Cars

The ChromeCars Xperience 

Aston Martin’s Q customisation branch took the occasion of the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace to reveal its wildest project to date, the Victor. The brutish one-off hypercar is directly inspired by two legendary hand-built road and racing Astons from the era when Victor Gauntlett presided over the company: the V8 Vantage of the 1970s and ’80s and the DBS V8 RHAM/1, a 520bhp sledgehammer developed to race at Le Mans in the 1977.

A motorsport monument 

From foundries to textiles, saw blades to coffee grinders and bicycles to cars, the history of Peugeot stretches back to the early days of industrialisation in Europe more than 200 years ago. For us here at Classic Driver, the illustrious French brand has always reminded us of iconic racing cars – the mighty Peugeot 905 that triumphed at Le Mans in 1992 and ’93, for example, or the world-beating Peugeot 205 T16 Group B. But there’s far more to the brand’s history.

Gent’s underwear. That’s what Eminence, the French brand that’s plastered all over this Lancia 037, is famous for, just in case you were wondering. In hindsight, it strikes us as the perfect sponsor given the sort of bottom-clenching speeds at which the car was being hurled across the special stages of Europe. 

Taking place on 5 September at Hampton Court Palace in London, ‘Passion of a Lifetime’ is Gooding & Company’s very first auction on British soil, and it’s touching down with an almighty bang. The catalogue comprises 15 of the bluest blue-chip classic cars from a revered private collection, meticulously curated over the course of many decades.