Supercar Driver Magazine Issue 36 by Supercar Driver

ISSUE36

SUMMER2020

THE SUPERCAR OWNERS MAGAZINE

UPGRADE YOUR LAP PERFORMANCE.

The perfect lap isn’t impossible anymore. MICHELIN® Track Connect is the first coaching system for enthusiasts that offers real-time insight – at your fingertips – so you can optimize lap times, improve your skills and unleash the full potential of your MICHELIN ® PILOT ® Sport Cup 2 Connect tyres.

Search “Michelin Track Connect”. To find out more, contact Rob Gardner at Protyre on 07789 690681.

THE TEAM Adam Thorby Managing Director

adam@supercar-driver.com

Matt Parker Editor

editor@supercar-driver.com

Riad Ariane Photographer

riad@supercar-driver.com

Luke Earnshaw

With lockdown measures easing as we enter summer, we’re thankful to be bringing you events and drives to make up for those lost miles. That also means we’ve been able to get our hands on some fantastic machinery for the following pages. There’s a fair bit of variety this time around; Jonty drives the ultimate Bond car, the Aston Martin DB5, to find out if it’s more than just for show, Miles Lacey takes things off-road in a Bowler EXR-S and I look to the future with Porsche’s first all-electric car, the Taycan Turbo.

Creative Manager

luke@supercar-driver.com

Debbie Winstanley Accounts Manager

debbie@supercar-driver.com

Jonty Wydell Tour Manager

Read our magazine online

jonty@supercar-driver.com

Jake Smithard Membership Manager

jake@supercar-driver.com

Tim Crawford Videographer

Dan Barnett

Supercar Driver Ltd, Unit 1 Meadowhall Riverside, Meadowhall Road, Sheffield, S9 1BW

Videographer

IN THIS EDITION

Supercar Driver Podcast

Did you know we have a podcast? Talking all things SCD as well as chatting to other interesting people withint the supercar industry. Search for: Supercar Driver Podcast

Subscribe to Supercar Driver on

Rob Ward

Member & Writer

rob@supercar-driver.com

Miles Lacey

Development Driver

miles@supercar-driver.com

Make sure to subscribe to the channel and tap the bell icon so YouTube can let you know when new videos are available from us. Go to our channel.

Chris Lee

Supercar Enthusiast

Tom Jaconelli

Director at Romans International

Tom@romansinternational.com

Matt Cowley Suspension Secrets

info@suspensionsecrets.co.uk

Spot your car? Take a pic and post a story tagging @supercardriver on instagram

On the cover • 66

DRIVEN Bowler EXR-S

Aston Martin DB5

39 46

Lotus Carlton

MEMBERS’ RIDES 18 25 82 86 104 121

Porsche Taycan Turbo

McLaren 675LT & 600LT

FEATURES

Lamborghini Huracan

House of the Prancing Horse - Members Collection Ferrari 488 Pista - Max Chilton Ferrari F40

44 66 80 102 112 114 143

GT Journey

Aston Martin Vantage GT4

Pursuit of Perfection - Topaz

A New Era - Chris Lee

Summer Hotlist - Romans International

Focus on - Baytree Prestige & Performance

Focus on - EM Rogers Transport

McLaren F1 GTR Longtail - Tom Hartley Junior

The World’s Most Regal Car Park - Concours of Elegance All About Setup - Suspension Secrets

Ruining all the fun for Supercar Thieves - SmarTrack Electrifying - Lunaz Design

Past Events

10 Supercar Years - 10 Years of SCD If you would like to submit an article or photo for consideration in a future publication, please email the editor. By submitting an article to us, you are granting permission for its use in future Supercar Driver publications, promotional materials, or online.

TheSupercarDriver

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Copyright ÂŽ 2020 Supercar Driver Limited. All photographs, advertisements and editorial content has been used with permission of the owners and may not be copied, duplicated or reused without written permission. Magazine created and edited for and on behalf of Supercar Driver Limited. Content including words and photographs remains copyright of the original author/photographer and used with permission.

Reach captivating new heights.

The new Continental GT. Now with a V8 engine*. Discover more at www.bentleyleicester.co.uk or call 0116 319 39 69

*The Continental GT V8 is available to order in all markets except EU28, Switzerland, Norway, Ukraine and Turkey. It will be available to order in these markets in Q4, 2019. The name ‘Bentley’ and the ‘B’ in wings device are registered trademarks. © 2019 Bentley Motors Limited. Model shown: Continental GT V8.

BENTLEY LEICESTER

T H E

D E F I N I T I O N

O F

Freedom Miles spends a day with Henryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Car Barn and puts the wild Bowler EXR-S to the test both on and off road. Written by: Miles Lacey

When the Bowler EXR-S erupted onto the scene in 2010 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, it must have felt somewhat out of place. There it was, sitting amongst the supercars showcased by the cabal of effortlessly confident manufactures that dominate this market. After its first run up the hill however, their laurels were well and truly unrested when it embarrassed many of the globe’s staple supercars without so much as a whiff of perspiration. Little did Bowler know at the time that they’d inadvertently built a car that is more relevant today than ever. A car in a niche as narrow as this has no place in the wearied, agonising and socially aware year we’d all love to forget known as 2020, or does it? Not to get too dramatic, but if the world gets a bit too ‘Book of Eli’ for you, then the EXR-S might not actually be so ridiculous after all. With 750Nm of torque and a

pair of Purdeys braced across your back, I suspect you’d sit comfortably at the top of the food chain.

Bowler is no stranger to harsh environments; famed for their impeccably presented Rally Raid racing cars, the small unassuming premises in Derbyshire has been producing custom-made competition cars since the mid-‘80s, with the sole purpose of withstanding any possible terrain the globe has in its arsenal. They’ve successfully competed in legendary events including the Dakar Rally in South America, Baja Aragón in Northern Spain and the Africa Eco Race. These races demand ultimate durability and performance from both the vehicles and their drivers, typically covering 500 to 600 miles per day, traversing unrelenting terrain totalling 6,000 miles at the end of the punishing stages.

It should come as no surprise that the EXR-S doesn’t exactly stray from their purebred pedigree, other than the fact it was developed specifically as a road car. It retains that rugged go-anywhere ethos the race cars are deservedly celebrated for. The numbers are equally as outrageous as its capabilities — 550bhp and 750Nm from a 5.0-litre supercharged V8 to move 1,730kg and an eye-watering £155,000 price tag. When you consider that only six EXR-S were ever commissioned (three right-hand drive and three left-hand drive), all built entirely to each customer’s chosen specification, the level of individuality at that price could almost pass as good value, dare I say. This particular car forms part of an eclectic collection of performance machinery owned by Henry’s Car Barn based in Warwickshire.

Aside from being the final word in boys’ playgrounds, HCB is a bespoke, private club providing high-quality, dehumidified car storage for its members’ pride and joys since 1984. In recent years, it has grown graciously from this to offer a gorgeous launch space for automotive manufacturers, now even boasting a private lounge area complete with memorabilia and a bar to help you disconnect from the outside world for a few hours.

