Innholdsfortegnelse for 17/02/2021 i Classic Car Buyer

Remember the seven Group B rally icons due to go under the hammer at Artcurial’s La Parisienne 2021 auction? One of them made history in the French capital on February 5, when a 1988 Audi Sport Quattro S1 sold for €2,016,600 with premium – more than double its lower estimate and a new record for a rally car purchased at auction. In all, the sale grossed a total of €18,224,244 as entries sold for eye-watering amounts. The remaining six Group B cars comprised a Ford RS200, a Peugeot 205 T16 Evolution 2, a Lancia Delta S4, a Lancia 037, an MG Metro 6R4, and a Renault 5 Maxi Turbo, with all finding new homes. Only the Metro sold short of its estimate, with the 205 selling for €977,440 against a…

BMW’s Hams Hall factory in Warwickshire is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. More than five million engines have been assembled and put into BMW and MINI models since it opened in 2001, with Hams Hall now responsible for supplying nine plants around the globe. The first BMW to be fitted with an engine built at Hams Hall was the E46 BMW 316ti Compact, which was the first unit to feature the firm’s Valvetronic variable lift and timing system, and was awarded International Engine of the Year. From 2006, it also supplied the petrol engines for the MINI range, and later the 1.5-litre three-cylinder engine used in the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid sports car. In 2015 the plant started building new three and four-pot motors for BMW and MINI models,…

THE BOOK OF THE HONDA S2000 Over the years we must have received hundreds of review books and with storage space getting ever tighter, it’s only the quality works which get to stay on the office bookshelves for regular reference. And of these, a great many are the work of Brian Long, a Japan-based British author who has produced a series of well-researched titles for Veloce. Long is particularly known for his profiles of Mercedes and Porsche models as well as Japanese marques and his latest work covers the Honda S2000. With not one but two of Honda’s frantic roadsters in the CCB fleet, naturally we were keen to give this one a read and it proved to be well up to the standard of Long’s previous titles. Those unfamiliar…

Bedford Rascal Bambi I’m of the belief that less is more with camper vans; you’re staying in a fibreglass box on the back of what is typically a slow commercial vehicle that’s parked in a field. If you wanted luxury, you’d be in a hotel. My initial nomination of the Daihatsu HiJet was vetoed on account of the bed being too short for me to actually lay on and it amounting to a van with some discarded furniture in it. Therefore, my choice of classic camper is the Bedford Bambi. The van the Bambi is based on, the Rascal, owes its existence to the Suzuki Carry, a Kei van in its Japanese homeland. For those unfamiliar, Kei cars and vans are the bare minimum motoring experience, restricted in engine capacity…

Production Editor Contact: Classic & Sportscar Centre, Malton, North Yorkshire YO17 8JB Tel: 01944 758000 www.classicandsportscar.ltd.uk Ever since its release in 1970, the Range Rover has been on a steep climb towards becoming a genuine luxury car. Fortunately, there’s been plenty of demand to fuel it along the way, and so it continues today, challenging the likes of Mercedes-Benz and even Bentley. In the age of the P38, the Range Rover had finally graduated from garden hand with a velvet glove to the Barbour-jacket wearing city slicker with an estate in the country. None represented this advance better than the later special editions and the one with perhaps the most impressive title of all was the 30th Anniversary, an example of which we have here. Only around 200 were made…

There’s perhaps a sense of satisfaction when you own a classic car or two and find their values have risen. Even if most of us won’t make a living from such gains, at least we’re not out of pocket. In my case, the 1977 VW Transporter (Bay Window) I bought for £5500 back in 2010 is now worth at least double this amount, although I have invested in a respray, lots of welding repairs, an interior and several upgrades. So it’s fair to say I would probably break even should I sell it, but here’s the catch. Would I buy another one for £10,000 or more? Probably not. It’s too much money to spend on what most people regard as a hobby. If I sell it, there’s no going back,…

Last week, we reported on how Jaguar Land Rover had won a landmark copyright infringement case at the High Court in Sweden, giving the brand copyright protection over the C-Type’s external shape in a case it brought against a company manufacturing replicas of the iconic 1950s model in December. Now though, the defendants have hit back with their side of the story, branding Jaguar “the unacceptable face of capitalism” and setting up a crowdfunding page to help support a challenge to the ruling. Karl Magnusson, an honorary member of the Swedish Jaguar Club, was reportedly sued for copyright infringement after building a C-Type replica in his home garage in Gothenburg. The 68-year-old says he was invited to the Jaguar Land Rover Classic UK HQ by senior management in 2016 to…

VW Type 2 For me the decision is easy, because I’m lucky enough to have inherited a 1972 Dormobile. The click of the doors, the sliding of the side door, the sound of the engine are all lodged in my memory, so for me it can’t be anything else. It’s also quite practical, with lots of storage areas, like the hold under the rear seat, which of course folds into a bed, and a generous kitchen with sink, two gas hobs and even a fridge neatly installed where once would’ve been a simple cool box. You can even charge your phone with sockets just like at home, and all you’ll drain is the leisure battery. Hopefully I can recommission it for some use this summer. There are also some rational…

