Innholdsfortegnelse for 15/09/2021 i Classic Car Buyer

We’re not exactly known for our formal dress codes at CCB; indeed, smart casual with the ‘smart’ distinctly optional tends to be the order of the day. Which explains the frantic hunting for a suitable tie last weekend following a panicked call from a friend late on Friday. Could I drive the car for his daughter’s wedding the following morning? The happy couple had always been keen on classic VWs and the bride had originally had her heart set on arriving in a split-screen bus – at least, that is until she discovered the hefty cost of classic camper van rentals. Our Bentley project car was lined up as a backup plan, until one of our party on an evening mountain bike ride casually mentioned that he owned a ’69…

The Silverstone Classic will move to a new August Bank Holiday date next year, with the historic motorsport spectacular set to take place on August 26-28, 2022. As ever, the event will include displays of privately-owned classic cars and a line-up of retro races from all of motor racing’s golden eras, with qualifying sessions followed by a programme of showdown races across three packed days. The action will take place on the famous Grand Prix circuit, which will also host massive parades honouring key marque and model milestones. Off-track activity will include fun fair rides, crazy golf on the Village Green, stunt driving displays and a massive shopping village, plus live music from chart-topping bands. Full details of The Classic 2022 will be announced in the coming months, with tickets…

As well as charges to enter city centres, drivers of older vehicles could be facing tolls to drive on busy stretches of road in a bid to tackle air pollution. The Welsh Government recently asked for the public’s views in a survey about some motorists paying to use the A470 around Pontypridd and the M4 around Newport, which is Wales’ busiest stretch of motorway. The survey ran until August 31, by which time 3017 responses had been completed. It discussed charging drivers of pre-Euro 4 petrol cars (usually registered before 2006) and pre-Euro 6 diesels (usually registered before September 2015) to use the two stretches of road. The tolls would begin in January 2023 and would range from £3 to £8 for cars, with light goods vehicles liable for a…

Renowned turbocharger engineering company Turbo Technics celebrated its 40th anniversary with a gathering of some of its most iconic forced-induction creations as part of TunerFest at Donington Park on August 30. The paddock display included vehicles from across the firm’s portfolio, with early examples including a 1982 Honda Civic S owned by Raymond Lau, which won best in show, along with a 1983 Ford Sierra XR4i, a 1983 Capri 2.8i and a 1986 VW Scirocco. There were also several examples of the V6 Sierra-based twin-turbo Minker creations, which cost nearly £40,000 in 1990, as well as a 1994 Mercedes E320 cabriolet, a Ford Escort RS Cosworth and a selection of more recent conversions including a Mitsubishi Evo 6. Out on track, Turbo Technics founder and owner Geoff Kershaw took to…

Last week we touched upon the rarities to be found at Classic Car Auctions’ September sale, but since then more entries have been added to a catalogue which promises something for all tastes. From the traditional end of the spectrum we have a Cortina Lotus, Mk2 Healey Sprite and a Series 1 Land Rover, while the more modern classics are well covered courtesy of a selection of hot hatches including a Strada Abarth and Mk2 Golf GTI 16V. No classic auction these days would be complete without a handful of R129 Mercedes SLs or Cosworth Fords, while the sale also includes two similar examples of the Volvo 1800S. Meanwhile, readers who were inspired by the Porsche 928 GT on our contents page a couple of weeks ago will be pleased…

FIAT BARCHETTA (1995-2002) The Barchetta was always an awkward proposition for the UK market. Available only in left-hand-drive, there was an immediate obstacle even before you approached the fact that it was a Fiat and not a Mazda MX-5. Indeed, despite finding itself some £2000 cheaper than the MX-5 towards the end of its life, depreciation of the Barchetta was considerably worse anyway. After three years and 30,000 miles you could expect to see a Barchetta up for a miserly £5500. By the early 2010s, the Barchetta was down with some of the cheapest sports cars available. Still largely misunderstood or simply unwanted, not least for its front-wheel-drive platform which put off many enthusiasts. There was little reason to be different, except, perhaps, for its sharp and elegant looks. Today,…

Come the mid ‘70s, BL’s sports cars took a controversial turn. Out was the muscly Triumph TR6 in favour of the controversial wedge-shaped TR7 with its Stateside-friendly four-pot engine, while over at Abingdon, similar considerations to the US market had MG’s workforce fitting black Bayflex bumpers to the ageing MGB design and jacking up the suspension. Both cars had their fans, but spent many years as the poor relations in comparison to their established classic forebears. Time has softened perceptions though, and both cars have become increasingly appreciated for their ‘70s style, practicality and affordability. But which one comes out on top for today’s buyer? MGB As British as a deep fried Mars bar, the evergreen MGB continues to attract the old car motoring masses. No surprise then that it’s…

Hard as it may be to believe, it’s now more than 20 years since the modern R50 MINI first went on sale in July 2001. The pandemic has halted many of the planned celebrations, but the MINI Y REGister, which caters for Minis built in 2001, made up for lost time with a celebratory photo shoot at the model’s birthplace, MINI Plant Oxford on September 4. Organised by Tanya Field, the day saw photographer Matt Richardson on hand to photograph the MINIs individually, before they were arranged in a MINI 20 formation for group drone shots outside the plant’s T Building. Tanya’s husband and long-term Cowley associate Jason joined fellow enthusiast John Corbett in helping to coordinate the day along with events and communications manager Graham Carey, who showed small…