Henry originally commissioned chassis number 3 which was regrettably later sold leaving a significant void in the line-up. Fast forward a few years and chassis number 1 was successfully hunted down and purchased to remain for as long as it lives. I’ll let you into a little secret; we planned to drive this car two weeks prior until we got a call from HCB asking if we could postpone by a couple of weeks. “Of course, but why?”,

we hastened to ask, “I’m having it painted the same colour as my Aventador S, Verde Hydra”. Say no more. The day after it arrived back from paint, we were then ripping it through fields and jumping off driveways much to Henry's enjoyment. Aren’t you glad we waited?

First and foremost, the EXR-S is a road car, a brutish one at that, but it was only fair to begin the drive where it was designed to prosper. There isn’t a single element of the EXR-S that is hushed or humble. You step into the cabin to be greeted by strikes of bright orange from the roll cage and the industrial dashboard with exposed carbon fibre everywhere your eyes fall. That’s not to say there aren’t a few creature comforts robbed directly from the JLR parts bin however. You’ve got a typical set of dials up front with all the useful information including water and oil temperature to keep an eye on that stonking V8,

not forgetting a lovely arrangement of glaring warning lights to tell you the ABS, stability control and essentially every other driving aid is not active.

You take a seat to find a tightly hugging Recaro buckets to find a steering wheel lifted from the Range Rover Sport complete with sixspeed automatic transmission. Beyond the air conditioning that’s like being yawned on by a baby goat and the tiny perspex sliding windows, it’s bare, and hot, very hot. The transmission tunnel acts like your own little personal furnace which, on one of the hottest days of the year, was marvellous.

The cabin itself is teaming with aromatic race car smells, unburnt fuel, hot oil and searing brake pads that sting the nostrils. I strongly believe if you were one of the lucky ones invited for the demonstration over 10 years ago, you’d have already bought the thing before it turned a wheel. You start the engine and the unfiltered rasp of its V8 floods your ear canals to do away with any hope of discreetness it might have possessed.

Moving away is as easy as pulling the lever in to drive and pressing the throttle. Immediately, the distinct lack of soundproofing becomes apparent with stones and road rubble pebbledashing the underneath. Start to push on and the rate it increases speed is addictive, accompanied by the intense soundtrack of its powertrain. On a B road, the only present challenge you’re faced with is not crushing any cars coming the other

way; it’s so wide you feel you’re dominating the entire road space.

Threading it through the narrow lanes of Warwickshire is however, a simply joyous experience. Every facet of its being is an assault on the senses. Cruising at normal road speeds is enough to permanently stitch a wide grin on your face and people stop in their tracks when they see, or most likely hear it approaching. At higher speeds, the steering is somewhat vague which could be attributed to its high-profile tyres, however the grip levels at the front and rear axle are nicely balanced and predictable. With its fixed 50/50 torque split front to rear, there’s no real danger of wildly under or oversteering when you gain enough confidence to open the throttle fully. It was a perfectly dry day it has to be said, so wet handling could well be a different story. My assumption is its mass might be a

challenging aspect, certainly with no ABS to save your bacon.

The body control was a surprising source of entertainment on the day we filmed it. Each time you accelerate or brake hard, it's as if you’ve found yourself on a seesaw. Accelerating closely up to the back of the tracking car was made increasingly difficult by the fact the horizon disappeared before my eyes and I could no longer see our videographer Dan holding the camera out the back of the Golf R. Only when I braked was reasonable vision resumed, then to find him crying with laughter behind the lens at the sheer outrageousness of this car trying to swallow him whole. If there was ever a road-going version of a stadium truck, this is undeniably it.

If there was ever a road-going version of a stadium truck, this is undeniably it.

Separately, the body roll is a stark contrast to the pitch, even on the higher grip surfaces it remained almost perfectly parallel to the road. In that sense, it hides its mass rather well and feels purposeful when changing direction with an instant build in lateral acceleration. I suspect the thought process for this balance in body control and driving dynamics is that the driver doesn’t perceive pitch as much as they do roll angle, which can be unnerving for some. Not bad for something weighing in at nearly two tonnes. With the roads of Warwick well and truly upset by the presence of the Bowler, it was time to venture off the black stuff and employ the full 11 inches of displacement from its bespoke Bilstein dampers. I suspect you’ve all seen the video by now of the EXR-S jumping into a field at 70mph but if you haven’t, I implore you do

so immediately either on Instagram, or for the full video head to YouTube. Its ability to soak up even the most hideous of impacts at high speed seems impossible.

The stage for our off-road testing was part of Henry’s farm, which was deeply rutted and laced with hidden yumps. Covering this type of ground at speeds upwards of 90mph would destroy any less of a machine than this but there appeared to be no obvious boundary which the car wasn’t able to decimate. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying for one minute you could enjoy sipping a glass of champagne in the EXR-S without wearing it, but the range of abilities proper rally dampers possess will forever blow my mind. If road car manufactures apportioned more of their R&D on their suspension and less on the useless tat they assume people want in their

cars nowadays, you’d be reminded how clever suspension engineers really are.

The steering makes more sense off-road; feedback through the wheel is enough to judge your inputs and grip levels, but not so much that you lose the feeling in your hands from the vibrations caused by rattling across rough ground at antisocial speeds. If it was any more detailed, it wouldn’t have added much more to the driver experience. The most surprising of its handling attributes is its balance. Before I’d driven the car, I was ready for it to be more keen to oversteer than it was in reality; it’s far more neutral than expected.

Standing back to look at the car before driving, you see a very short wheelbase from its hydroformed Range Rover Sport chassis and composite body. Short wheelbases are typically associated with somewhat undesirable handling characteristics such as a tendency to oversteer quickly and a pointy or even nervous feel underneath the driver. This absolutely wasn’t the case for the EXR-S. In fact, it required a lot of work from the driver to extract the most out of it. Simply turning in and expecting it to defy the laws of physics and follow your desired path is not the way in this car. You have to work with it and understand more about load transfer and tyre friction circles to really get it to point where you want it to go.

Once you’ve dialled into its nuances, the sum of its parts all start to make sense. Certainly on the road tyres we tested it on, you must give the front axle a fighting chance. Blindly winding the steering lock on and hoping for the best deliverers nothing but terminal understeer which

can be made considerably worse if you deploy all 750Nm. Don’t ask how I know that, but Henry does have some lovely trees around the place!

Instead, you must trail the brakes in, get some load over the front axle until the tyres find the grip. Once the nose is in, don’t expect it to maintain its line either; the inherent balance is much closer to understeer in the conditions we tested it in, so patience with your inputs seems to be the key to mastering the Bowler. It soon became apparent however that the best approach is aggression after trying a number of varying driving styles. I’m certain you’ve all heard of a Scandinavian flick before now? Ordinarily, I wouldn’t advise such vulgar methods for driving but you have to wrestle this thing or it will get the better of you. Upsetting the car by lifting off the throttle far before the corner and generating some inertia, a left-right-left if you will, ensures you have the car at the right attitude for the corner.

