Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i Motor Sport Magazine

“OF COURSE, YOU KNOW THAT YOU’RE sitting in Jenks’s driving seat,” said the man at the wheel of the E-type as he taxied towards the start line. “This car was originally left-hand drive but was converted to right at some stage before I owned it. So what is now the passenger seat is where Jenks would have spent most of his time.” So there I was, on a summer’s day, sitting in Jenks’s spot about to zoom up Shelsley Walsh. It doesn’t get better than that. The occasion was a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the E-type, called E-type 60, which had been conceived and arranged by the publisher and E-type enthusiast Philip Porter. There was a staggering array of important cars present including E2A, the first Lightweight racing…

W SERIES, THE PIONEERING ALL-female racing championship, will touch down at Silverstone in July where it will act as support race for the British Grand Prix. The series is due to run at eight grands prix this year, starting with the two Austrian rounds before arriving at the home of British racing. It is a high-profile chance for the series to win over new fans and prove the critics wrong. Alice Powell, who came third in the series in 2019 (there was no racing in 2020 due to Covid) told Motor Sport the programme of support races offered a golden opportunity for the series: “It would mean everything to win the championship, especially this year when it’s on the F1 support bill. The credit W Series is receiving from the…

IN NOVEMBER 2020, AUDI MADE THE stunning announcement of its intention to compete in the 2022 Dakar Rally, using an off-roader with a powerful electric drivetrain, above. And to prove it isn’t heading to the desert to make up the numbers, Audi Sport managing director Julius Seebach has announced a “dream team” of drivers. The trio are 14-times Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel, who moves from X-Raid Mini JCW, two-times DTM champion Mattias Ekström, who has a long association with the manufacturer, and 59-year-old former WRC champion and three-time Dakar winner Carlos Sainz, who finished third in this year’s Dakar. “I’m really proud to be part of the Audi family and of this amazing project,” Sainz said. “It’s an iconic brand that ventures into Dakar with a pioneer goal – to…

A BRITISH TECHNICAL SUCCESS IN Formula 1 – but this wasn’t televised. In June Britannia Red, a team of 16- and 17-year-olds from Robert May’s School in Hampshire, beat 42 rivals from 18 countries in the F1 in Schools championship. F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali announced the winners via Zoom. F1 in Schools encourages pupils into STEM areas by tasking them to design, make and race a miniature F1 car using all the full-size tools including CAD, CFD and wind-tunnel testing. There’s a tight rule book and a standard power unit – a compressed air cartridge – with a dragstrip race-off. Strong links with the F1 industry can lead to internships, and scholarships from University College London.…

IN OCTOBER IT WILL BE TEN YEARS SINCE Casey Stoner won his second MotoGP World Championship, a success he followed six months later by announcing he was quitting, while at the top of his game. The Australian is rated as one of the greatest MotoGP riders of all time, so his two world titles and 38 victories don’t really do justice to his talent. However, the fact that he won his first title – in 2007 – with Ducati offers some insight into his riding skills. Ducati has been in MotoGP since 2003, but Stoner remains the only rider to have won the crown for the Bologna marque. The company’s hugely powerful Desmosedici has never been easy to handle and has befuddled many a world champion, most famously Valentino Rossi.…

STRATEGY PRESENTED SOMETHING of a dilemma at Baku, partly because of the complications in choice of wing level (see Tech, overleaf), partly because of the behaviour of the softest tyres in Pirelli’s range here, the C3, C4 and C5. Skinny wings were good for qualifying, bad for rear tyre degradation in the race. So wing choice became an intrinsic part of a team’s strategy choice and there was an element of game theory to that. The best trade off between qualifying and race pace could depend on what wing choices your immediate rivals made. Neither the C4 medium compound nor C5 soft tyre were reliably capable of long stints around Baku and their degradation rate was high enough that the hard would be faster than the medium after around five…

THE REAR WING CHOICE AT BAKU is much more complicated than usual because of the track’s combination of extreme low- and high-downforce sectors. This year brought an extra dimension for Red Bull, as this was the last race before the FIA’s new protocol for measuring wing flexibility came into effect and there was the threat of Mercedes protest in the air. The new protocol followed complaints from Mercedes that in the Spanish GP the Red Bull wing could be seen flexing downwards and back at speed on the straight, thereby reducing drag but still giving full downforce as it came back up at the lower speeds of the corners. From the French GP on-board camera analysis would be used, together with 12 key markings teams would be obliged to make…

