SPORTS CAR CENTRE PRESENTS
Motoring news from around the world - May 2018
Continuation models are rapidly becoming a 21st century collectors’ car phenomenon as the real things gets ever more expensive and sought-after.
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Jaguar Lightweight E-Type
Jaguar Classic’s first continuation project was the Lightweight E-Type which had its UK debut at the Goodwood Revival in 2014. Just six 1963-spec cars were made, using up six chassis numbers that were reserved for the Lightweight in period but never used. The cars, each costing well over a million, were all sold as soon as the project was announced.
Jaguar XKSS
After Jaguar quit from sports car racing in 1956 16 unfinished D-Types were made into roadgoing XKSS sports cars – beautiful and fast and a hit with drivers at the time like Steve McQueen. Today XKSSs are rare – or rarer than they were meant to be, since nine of them were destroyed in a works fire in 1957. Jaguar Classic announced that it would be re-creating the missing nine in 2017/18.
Aston Martin DB4 GT
Seventy five of these beauties were made by Aston between 1959 and ’63 and today survivors make cherished and highly effective historic race cars. They also cost around £3m apiece, encouraging Aston to make 25 continuation versions at half that price. Currently being hand-made at the old works in Newport Pagnell the new DB4 GT, with 340bhp straight six, is track-only like the D-Type, and uses continuation VIN numbers from 1963 for what Aston calls “an unbroken bloodline”.
In addition to latterday Jag-based creations like its new Lister Thunder, Lister has been producing continuation versions of the Knobbly, the sumptuously curved late 1950s sports racing giant-killer powered by the Jaguar D-Type engine. The plan was to make 10 continuation Knobblys as “exact facsimiles” of the 1958 racecar (something it had also done in 1990), using original tools and drawings, to sell from £250,000 plus tax.
Shelby Daytona Coupe
Only six examples of the only American car to win the World Sportscar Championship were ever made – you may remember seeing them all together for the first time at Goodwood a few years ago. Chances of getting one of the six are slim, but you can get hold of a shiny and new Daytona Coupe from US firm Superperformance. It uses modern tech to re-create the wonderful looking beast, but it does also use a genuine Shelby CSX9000 chassis. It was also designed by Pete Brock (who did the original), and licensed by the late Carroll Shelby, so it’s far more continuation than copy.
Alvis Continuation Series
They have been restoring them for decades so why not make a new one? It’s what Jaguar and Aston are doing after all, the difference here being that Alvis hasn’t made a new car since 1967. On offer is a range of classics from the marque’s back catalogue – cars like the Park Ward drophead, Graber coupe and Vanden Plas Tourer – and re-created using the original works drawings and featuring continuation chassis numbers. All are powered by newly-built versions of the firm’s 4.3-litre straight six – faithful to the 1936 design but emissions compliant. It is not known how many have been made; Alvis does say each run is limited to 25 cars.
Top 5: Air-cooled Legends
Patrick Long has initiated the “Luftgekühlt” meet-up. A casual get-together in downtown Los Angeles, with the programme name: air-cooled, historic models form the backdrop. In the latest episode of the Top 5 series, he presents the “Top 5” Porsche air-cooled sports cars.
He starts with a Porsche 356 B GS Carrera GT. The 356 was launched in 1960 and featured innovative technology. Its flexible aluminium body parts are just one example. Its safety steering and hydraulic damper were also groundbreaking, as was its optimised brake cooling. The various gear ratios were also new. From 1955, all vehicles fitted with a race engine were given the additional name, “Carrera”.
With the Porsche 804 Formula 1 race car, Long pays tribute to one of the motorsport greats: the recently deceased Dan Gurney. With the 804 Formula 1, Gurney and Porsche proved that a Formula 1 victory was not unattainable. In 1962, he won the “French Grand Prix” in Rouen in a Porsche 804 with an eight-cylinder engine. Just a week later, Gurney triumphed at the Solitude circuit near Stuttgart with a start-to-finish victory, allowing the air-cooled Porsche Type 804 to achieve a double victory in front of its home crowd, with teammate, Joakim Bonnier, finishing second.
Number three in the ranking marks the final chapter of the air-cooled era: the Porsche 993 Turbo S 3.6. Its rear spoiler is distinctive – its performance is outstanding: producing 450hp, it accelerates from 0 to 100km/h in a mere 4.5 seconds
In second place we see a major milestone for motorsport endeavours at Porsche. The eight-cylinder horizontally opposed engine of the Porsche 908/3 Spyder is the result of a great many race track tests. Weighing just 545 kilograms, the Spyder took lightweight construction to the extreme. Its foam-reinforced plastic body weighed just an incredibly light twelve kilos. The driver and engine were positioned further forward, to improve the weight distribution. The factory team only competed in the 908/3 Spyder on four occasions but notched up three wins, including on its debut in the 1970 Targa Florio in Sicily, with Jo Siffert and Brian Redman at the wheel.