Once it’s oversteering, you still have plenty of options. For the tight turns, allow it to tighten its line by staying off the throttle and trimming in a bit of power to straighten it out again. For the faster, more open turns, again allow it to tighten its line, but as soon as you pick your trajectory out of the turn, deploy all 550bhp and 750Nm of torque to fire you out at blistering pace. Seriously, the mid-corner and exit speed defies belief, hence why it was a conscious decision not to look down at the speedometer but concentrate on picking my line through the trees whipping past my peripheral vision. Whilst we’re on the subject of speed, let’s talk 0-60 times, shall we? How does 4.2 seconds sound? Fairly middle of the road nowadays, you say? You’d be right, but don’t forget this car was built over 10 years ago, has an engine that’s essentially 25 years old and has nothing in the way of traction aids apart from its four-wheeldrive system. What’s truly remarkable is that it will do the same both on and off-road!

After fighting the EXR-S all day, I stood graciously in defeat with my head bowed. If I was to pick fault with one thing, it would be the 50/50 torque split. It would have benefitted being slightly more biased to the rear. This is personal preference of course. I suspect however that on off-road tyres, the front axle wouldn’t struggle so much. It was difficult to draw comparisons to anything I’ve possibly driven before. When presenting these thoughts to Henry in a haze of brake fumes from the humongous Brembos and bits of the farm, it transpired we both settled on the same conclusion, there is nothing to compare it to. Sitting in a class of its own, the Bowler is the definition of freedom and no obstacle in its path will stop it. There’s nothing the world needs less than the EXR-S, but to anyone that’s felt incarcerated over the previous few months, I prescribe one full dose of Bowler. Should you ever need to traverse harsh terrain at race car pace, or simply wish to travel as the crow flies when the traffic gets a bit much, you might just make way for all its outrageousness after all. @henryscarbarn

Watch the video on youtube.com

W H E R E LUXU RY S TA RTS , N EC E SS IT Y S TO P S

With over 35 years of experience we can offer everything that is needed when putting your pride and joy away. Based in Warwickshire with easy access off the M4O, M42, M6 and M5 operating over two 15,000 sq ft sheds. We have 2 stores, one dehumidified and the other a general dry store to cater for every level of cover. We have a 20,000 sq ft tarmac yard making unloading and loading extremely easy for car carriers to normal 1 car trailers.

STORAGE

EST. 1984

SECURITY

henryscarbarn.co.uk

Two full time mechanics can cater to all cars needs and a full time valeter can prep cars before going into storage or simply get them ready for a special occasion. 24 hour access 7 days a week allows you to be flexible with letting us know when you want your car out for that glorious December Sunday morning. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any fixed contracts in place allowing you to be in charge of when you want your car back home on the drive.

DETAILING

07771 888 175

LOGISTICS

Henryscarbarn@gmail.com

V A N T A G E

G T 4

If you’re left wanting a little more motorsport from your Aston Martin on track, the Vantage GT4 might just have you covered as a perfect stepping stone into the competitive motorsport arena. The GT4 is a very flexible platform eligible for entry into a whole host of racing series, with customers ranging from gentleman drivers and young racing drivers looking to develop their skills in a cost-effective way, through to the likes of racing schools — they have a fleet of six at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, if you fancy a holiday! The GT4 features a race-modified version of the road car’s 4.0 twin-turbocharged V8. It has about 40bhp less than the road car, but it’s carrying around 200kg less! Specific electronics, suspension, brakes and cooling package on top of the usual safety items such as rollcage, bucket seat and fire extinguisher mean it’s so much more than just a track-focused version of the road car.

It’s a really easy and cost effective car to operate so can happily be driven on track days, but equally it is homologated in GT4 so can be raced around the globe from British GT to Dubai 24 hours and Nürburgring 24 hours.

If you feel the step from having done a few track days to running in a fully-fledged race car is too much for you, the team at JCT600 can also provide a fully tailored support package to facilitate the running of the car, at circuits both in the UK and Europe. To enquire about the GT4, get in touch with Aston Martin Leeds Service Manager James Lowham on 07787 591609. Aston Martin Leeds, Ring Road, Lower Wortley, Leeds LS12 6AA 0113 389 0777 | leeds.astonmartindealers.com

P U R S U I T

O F

P E R F E C T I O N What do you do when you damage the $65,000 paint job on your Porsche 918 Spyder? You ask Topaz Detailing to make it perfect again. Written by: Topaz Detailing

At Topaz Detailing, we are well versed in protecting the best cars in the world from stone chips, scratches and swirl marks with our PPF (paint protection film). However, not every car we work on has been fortunate enough to have had proper protection from new, meaning we sometimes receive cars at our workshop with damaged paintwork. Naturally, it makes no sense to protect already damaged paint; in fact, PPF actually highlights stone chips on a car, making them look even worse. So, what do we do?

Last month, a Porsche 918 Spyder joined us with this exact problem. The owner has enjoyed this car for a number of years now, and has taken it on road trips, under the belief that the camouflage vinyl wrap (pictured) would protect the paint. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Vinyl wrap is not as thick as PPF, and it cannot absorb impact anywhere near as effectively. As a result, when we removed the wrap, we found that the car’s paint was damaged worse than first thought. We asked the customer what he wanted to do, and his answer was to make it perfect again. We are in the business of perfection, so this was music to our ears.

Respraying a hypercar is, however, no simple task. The colour of this 918, Liquid Metal Silver, was a $65,000 option on the car when new from Porsche. With a colour as unique as this, not just any body shop can stand a chance of matching the factory finish. Fortunately, we have years of experience working with cars like this and we’ve actually done paintwork with liquid metal cars before, so we confidently proceeded to prepare the car for our spray booth. As you can see in the photos, we completely stripped back the car, removing all of the panels with damaged paint. The result was a naked 918! Stripping a 918 is not an everyday task, but fortunately we were able to call on our in-house Porsche-certified technician who knows these cars better than anyone. Customer confidence that a car has been reassembled correctly and safely is far more important to us than how a car looks. Our painters primed each panel of the car, before spraying two layers of Liquid Metal Silver and two layers of clear coat to perfectly match the deep, mirror-like factory finish. The process doesn’t stop there though. Next, every panel was flattened and polished by our team of detailers to remove distortions in the clear coat known as orange peel. These distortions are naturally occurring when a car is painted, however, they cause fuzzy reflections which do not do the car justice. Our detailers were able to flatten the clear coat, producing glass-like reflections, better than the day the car left the factory.

Restoring a car’s perfect paint is pointless if it isn’t then protected. After the paint had been allowed to cure, we proceeded to protect every inch of paintwork and carbon fibre. With every car we protect, we cut each section of PPF to fit exactly from our digital database of designs. These designs are done in-house so we know they fit perfectly on the car and wrap around panel edges where possible. This is the only way to guarantee the maximum protection and best look, without risking damage to the car. Finally, we applied Acid Green accents to the car to complete the look, and ceramic coated over the PPF to repel water and dirt, making it easier to maintain. We hope you will agree that the results are stunning. The car has now returned to Monaco and the customer is already sending us his next car. Thank you to the owner for allowing us to share his beautiful Porsche. If you’re interested in seeing more of this cosmetic restoration, check out our YouTube video which documents the whole process! @topazdetailing

Watch their video on youtube.com

Enhance WITH TOPAZ VEHICLE DETAILING Our exclusive detailing services offer the full spectrum of treatments for the restoration, enhancement, preservation and ongoing maintenance.