IT IS SAFE TO SAY THE LATEST GENERATION of fast Volkswagen Golf has not been accorded the rapturous reception its creators may have hoped for and, given the breed’s recent past, expected too. And not without reason: it’s been 18 years since the fifth generation of Golf GTI made its public debut and if there’s been a duffer since, I’ve not driven it. By returning to first principles and creating a car that was as easy to live with as it was fun to drive, the Mk V GTI banished the memory of the awful Mks III and IV to history, cementing itself firmly as the thinking man or woman’s hot hatch. It was a position the Mk VI and VII GTIs merely reinforced. I’ve questioned before on this page…

GORDON MURRAY NEVER MEANT his F1 to race, but when pressure was applied by two eager racing customers, he had a perfect basis. From the fabulous three-seater F1, his team produced a racing version that first dominated the BPR series and then brought victory at Le Mans first time out. Author Mark Cole watched their progress as commentator and reporter on endurance racing for many years, attending most of the races described here, and explains the mods needed to make the car run at race speeds first for four hours, then 24 – endless mods, minor or major, which left it looking like its road car basis but substantially quicker and tougher. Frustrated at having to reduce the V12’s power and remove his active fan-assisted aero system for racing, Murray…

“YOU MAY EXPECT ME TO choose Jimmy Clark but I didn’t see him as a rival because he was ahead of me when I arrived in Formula 1 in 1965. I wasn’t quite ready to challenge him – although I won at Monza that year – and we still share the lap record at Goodwood, which is so nice for me. My first season at BRM, my team-mate Graham Hill was my main rival as I knew I had to be faster than the number one driver. When BRM brought the H16 engine in 1966 my main rival was the car… So, across my career it was Jochen Rindt who was the toughest, the most competitive. In 1969 we had some great battles, notably at Silverstone for the British Grand…

LUNCHTIME AND A VISIT TO the McLaren Technology Centre. It is a treat that never grows old. The cool sci-fi calm of the long, lakeside boulevard peppered by some of the world’s most famous racing cars always triggers a flutter of adrenaline. Imagine working here, every day. In the race departments, fully exposed like fish in an aquarium – still amazing given the sensitive secrecy of F1 team operations – busy staff are fully engrossed, seemingly oblivious to outside distraction. It feels wrong to stare too long. But then suddenly their heads bob up, they look through the glass, smile and wave at the skinny-legged figure who’s just entered the building. He stops, returns the smiles and waves back. Here on his home patch, everyone loves Lando Norris. It’s impossible…

THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN a sense of occasion about the British Grand Prix – and a wonderful 60-year-old photo by Bernard Cahier illustrates the point. In 1961, long before the days of mass media saturation in sport, the Frenchman stood to the side of the track at Aintree and captured the scale of the crowd, the packed 30-car grid and an unmistakable whiff of anticipation. The Lancashire weather was fairly miserable, but it’s an engaging moment, frozen forever in just a fragment of a second. There is no debris fencing, nothing separates the cars on track from a naked pitlane, run-off areas were a distant figment of someone’s imagination and a halo was something you were most likely to see on a Christmas card. The structure and texture of grand…

ON MAY 15, 1977, CLAYREGAZZONI crashed heavily after spinning to the inside of the track out of Turn 3 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and his hopes of qualifying for the Indy 500 were left in the balance. Racing in Monaco the next weekend, Regazzoni had needed to secure his spot on the grid at the Speedway at the first time of asking. Now he’d need to do the same in Monaco qualifying on the Thursday, return to Indianapolis for another attempt on the Saturday, and then fly back again to Monte Carlo to race the following day. After a rain-affected practice session on Thursday left him outside the top 20 required to make the Monaco grid, Regazzoni’s plans were looking risky. With grey weather on Saturday morning threatening to make…

With thousands of vehicles and tens of thousands of enthusiasts flocking to the Monterey peninsula for Car Week, the top auction houses are presented with a captive audience whose love of classics is made all the more intense by the high-octane atmosphere and the presence of swathes of interesting vehicles at every turn. A few years ago, garnering huge bids for the high-quality lots that are usually reserved for the week’s auctions was about as difficult as shooting fish in a barrel, and it became entirely typical for fistfuls of world records to be set, with eight-figure sums for individual cars being relatively common. But, as is well known, the market started to experience a certain ‘correction’ around three years ago. Add to that the hiatus caused by last year’s…

