This Thames van project started out as a rotten shell with no interior or running gear. Over the course of nine years, it’s been raised from the ashes and reinvented in period restomod style.
Most P100s were sent to the knacker’s yard years ago. Luckily, Gary York found this tidy example locally, but felt that it needed some Bavarian giddy up…
There was great excitement in the 1970s and 1980s when Jaguar re-entered international motorsport. It started with support of Bob Tullius’s Group 44 outfit in the States followed by Tom Walkinshaw’s TWR team originally in the European Touring Car Championship with the XJ-S and later Group C endurance racing. But thanks to its five victories in the Fifties, for Jaguar the most important race had always been the 24 Hours of Le Mans. By 1987 and with TWR starting to become genuinely competitive in the World Sports Car Championship we knew there was a real possibility of us winning for the first time since 1957.
With its twin supercharged 5.3-litre V8 resulting in huge performance, yet still having the kind of luxurious interior Aston was now renowned for, the Vantage was the quintessential British supercar of the Nineties. Thirty years after its debut, we explore its history and later development before taking one of these refined brutes for a drive.
To aid development of the Tadek Marek-designed V8, Aston Martin produced a one-off DB5/DB6 hybrid in early 1966 that was powered by the new unit. Despite being a well-used prototype, the car survived and we’ve driven it.
Instigated by David Brown himself but hand-built by a London-based coachbuilder, Harold Radford, the DB5 Shooting Brake was aimed at Aston Martin owners who enjoyed outdoor pursuits and therefore needed more interior room. Just 12 were produced and we’ve tracked one down.
With a price of 30,000 Deutsche Mark, the BMW 503 was extremely expensive even for affluent customers at the time. Unlike the 507, the 503 was offered as both a convertible and a coupe. Under the long hood, it had a V8 engine producing 140 horsepower, which was later upgraded to the 150 horsepower engine from the 507. The 503 remains a rarity to this day but has always lived in the shadow of the legendary 507. And both V8 models nearly bankrupted BMW.
The 296 is ferociously fast and fiendishly clever but Enright asks if the supercar still has a place in today’s world. Ferrari’s incredible 296 GTB offers an opportunity to consider how far the supercar has come and whether the genre still retains its Lustre.
Bought new in autumn 2015 and subsequently treated to a wealth of engine and chassis upgrades, Chris Whittle’s 425bhp 981C Cayman GT4 proves the 911 shouldn’t be your default choice when purchasing your next modern Porsche for fast-road fun and trackday heroism...
Here’s Ferry Porsche presiding over what looks like a management meeting. He’s flanked by his oldest son, design director Ferdinand Alexander – or Butzi as most people now call him – and his nephew, technical director Ferdinand Piëch.
Serial Porsche owner, Jon Stevenson, throws us the keys to his 1958 Porsche 356 A Coupe. And for one Classic Porsche journalist, it’s quite an education...