Protect WITH TOPAZ PAINT PROTECTION With our custom design paint protection film we can cover any painted, carbon fiber or smooth finished surface of the car, even interior trims.

Maintain WITH TOPAZ CAR CARE Our maintenance washes are a crucial part of maintaining the integrity of Your treatment.

Customize WITH TOPAZSKIN Our revolutionary new protection and customisation product is a peelable colour change paint protection spray.

London

Bristol

020 8961 9951 london@topazdetailing.com

0117 456 4993 bristol@topazdetailing.com

CHILDHOOD

DREAM

Ever since having the Countach poster on his bedroom wall, SCD member Kev had to have a Lambo. We speak with him about what it was like to finally buy the real thing. Where did your passion for cars come from?

I’ve always been a car fan, but my dad buying an M5 when I was around 16 or 17 was what really sparked my interest in the fast and exotic. My first fast car was an AMG Merc which helped me accumulate nine points in six months due to my heavy right foot, but a Lambo was always the car I aspired to from the days of the Countach poster on my bedroom wall (alongside a now infamous poster of a lady tennis player!). I just love the Lambo ‘LOOK AT ME’ styling. Don’t get me wrong, I love driving Ferraris, McLaren’s and so on, but they just don’t grab me in the same way.

Was the Huracan your first supercar?

Yes, the first of what I hope will be many supercars. The Huracan came about almost by accident, or was it fate? My wife and I had been away to Cambridge for a long weekend and were driving back via Leicester. We (well I) decided to drop into the Lamborghini dealership there just for a look. As we walked in, there she was, a Verde Mantis Huracan Coupe. My wife was dressed in green and it seemed like an omen. Anyway, 15 minutes later, I was in the car having a test drive. The noises the car made under acceleration and when lifting off the loud pedal meant I had to have it. So, long story short, a week later, I was picking the car up and driving her home. Cars are ‘her’ right?

If you remember I said I like the ‘LOOK AT ME’ styling. Well, on the way home in the car I knew I’d made the right choice. I’d never had so many people pull alongside me to take photos. We even had an ambulance driver beg us to rev her at the traffic lights. Every time I park somewhere I have young boys, and the odd girl, ask if they can have a look. I even had a queue of local kids in the village where I live all wanting rides in it after I offered one to one of the fathers who asked. That was a fun day. How many times can you answer, “How fast is it?”, or, “How much did it cost?”, or, “Is it a Ferrari?”? Had to bite my tongue at the last one.

What drew you to the Huracan?

As I mentioned from the poster on the wall days, when the opportunity presented itself, it was always going to be a Lambo. My original intention was to buy a Countach or a Diablo and live out my boyhood fantasies, but as it was my first supercar, I really wanted something I could drive often and not be worrying about it. So, with my love of all things Lambo, it just seemed the logical choice. In my view, the Aventador is just that little less usable on a daily basis, although the Aventador certainly has even more ‘LOOK AT ME’, especially in SVJ form! Lamborghini Leicester have been excellent from day one, particularly after-sales, so much so that I didn’t hesitate to extend the warranty via them for another year, even though I had zero issues with the car, well, apart from having to fill it up with fuel way too often.

Tell us about the spec.

The car was four years old with 13,000 miles when I bought it. The colour is Verde Mantis, and that’s what I love about Lamborghini. They don’t just have ‘bright green’ — so much more exotic. The interior is fairly standard. No extra carbon bits, but it does have green stitching on the seats to ensure you can remember what colour the outside is. I also love the fact the dials are all in Italian. I had the race exhaust fitted after about four months. I mean, the standard sports exhaust is just too quiet, although I avoid starting it up too early in a morning now! I also had PPF on the front end — I’m not sure if I’d do that again or not.

What is it like to drive?

It’s quick, what more is there to say? It’s not the 0-60 time, although at circa 3 seconds, it’s rapid. It’s more the fact the thing keeps on pulling forever. I run out of gentlemen jewels well before it runs out of pull. In Corsa mode (Lamborghini for track and my default drive mode), the gear changes are just brutal and the grip simply immense. I can’t imagine ever pushing hard enough to lose traction. Oh, and those carbon ceramic brakes!

As for sound, “Pardon, I can’t hear you!”, is something I get a lot when talking to passengers. The race exhaust pops like a machine gun, and my favourite pastime is windows down through a tunnel, dropping gears and letting her wail. I haven’t really driven anything else for long enough to compare. Although the 720S I test drove did feel altogether more planted, I can forgive that when the V10 in the Huracan makes such sweet music.

What’s it like to live with?

I’ve added around 4,500 in the last 12 months and it has never missed a beat. Fuel goes without saying at circa 12-14mpg. I was due a major service last year at around £2,000 which I thought wasn’t bad to be fair. Other than insurance with is on par with my Tesla, there have been no other costs so far.

As mentioned earlier, it is an eye-catcher and an ear basher, so you can’t sneak in anywhere, but I do get a lot of, “Park it out front sir, no need to put that in the car park”.

When did you join SCD?

I didn’t know anything about the club until Lamborghini Leicester recommended First Point Insurance who kindly sorted my membership. I’m so pleased they did and I’ve just renewed for another year. I’ve been to some of the breakfast meets and the Tom Hartley Jnr and senior events. The two that stand out for me are Coventry MotoFest (boy those chicanes appear quickly at full tilt!) and Father’s Day at The Priory — wow, what a collection of cars and what a venue. I’d like to do one of the tours at some point, but work is still pretty busy so that might be a year or two away. I love access to other cars I’ll likely never own or perhaps never see otherwise, the 250 GTO at Tom Hartley Jnr for example. Also, the friends we have made in the short time we have been members are a great bonus too.

What’s next, is the Huracan a keeper?

Yes 100%. It may get used less as time goes on, but I can see me keeping it long term. I still want to scratch the Countach or Diablo itch at some point, and also, I can’t help feeling I should let a Ferrari into my life at some point just to be able to say yes to passengers when they ask, “Is it a Ferrari?”.

LAMBORGHINI LEICESTER Authorised Dealer

Lamborghini Leicester Watermead Business Park, Leicester, LE7 1PF Phone 0116 319 39 69 leicester.lamborghini

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Fuel economy and CO2 results for the Maserati Levante V6 range in mpg (l/100km) combined: 21.1 (13.4) to 31.0 (9.1). CO2 emissions: 303 - 238 g/km. Figures shown are for comparability purposes; only compare fuel consumption and CO2 figures with other cars tested to the same technical procedures. These figures may not reflect real life driving results, which will depend upon a number of factors including the accessories fitted (post-registration), variations in weather, driving styles and vehicle load.

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House of the Prancing Horse SCD member James welcomes us into his Ferrari-themed and Ferrari-filled garage to talk about his passion for the Italian brand. Written by: Matt Parker

They say variety is the spice of life, but in most car collections, some level of brand loyalty is usually present. I’m open to most cars, but usually find myself drawn to Porsches, there are die-hard Lambo fans, and more recently those who have been bitten by the McLaren bug, but the brand which undeniably attracts the most burning passion of all from its fans is Ferrari. SCD member James is one of those Ferrari fanatics, and his garage expresses the extent of his love for the brand and their cars, so we spent a day with him to find out where it all started. “My passion for Ferrari started when I was younger at school”, James tells us, “There used to be a guy with a 355 Spider who used to drive past the bus stop every morning, and that was the start of it really”. With the passion ignited from a young age, James bought his first Ferrari when he was just 22 years old, “It was a 430 in red with Crema Daytona seats”.