• JULY 9-11 HSCC BRANDS HATCH Three days of tip-top historic racing begins with a separate meeting on the Indy Circuit on the Friday, before moving to the legendary Grand Prix loop for the weekend. • JULY 30-AUGUST 1 SILVERSTONE CLASSIC An obvious choice. It always boasts huge grids and a superb atmosphere, plus a huge array of off-track activities too. • AUGUST 7-8 VSCC PRESCOTT HILLCLIMB There are few bigger, or better, names in hillclimbing than Prescott and the VSCC packs the place out. This lesser-used short course event is a precursor to the club’s meeting on the long course in September. • OCTOBER 2 CASTLE COMBE AUTUMN CLASSIC For those who like to get up close and personal with classic machinery, a visit to Combe is a must.…

• YORKSHIRE MOTORSPORT FESTIVAL, JUNE 25-27 A new event that features the closed-road Wolfstone Hillclimb for 80 cars to compete at. Many classic car clubs too. ymsf.net • CLASSIC MARATHON, JULY 4-9 Set across Spain and Portugal, this endurance-style event includes navigating and regularity tests. heroevents.eu • SCOTTISH MALTS, SEPTEMBER 13-17 The 17th running of HERO-ERA’s flagship Scottish event takes in the country’s best driving roads. heroevents.eu • LONDON TO BRIGHTON VETERAN CAR RUN, NOVEMBER 7 With the more modern London to Brighton held at the start of June, attention turns to the Veteran event, for cars made before 1905. veterancarrun.com • CARRERA ITALIA, OCTOBER 2-12 A 10-day tour around northern Italy, with more than a smattering of race circuit visits thrown in. Carrera events feature no off-roading element. rallytheglobe.com…

If an £800,000 Aston Martin V12 Speedster doesn’t feel exclusive enough then the company has it covered: a version of the road car, which we review on page 42, with added racing accoutrements. The speedster DBR1 specification is said by the marketing department to pay homage to their 1959 Le Mans conquering cars. They feature the same racing green paint colour plus white roundels and come with two special racing helmets finished in the same shade of green as the body. Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby would have been proud...…

LIKE THE PROVERBIAL BUSES, TWO F1 cars driven by world champions have suddenly appeared for sale, although the fare to ride these historic racers is, as you would expect, steep. The 7 Up-liveried Jordan 191 used by Michael Schumacher in practice at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix – his F1 debut – is on sale at Speedmaster Cars with a price tag of £1.25m. Then aged 22, Schumacher caught the attention of rival teams by qualifying seventh in this 191, ahead of team-mate Andrea de Cesaris (11th). In the GP itself, de Cesaris raced in the car but retired with three laps remaining, having at one point been second. The 191 might have oodles of F1 romance and also be astoundingly goodlooking but it stands in the shadow of a…

THE BLOW-OUTS SUFFERED by Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll in Baku gave everyone involved serious cause for concern. At the time of writing Pirelli was still conducting an investigation into what the cause may have been, but both failures were on the left-rear and on the pit straight where the cars are reaching 200mph and beyond. Both were of the hard compound. At the time of the failure, Stroll’s had completed 30 laps from a fully fuelled-up start. Verstappen’s had covered 34 laps from being fitted on lap 12 (when the fuel load would have been around 25kg lighter than at the start of Stroll’s stint). Both failures appeared to be on the inside shoulder of the tyre. Sebastian Vettel – who has suffered from Pirelli tyre failures approaching Eau…

THEY LOOK LIKE THEY DO EXACTLY the same job, don’t they? And for most owners they will, that being to sit in an air-conditioned garage as part of a large collection of cars which are often seen, but rarely driven. It seems something of a waste to me, but I’m not here to judge their motives, merely assess their cars. As I do, I can’t ignore the elephant, which says these are pointless, ostentatious trinkets, wealth statements on wheels and little more than that. Do not their lack of windscreens and roofs relegate them to irrelevance, even before you consider their price? Well, before we write them off (figuratively speaking), let’s at least give them an audience. In broad brush mechanical terms, the Aston Martin Speedster marries the front end…

