There’s just something so right and timeless about a Rallye-fronted, Audi-handled, big bumper Mk2 and Gaets Orr’s 24v V6 example is one of our favourites. Here’s why…
The V12 engine has long been a Ferrari signature tune, stretching back to the lightweight 125 S roadster of 1947, the first car to wear the famed marque’s badge. Designed in the main by engineer Gioachino Colombo, the 125’s short-stroke 1.5 litre engine produced some 118 horsepower in competition and was followed at the Turin show a year later by the first of the Ferrari 166s a roadster dubbed the barchetta plus a Berlinetta, or coupe.
The 8-Litre ‘Dead Silent 100 mph car’ was W.O. Bentley’s masterpiece, in the view of many observers. Because they were made in tiny numbers, any encounter with an 8-litre is to be savoured, as our man in California, Steve Natale, discovered.
Brian Williams came late to the joys of Rolls-Royce ownership. Magnificently capturing the elegance of pre-war luxury motoring, this 25/30hp Sports Saloon has produced a convert with a mission.
When water-cooling heralded the 996, Porsche offered the super-focused GT3 and the multi-talented Turbo. Nearly 25 years on, Octane rediscovers an icon and a bargain.
King Baudouin’s DB2/4 isn’t the only Aston Martin linked to the Vignale name; in 1993, AML revealed a concept named after the famous Italian design house.
If there's a cliché of the typical Italian, it's Renzo Rivolta. Spirited, impatient, full of ideas and enterprising. The businessman had become rich with refrigerators, got into the booming two-wheeler production after the end of the war and started the car company Iso Autoveicoli SpA in the early 1950s with the Isetta from his company in Bresso. With BMW taking over the license, the Italian smooch ball became a successful Bavarian model, but Rivolta wanted more.
Jonathan Gould tried other luxurious super-saloons and even a younger Bentley before finding what he was looking for – the Arnage Red Label. So what makes it so special?
