Octane Magazine

THE WIDTH OF the Atlantic is also about the size of the gulf between the US and the rest of the world when it comes to cars, especially in the era of metal that we tend to deal with. Sure, other factors are at play – it’s a big country and fuel is ch

WITH LOCKDOWNS starting to ease across the globe, motoring enthusiasts can start to look forward to getting out and about again for formal events. Unless the world situation changes dramatically (again), Octane will reintroduce its event calendar in

THE LONDON CONCOURS, the event now set to kickstart the UK’s frontline classic car ‘season’ post-lockdown, has added a new class focusing on the production cars that set new benchmarks for pace. The Pursuit of Speed gathers cars ‘designed not just to

I HAVE OWNED this ’33 Ford twice but, following a big accident and a rebuild, this time it’s a keeper. It’s an all-steel car once owned in the US by Larry Woods of Hot Wheels fame. It’s got the original body and chassis, and even the grille. It came

Let’s deal with the elephant in the room first. Or rather, the photo studio. That isn’t meant as a snide dig at either the 1966 Ford Mustang GT or the 1965 Corvette Sting Ray pictured here, but rather as an acknowledgement that, to our American reade

IT IS AN IMAGE immortalised in grainy pre-war black-and-whites: motoring leviathans thundering around the formidably steep banking at Brooklands, their drivers almost comically small behind the long bonnets as these overpowered machines are pitched f

THE CATALOGUE FOR the Hispano-Suiza J12 said it so well: ‘Every race, every species, every human creation has its aristocracy, chosen either by selection or by perfection. You have the horse and the thoroughbred, the dog and the greyhound, the boat a

The terrifying Rodin FZED is a brutal assault on the senses – the closest most mortals will ever come to owning a full-blown Formula 1 racing car. It’s based on a failed Lotus vanity project, and requires total commitment and nerves of steel to explo

A LOT HAS happened to the Baur since my last report, when I treated it to storage with BOXD London throughout the winter of last year. BOXD also maintains your car while it is in its care and the team cured many niggles with the Baur, such as using a

OK, OK, it’s not orange. The colour is called weissherbst. Translates as ‘white autumn’. And, in the metal – well, glassfibre – it’s more a kind of bronze. Mercedes-Benz’s ‘supersports’ car (their word, not mine) burst onto the scene in March 1970 at

THE MESSAGE IS unambiguous, and it’s delivered with an unblinking death stare: don’t get in anyone’s way. Do so, and there will be consequences. It’s 13 May 2010, the venue the ATP Automotive Testing Papenburg facility in northern Germany. Having hik

I’M WRITING THIS in my new home office. Which means the dining table can resume its proper role, the guest bedroom can become exactly that, and I’m no longer quite so disturbed during working hours by the background noise of home-schooling kids. It a

YOU HAVE TO hand it to Bentley: when it came to snagging the coolest-sounding Le Mans names for its cars, it didn’t leave much for the opposition. Toyota Tertre Rouge, anyone? Of course, Bentley has special bragging rights for the Circuit de la Sarth

LOS ANGELES had been on lockdown for weeks. The natives were getting restless. My friend Nick and I talked every other day… ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Nothing’ has been our normal conversation, until… ‘You know the poppies are in bloom?’ Once a year in A

IT’S BEEN CALLED the most beautiful petrol station in the world. How many contestants are in this architectural beauty pageant is unclear, but there is no reason to question whether the Fiat Tagliero building in Asmara, Eritrea, is worthy of the acco

By CMR Price £108.95 Material Diecast Even by Citroën’s standards, the Mille-Pattes – French for ‘millipede’ – was a bonkers vehicle. In fact, it was built by Michelin (Citroën’s major shareholder) for tyre testing: the tyre that was under test was m

GIVEN THE FLAMBOYANCE, exuberance, excess, and showbiz pizzazz of Harley Earl’s reign as head of styling at General Motors, it seems appropriate that he was born in the wellspring of glitz and glamour: Hollywood. Yet in 1893, the year of his birth, t