IF YOU LIKE OLD CARS AND YOU LIKE OLD watches you might think Karl-Friedrich Scheufele has the world’s best job. Along with his sister Caroline he’s co-president of Chopard, the watch and jewellery brand well known for its celebrity links and for sponsoring major historic motoring events, most notably the Mille Miglia. This year’s MM allowed Chopard to make an impressive 33rd appearance as principal backer and timekeeper – and also marked the 32nd occasion that Scheufele has competed in the retrospective. It was also the 15th time he had done so alongside friend Jacky Ickx. The pair once more covered the 1000-mile course in the distinctive, strawberry-red Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing that has been part of the Scheufele family collection for more than 40 years and in which the…

THE TRANQUILLITY OF A RACE track a few hours after the finish makes a stark contrast to everything that has gone before. It’s a striking feature of any major motor race and evident to those staying behind to complete their weekend’s work. For journalists, it was particularly noticeable in Canada in 1988, given that the media centre at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was situated in the control tower. While writing my race report, I happened to look out of the window and saw Ivan Capelli feeding seagulls on the deserted main straight. It was the work of a moment to nip downstairs and take this picture. This scene was typical of the thoughtful and kindly Italian. During an interview many years later, he would describe the pleasure he got from soaking…

FORMULA 1 WILL HOLD ITS FIRST sprint race at the British Grand Prix in July, and if the two-lap blast at Baku is anything to go by, they could well add extra spice to a race weekend. The format has been agreed upon by teams and aims to add extra on-track action to a race weekend with an additional shorter race. Officially called sprint qualifying, it will slot into Saturday and provide an extra race that will set the grid for the main grand prix on Sunday. The format will make two more appearances in 2021, believed to be at the Italian and Brazilian grands prix – assuming they both take place amid Covid restrictions, but how exactly will the new sprint races work? Here is a rundown of the…

IT LOOKED LIKE NOTHING ELSE ON earth and cost a fraction as much as a comparable Ferrari. It wasn’t conceived with competition in mind, yet had scored its maiden race victory within a month of being launched at the Geneva Motor Show – and that just a couple of days after the winning car had rolled from the production line. The Jaguar E-type remains one of the most striking products from a decade ripe with innovation – and the car here, ECD 400, is among the most significant of the breed. It might have shared a few styling cues (and disc brakes) with Jaguar’s Le Mans-winning C-and D-types, but the E’s suspension and torquey 3.8-litre straight six were designed to complement touring rather than cut-throat combat. It was suitable, though,…

In Canada the front suspension pushrod was remounted directly upon the wheel upright, and changes made to both front and rear wings. In France a new low-friction Stellite underfloor ‘plank’ was introduced plus new barge boards abaft the front wheels. For the European GP at the Neue Nürburgring the front wing had reduced chord, the rear diffuser more channels. The potential heat of the Hungaroring brought in the sidepod chimneys, and for Spa amongst aerodynamic mods the latest 049B-spec engine was raced, while a small brush on the rear brake calipers swept carbon dust from inside the wheel rims. For Monza a reduced-chord rear wing emerged, and for the US GP at Indy a Spa-like spec was adopted. At Suzuka a new wing derived from one tried in practice at…

BUYING, SELLING, AUCTIONS, MEMORABILIA THERE ARE FEW CLASSIC CARS more mythical than the original Lamborghini Jota that was built to the design of factory test driver Bob Wallace in 1970. With its riveted, light alloy panels, souped-up engine, side-mounted fuel tanks and widened track, it was intended as a ‘proof of concept’ that the mighty Miura could be made even more ‘spinto’ or dramatic. “I had nothing else to do on a Saturday or a Sunday anyway, and you had a whole factory to play around with – let’s build a lighter car,” Wallace subsequently said. “To show it could be done. Have some sort of a mobile test bed for new ideas or trying something different, that sort of thing.” After Wallace had tested the new car extensively it…

HE MAY ONLY HAVE STOOD 5FT 4IN tall in his cowboy boots, but few singers were as big on the country and western scene as the honey-voiced Marty Robbins. Best known for writing and recording El Paso – the first US No1 hit of the 1960s (No19 in the UK) – Robbins also became a dedicated stock car racer having taken up the sport even before the mellifluous ballad brought him worldwide fame. In a 17-year competition career, Arizona- born Robbins made 35 starts and managed six top 10 finishes in the rough and tumble world of NASCAR. He was even awarded the Rookie of the Race title after clocking 188mph in the 1972 Winston 500 – or would have been, had he not admitted to running an illegally de-restricted…

