“We don’t do any advertising, because our car sells itself. It’s the best car in the world,” says George Blankenship, vice president of worldwide sales and customer satisfaction at Tesla Motors in the United States. He’s talking about the Tesla Model S – a 2.1-ton saloon that provides enough power and space to ensure a permanent grin on the face of up to seven occupants, thanks to its 5+2 seating.
Volvo’s collaboration with Jensen – which should have resulted in the production of 10,000 cars – ended after just 6,000 had been built because of quality control problems. But this fact shouldn’t cause too much worry for the future owner of the 1961 Volvo P1800 pictured here, as the coupé has been completely restored. True, the Swedish restoration took place about 30 years ago, but according to the dealership Angels Sports & Classic Cars of Sweden, the car is in surprisingly good condition.
If you think the translation from competition machine to street car results in a severe watering-down, the majority of the time you’d be right. But that’s not the case with the Bowler EXR S; it’s quite the opposite, in fact. Due to competition rules which dictate performance ceilings, the competition-spec EXR has its performance limited to 300bhp.
Given the highly demanding series of special stages, combined with the barren terrain and bleakly beautiful landscape of Morocco, plus exceptionally long days and temperatures that occasionally exceeded 40° Centigrade, this is not an event for the casual fun-seeker, as our Classic Driver photo-gallery illustrates…
As you’d expect, a great many Astons from all eras of the marque appear in the Classic Driver Marketplace. Here, we’ve picked a few of our favourites.
Optional aerodynamic addenda will also delight those wanting to draw upon every last drop of the 911’s performance.
By making tweaks to the ECU and developing special cylinder heads, different camshafts and a new sports exhaust, Porsche has given its customers the opportunity to create a quasi-GT3. The 0-62mph sprint can now be completed in 4.0 seconds (with a PDK gearbox in Sport+ mode), down from 4.3 seconds in the standard Carrera S. Maximum velocity is nudged up to 191mph – although you’ll need the novel 7-speed manual gearbox for that.
The formula has worked well over the years at Villa d’Este, and earlier this month an even more exclusive event took place at the stunning Lake Como hotel: a meeting of many of the immediately post-War Alfa Romeo coupés carrying the magical name, ‘Villa d’Este’.
First of all, a little history. In the aftermath of WW2, Touring of Milan produced an elegant coupé design on the shortest wheelbase chassis of the 6C 2500. When fitted with an ‘SS’, triple-Weber version of the Alfa Romeo straight-six it was, of course, a ‘6C 2500SS’.
The new Aston Martin, available as a ‘2+0’ as well as a 2+2, has already been shown to selected customers and will be revealed as an in-the-metal production car in early July.
Perhaps ‘in the metal’ is not entirely appropriate, as the latest Vanquish has all-carbonfibre bodywork – a first for the Gaydon company, the million-euro One-77 featuring hand-made aluminium panels on a composite chassis.
Following a principle set by the previous generation Continental GT, the Speed variant sharpens driving dynamics and boosts power over the standard model: this time up to 616bhp and 590lb ft.
That translates to a top speed of 205mph – which not only betters that of the regular W12, but also the Supersports model which crowned the previous generation. The 0-62mph benchmark is also dispatched rather more quickly than the current W12's effort, down from 4.4 to 4.0 seconds.
Sadly, it wasn’t to be: despite being launched at the 1984 Birmingham Motor Show to a rapturous reception from public and media alike, Lotus was in a familiar phase of turmoil.
Its eminent custodian had passed away a couple of years prior, but not before instructing the company’s Chief Engineer Tony Rudd to build a new V8 engine (codenamed Type 909); it was to have as much in common with the slant-four still operational across the Lotus family as possible, while conjuring 320bhp and 300lb ft.