• event
• video

evo magazine’s Henry Catchpole takes us on a guided tour through the vast halls of the 2015 International Automobile Exhibition aka Frankfurt Motor Show.

• Intro
• Bugatti Vision Grand Turismo
• Honda Project 2&4
• Rolls-Royce Dawn
• Audi S4
• Porsche Mission E Concept
• Lamborghini Huracán Spyder and Aventador Roadster
• Jaguar F-Pace
• Ferrari 488 Spyder
• Alfa Romeo Guilia
• Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport
• Mercedes hall
• Porsche 911 Carrera S (991.2)
• Bentley Bentayga
• Audi E-Tron Quattro Concept
• Best of the rest

• news
• vale

According to CarsGuide, it’s the end of the line for the classic V8 sedan in Australia:

Aussie V8 fans will have to get used to four-cylinder and V6 power for their future performance sedans, the Asia-Pacific boss of General Motors Stefan Jacoby has confirmed what has long been feared.

The Holden V8 will die once manufacturing comes to an end at Holden’s factory in Elizabeth in South Australia at the end of 2017.

In an interview with Australian media at the Frankfurt motor show overnight, Mr Jacoby said: “The world obviously is changing and the V8 period is coming to an end.”

• for sale

One of only two road going HRT 427 Monaros built and the only one in private hands, a rare machine and part of Australian motoring history.

What’s an HRT 427? According to Wikipedia:

Originally intended to be put into production as competition against vehicles such as the Porsche 911 GT2, it soon became apparent to Holden that the high specification HRT 427 could not be built in such limited quantities for the original A$215,000 asking price. As a result, the project was eventually cancelled and all customer deposits received refunded.

See also: 2002-2003 Bathurst 24 Hour.

• advertising
• video

Jaguar launch their all new SUV in style, performing a full 360° loop in their new F-PACE.

That’s one hell of a publicity stunt.

• profile
• video

Petrolicious catches up with Dennis Varni, owner of a 1970 Lamborghini Miura P400 S since 1979.

Varni tells the story of falling in love with the Miura at first sight back in the late ’60s:

These things were $19,000 new in those days, and I’d just bought a house with my wife for $11,000 in 1966, and I said, ‘I’ll never be able to own one of these’.

Though buy one he did. Rather seems to enjoy driving it too.

• event

Jonathan Moore for Speedhunters visits the UK’s preeminent concours d’elegance and finds a bevy of new and old bespoke, coach-built, and very quirky motors.

Want more? Classic Driver also covered the event.

• destination
• motorsport
• video

Back in 2012 Red Bull took Carlos Sainz, DTM driver Miguel Molina, and an Audi R8 LMS to the historic Autódromo de Sitges-Terramar in Spain to see if they could break the lap record that has stood unchallenged since 1923.

• design
• news

Hot on the heals of the Bertone auction, another Italian design house appears likely to change hands shortly, with Indian manufacturer Mahindra said to be close to acquiring Pininfarina:

The takeover of Turin-based Pininfarina, the creator of the Ferrari 458 Spider roadster, marks a move by Mahindra to add flair following its acquisitions of South Korean carmaker Ssangyong and the scooter unit of French auto manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen. The designer already cooperates with Mumbai- based Mahindra on SUV development and worked with it on the TUV300 compact SUV, which the company introduce later this week.

Pininfarina has been unprofitable for 10 of the past 11 years while struggling with debt. It shut a floundering division that built cars for other manufacturers three years ago. Chairman Paolo Pininfarina, a grandson of the company’s founder, said on April 22 that a new investor will provide “financial solidity and bolster growth in coming years.”

via Road and Track

• marques
• video

16 glorious minutes of BMW M cars being hustled around the World’s Greatest Public Tollway, just as they were designed to.

As good as it is, the producers seemed to have skipped over the E34 M5, forgot to film the E12 M535i having a crack, ditto the E36 M3. Shame on you. Hearing the E46 CSL being wound out might make up for it. Just a little bit.

via Road & Track

• collections
• design
• for sale

Bertone is to be sold next week as court-ordered bankruptcy proceedings wind up the legendary Italian automotive design house.

Bertone - the carrozzeria behind the likes of the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, the Alfa GTV, and Fiats like the Dino and X1/9 - was declared bankrupt last year. The full story of the demise of this great design house is a desperately sad, internecine disaster, so convoluted that it really can’t be told here.

Now the courts in Milan have ordered the assets of the bankrupt ‘Bertone Cento’ company be sold at an online auction next week. Among these is the Bertone brand itself, which the auctioneer values at £2.2 million.