LIKE SO MANY ONCE INNOCENT pastimes, collecting brochures about cars has slipped into a specialist groove. Once, every schoolboy was desperate to go to a car show and fill a bag with exciting automotive fantasy fuel. Now there is no official British motor show, and information comes from a website or a QR code. Yet brochures and the like continue to be traded. Once it was hard for the dealer to display his full stock; now it’s eBay all the way, making it far easier to track down that glossy pamphlet to go with the Sunbeam Lotus you are restoring. That type of focused search is much more likely now than the more generalised collecting urge of the past, says Giles Chapman, who as well as authoring many books on…

ALFA ROMEO GIULIA GTA • Price new $5625 (£2010) • Price now £200,000-£400,000 • Engine 1570cc Alfa Romeo twin-cam • Rivals Ford Lotus Cortina, Lancia Fulvia, BMW 2000Ti • Verdict Still one of the prettiest tourers ever made, and a car that brought Alfa and Autodelta to the top table of racing. THE 1960S WERE A GOLDEN AGE OF touring car racing. From Jim Clark delicately three-wheeling a Cortina around Paddock Hill Bend, to American ‘Yank Tanks’ rumbling around Oulton Park, the images conjured up by the early days of both the British Saloon Car Championship and European Touring Car Championship just get better with age. And, while Alfa Romeo is busy putting the finishing touches to its new £153,000 Giulia GTA – a muscular 533bhp brute – we all…

FEW RACING CARS HAVE BEEN AS EAGERLY anticipated as this one. Yet the machine in question wasn’t built by an established manufacturer or constructor but by a garagiste with big ambitions in the world of sports car racing. The Glickenhaus Le Mans Hypercar made its belated debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship at the Portimão 8 Hours in mid-June. The story of Jim Glickenhaus and his bid to take on the might of Toyota in the WEC this year and then Peugeot, Ferrari, Porsche, Audi et al in seasons to come has captivated the sports car world. There were probably as many people hoping that the fast-talking American’s baby would fail in Portugal as there were people rooting for it. It’s hard to judge after the events at the…

ONE OF BRITAIN’S BEST LOVED MOTOR sport venues has paid tribute to one of Britain’s greatest drivers. Shelsley Walsh last month unveiled a permanent memorial to Sir Stirling Moss, who started his career in speed hillclimbs and competed at the Worcestershire track during his formative days. At his first attempt back in September 1948 Moss won his class and a year later returned to set the speed record for an unsupercharged car up the hill. The unveiling of the plaque took place ahead of a weekend celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Jaguar E-type, with both occasions organised by the publisher Philip Porter. The memorial was unveiled by Porter and Motor Sport editor Joe Dunn. Porter said: “Stirling was my great hero and he went on to become one of…

GOOD ▲ HOPE FOR HAAS Haas almost made it into Q2 in Baku by virtue of everyone else crashing and the sheer number of red flags, then leapfrogged Williams in the championship after Schumacher and Mazepin scored 13th and 14th in the race, despite having a demonstrably slower car. Result. ▲ BAKU’S TURN 15 Baku’s Turn 15 proved a real sticky wicket. Four drivers drove straight into it, and the cruel corner was backed up by its trusty deputy, Turn 3, which ‘Venus fly-trapped’ another trio with its tight escape road. The pair were like the Holmes and Watson of F1 corners, finding out suspect driving and throwing the full force of the physical law at said offenders. ▲ TWO-LAP SPRINT RACES Race director Michael Masi deserves full credit for…

WATCHING THIS YEAR’S RUNNING OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 500, I WAS STRUCK BY THE sheer joy of the event compared to the atmosphere in Formula 1. Cynics may wince at some of the pre-race formalities at The Brickyard but from the songs to the flypasts, from the presentations to the ‘most famous words in racing’, the whole show is designed to engage both the fans at the track and those watching at home. Whether it be old heroes in attendance or drivers accompanied by their wives, partners and children the impression was one of a great occasion. The fact that the race itself was not marred by huge accidents (Graham Rahal aside) and that we saw the fairytale fourth win for Hélio Castroneves made the whole event so, so watchable. Contrast…

The British Grand Prix on July 18 will mark Lando Norris’s fourth appearance at Silverstone in a McLaren, despite this being his third season, thanks to the historic double-header last summer. But he admits it will feel more like his second home grand prix thanks to the return of crowds – hopefully – following the closed-doors of 2020. “It’s going to feel pretty special, I’m hoping we can have all the fans there,” he says. “I feel like I’m a more established driver now within F1, so my fanbase is growing and I have more supporters. A lot of British racing fans are also McLaren fans, so to see us fighting up there for a podium place, top fives and good points, they’ll love that even more. “Year one [in…