This A1 print by South African outfit Sentimetal and artist Wayne Batty features 27 of the most memorable wedge-shaped concept cars ever built. Almost certainly the only opportunity you’ll get to see the Modulo, the Boomerang and the Bulldog in one p

IT’S STRANGE TO think that we first saw details of the Petitjean Collection in February this year. Originally scheduled to take place at Techno-Classica Essen on 26-27 March, its postponement made this one of the first major auctions to be seriously

Book of the month PETE LYONS, Evro, £75, ISBN 978 1 910505 49 6 ‘I’d like to see Don [Nichols] get credit for being a major racecar constructor from the United States. Everybody talks about Dan Gurney, everybody talks about Chaparral, but for some re

NOTHING PROVES THE old adage that less is more quite like Porsche’s simple yet extremely effective 718 RSK Spyder. It followed on from the iconic 550, but the 718 would become the ultimate evolution of Porsche’s small-capacity racing roadsters and ea

RIGHT-HAND-DRIVE Miuras are rare, but the ultimate SV variants are rarer still, with only 11 built in RHD. This is one of two sold new in Australia; Silverstone Auctions will offer it for sale at its Silverstone Classic Live Online auction (31 July –

ART DECO CARS are rarely seen driving on UK roads, but that’s something you could put right with this spectacular Cord 810. Originally intended to be a ‘Baby Duesenberg’, the Cord 810 was displayed at the 1935 New York motor show as part of Cord’s dr

in association with THE DRIVE TO our lunch stop was defined by amusing anecdotes and near misses. Jacques Alméras doesn’t lift for anything. On arrival, he’s all smiles, his passengers a tangle of arms and legs, profanity making way for fits of giggl

THE NAME WAS FAMILIAR. I recalled his byline from American magazines such as Car & Driver and True’s Automotive Yearbook and remembered his tales on Bonneville, the Miller front-drive Indy racers and the fascinating people involved in cars. The name

UNDAUNTED BY THE disruption caused by Covid-19, one of the highlights of the classic motoring calendar is to go ahead, but with a new format. The Historic Motoring Awards ceremony was originally scheduled to take place at the swish Rosewood Hotel in

A London classic car dealer and social hub has launched a drive-in cinema so people can enjoy their cars, go out and still adhere to social distancing. As Octane went to press, Duke of London in Brentford was due to hold its first Duke’s Drive-In Cin

I THINK IT WAS Top Gear’s James May who said that buying a new gas boiler is the least enjoyable way you can blow a few grand. As far as I’m concerned, buying new tyres runs it a close second. So when Goodyear’s PR got in touch to offer a set from it

MOST OF US who collect and fuss about watches have long given up even trying to be rational about them. They’re a daft but hugely enjoyable thing to be irrational about, though. That machine full of clicking cogs and springs on your wrist is a little

THE PRE-SALE ESTIMATE for this nicely restored Ford Truck was $20,000-30,000, but with a final price of $49,500 it was one of many vehicles that sold for big money at the Eddie Vannoy Collection auction. By the time the Ford Model A was unveiled to t

THINGS HAVE always happened slowly at Morgan. Living heritage is the main reason why its factory has become one of Worcestershire’s most popular tourist attractions, as visitors come to see cars built using techniques unchanged for decades. Until las

DURING THE MONTHS of lockdown, London was deserted. The weather was glorious the whole time and we were all astonished at how quiet the city was, birdsong aside – and the saucepan-bashing for key workers on Thursday evenings, of course. As a result,

The Porsche 356 Carrera was already rare enough; the Carrera Cabriolet, which was introduced at the Frankfurt motor show in 1955, was limited to just 64 units – so it’s a rare version of a rare car! The last of them left the production line in 1964,

WHAT A SPLENDID cover feature by Harry Metcalfe on driving his Lotus Turbo Esprit HC to the Italian Dolomites in Octane 205! A car that most people might think would be out of its comfort zone in the snow and slush. When I worked for Coopers Lotus in