Votren De Este · Blog

Characterful yet cool, quick yet suave - and as French as they come THE MARKET / Buying GuideHow does the Lamborghini designer get to Lamborghini? It was a question asked and answered by Citroens clever ad department in the late 1980s, making a feature of the fact that the man responsible for styling the Countach, Marcello Gandini, chose a BX 16 Valve as his daily driver. In a class filled with conservative family cars, the BX was a real breath of fresh air.

The Porsche 911 Turbo S is a high-performance sports car that has been in production since 1989. Here's a brief history of the Porsche 911 Turbo S. 930 Turbo S 1989 The original Turbo was produced as an S model in its final 1989 production year via Porsche’s Sonderwunsch programme. Exact build numbers are near impossible to ascertain, with 21 thought to have been built.

We’ve all heard the terms ‘Diff’ and ‘LSD’, or may even recognise the option code 220 for a limited slip diff, but what is a differential and how does one work? We start by understanding why drivetrains use them. Drive a 911 around a radius, and the outer wheels will travel further than the inner wheels. A diff is a geared device in an axle – front, rear but sometimes between axles, too – that permits the opposing output shafts to rotate at different speeds relative to each other.

Sales debate - is inflation making customers think twice about a Porsche purchase? With the past year seeing consumer price inflation rising to well over 10 per cent, we might wonder if such record numbers affect the used Porsche market. So do they? “No,” says Paragon’s Jason Shepherd. “I don’t really see a link between inflation and values. They’ve levelled off, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to create too much downward pressure.

Taking on the Germans and British with a straight-six and a stately grille After the Second World War, most survivors had to pick up the pieces, rebuild and slowly pull themselves out of poverty. This meant transport had to be highly affordable, leading to smaller cars with smaller, four-cylinder engines. After some years, the straight-sixes began to reappear as luxurious alternatives to small inline-fours.

Looking and sounding far more exotic than the product of a double garage in Auckland, the Mini de Joux was the brainchild of one of New Zealand’s best automotive designers. Words and photography by Patrick Harlow PLAYING THE LONG GAMEKits and Pieces Ferris de Joux’s greatest hitIn 1973 Stephen, the owner of this featured Mini de Joux, went to a gravel hill-climb held at Hoopers Inlet on the Otago Peninsula.

There’s something ineffably cool about comparatively unloved Ferraris. Whether it’s a 365 GTC4, most notable for not being a Daytona, the scallop-fuse-laged 612 Scaglietti or the behemoth FF, these are Maranello’s chorus line cars, rarely enjoying much of a moment in the spotlight. DRIVEN TO EXTINCTIONMuch the same can be said of the Portofino. It only seems like yesterday that it was being introduced to replace the bulky California T, but we have word that the factory will build no more.

Not long before this issue of 911 & Porsche World went to press, the motorsport world was shocked by the news of Ken Block’s passing. The rally driver, gymkhana star and ‘Head Hoonigan in Charge’ died near his ranch in Woodland, Utah, in a snowmobile accident. He was fifty-five. Block co-founded skateboarding and snowboarding footwear and apparel brand, DC Shoes, in 1994 and used his fortune to realise a long-held ambition to compete in international rallying.

While the dynamic performance of the 911 moved on at pace over the decades, one element that didn’t evolve to the same degree was the car’s lighting. Thankfully, the yellowing, dim halogen bulbs are a thing of the past. Today we have Porsche Dynamic Lighting System Plus (PDLS+). PDLS+ is an add-on to the lower-spec PDLS. That system works by constantly adjusting the range of the dipped beam of light depending on the car’s speed.

Adverts that mention Cat C or Cat D are referring to Category Markers, issued after a vehicle has an insurance claim.  When a car is damaged, the insurer decides if it’s worth repairing or not. If it isn’t repaired, the owner is paid out, the car is written off and the insurer applies a Category marker to it. Previously, they were Cat C and Cat D, but these were replaced in 2017 with S and N.

For 23 years my brother has come over from Australia for Beaulieu and Goodwood, latterly buying a cheap 2CV on arrival to get him around Europe, then shipping it home and selling for enough profit to pay his air fares. Impressed by his driving it flat-out to the South of France and back, I began looking for a 2CV for myself and soon found a local dealer ad for a 28,000-mile, one-owner, five-year-old example for £2500.

This rare Swede not only looks great but is also a surprising bargain THE MARKET / Buying Guide This Volvo is difficult to pigeonhole. The 480 is not a hatchback in the usual sense, but neither is it a traditional coupé. Although it clearly drew inspiration from the 1800ES, describing it as a shooting brake doesn’t feel quite right, either. Whatever it is, it’s certainly one of the most intriguing cars ever built by the Swedish manufacturer, and one that remains great value today.

The smallest Jaguar makes an affordable and practical if controversial modern classic but it does have its pitfalls. Here’s what you need to know. WORDS PAUL WAGER BUYING X-TYPE THE ESSENTIAL INFOWill this very capable sports saloon ever be any more affordable? Here’s what you need to know. To some extent the best classics are those which are controversial enough to arouse fierce debate and the X-Type is certainly one of them.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again — we love it when a former 911 & Porsche World feature car comes to market. More so when it happens to be a former cover star... TRIED & TESTEDThe GT3 driving experience without the GT3 price tag. This is how Charlie Wildridge, boss of Suffolkbased Porsche indie, William Francis, describes the Tiffany Blue 996 you see in our photos.

The 944 was the best-selling Porsche of all time prior to the arrival of the Boxster 986 and Cayenne SUV, meaning there are plenty of examples out there to choose from... Words Dan Furr, Richard Gooding, Martin Morgan Jones Photography Adrian Brannan What to look for when on the hunt Launched in 1969, the 914 proved Porsche didn’t need to survive on a diet of rear-engined metal alone. By 1975, however, the two-seater’s time was up. That same year, the similarly radical 924 was launched.