VW ‘T25’ I do love an air-cooled VW, but even the most ardent Dubber will admit that the classic flat-four is at its limit in the Type 2 Transporter, with even VW’s own attempts to improve things by bumping up capacity only tending to impact on its famed reliability. Which is why I’ve gone for what I reckon is the best of both worlds in the shape of the third-generation VW van, known to the UK as T25 and also referred to retrospectively as the T3. Retaining the rear-engined layout, the T25 initially carried over the air-cooled units, but in 1980 the inline-four Golf diesel engine was offered, canted over to 50 degrees to fit into the engine compartment. In 1982, the air-cooled flat-fours were replaced by a brand new…

Contact: Stone Cold Classics, Wrotham, Kent TN15 7RR Tel: 07711 645465 www.stonecoldclassics.com It’s difficult to grasp the fact that Volvo 240s have generally gone past the point at which it was easy to find a tidy one but, as the model approaches genuine classic status, that’s where we are in 2021. The buyer of this car in 2019 was lucky to have found an untouched example with just 25,000 miles on the clock. Since then it has done another 22,500 miles, but it retains that time-warp factor only adding a real sense of being run-in. This second owner was sharp on the maintenance, not only taking it to a Volvo dealer in Gatwick for a service and health check, but overhauling the carburettor, brakes, and some of the suspension componentry.…

Following the success of two events in 2020, Classics for Carers is back next month for another stay-at-home motor show, raising funds for NHS Charities Together. The event will take place on March 20, aiming to raise £13,000 to build an NHS well-being pod - a quiet restorative space for staff. Classic car enthusiasts are invited to buy event plates and stickers to affix to their pride and joy, before displaying them at home for passers-by to enjoy, as well as posting photos on social media to be appreciated by the wider motoring community using the hashtag #classicsforcarers. A new rally plate design has been released, featuring a classic Mini. Last year’s May and June events raised £17,500 and led to founder Nick Chivers earning a Royal Automobile Club Historic…

BUILDING TALENT This week: We chat to Heritage Skills Academy Development Director Owain Johns about the future for apprentices Here at HSA our team has adapted to the third lockdown by implementing lessons learnt from the first two lockdowns. Online learning for our apprentice trainees has successfully continued via Zoom, Electude and Kahoots, but we’re eager to get back to some sense of normality when onsite learning resumes in the spring at Bicester Heritage and our new Brooklands Museum site. I think it’s important to maintain the view that industry will continue to grow post-Covid. From a skills perspective we’re constantly working with employers in the industry who are considering recruiting an apprentice to complement their staff, and more importantly, start a talent pipeline to ensure important skills and knowledge…

Bedford CF The temptation here was to plump for something of an unsung hero. It’s not fashionable and is overlooked by trendy ‘Dubber’ types, but it’s remarkable how many Talbot Express campers are still around. Given that the Alpine, Horizon, Solara, Samba and Sunbeam models all survive in barely more than handfuls, the Express would appear to be Talbot’s strongest suit. That’s remarkable given the last was built almost 30 years ago. The Express shared its platform with the Mk1 Fiat Ducato and was built from 1981-1993, but as much as I love it for its underdog status, it wouldn’t be my number one. That’s because I’m rather too fond of the Bedford CF – a British equivalent to the muscle-bound A-Team van and the canvas for a generation of…

Group Editor Contact: Classic European Cars, Preston, PR4 6AE Tel: 01704 206838 www.classiceuropeancars.biz The classic car world has long been used to supposedly rust-free imports from West Coast USA and as long as the car has genuinely come from a dry state, it makes good sense as a means of reducing the cost of bodywork rust repair. With some 80 per cent of 1950s and 1960s MG and Triumph production exported across the Atlantic, there’s no shortage of sun-bleached and well worn projects but there is one rather obvious drawback in that they’re all left-hand drive. Which perhaps explains why we’ve seen a boom in popularity of South African imports recently, which offer all the benefits of a truly bone-dry climate but with the bonus of factory right-hand drive. What’s…

Contributor REPORTING ON: 1988 Citroen CX Croisette There comes a point in life when you realise that owning three Jaguars is an extravagance. And as nice as it was, it was always the X300 3.2 Executive that would have to give. I also have an X300 XJR, and a long-wheelbase X300 3.2 Sovereign. There’s therefore no need for a lower-specced 3.2, even one with just 74500 miles from new. And I’d been getting itchy about CX ownership again. My last was a little rough, but they truly are the best thought-out cars in the world. So I hatched a plan: sell the surplus Jag and buy a CX. Enter Eddie Mignon – with whom, it transpires, I was at sixth form. I found his Croisette for sale on Facebook Marketplace,…