The three original Jaguar E-Types from the 1961 Geneva Motor Show launch have been reunited at Wappenbury Hall, the long-time home of company founderr Sir William Lyons, to celebrate their 60th anniversary. The gathering was curated by Pendine Historic Cars and saw the two cars used for press drives in Switzerland – 9600HP and 77RW – joined by chassis number 885005, which was the original static display car on the Motor Show stand. Bob Berry drove 9600HP at high speed from Coventry to Geneva, only just arriving with 20 minutes spare, with test driver Norman Dewis famously instructed to ‘drop everything’ to drive through the night and deliver a second car, 77RW, to meet press demand. Today, 77RW is owned by the Jaguar Daimler Heritage trust, 9600HP by E-Type Club…

A relatively new entrant to the classic auction world, Manor Park Classics holds its third sale this month and the catalogue already has a great variety of both traditional and more modern fare. Group Ed Wager was much taken with the 1970 beach buggy in all its metalflake orange glory with great detailing while Features Ed Ruggles preferred the 66,000-mile MG Montego, a real survivor. More modern performance comes courtesy of a 1991 Peugeot 205 GTI in the lesser-spotted Laser Green and an E46 BMW M3 convertible, with the proper manual box rather than the SMG estimated at £18,000-£22,000. The same money buys a V8-engined Rover P5B coupe, while the same engine in an entirely different package comes in the shape of the 1998 MG RV8 estimated at £13,000-£15,000. Naturally…

FERRARI 308 (1975-1985) The 308 was Ferrari’s best-ever selling model, with over 12,000 made and more than half again of the revised 328. It quickly became a classic image of Ferrari, not only starring in Magnum PI of course, but also becoming the car of choice of many people with new-found wealth in the go-go 1980s. With so many sold, its depreciation was inevitably to be greater than usual. However, the great rise in prestige car values in the 1980s buoyed it to some extent, if very much below some of the vast sums being traded for older cars. A five-year-old GTSi in 1991, for example, would have set you back £45,000, an earlier carburetted car more like £35,000, while a 246 Dino would have been much more, at £60,000…

We revisit the British Grand Prix this week, the caption telling us the year is 1961 and the venue Aintree near Liverpool. The age of the cars in shot makes us wonder if that’s accurate, but if so this was a significant year for the British Grand Prix, being the last UK Grand Prix in which Stirling Moss would compete, his career famously cut short by a crash before the following year’s season. This event was also the first time a four-wheel drive car would be raced in F1, in the shape of the innovative Ferguson P99, although it was destined to finish in a lowly 20th place, while victory went to a Ferrari 1-2-3, the cars driven by Wolfgang von Trips, Phil Hill and Richie Ginther. As we look…

Paul Wager, Group Editor Wiesmann Roadster Something of a left-field choice this, but if you want retro looks coupled with modern power and you’re happy to trawl German classified ads, then the Wiesmann is a kind of German Morgan. Combining the 230bhp BMW 3-litre six with a steel/aluminium chassis carrying fibreglass bodywork, the Wiesmann was hand-built in small numbers and offered performance somewhere between the Plus Four and Plus Eight. They’re not cheap, though. Dave Youngs, Lancaster Insurance Panther Kallista If Morgan values are too shocking for you, the Panther Kallista offers a similar experience without the same price tag. The 2.8 litre Ford V6 is the one most people want, but find a Kallista 1.6 and you’ve effectively got a junior Plus Four for far less outlay. As the…

Following its 18-month nut-and-bolt restoration by Classic Motor Cars in Shropshire, the restored Aston Martin Bulldog was publicly unveiled by two Royal Naval Apprentices at the Concours of Elegance event at Hampton Court Palace on September 3. The Bulldog wowed the world’s media in 1980, with Aston Martin intending it become the fastest production car ever by running it at 200mph. Sadly that never happened, with the car managing a best of 191mph before the project was axed due to financial constraints. Now though, it’s been restored by an 11-strong team led by Richard Gauntlett, son of Victor Gauntlett who was Managing Director at Aston Martin when the Bulldog was curtailed. During the intervening 40 years it was purchased by a Middle Eastern buyer and was sighted in various global…

A team of big-hearted classic car enthusiasts has successfully completed a tour of the UK in a fleet of Maestros to raise over £18,000 (and counting) for Prostate Cancer Research. The idea came about in 2019 when Chris Warwick, Simon Ackers and Rob Mepham were indulging in one of their regular online hunts for interesting cars, and Rob spotted a Maestro on eBay. With Rob’s colleague James Harris also on board, the initial plan was to buy three Maestros and a Maestro support van, then take them on a road trip under the name Maestro Madness 2020. At that time, Rob’s father was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer and his father-in-law had also been diagnosed with it, so the group decided to try and raise £3000 for one of the…

The opportunity to have your car immortalised as a Hot Wheels die-cast is being offered to one lucky enthusiast in the UK. The toy car producer is asking classic, modified and race car owners to submit their vehicles for judging at its virtual Hot Wheels Legends event on October 14, with the winner going head-to-head with victorious cars from the US, Japan, Mexico and Germany. The global winner will then be faithfully reproduced in 1:64 scale. Founded in 1968, Hot Wheels was born when Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler challenged his design team to create a toy car that was cooler and performed better than anything else on the market. Nowadays, Hot Wheels is the number one-selling toy worldwide, with 16 cars sold every second and over 17bn in total. Originally…

At once both similar and so very different, the TVR Chimaera takes the Z3 recipe, adds old-tech Rover V8 power and turns it up to 11. The Chimaera and its Griffith sibling were the first of a new breed of TVRs, representing a push upmarket and into the mainstream and abandoned the dramatic wedge styling of their immediate predecessors with a more familiar sports car shape. With the trademark TVR tubular chassis underneath, the Rover V8 in 4.0, 4.3, 4.5 and 5-litre tunes provided anything from 240bhp to 340bhp to propel the 1060kg creation with some urgency – all accompanied by a glorious V8 soundtrack. This example at Sherwood is the Chimaera 450 and if there’s anything you want to see in a TVR’s history file it’s a low ownership…