Cars

The ‘Best of Show’ award for the Figoni-bodied, two-tone coupé was decided after public voting on Saturday, 26 May at Villa d’Este, the lavishly opulent 5* hotel by Lake Como.

In addition, the Jury awards its own prizes, which this year included the Trofeo ASI (for the best preserved post-War car) being given to Mark Finburgh’s ex-JW Gulf Porsche 917K.

The Trofeo BMW Group Classic (for the most sensitive restoration) was awarded to Gary W. Bartlett’s 1968 Ford GT 40 Mk3.

Photo: Jan Baedeker

The car you see here was painstakingly built by marque specialist West Riding Jaguar and is for sale at Coys’ showroom in Richmond, South West London.

It’s based on a tub from a 1965 Roadster and has had many modifications, improvements and lightweight components installed, all in the manner of the famous factory-built ‘Lightweight E-types’.

So, there’s a glassfibre hardtop, aluminium bonnet, doors, rear wings and boot lid, and a full-race, wet-sump engine with triple Weber 45 DCOE carburettors. Everything is to FIA specification and the car comes with FIA/HTP papers.

The new BMW Zagato Coupé was revealed on 26 May at the 2012 Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza (a BMW-sponsored event).

What it’s slightly more reticent on is the new car’s drivetrain - although with an apparent similarity to the overall layout of the Z4 coupé, one can assume a high-performance, turbocharged straight-six. Or a V8. We shall see.

Classic Driver told of Renault’s plans to resurrect the Alpine marque some months ago, but now it’s official: the Dieppe-hailing marque is back.

Intended to generate interest in Alpine ahead of a potential major brand relaunch, the spiritual successor to the ‘Berlinette’ will have a mid-mounted V6 with around 400bhp – and could go into production within three years.

It was Lord Brett Sinclair (Simon Kidston) who’d hatched the plan. “Let’s take my Aston Martin V8 Vantage 6.3-litre, pair it up with a Dino and drive from Geneva to the Monaco Historics,” he’d said.

“Nice weather, bit of fun, really Roger Moore and Tony Curtis stuff. And the Aston’s just back from Aston Martin Works; it’s ready to go.”

In production at the same time as the 275 GTB and 330 GTC, the Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 had all the magical attributes of big-capacity (3,967cc) V12 motoring with the added practicalities of extra rear seats and a generous boot.

When introduced, like its more sporting relations, these luxurious cars found their way into the garages of the rich and famous, with a list of owners that included Enzo Ferrari himself, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and John Lennon, who bought his 330 GT 2+2 the same day he got his driver’s licence.

Headline features for the G65 AMG include a 604bhp, 6.0-litre V12 and a price tag of 264,180 euros – almost mocking the circa 190,000 euros the manufacturer asks for its high-tech supercar, the SLS AMG.

With the 63 and 65 near-identical in terms of performance (just one tenth shaved off the 0-62mph sprint) and styling (only a chrome grille, new wheels and subtle ‘V12 BiTurbo’ badges differentiating), it’s difficult to see how the 126,675-euro gap between the two can be justified.

That’s no mean feat, looking at the figures from last year: consider an attendance of 80,000, over 1,100 race entries and 800 competing cars – not to mention a tagline of ‘the world’s biggest classic motor racing festival’ – and the enormity of the organisers’ task is clear. But with advance ticket sales up 31% over the same period last year, it appears they may just have outdone their previous efforts.

In the late sixties, Henry Ford II was still bitter about his company’s failure to acquire Ferrari. The legendary GT40 wins at Le Mans offered him some sense of retribution, but he still yearned to sell an Italian sports car under the Blue Oval. A partnership developed with De Tomaso, which also hailed from Modena and, while not enjoying the same prestige as the Prancing Horse, had the added benefit of owning Italian coachbuilders Ghia and Vignale – assets which Ford soon happily acquired, with Alejandro de Tomaso anticipating them making little future profit for his company.

Audi had already won the 1984 World Rally Championship by the time the 205 T16 (standing for Turbo, 16-valve) arrived on the scene. Using the famous Quattro, the Germans once again took the title back to Ingolstadt, with Lancia having marginally snatched it the season before with the 037.