Those with pockets deep enough will snag not only the Bertone brand but with it a motley collection of one-off prototypes and design studies that form the Bertone museum in Italy.

Will be very interesting to see where it goes. The end of an era or the beginning of a new one?

• for sale

Lots to auctions recently, so here are some updates:

• That yellow Bugatti EB 110 SS fetched £560,000, a relative bargain considering the bidding estimate.
• That Porsche 956 Le Mans winner went and fetched a thoroughly decent US$10,120,000.
• That Maserati Boomerang prototype found a buyer for €3,289,500.
• That Nissan Skyline Kenmeri made a very healthy US$176,000.
• That Porsche RS 61 once owned by Sir Stirling Moss was hammered in for £1,905,500.
• And better late than never, that Ferrari GTO from last year fetched an astounding US$38,115,000.

• video

XCAR bag a drive of the extremely elusive 8-litre V10 Bristol Fighter.

The Fighter is a wonderful oddity. It’s a novel experience to drive, a privilege as well. It makes me wonder what Bristol would have been like had it made more of them, had it been a bigger presence rather than the exclusive club it was in the end.

Bristol’s Fighter was an approach to modernism from a firm that was very much rooted in it’s own past. It has presence, power, and makes you feel a bit special even if some of the bits of it are a bit wonky. It’s a crying shame more people don’t get to enjoy these however if they did: would it have been so special?

• builders
• review
• video

ICON’s Jonathan Ward profiles a VW Bus they’ve brought bang up to date, while still keeping it looking completely in period.

The whole point of a derelict is to blend in and have a good time. To enjoy life. Not only are we working to further enable the user by reengineering the vehicle to have more modern functionality and enhanced utility, we also sort of trying to create a moment in time, a safe zone. If you have a modern luxury car there are so many preconceived notions today. Everything things: he’s a this or he’s a that or she’s all about the money. You just get beyond all that noise, all that nonsense. If anyone even notices this bus, they’re going to smile. They’re going to get positive vibrations, thumbs up, good feelings.

• motorsport
• video

11 April 1993, McLaren driver Ayrton Senna started the European Grand Prix at a wet Donington Park from 4th place on the grid. By the end of the first lap, he was in the lead.

Was this the greatest lap in F1 history?

• marques
• video

Petrolicious profile the first turbine-powered car to win a race, the Howmet TX.

The first Howmet car was so interesting that it was different and you had to rethink everything you were doing to built it, so that was a challenge. It’s the only turbine car to have won a race. It ran in the endurance races at that time, racing against the GT40 Fords and the Porsche factory and Ferrari teams. For an experimental car with a turbine engine in it, we were pretty proud of that.

The sound this thing makes…

• motorsport

Motor Sport Magazine’s Andrew Frankel opines on the state of play between F1 and WEC:

What did you think of the race on Sunday? If you found it anything other than utterly spellbinding from flag to flag, it is possible you and I were tuned into different channels.

Actually I watched both the Chinese Grand Prix and the opening round of the World Endurance Championship at Silverstone and whether you tune in because you like to see close racing or variety in the sound, shape and technology of the competitors, the sports cars beat the open wheelers hollow.

Agreed. Multiple class endurance racing is where it’s at.

• design
• motorsport

Racecar Engineering have updated their technical analysis of the so-far problematic Nissan NISMO LMP car.

We really want this crazy thing to succeed, it just needs continued backing to allow it to be developed to its full potential.

• news

A short news item from Porsche celebrating the delivery of Mark Webber’s personal 918 Spyder, just in time for his 39th birthday on 27th August 2015.

Webber’s car, chassis #605/918, features the iconic ‘Salzberg Racing’ livery worn by the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans winning 917K. Standard in the lightweight ‘Weissach Pack’ fitted to this car is a full-body wrap which would otherwise contribute 2.3 kg of the total 41 kg stripped out of the standard car. Interestingly Mark’s opted to forgo that saving by having one of the available wrap schemes painted on his car instead.

• for sale

How special is this? One of only 69 factory Carrera Cup cars—with no racing history:

Quite unbelievably it is still finished in its original coat of paint and this designated race car still retains all of its factory fitted panels. Plucked out of a collection it is believed this Cup car has never been subject to anything other than light recreational track use rather than bumper to bumper competitive racing and as such displays only a peppering of stone chips to its wheel arches and a perfectly aged patina. Clearly dry stored over its minimal mileage, the car presents as quite the unique prospect having never been adorned with a livery and in its original factory build spec.

Nuts.

Price on application, available via The Octane Collection

• design

Automotive photographer James Lipman showcases the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe.

Jaw-droppingly gorgeous.