The Ferrari that chased McQueen in Le Mans
We fell in love with it some weeks ago at the Girardo & Co stand at Retromobile Paris and we just can't get it out of our minds. The 1970 Ferrari 512S you see here was employed by the Ferrari factory as a test and development car before it was purchased by Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions company and used during filming of the 1970 racing thriller ‘Le Mans’. It was raced as a Works entrant in the Daytona 24 Hours and 1000KM di Monza in 1970, where John Surtees drove it to a podium finish. Now Ferrari’s famous ‘Porsche hunter’ is waiting for its next custodian to showcase it at Pebble Beach and Villa d’Este, celebrate 100 years of Le Mans at this year’s Le Mans Classic, or return it to the history-steeped banking of the Daytona International Speedway for the first time since 1970.
Z like Zukunft
Developed by Ulrich Bez and designed by Harm Lagaay, the BMW Z1 was one of the most creative and experimental cars of its time. While the overall shape was simplistic, yet elegant, the Z1's design language was very much in-line with the brand’s aesthetics of the era. However, it was this roadster's unusual details that really suprised audiences when it launched in 1989. The main talking points were the doors that lowered vertically (and could be left open while driving), while the easily replaceable plastic bodypanels were equally revolutionary, allowing owners to change the body colour of their Z1 in less than an hour. Only 8000 units were produced up to 1991 – and this low-mileage example painted in “Traumschwarz Metallic” for sale with AD Sportscars must be one of the most attractive and desirable Z1s on the market.
All aboard Air Bristol
If a renowned British aircraft manufacturer like Bristol starts to produce cars, it’s no surprise that the automobiles bear some resemblance to the planes carrying the same name. So when Bristol decided to add a compact sports model to their lineup in 1953, the one-off prototype that was developed to become the new Bristol 404 clearly borrowed a number of aeronautic design features from the biggest aeroplane model that Bristol was developing at the time – the Brabazon Airliner. With its distinctive tail fin, the car served as a test mule for evaluating new engines and technologies and stayed in the ownership of Sir George White, the Chairman of Bristol, until 1962. After the beautiful Bristol allured us during last year’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villla d’Este, this exceptional piece of British automotive and aeronautic history is now for sale with Tom Hartley Jnr.
Edgy early Esprit
We’ve been telling you that orange cars drive faster for a while now – and clearly this 1977 Lotus Esprit is no exception. Penned by ‘Designer of the Century’ Giorgetto Giugiaro and praised for its fine handling in period reviews, the brilliantly light, pure and simple first series of the Lotus Esprit is clearly the one to have. After all, only 718 cars were made between 1976 and 1978. Still, prices for these rare lightweight legends have kept reasonably low compared with the Ferrari and Lamborghini wedges of the time, potentially because the Lotus boasted a modest 2-litre four-cylinder engine and not a fire-spitting V12. Still, if you have a fetish for purist sportscars from the 1970s, this S1 Esprit offered without reserve at the upcoming Broad Arrow Auction sale on March 3rd at Amelia Island should be high on your watch list.
Half Porsche, half dolphin
You might remember Ken Miles for racing Ford GT40s in Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans in the 1960s, but the gifted engineer and racing driver had already made a name for himself in the 1950s when he was winning sprint races in Southern California. After racing Porsche 356s and 550s, Miles started constructing his own lightweight racecars that were less robust than the German originals and more to his taste: his chimera of a Porsche 550s engine and a Cooper body and chassis was affectionately known on the West Coast as ‘The Pooper’. In the early 1960s, Dolphin Engineering of San Diego built another car for Ken Miles that combined a 1700 ccm RS61 Porsche engine and a RS gearbox with a rather quirky, dolphin-like body that earned the car the nickname ‘Porphin’. This highly unusual and interesting racecar is now for sale with Messina Classics.
