Editorial

We gave you a hint of it last week, but today you can read all about what it’s like to passenger one of the world’s greatest drivers in one of today’s ‘must have’ motor cars; the Aston Martin DBRS9. You can read the full story below, but suffice it say it’s addictive, and for those who have a hankering for the nearest thing to a Le Mans car that can genuinely (trust me, you can do it…) be driven by mere mortals – this is it.

You don’t often see a Rolls-Royce Phantom driven in a truly spirited manner, but the Classic Driver Team have risen to the challenge and in the road test included in this week’s ClassicInside there’s a video of all the action in (where else?) St Moritz.

There’s also a lot of auction activity this week so we’ve the inside line on what’s going under the hammer in the busy pre-Christmas season, as well as Christie’s exciting news that they will be selling one of the ‘crown jewels’ of classic car collecting, a pre-war grand prix Auto Union D-Type. This could well break all the records when it’s auctioned at Paris Rétromobile in February 2007.

And finally, as the English weather finally descends into what’s likely to be 4 or 5 months of unremitting gloom, how about looking ahead to May 2007 when Jonathon Lyons will be running The Jewel that is Jordan III, one of the finest automotive tours in the world. Entries are subject to acceptance by the organisers, and “preference will be given to cars regarded as rare or which have an interesting history”.

Perhaps the track-only DBRS9’s a little ‘extreme’ for the occasion, but a trawl through the auction previews should yield a suitable Rolls-Royce or Bentley to really do the event in the grandest manner.

Steve Wakefield Managing Editor sw@classicdriver.com