Nowadays, the passion has snowballed into the collection you see today, focusing mostly on

Ferrari’s generations of lightweight V8 models. “I’ve had the Challenge Stradale since nearly new. I actually sold a Challenge Stradale and then bought one back again, which wasn’t my finest business move seeing as I sold it for a lot less money than I bought it for, and then bought one back for a lot more than they were at list, so that was that”, he laughs. “The 430 16M is one of my real favourites. I’ve had that since nearly new as well, then the Speciale came, and then the Pista which is obviously the latest one”.

As you can see, it isn’t just the cars expressing James’ love of all things Ferrari, his garage would leave you in no doubt even if it wasn’t filled with Modena’s finest. “The garage was built to take six cars but unfortunately it didn’t go quite to plan”, he explains, “The builder took the external measurements, not the internal measurements, so it’s 30mm short of taking another car!”. “The garage was originally carpeted inside, but obviously the carpet started to get mucky when cars were coming in from being used in

the wet, so I saw a flooring company called Garage Style, and they did the design, they put the flooring down, we repainted the walls and had the signage made. I went to an SCD event at an RAF base for the Red Arrows and they took some great pictures that day, and I managed to get that put onto wallpaper for the print you see at the back”.

Amongst the red V8s in the garage, a blue V12 certainly stands out as a bit different, so we ask James to explain the 812. “The 812 has just joined and I’ve fallen in love with them. It’s a fantastic car and you’ve still got that normally-aspirated sound which is something I miss on the Pista. I‘ve never been a huge fan of V12 Ferraris but now I’m starting to become a massive fan of them. I was always for the mid-engined V8s, especially the lightweight versions, but I’ve subsequently fallen in love with the V12s as well, which could be a problem!”, he laughs.

Being the latest of the lightweight bunch, we moved onto the Pista next. “The Pista is amazing, and the Pista Spider is on its way which I’m really lucky to get. The Pista has done quite a few miles now, I wouldn’t know exactly but it’s done a few thousand. Most of them have been track days or driving in Europe on the SCD tour, and we also went down to Heveningham which was great, and I managed to win the hillclimb in the Pista which was fantastic!”. The sad part of so many collections is the lack of use they get, so where does James stand on that? “I believe in using all my cars. If I wanted to collect something you can’t use, I’d collect art. There’s nothing greater than sharing the cars with myself and with other people as well. It’s great to use them on the road and let other people see them, charity events for people to see them and sit in them. It’s great, it’s lovely to share”.

I think we can all agree that’s the embodiment of SCD; having a passion, using and enjoying the cars the way they were intended to be, and sharing the passion with others too, and what a collection it is to share! @jamesnicholls85

Watch the video on youtube.com

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A NEW ERA Tired of dealer politics and a relentless focus on profit from the big brands, Chris Lee thinks now could be the time for the independent manufacturers to make up ground. Written by: Chris Lee

Ayrton Senna is reported to have said, “You cannot overtake 15 cars in sunny weather, but you can when it’s raining. It’s raining heavily now”. This feels like a useful way to think about the automotive industry post-Covid and the opportunity for smaller manufacturers to start overtaking the frontrunners. Many long-serving clients of the established supercar brands, including myself, have increasingly questioned the logic and value of how the factories and dealer networks have treated us in recent years. We’re now all too familiar with the requirement to buy cars we don’t want in order to one day be honoured with an allocation to purchase a car that we do. Suffering this approach, alongside the illogical and rampant release of more and more new models, has resulted in many clients understandably looking elsewhere for their supercar and hypercar fix. For years now, I’ve wondered what event could accelerate a shift in buying habits away from the establishment and more towards the up-and-coming independent manufacturers. Using the Senna quote, when would it start ‘raining heavily’? The post-Covid fallout certainly looks as though the heavens have opened and the new supercar market is about to get soaked. A combination of general consumer apathy around the new car line-up from the leading brands, alongside the fact that you can buy any of their latest models at below list price from independent dealers, has removed the buzz around these brands and certainly removed any logic from making such expensive investments.

I hope this leads to a new era of how people think about buying exciting cars. While the leading manufacturers have long forgotten that their brand was built on delivering value to the customer, not the shareholder,

we have a wave of innovative and service-orientated companies we can safely turn to. We have passionate independent businesses, building cars that offer value for money, a controlled product release cycle and limited production volumes, so we know we have something special.

The irony is that none of this business model is complicated, but with the big boys focused on scale at all costs, an incredible breed of brands are about to start overtaking and pushing for podium positions. Whether it's Pagani, Brabham, BAC, Eagle, Singer, Koenigsegg, Evoluto, Gordon Murray Automotive, Dallara, DeTomaso or Rimac, we have a lot to be excited about at all ends of the spectrum. More to the point, if you’re in the market for something special, then you have every reason to divert your eyes away from the box-standard and traditional purchase and invest your time, effort and money into something altogether different. It’s also worth bearing in mind too, that the teenagers of today and therefore the car buyers of tomorrow are already way ahead of us. Their poster cars aren’t from the same brands as ours once were. In 10 years time, when they’re in the fortunate position to follow their own passion and buy the car of their dreams, it might not be from the brands that dominate today. Therefore, long-term value will come from what we currently think of as outliers. It will come from innovative and groundbreaking brands, not from the established status quo. I for one am looking forward to watching this particular race unfold.

Summer Hotlist

Tom from Romans International discusses the 10 most sought-after cars on the market this summer, from a family estate to one of the rarest hypercars of them all. Written by: Tom Jaconelli

It feels like our summer has been cut short this year having spent the early months in lockdown, but if anything, all this has done is remind us just how much we missed buying, owning and driving supercars and it’s no surprise there has been such a surge of activity in the market since lockdown measures have been eased. Of course you’ll be asking yourselves what you should buy next, so we’ve once again put together a list of what we believe are the hottest cars on the market this summer.

Audi RS6 Vorsprung

Sneaking onto our list is the newest generation of everyone’s favourite estate car, the Audi RS6. Often described as a supercar wrapped up in an estate body, the latest RS6 doesn’t veer too far away from its winning formula, combining menacing but understated looks with incredible performance and bags of practicality. Go for the Vorsprung spec to ensure the car is fully loaded with extras. It remains the best reason not to buy an SUV!

Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro

The regular AMG GT R has become one of the best value supercars on the market today, but if you want something a bit more exclusive then you can go for the new GT R Pro version which is

built in very limited numbers and benefits from extra power, improved technology and all the latest interior upgrades. The decals only add further character to this first-class package.

Ford GT

We chose the Ford GT as our number one last year, and whilst there are a few more examples around, it remains a highly sought-after model which is still commanding huge premiums over what they cost new. There is nothing else quite like it and watching the Ford vs Ferrari film earlier this year somehow adds further desirability and racing pedigree to this celebrated American model.

