Innholdsfortegnelse for 30/06/2021 i Classic Car Buyer

I recently wrote a column in another magazine comparing Jaguar to Alfa Romeo on the grounds that both built their images on performance and style, both have had their periods of questionable quality and controversial platform-sharing collaborations (think X-Type and Arna) and both are facing a slightly uncertain future. Oh and that everybody should own one of each at least once. The thought was sparked by the sudden realisation that for the first time in at least two decades, I didn’t have a single Alfa on the premises but did have a Jaguar once more after a long gap which has seen our much-loved XJ8 marooned in the paint shop for the best part of a year waiting for Covid-related delays to pass. The Jaguar in question was exchanged for…

Alfa Romeo is considering a revival of the GTV nameplate on an electric four-door coupé flagship model. According to Autocar, proposals for the revival of the GTV extend from a retro-inspired two-door coupé to a contemporary four-door coupé in the mould of the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupé, with both electrified combustion engine and pure-electric drivetrains possible. The GTV name was most recently used for the Type 916 coupe sold between 1995 and 2005. The name was also used on the Giulia-based 105/115-series coupes made from 1967 to 1976, and the 1976–1987 Alfetta-based GTV. The name was recently set to be revived for a two-door version of the Giulia saloon, but its introduction was cancelled earlier this year.…

The last 15 months has seen the classic car market adapt admirably to new ways of distanced selling to cater for enthusiasts with more time and money on their hands. But as things start to open up again, can we expect the general buoyancy of the market to finally slow down? On paper, there are numerous obstacles to a prosperous classic car market, both in the near and distant future. Aside from the easing of lockdown, the most obvious hurdle is the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel-only cars from 2030. No one is suggesting fossil fuels will be taken away for older vehicles, but the proliferation of city-centre emissions zones is also a factor, with modern classics spanning a period of over 20 years seemingly out in…

H&H returns to action with a public-facing sale at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton on July 7, with viewing available on the afternoon of the Tuesday beforehand and on the day of the sale. More than 60 lots had been consigned as we went to press, ranging from a 1924 Buick Tourer to a 2004 Maserati 4200 GT. This is the sale for you if you’re seeking a wind-in-the-hair experience this summer, with a vast choice of open-top cars covering all bases. British examples include an early Morgan Three-Wheeler and a 1947 4/4 Series I, plus a wide selection of MGs such as a pair of TC models from 1947 and 1949, a 1958 MGA 1500 estimated at £15,000-£17,000 and an early 1965 ‘pull handle’ MGB predicted to sell for…

LAND ROVER SERIES III COUNTY (1982-1985) By the early 1980s Land Rover was well aware of the yawning gap between the agricultural Land Rover and the increasingly luxurious Range Rover. Long term solutions would be the more refined coil-sprung Land Rover Ninety/One Ten family and the Range Rover-based Discovery. But in the interim came the County, a trim package that could be applied to the standard Series III Station Wagons in 88-inch and 109-inch wheelbase forms. On top of the regular ‘Deluxe’ interior package (sound insulation, floor mats, sun visors and vinyl door trim with armrests and map pockets) were tweed-cloth seats. The driver and passenger seats had head restraints and were three-way adjustable. They came straight from the Leyland T45 lorry. There was tinted glass, provision for a radio…

It may have endured into the 1980s, but the MGB was a Sixties child at heart and indeed was at its best during the decade. Unsullied by US-influenced changes which impacted handling and appearance, the MGB in its original form offered a combination of style, enjoyable pace and practicality of ownership which was perfect for the decade. It was also a very modern car for the time when launched in 1963, in contrast to its place in the market at the end of its life, by which point it was loved more for its olde worlde charm. Development of a car to replace the MGA had begun in the late ’50s but it was recognised that retaining the separate chassis would have a significant weight penalty so the decision was…

The Stag started life in the productive mind of Triumph’s favoured stylist, Giovanni Michelotti, who asked for a Triumph 2000 saloon to turn into a concept car for the 1965 Turin motor show. This was done on the condition that Triumph could use the resulting design if they liked it. Triumph management had already been brooding on the idea of a car combining the character of a sports car and the comfort of a saloon and immediately began taking Michelotti’s idea into production, in which process it lost virtually all commonality with the 2000. Originally intended to use Triumph’s existing fuel-injected straight-six engine, it was realised that the requirements of performance and the market needed something more special. A V8 engine, essentially a doubled-up version of the slant-four Triumph was…