After Covid caused the cancellation of the 2020 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance for only the second time in its 70-year history (the first was 1960 and happened due to a schedule clash) car enthusiasts around the world are looking forward to the return of the event this August – along with most of the 30-plus sideshows that have mushroomed around it to form what has become Monterey Car Week. While the display and judging of around 175 of the world’s finest classic cars on the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links forms the centrepiece of the occasion, there’s a great deal more happening in the run-up to the big day on Sunday, August 15. Car Week officially kicks off on Friday, August 6 with a ‘cruise in’ of…

A Daytona to remember The original six Shelby Daytona Coupes that were built to teach Ferrari a lesson in GT racing are the stuff of legend, not least since the one driven to a class win at Le Mans in 1964 by Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant was the first American-built car to clinch victory in the famous 24-hour race. The following year, the Daytonas made Shelby the first American constructor to win the FIA GT Manufacturers’ Championship, a momentous victory that was marked in 2015 when Shelby American produced 50 continuation Daytona Coupes. But the superb Daytona pictured here comes from neither era, being one of the eight highly sought-after cars built by California Cobra guru Mike McCluskey. Chassis number CSX2501 began life in September 1964 as a silver-coloured…

• Check your inbox – you wouldn’t want to miss a visit to the new invite-only LAMBORGHINI LOUNGE NYC. This 5400sq ft Manhattan venue is an Italian melange of cars, dining and brand partners. “It’s a space that our friends and customers can call their own,” said Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini’s president and CEO. The Huracán STO will be one of the first models on display. • In Jaguar circles, the Frankensteinish 1960 JAGUAR XK150 FOXBAT ‘shooting brake’, below, has cult status. This unlikely mid-1970s amalgamation of a 3.4-litre coupé and a Morris Minor is on sale for £44,995 at JUSTIN BANKS in Tunbridge Wells. • On an estate theme, there is much excitement at NICHOLAS MEE in Herts over a trio of rare ASTON MARTIN DB5 VANTAGES. Just 66 DB5s…

1952 HARLEY-DAVIDSON ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA’. SOLD BY CORD & KRUSE, £205,310 If the ‘Captain America’ chopper used in Easy Rider isn’t the most famous motorcycle in movie history, what is? Two were built, but one was stolen and broken up. It is claimed this is the genuine survivor. It crashed at the end of the film after Peter Fonda’s Wyatt was shot by a redneck. Fonda gave the remains to actor Dan Haggerty of Grizzly Adams fame who commissioned restorer Gary Graham to rebuild it, but ended up giving it to him to settle a debt. Some believe an identical bike sold for £810,000 in 2014 is the real thing. Only Fonda and Haggerty really knew, both of whom are now dead. 1981 MARCH 811 SOLD BY RM SOTHEBY’S, £240,000 Another…

Motor Sport collection STEFAN JOHANSSON MARK VIIIG 051 WATCH Yes, we know we have a page dedicated to wristwear elsewhere in this issue, but few timepieces have quite the direct link to motor sport as this one. Since retiring from a Formula 1 career spanning 79 World Championship grand prix starts, Swedish star Stefan Johansson has carved himself out a nice career in artworks (you may have seen some of his unique pieces in our pages before), and he’s also branched out into watches. This Mark VIIIG sits at the top of the range. It is Swiss made and uses a host of Swiss-made components, including a Valjoux 7750 automatic movement, a mechanical self-winding chronograph, sapphire crystal glass and a cream dial with numbers and hands coated in Superluminova for…

VAUXHALL VXR220 •Price new £22,000 •Price now £20,000-£30,000 • Engine 2-litre, 4-cylinder turbo •Rivals Lotus Elise (shock!), Caterham Seven, Porsche Boxster • Verdict A distinct change from the norm, and only badge snobbery really stopped it from being a success. AN INTERESTING MODEL THIS. ON the one hand, a Vauxhall shouldn’t really hold much space on these pages. Yet on the other, this isn’t totally a Vauxhall, it’s more than a bit Lotus. And we like Lotus, so let’s go with it. In truth, the VX220 (or Opel Speedster, if you were in Europe) was something of a disaster in its day. Vauxhall only built around 7200 during a five-year production run, making them a rare sight, and sales figures were never sensational – after all, if you were after…

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