Lamborghini Aventador SVJ

The SVJ was followed this year by the SVJ Roadster, and whilst they were initially selling for premiums, over the last 12 months, SVJ values have come tumbling down so picking one up second-hand rather than buying brand new would have been a shrewd move. The Huracan Performante remains a fantastic choice for those in the market for a Lamborghini but the SVJ is levels above, and especially now with the Roadster version, the SVJ has to be seen as the hottest Lambo in town.

Porsche 991 Speedster

The GT3 and GT3 RS might remain the purist’s choice, but many Porsche enthusiasts have often dreamt of an open-top GT car and Porsche have delivered it in style with the 991 Speedster. Whilst there are several now on the market, you are still going to have to pay a sizeable premium to buy one this summer, especially if you want the Heritage Design Package.

Porsche Taycan Turbo S

One of the most anticipated cars of the year was undoubtedly the Porsche Taycan as Porsche took aim at Tesla with the launch of their first all-electric car. With deliveries starting to trickle through before and after lockdown, the feedback we’ve been getting from clients has been exceptional, in particular the frankly ridiculous performance of the Turbo S variant which is sure to leave plenty of petrol-powered supercars in its wake.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

The latest in a long line of mid-engine V8 Ferraris, the F8 Tributo has replaced the 488 with a fresh new look and various improvements. Named as a tribute car and with design cues taken from the F40 and 288 GTO, this could

well be the last in this model line before Ferrari move to a hybrid powertrain. There is always something special about having the latest Ferrari on your drive and this summer will be no different.

Ferrari 488 Pista

Whilst the F8 Tributo might well be the latest Ferrari, we believe it’s the 488 Pista which still appears to be the more sought-after model and the hottest Ferrari on the road right now. With plenty of examples on the market to choose from in both coupe and Spider variants and prices inching back towards list price, the 488 Pista will be the top of many people’s wish lists this summer.

McLaren Speedtail

There is no denying that the hottest car in the world this summer is the McLaren Speedtail. The spiritual successor to the McLaren F1 with its central driving position and a truly awe-inspiring design which looks like nothing else on the road, McLaren have created something extraordinary with the Speedtail. With only 106 examples to be built worldwide, this is going to be one of the rarest hypercars of modern times and we’ve already been quoted some unbelievable premiums showing just how hard it’s going to be to prize one out of the original allocations. @romansinternational

Porsche 992 Turbo S

The Porsche 992 seems to have taken the world by storm, and up until now, we had only seen the Carrera and Carrera S models. The Turbo S has long been considered the best everyday supercar and anticipation has been huge for the 992 version. With factory closures during lockdown causing many orders to be delayed, we’ve taken a huge amount of enquiries from people looking for the 992 Turbo S, but so far they have been very difficult to get hold of.

Who are you and what do you do?

We catch up with marketing executive Matthew HeatonWatts from SCD’s latest dealer partner, Baytree Prestige & Performance, to find out about their history, what they do best and of course to chat cars.

Baytree is a family-run, independent dealership with decades of experience in prestige and performance cars. Our motto is that we offer a fresh and better alternative to main dealers. We have a lot of people come to us saying how bad their experiences were with main dealers, but we want to be different. We’re the type of company that will not disregard the customer after we’ve completed the sale. We recently had a regular customer interested in a DB11 we had in stock, so we let him use the car for a week to see how he liked living with it. It’s all about that customer relationship for us.

Tell us about your history.

Director Chris McDermott started as a salesman in the early ‘90s and climbed his way to senior management within the BMW Group. He decided to go solo in 2006 by selling a few cars from his house before acquiring an office at Donington Park, then moving on to our current showroom 6 years ago. He wanted to offer a more transparent and personal approach and use his years of experience to offer his clients the best possible experience.

We now have another director Stephen Pinchbeck, who came on board after buying some cars from us. He has brought his 30 years of experience in running a number of different businesses to Baytree and brought investment to take the company to a new level.

Chris’ son Myles McDermott got involved in the finance side when he left uni after watching his father develop the company in the early days. Stephen also brought his son Max into the business and even the detailing team are brothers, so we’re very family-orientated. We all previously knew each other and we’re a tight-knit team, so taking on a new employee can be a bit of a challenge, although we have recently taken on a new sales executive who was with Porsche for over 30 years. He’s a good friend of Chris and he will be getting involved soon. We all have a different passion for cars. Operations manager Tim Hodgson is all about Le Mans and F1, technician Jacob Fraggot is all about Subarus, Skylines, all the Fast and the Furious scene, and I’m all about the modern McLarens, Lamborghinis and Ferraris, so we all have our own area of a shared passion.

What sort of cars do you tend to stock?

We always like to stock the newest and most desirable cars. Our bread and butter is highperformance saloons like BMW M cars, SUVs like Range Rovers and even hot hatches like RS3s and A45s.

When it comes to supercars, we want great specs, low mileage and excellent condition. We currently have an Arancio Triplo Strato (triplelayer orange) 488 Spider which really caught our interest as you don’t see many orange Ferraris. We also get the occasional weird part exchange, but that’s a rarity. My favourite from our current stock is the 430 Scuderia. We seem to attract these for some reason having sold seven of them, our most recent finished in Nero Daytona. This particular car came in part exchange against a customers yellow 488 GTB, so that will be quite a change for the owner. I’m also a big M car fan and I love the two M4 CS we currently have, they’re mad cars.

Current stock aside, can you pick an ultimate three-car garage?

SLS Black Series in Solarbeam Yellow, Zonda Cinque and it’s got to be an LFA.

Tell us about your new partnership with SCD.

I’m all over social media so I’ve known about you guys from a long time. All the young guys in the office would be talking about a car from your page and over time, Chris started to catch wind about it and asked what it was all about. We sold SCD member Nigel (aka Supercar Nigel) his famous Lava Orange GT3 RS, so it was great to see that car being used at so many of your events on social media. Now we’re officially on board, we want to get involved and attend loads of events ourselves and ultimately hold an event here to show you all what we’re about. It will be great to meet so many of you who share our passion — could there be a better networking platform?

Any plans for the future?

We intend to expand the showroom itself with more space to showcase our cars. We’ve also recently taken on another 7,000 sq ft warehouse just behind our base where all the bigger cars will live along with the valeting and detailing area. That used to be next to the main showroom, but we don’t exactly want a customer to turn up and get sprayed with snow foam! We’ve invested a lot into the detailing aspect to make sure that our cars are absolutely spot on when they leave, better than you would get from main dealers.

