Innholdsfortegnelse for 07/04/2021 i Classic Car Buyer

As the ultimate evolution of the formula begun with the original Mulsanne Turbo, the Continental R is a magnificent beast by any standards and was a more significant model for Bentley than many realise. Debuted as a concept at the 1985 Geneva show, the Continental was the first Bentley since the 1950s to carry truly unique bodywork. Styled to evoke the spirit of the Mulliner Continental from the 1950s, the production car was launched in 1991, the R model using the drivetrain from the Turbo R saloon and a 1996-spec car like this boasting around 380bhp, backed up with a colossal 554lb.ft torque. Naturally that translates to outrageous pace, 60mph clocking up in just 5.9 seconds and the car topping out at a limited 150mph. The list price of the…

The long-awaited 10th edition of the Le Mans Classic, scheduled for July 1-4, has sadly been postponed again due to restrictions on numbers by the French government. Organisers Peter Auto and Automobile Club de l’Ouest now plan to run the event on the first or second weekend of July in 2022, with the date to be confirmed in September. Patrick Peter of Peter Auto said: “A closed session would not do justice to this event and would considerably reduce the beautiful tribute to the great history of endurance. Le Mans Classic without public, without exhibitors and without clubs is not Le Mans Classic.” A behind-closed-doors event called Historic Racing By Peter Auto will take place on the Le Mans Bugatti circuit over the same 2021 weekend instead, featuring all of…

Charterhouse Auctioneers has launched a new website for its classic car sales. The Dorset firm’s next auction will take place at the Haynes Motor Museum on July 14, but if you can’t wait, a special car is being offered in its Antiques and Interiors Auction on April 9. The 1986 Audi Quattro has had just three owners over the past 35 years and comes with an extensive service history contained in three albums. The West Country owner, who bought the car 13 years ago, is looking to move to Scotland and thus intends to sell the car on. It’s estimated to sell for £25,000-£28,000.…

Footman James has launched its new ‘Show Us Your Shed’ competition to celebrate the spaces of all shapes and sizes that house our classics and collectables, from the clinical to the chaotic. These include the traditional garage space, but also spare rooms, outbuildings or even aircraft hangars – basically, places that have provided an invaluable refuge for many over the last 12 months. The two-month social media competition will award one space the inaugural ‘Shed Head’ trophy. It’s open to anyone and is easy to enter via a form via www.footmanjames.co.uk/show-us-your-shed-2021 You can then share your entry on social media using the hashtag #FJShowUsYourShed. David Bond, Managing Director of Footman James, said: “It’s not about how much the ‘shed’ costs, or how big it is, but the passion and the…

Everyone who has ever expressed an interest in cars will have at some point received at Christmas one of those hastily-compiled little books usually titled something like ‘World’s worst cars’. Before even reading the first page you know the lazily-compiled content will include more than a few products of the British Leyland era, usually the Allegro (“The only car to have a square steering wheel” it’ll probably tell you) and the Marina, backed up with some other easy targets like the Bond Bug and the Reliant Robin. The reality however is that many of the oft-derided BL cars were entirely appropriate for the market at which they were aimed and the real crime is in many cases the lack of development they received, leaving them to soldier on until hopelessly…

After the opulence and sheer speed of the Bentley, an MGB is either a bit of a comedown or a massive relief and there will be many tempted to agree with the latter. What we have here is the very essence of the enjoyable traditional classic, in the shape of the MGB in its purest Mk1 form, complete with chromed wires and the useful bonus of a brand new hood. Described as being in restored condition throughout it’s obviously been done sensitively and avoids that overly modern patina some restored cars have. It’s also had plenty of shakedown time, since it’s covered some 25,000 miles since restoration and its former owner clearly enjoyed driving it as much as polishing – always a good sign – as witnessed by the upgrades…

ENJOY 6 MONTHS FOR JUST £26 PLUS FREE UK DELIVERY GREAT DISCOUNTS DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR Inside Each Issue: • The latest news and analysis • Expert buying guides and advice • Product reviews • Classic cars and parts for sale • Auction news and preview VISIT SHOp.KELSEY.CO.UK/CBU19A OR CALL 01959 543 747 And quoTE CodE CBu19A Lines open Monday – Friday 8.30am - 5.30pm. Calls are charged at your standard network rate. * Full terms and conditions can be found at shop.kelsey.co.uk/terms. offer ends 31st december 2019 and applies to UK subscribers only when paying by direct debit. Your subscription will start with the next available issue with your first 26 issues being charged at just £26. Payments will continue to be taken at the low rate of £35…