With Triumph’s TR7 setting a bit of a trend in the seventies, Blackpool firm TVR finally decided to get in on the ‘wedge’ action with its Tasmin from 1980. It was certainly a big step in a different direction from its predecessor, the Taimar, but still stuck to the same tried and tested formula – namely having a tubular chassis cloaked in a glass fibre body with a beefy engine up front. Oliver Winterbottom, who had already cut his wedge-shaped teeth with the Lotus Elite/Eclat back in the mid-’70s, was responsible for the Tasmin’s rakish body which sat on the old M-series model’s platform from the previous decade, albeit extended another 4in. As was the case with other TVRs, it was very much a parts-bin contraption with Ford steering, brakes…

TRIUMPH DOLOMITE V COLT GALANT At the time of its release in 1972, the Triumph Dolomite was a strikingly attractive package. The finely appointed compact sports saloon genre was already well established and supported by manufacturers making a name for themselves. Against the likes of BMW, Alfa Romeo and Saab, Triumph’s Dolomite was another European to wade into battle, naturally with a bit of British flair added to the mix. The Dolomite was a curious amalgamation of parts. The body shell is immediately familiar as the 1500’s, much of the drivetrain underneath is from the rear-drive Toledo, and the interior seems to have been cut to size from the larger 2.5PI. There’s also the 91bhp slant-four engine already featured in the Saab 99, a key rival. This was, in fact,…

Paul Wager, Group Editor Daimler Double-Six The V12-engined Jaguar XJ, more often seen in Daimler-badged form, is the equal of the Bentley on the road, but was soldiering on in Series 3 guise until the XJ40 was extensively re-engineered to take the V12 engine, the so-called XJ81 appearing in February 1993. In many ways an easier car to live with than the Bentley, the Daimler is smaller, lighter and can fit into a domestic garage. Yes, it’s more of a factory-built product and lacks the hand-crafted touches of the Crewe car but is no less lavish inside. Dave Youngs, Lancaster Insurance Mercedes S-Class By the time the Bentley Brooklands appeared, Mercedes was into the W140 generation of its range-topping saloon and the W140 as it’s known was a feast of…

The MG Car Club’s Zed range is to mark the 20th anniversary of the ZR/ZS and ZT range with a special celebration as part of the Inter-club Triumph and MG Weekend to be held at the Three Counties Showground, Malvern, on August 14-15. The festivities will include a dedicated parking area for all Zed models, with a ‘51st Street’ dedicated to the very earliest of models on both Y and 51-plates, plus a dedicated parking area for cars with special Monogram paint. There will also be demonstrations on how to reupholster headlinings and door cards, discount ECU mapping, build data on request and more. In addition, a show and shine competition will take place on the Sunday, and there will be a pride of ownership contest in partnership with the…

The motorsport sector is breathing a sigh of relief after the EU Commission announced last week that it would exclude vehicles intended exclusively for motorsport from new motor insurance rules, known as the ‘Vnuk’ law. A European Court of Justice’s interpretation of a 2014 court case, brought by Slovenian Damijan Vnuk after he was knocked off his ladder by a reversing tractor in 2007, resulted in changes to its Motor Insurance Directive (MID). This requires a wider range of vehicles to be insured, including ones previously not needing cover such as golf buggies, mobility scooters and quad bikes. The law extended to vehicles on private land, threatening motorsport in the UK and Europe because any collision would be treated as a road traffic accident and subsequently involve the police. The…

Over 120 cars were entered in Brightwells’ latest classic car auction, which once again worked to a timed online format before closing from 7pm on June 23. It proved to be an intriguing sale too, with a fantastic mix of classics spanning the eras and some interesting oddballs. As usual, the sale turned up a wide section of pre-war cars. A 1928 Austin Seven Chummy beat its estimate to sell for £17,600, with a 1929 Singer Junior Tourer, a 1931 Morris Minor, a 1932 Wolseley Hornet Saloon and a 1943 Austin 12/4 all finding new homes. More unusual was a 1929 DeSoto K Model Roadster, which sold on estimate at £16,000, while a 1925 Daimler Landaulette Limousine 25/85 Type C with possible links to Winston Churchill achieved £15,600. The sale’s…