We’re in the process of acquiring a new truck and enclosed trailer to deliver cars as we’ve of course done plenty of contactless collections and deliveries during lockdown. We’re currently stocking around 40 to 50 cars and we’d like to get that up towards 80 to 100, but also increase our range of stock as well to include more, limited-run, unique supercars. There’s a lot of competition out there, but our aim will always be to do things right and provide a better experience than a main dealer. @baytreecars

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Undeserving star or drivers car? Everyone loves a silver DB5, but is this a overhyped classic GT living off its bond credentials or is it worthy of its fame? Written by: Jonty Wydell

You can imagine how quickly my hand shot up in the air whilst I excitedly squeaked “pick me, oh please pick ME!!” during a newly fashionable Covid Zoom meeting when the car on offer was a Silver Berch, Aston Martin DB5! The king of all Bond cars and one of my favourite cars ever built. This specific DB5 belonged to supercar collector Pete who had only recently generously loaned us his BMW M2 and McLaren 675LT from his rather enviable stable. Even though this drive was going to fulfil a long standing wannabe Bond fantasy I was keen to find out if the car lived up to its stardom. These cars have seen a massive rise in value over the years, arguably some of this is down to the Bond relationship, since bursting onto our screens back in the 1964 film Goldfinger. So, is the car's value and status over inflated due to its stardom or is there actually a lot more to the DB5? Before driving the car I tried to do a bit of research, in my usual way, and turned to YouTube, but found that pretty much all of the videos on there were of the Bond car and concentrated on its gadgets, therefore I felt it would be nice to actually review the DB5 for the car it is, rather than its famous role. I would be starting from scratch with this one!

The first thing I realised when driving this DB5 is that it isn’t anywhere near as fast as it looks in the movies. There is no way it would keep up with even what would be considered a slow modern classic supercar like the F355, as it so famously did in the intro of the Goldeneye film. This particular DB5 had been tweaked up to ‘Vantage’ spec. Only 65 DB5 Vantages were made and whilst this was not one of them I would happily argue it was actually better. Rather than the standard 4 litre aluminium straight-six engine, Pete's has been increased to a 4.2 litres and came with triple weber carbs (phoar). The standard car would put out 282bhp back in the day, whereas this one is closer to 325bhp. So as soon as I gave the car its first squirt it was noticeably brisk! This car has uprated suspension too, with stiffer springs and new uprights, meaning it’s a bit less wallowy than not only a standard DB5 but most GT cars from the time. I've been lucky enough to drive a few supercars from this period and this felt noticeably tight on its steering when turning that big wooden steering wheel synonymous with cars of this period. The steering is light, thanks to new Borriani power steering, all of this was installed as part of a restoration costing upwards of £400,000.

Don’t get me wrong, despite these modifications, any of the latest hot hatches of similar power output such as a Honda Civic would eat it for breakfast on the twisty B roads I was enjoying. But lets face it, you don’t drive a DB5 to set fast lap times: you drive a DB5 because it is an icon of beauty!

The DB5 gets a reaction like nothing else Ive ever driven. Looking at peoples faces, it doesn’t appear to give the wow factor that a supercar causes from its ‘in yer face’ looks. People's jaws simply drop whilst nudging the person nearest to them as if someone famous had just walked past. I was actually envious of the passers by that day as they could appreciate the sight and sounds of this beautiful curvaceous car being driven, although I would not have exchanged my incredible and fortunate experience behind its wheel! It really is one of the most beautiful cars ever made, on par with any of the offerings from Italy of the same period. There is a reason for that, this quintessentially British icon was designed by Italian design house, Carozzoria Touring Superleggera.

The body isn’t just pretty to look at either, it was made from a magnesium alloy, so it’s light with the whole car weighing around 1500kg. There's other technology in there too, such as electric windows - not too shabby for a car that was introduced in 1963.

Earlier in the day when Pete had handed me the keys there had been the usual pointers about the car's various quirks and then quite a strong word that should I crash the car in any way, not to even dare return with it as believe it or not he was actually entrusting me with what had been his wedding car and any damage would result in him having me shot! However, he did also insist that I gave the car a good thrashing. Not something you usually hear when being handed the keys to a classic car valued well in excess of £1 million!

Finding a quiet road in the Peak District and feeling a bit more comfortable with the car, I pressed on, winding up the revs and hearing the most glorious induction noise from those triple Webers. The lightweight body lends itself to a well balanced car with very little body roll considering the height of the DB5. When approaching bends, although this car has bigger brakes from a DB4 GT, engine braking is still required, but the pedal setup is perfect for toe-and-healing on the approach before hurling it in with the accurate steering. The straightline speed was more than plentiful when the world's population of elderly drivers descended on the road ahead and required overtaking! The old thin, high profile tyres on the DB5 give a reasonable amount of grip, but I soon felt a tad uneasy due to the sidewalls flexing a little. But after a few tense moments it becomes just another minor quirk.

Making it to the end of the road in one piece, I found that the experience had been both terrifying but extremely satisfying. Too often you can drive a modern supercar at high speed in the countryside and the only fear is whether you’ll aquire a speeding ticket . The DB5 sets the pulse racing in ultimate style. What an experience it was to push this car like I had seen so many times in Bond films. So, in answer to my original question, yes, the Aston Martin is most definitely deserving of its high price tag. Strip away the Bond relationship and you are left with one of the prettiest cars ever made which, when driven hard to a magnificent sound-track, ensures a sublimely rewarding experience. @2manycars_official

Watch the video on youtube.com

...you don’t drive a DB5 to set fast lap times: you drive a DB5 because it is an icon of beauty!

EM Rogers

We catch up with our transportation partner EM Rogers to talk about 75 years of moving some of the most exclusive cars across the globe.

Tell us about EM Rogers, who are you and what do you do?

We are a family-run transport business based in Northampton. We like to think of ourselves as a one-stop shop for vehicle movement and care, owning and operating 75 trucks, 55 of which are enclosed car transporters, collecting and delivering all types of precious vehicles throughout the UK and Europe and providing a global door-to-door sea freight and air freight service.

We also have a fully secure, indoor car storage facility for over 350 vehicles. We are incredibly proud of our brick-built multi-decked stores, all of which have been purpose-designed and fitted to enable us to provide a full range of service options to our customers such as valeting, inspections and vehicle repairs.

Tell us about the history of the company.

The company was established by Edward Rogers, a farmer by profession, in 1945, when a local company asked him to transport some goods for them. He bought a lorry, completed the move, and they then used EM Rogers for the next 30 years!

When Edward sadly died in 1966, his wife Nancye took over for some eight years until their children, John and David, were old enough to join the business. John and David, now managing directors, have worked in the business for nearly 50 years and are the heart and backbone of the company. The third generation, Edward, Lucy and Sarah, are also fully involved in the running and managing of the business. We now employ close on 100 people and operate out of a nineacre site in Northamptonshire. We live and breathe transport and love building long-term relationships with all our customers.

This year is our 75th year. Unfortunately, celebrations will now be a little bit more muted than we would have originally liked and planned!

Where do you operate?

We go anywhere! By road, we go further than nearly any other UK company. We travel well into the Arctic Circle as part of manufacturer winter testing, and in the summer, we deliver to locations as far afield as Morocco. Oh, and we go everywhere in between too!

As mentioned, we also provide door-to-door global shipping, which means we can transport your vehicle anywhere in the world, either by sea or air freight, depending on your requirements. We will take care of all road transport, handling, documentation and customs clearance to make it an easy and hassle-free service for all our customers, wherever the car is going or coming from, across the globe.

Who are your typical clients?

We have a really broad range of customers, which hopefully shows the quality of service that we offer. Our drivers are all fully employed and trained in-house so they are experts in the safe loading and unloading of anything from a 1925 Rolls Royce to a brand new McLaren. We work for the manufacturers at the preproduction stage and are the recommended transport provider for nearly all the UK’s main auction houses. We work with sales companies and private individuals ranging from the rich and the famous to the elderly gentleman whose car is his life’s work and great love. We treat everybody the same, focusing on high-quality, efficient and friendly service to make things as easy as possible for the customer.

