen in public since the 1970s.

By the end of the 1970s beach buggies were very popular in Europe, so Bertone enlisted Marcello Gandini to create the Matra Buggy. Based on a Simca 1200S Coupé, this one-off uses that car’s longitudinal rear-engined layout. The 85bhp 1.2-litre unit was mounted on a bespoke tubular-steel frame, and it sits long, low and wide. The wheels are bespoke, and there are chrome frames at the rear to protect the mechanical components. Bertone made a second prototype with Chrysler underpinnings, while Matra itself built two more. It altered the design still further with the aim of greater practicality.