Consistently rising values make this a choice for the well-funded today, but no run-down of Sixties sporting greats would be complete without the E-Type. Famously launched at the Geneva Show in 1961 in something of a chaotic rush with extra demo cars being ferried overnight from Coventry, the E-Type was one of those cars which didn’t do any single thing differently but combined everything into a perfectly judged package which was just what the market wanted. The E-Type today may seem impossibly glamorous, but like the XK sports cars which came before, the car offered racing car levels of performance to the merely wealthy rather than the super-rich. Successful professionals could aspiree to owning an E-Type where the Italian exotica may have been out of reach – and the E-Type’s…

If you’d read what the critics said about the XJ-S at launch in 1975, you would have been surprised that it lasted until the end of the decade, let alone into the mid-90s. Of course, what the critics couldn’t have predicted is that the XJ-S would go on to enjoy a long and successful production lifespan getting better with every year that passed. Furthermore, at the end of that process it would go on to become the luxury grand tourer Jaguar envisaged – fast, sophisticated, comfortable, full of classic charm and wonderfully rewarding to own. The early cars had minimal chrome and no woodwork, something that was addressed by the HE version when it arrived in 1981. In 1983, Jaguar’s all-alloy 24-valve AJ6 engine made its debut in the XJ-S…

Choosing a left-field contender as a sporting great from the 1960s isn’t as easy as you might think. Sadly my first choice, the unlikely pairing of 105-Series Alfa underpinnings and race-bred V8 which created the Montreal didn’t appear until 1970. My second choice, the diminutive Honda S800 may have started a trend which led eventually to the frantic S2000 and even the NSX, but it was only ever a tiny seller in the UK and survives in even smaller numbers here today. All of which took me right back to the opposite extreme with the mighty Jensen Interceptor. The marriage of traditional British coachbuilding and brutish American V8 power, the Interceptor offered several world firsts including properly integrated climate control air conditioning and the radical FF derivative which would bring…

Here we are in August 1960, looking from the junction of Duke Street and Oxford Street, the brutalist architecture of the C&A store (it’s Gap these days) contrasting with the curves of the mainly 1950s cars in shot. Leading the charge from the lights is a BMC Farina in upmarket Wolseley 6/99 guise, but the car it’s leaving behind had us stumped for a while. Clearly US-influenced in style, it’s too small to be a 1950s American station wagon, yet wears foreign number plates. The answer we arrived at after much head-scratching was that it’s an Australian-made Holden FC estate (or ‘Station Sedan’ as it was marketed), obviously imported temporarily by its owner. Elsewhere, things are more easily identified, with a Morris Minor and Standard Vanguard behind the Holden and…

Think Eighties Bentley and it’s the Turbo R which springs to mind, the enthusiasm for the unlikely heavyweight hot rod having eclipsed the regular Bentley models of the time which now look like clever under-the-radar buys. As most CCB readers will be aware, the financial difficulties of Rolls-Royce plc in 1971 had resulted in the car-making enterprise being spun off as a separate entity which although it afforded a degree of autonomy also meant that resources were slender. This in turn meant that a successor to the Silver Shadow would be forced to use the platform of the older car and the brief was to use as much of the Shadow’s engineering as possible but to create a fresh and modern-looking car. Or rather, modern looking in the most conservative…

Councillors have agreed to consult residents on introducing a low emission zone (LEZ) in Edinburgh that would effectively ban older vehicles from the city centre. A seven-hour transport committee meeting on June 17 saw councillors agree to undertake a 12-week public consultation, which will inform a report back to committee in autumn before the statutory process to introduce the LEZ begins, with the aim of implementing the scheme in spring 2022. The council estimates 16,000 vehicles in the city will be affected by the ban, mostly diesels. Cars that do not meet the Euro 4 petrol and Euro 6 diesel emission standards – generally those registered before 2006 and 2015 respectively -– will face fines of £60 for entering the LEZ. There is no way to pay a fee for…