John Surtees’ One Owner 1957 BMW 507 To Be Offered For The First Time:
Bonhams is thrilled to announce that it will offer the rare, one-owner 1957 BMW 507 Roadster (£2,000,000 – 2,200,000) directly from the estate of the late John Surtees CBE, at the Festival of Speed Sale on 13 July at Goodwood.
At the time that he acquired the car as new in 1957, John was the reigning 500cc Motorcycle World Champion, having won the title in 1956 riding for Count Domenico Agusta’s MV Agusta factory team. A few months later, at Hockenheim, ‘Il Grande John’ — as the Italian racing fans had nicknamed him — spotted the elegantly understated 507 being used by BMW engineering director Alexander von Falkenhausen. He instantly fell in love with it.
“He saw me looking at it, and said to try it, Surtees recalled. “I came back thinking ‘that’s rather nice’. Back in Italy, when Count Agusta told John Surtees that he would like to buy him a present to reward his World Championship success, John would tell how ‘the light bulb came on’.
“I thought ‘Ooh, I really would like one of those new BMWs’,” said Surtees. “So I mentioned the 507. Inevitably, the old Count’s response was ‘What’s the price?’ and when I told him it was more than £3,000, he winced. “We finally did a deal and went fifty-fifty. I went back to von Falkenhausen, did a little development work for BMW and got the car in what the factory described as silver-grey, but which is more a lovely subtle silver-blue.”
John Surtees went on to win three more 500cc World Championship titles with MV Agusta (1958-1960) adding to the original 1956 crown and three consecutive 350cc World titles, 1958 to 1960. He then famously made the transition from two wheels to four, driving in Formula 1 from 1960 to 1972 and winning the Formula 1 Drivers’ World Championship wth Ferrari in 1964. Meanwhile he kept the much-loved BMW 507 until he died on 10 March 2017.
He used this graceful grand touring car extensively, often driving over the Brenner and Simplon passes on his way between England and Italy. Early on in his ownership he contacted BMW to comment that his car didn’t feel quite as good as the one he had first tried, finding that it wasn’t going up the hills as quickly as he would like yet was going down the other side far too fast. BMW “breathed upon” his car’s V8 engine, enhancing its power and torque, and invited him to carry out brake testing in Birmingham with Dunlop, who duly fitted his car with four-wheel disc brakes. It was a great improvement.
When he signed for Ferrari in late 1962 Surtees arrived at the Maranello factory in his beloved BMW, whereupon Enzo Ferrari declared that drivers could not possibly have a German car while racing for his team. He must have a Ferrari instead! Surtees’ glee was short-lived: “When I got my first pay cheque I found The Old Man had had the price of the new car deducted from my fee!”
This is not only a beautiful example of BMW’s most elegant and refined sports car from the 1950s. It is very much ‘the John Surtees BMW 507’, a one-owner beauty being offered for the first time at public auction, direct from the estate of one of the world’s most revered and successful sportsmen — an eight-time World Champion, no less.
Top Marks
Fifty years ago this September, the first Ford Escort arrived in the UK, destined for vast sales, rally and races triumphs. Small wonder it became the car of choice for boy racers everywhere.
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The second-highest-selling car in UK automotive history, Ford sold 4,105,192 units over the model’s 34-year lifespan.
Hark all the way back to September 1968 and the birth of the Escort, and you might recall the original TV advert featuring Ronnie Corbett haring around the streets in a Mark 1 Sport claiming to be “King of the road”. The ultra-modern replacement for the Ford Anglia was brilliantly designed and surprisingly quick for the era (it had a top speed of 78mph, creeping from 0-60mph in 22.3 seconds). Ford gave it the catchy tagline: “the fun car”.
And fun it was, not least because of its unexpected success as a rally car. The MK1, and even more so the MK2 (built in conjunction with Ford of Germany from 1975 onwards), were the most prolific rally cars of their generations, making household names of Hannu Mikkola and Roger Clark, among others. This racing success also saw Raymond Doyle, one half of the nation’s favourite crime-busting duo The Professionals, adopt the Escort as his motor of choice. He drove an MK2 RS2000 during episodes filmed in 1978 and ’79, coincidentally around the same time the term “boy racer” was coined.
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