SPECIAL K The K-Series: Rover’s finest hour or darkest moment? RIVALS: FULVIA v GT6 Italian V4 versus Triumph straght-six. BUYING THE ASTON DB7 Values are rising, but it’s still an affordable exotic. DOWNLOAD THE DIGITAL ISSUE OF CLASSIC CAR BUYER FROM AS LITTLE AS 94p! Visit: www.pocketmags.com or download it via the App Store; search ‘Classic Car Buyer’. The printed version of Classic Car Buyer is available in ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons and WH Smiths, plus all good newsagents.…

VW had the whole automotive world guessing last week when it announced that Volkswagen would become ‘Voltswagen’ in the States to stress its commitment to electric vehicles. The change was leaked to the media on March 29, with a press release on March 30. The name change was reported widely as fact by the media, including a number of national high-profile newspapers which suggested the change was legitimate, even adding “this is not an April Fool’s joke” to their stories. Others were not so convinced, and later on March 30 it emerged that it was indeed a joke. So, was it a stroke of PR genius, an embarrassing U-turn or just a joke gone too far? Certainly the fake release was an unusual one for a company trying to repair…

Ford’s launch video for the Mondeo starred three times Formula One World Champion Jackie Stewart, given the rather lengthy title of Ford’s Consultant in Engineering for Research and Development of Future Projects. The project was given the codename CDW27 – signifying the C/D market segments with the ‘W’ to signify its status as a ‘world car.’ Mondeo was an entirely fabricated word intended to suggest ideas of global reach. Mansell Mania saw 60,000 attend Donington Park for the BTCC’s end-of-season TOCA Shootout in 1993. Mansell was busy carving through the field in his Mondeo when he was punted off by Tiff Needell, and sadly ended the day in hospital with concussion. The Mondeo was the first-ever car sold from the beginning with a driver’s airbag in all of its versions,…

There was a time when every maker’s big saloon needed to have a coupe equivalent in the range to give well-heeled executives the satisfaction of thinking they were still driving the sports car of their impecunious youth… even if big lunches and advancing years meant the reality was that they would no longer get into a Midget or Sprite. As any production accountant will tell you, creating an entirely separate model for the low sales volumes of a big coupe is impossibly costly, meaning that most of these were created using their makers’ big four-doors as a basis. In the days before modular platforms though, that often meant lopping a section from the wheelbase to avoid awkward proportions once the surplus pair of doors had been done away with. Two…

The Volkswagen Type 2 is so iconic that it’s come to define the campervan genre. Say the word camper and more often than not an image of the classic Split-screen comes to mind, in 1950s colours with shiny chrome and a quaint pop-up roof sprouting from the top. It has become a classic amongst the masses, far beyond just us lot. On the whole that’s been good for the Type 2, because so many have been saved from the scrapheap by motivated owners. However, the other side of the coin is that they are expensive to buy and it’s not unusual to find examples that have been patched together in not the most considered of ways. It isn’t all dreamy campervan holidays: the Type 2 needs proper maintenance and all…

Sunbeam Alpine I can’t be alone in wondering why the Sunbeam Alpine is such a relative rarity today compared to its MGB competition. Fewer were made and sold originally of course, but Rootes Group was a volume car maker and strong exporter, still managing to turn out nearly 70,000 of these cars between 1959 and 1968. Its comparative rarity today and the dramatic Raymond Loewy styling giving it a mini-Thunderbird appearance mean that the Alpine seems somehow more exotic than the MGB, even if its running gear was – like the MG – based on the firm’s contemporary saloon cars. As with the BMC cars, the focus was on traditional engineering, Rootes’ success being largely a result of clothing conventional running gear with stylish bodywork meaning the Alpine initially shared…

Something occurred to me the other day. I was filling in the Simpson family census form when I came to question eight: “How many cars or vans does your family have use of?” I had to answer seven, but it’s been more in the past. This year I also understand that trying to key in a figure over 20 when filling the form online results in a ‘computer says no’ situation. Anyway, I own six, but I also currently have custody of one of Kelsey Publishing’s project cars as well: a 717,000-mile Volvo S80 which as Editor of CCB’s sister magazine Bargain Cars I’m preparing for a round-Britain road run if and when such things are allowed again and safe. And no, that mileage isn’t a typo The personal fleet…