AUDI QUATTRO (1980-1991) The car that put Audi on the map, the Quattro’s allure was as much due to its turbocharged straight-five engine as the four-wheel drive system which was its namesake. Audi had made five-pot engines for a number of years before the Quattro, and it was this 2.1-litre SOHC 10-valve engine (with a ‘WR’ engine code) that was boosted, intercooled and put in the Quattro in 197bhp form. For 1987 that was replaced by the 2.2-litre ‘MB’ engine, making 200bhp and incorporating a more sophisticated electronic engine management system. In 1989 came the ‘RR’ engine, also of 2.2-litres but with a 20-valve DOHC cylinder head making 220bhp. All were charismatic engines in a decidedly charismatic car – a warbling off-beat exhaust note, laggy turbos (especially on the original…

In practical terms the Esprit was a replacement for the Europa, and like that car was a two-seater mid/rear-engine fixed-head sports car. The Esprit used Lotus’s own Type 907 DOHC engine, in 2.0-litre 162hp form, mated to a five-speed Citroën transaxle. With the traditional Lotus construction of a tubular steel spine frame and a glass-fibre body, the Esprit weighed only 900kg, promising not only good performance but exceptionally good roadholding and handling, helped by its low-slung, wheels-apart stance and race-bred features such as inboard rear brakes. The original Esprit’s proven top speed of 133mph and a 0-60mph time of eight seconds was good, and a significant improvement over the Europa but from the start the Esprit faced criticism that its performance was a bit lacklustre, based mostly on the promise…

OK, so the Scimitar was first seen in coupe form in 1964 and even the GTE version debuted in 1968. But it really came of age in the 1970s and the GTE’s style, inside and out, could not really be more of the 1970s if it tried. In its own way it is as representative of the 1970s as the Lotus Esprit. Like the Lotus the Scimitar has a glass-fibre body built around a steel ladder frame chassis. Unlike the Lotus it almost entirely uses mechanical parts from other cars – a 3.0-litre Ford Essex V6 and transmission, Triumph TR6 front suspension and a rear axle off the shelf from industry supplier Salisbury with a Triumph differential and MGB hubs. The steering rack was from an Austin 1800. But the…

The Ford Capri was an undoubted success when it was new and continued to command fierce loyalty after it disappeared from showrooms. It was a sales phenomenon. When Capri sales peaked in 1973 over 233,000 Capris were being sold each year. That same year the millionth Capri was built. Five years from zero to a million is not to be sniffed at. It took the Mini slightly longer to reach that milestone, and that was supposed to be a ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’ car for the people. The Capri was a different sort of people’s car; one that didn’t promise mere mechanised mobility as a step up from a bicycle or the bus, but which looked to the next stage. People already had ‘a car’ and the Capri…

FIAT 500 JOLLY One of Ghia’s more down-to-earth creations, the 500 Jolly really ran with the ‘beach car’ concept, to the extent that it looked like it had escaped from the dodgems. Wicker seats and a fringed sunshade roof are often part of the specification. MINI MOKE If this 2CV still has too much in the way of weather protection, you could always go for the quasi-military version of the Mini. No doors, not even any real sides and if it rains you better roll down the plastic side-sheets. LAND ROVER SERIES II Probably the closest thing to a British equivalent of the 2CV in-period, and on this budget you could probably get a similarly patina-d example. Unbolt or furl up the roof – or go one step further and…

Our well-heeled family man who bought the Isis as reliable transport for his growing baby-boom brood may well have slipped into this Triumph Toledo 17 years later. No longer needing a big saloon and no longer wanting the running costs of a big six, but still desiring a car with a bit of luxury, style and snob appeal, the entry-level Triumph saloon would fit the bill nicely. Away from hypothetical owners, this Ice Blue Toledo’s original owner was a doctor in Surrey, who still had the car when he passed away in 1999, having covered only 19500 miles in it – all accounted for by servicing at the supplying dealer which remains in business to the present day. In light of that limited use, the next owner did a lot…