What is your most memorable job?

One of the most memorable jobs has to be transporting 10 Ferrari 250 GTOs down to the Ferrari 70th anniversary at Maranello a couple of years ago. The vehicles were shipped and air freighted to the UK from all over the world. We stored them in the run-up to the event, and then transported them down to Italy in our enclosed car transporters.

When we advised our insurers that we would be transporting loads with a combined value close on £600 million, we were met with stunned silence for a good few minutes! We successfully took the vehicles down, brought them back post-event and then we shipped and air freighted them back to their owners. I don’t think it’s possible to ever have a more valuable load!

What jobs have you done with SCD?

We have carried out local and international transport for many SCD members and supported SCD tours several times. We will also be carrying out the transport for the European tours arranged for later this year and next year. After the last few months, we can’t wait to have more trucks back on the open road, taking your vehicles to where they need to be. It’s going to be fantastic to join you on tour!

What is the most valuable car you have transported?

We could tell you, but we would have to kill you! Well in excess of £50 million.

How will your partnership with SCD benefit SCD members?

We will provide SCDs members with a reliable, friendly and hassle-free service, making their lives easier so they can concentrate on the fun bit, driving their car! We are providing all SCD members with a discount on both storage and transport, making our industry-leading services even better value.

Any plans going forward?

Well, like most people, our plans have been completely decimated this year! All the events, shows, tours and festivals we would have been supporting and transporting vehicles to have been cancelled, much of the vehicle testing we are involved with has been put on hold and our own 75th anniversary celebrations have also been cancelled. We also have Brexit looming on the horizon which will impact international travel. So, while there are very few ‘concrete’ plans in place at the moment, we are committed to providing an excellent, reactive and reliable service in all vehicle transport and vehicle care areas for our customers. @emrtransport

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Written by: Matt Parker

Matt gets his hands on Porscheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first fully-electric car, the Taycan Turbo, to find out how the future looks for petrolheads.

The Future?

As the world becomes ever more environmentally conscious, car manufacturers must meet tightening CO2 regulations, newfangled filters dampen engine sounds and a total ban on the sale of internal combustion cars is on the horizon, so it feels like our shared passion of speed has its days numbered. Of course, we’re not going to ditch our cars and go back to horse and carriage, but at the same time, people like us would need a gun to our heads to get behind the wheel of a Nissan Leaf. More and more manufacturers are trying their hand at electrification, and Tesla even gave us lunatics some hope with their ludicrously fast offerings which quite a few SCD members run every day, but perhaps it’s one of the last companies you’d expect to make a fully-electric car who can give us hope for a truly exciting sports car of the future.

Porsche is no stranger to upsetting purists. Hell, even daring to give the 911 water cooling was met with as much outrage as a Trump tweet, and then of course they rubbed salt in the aircooled wounds, tarnishing the thoroughbred sports car brand with a gaudy SUV! Alas, time goes on, angry people on forums crawl back into their holes and it becomes clear that water cooling hardly ruins the scintillating GT3 RS, the Cayenne is actually a bloody brilliant car to run about in every day and even Lamborghini now offer a well-received SUV, but is electrification a step too far?

Well, it seems Porsche’s first fully-electric car has been met with surprisingly open arms from enthusiasts and I’ve heard very few cries of sacrilege. It all started with the Mission E concept in 2015, and now, five years later, the production Taycan (pronounced ‘tie-can’) refreshingly retains much of the concept car’s futuristic styling. We’ve been waiting to get our hands on one for a while given the enormous hype surrounding it, and thanks to our friends at Porsche Centre Sheffield, we’ve finally managed to do just that.

Let me just touch on the styling again before we get going as I think this is a fantastic looking car in the flesh. It has great road presence and manages to be something totally new while being unmistakably Porsche. It looks especially great on the 21-inch Mission E wheels too. Inside, the theme of totally new but unmistakably Porsche continues, with a familiar steering

wheel and rising centre console architecture, but everything else is a screen. In fact, if you option in the passenger display, there are four huge screens in front of you. I’m not a big fan of touch screens in cars, but it’s easy to configure everything how you want it so it’s all intuitive and within easy reach, and the whole interior is put together solidly and covered in smooth stitched leather, as you’d expect from a top-end Porsche.

Anyway, time for what we’re all here for. The first quirk is the start/stop button which is simply a big power symbol like you’d find on a Playstation, the second quirk is the total lack of noise after you press it. The stubby gear selector from the 992 is mounted on the dash, and once you select drive, you’re good to go. Starting out in its normal setting, it’s almost silent bar a slight whir from the electric motors, and the air suspension gives an amazingly smooth ride given the 21-inch wheels we’re riding on. It really is a joy to drive through the city, in fact, I think even the likes of Bentley owners would be impressed. It’s serene and relaxing with no vibrations or gear changes, and it’s incredibly easy.

With central Sheffield out of the way, we’re on the edge of the Peak District ready to find out what the Taycan is like by SCD standards. Now is probably the time to mention that this is one of the fast ones, the Taycan Turbo. I know that just raised a few eyebrows as it obviously doesn’t have a turbo, but rather than delve too deep into the whole Turbo debate that started when every 911 became a turbo but the Turbo is still called a Turbo, let’s just say that in Porsche’s line-up these days, Turbo just means ‘the fast one’.

And if there’s one thing the Taycan Turbo is, it’s fast! We have 500Kw (or 671bhp in old money) and a colossal 850Nm torque on offer from the electric motors, and it’s all there, all the time, from zip. No waiting for boost, no waiting for the revs, no having to be in the right gear, it just goes. There’s an even more powerful Turbo S model if you’re really unhinged and a slightly more sensible 4S model with a mere 523bhp. For this one, 0-60 is taken care of in 3 seconds flat, and it has the lowest drag coefficient of any current Porsche which helps give a top speed of 162mph — pretty impressive for an electric car.

To put those numbers into context, it’s gutpunching fast. On one occasion, I pulled a face like I’d just dropped off the edge on Oblivion at Alton Towers, and when I did two launch control runs in a row for the accompanying video for our YouTube channel, I genuinely felt a little queasy given the assault on my organs. It doesn’t keep going and going like a truly fast internal combustion motor, but it doesn’t die off as much as electric cars of old, and I’ve never known overtaking be quite so effortless.

In Sport Plus mode, the acceleration is accompanied by the Electric Sport Sound, a £354 option on all but the Turbo S. I can see this being a controversial one, but again most people I’ve heard from seem to accept it for what it is and think it’s actually quite cool. If you haven’t seen our video yet, the best idea I can give you is that I call it The Jetsons sound! It’s strange, it’s futuristic, and whilst it certainly ain’t like a GT3 at 4,000 revs, never mind 9,000, it is at least pretty amusing.

The elephant in the room, which is quite an appropriate saying for this, is weight. The Turbo weighs in at 2.3 tonnes, over 100kg more than a Cayenne Turbo! Unlike the Cayenne though, most of that weight is under the floor, so centre of gravity is actually very good and you can really feel that through corners. This is an electric car that wants to be driven. In fact, the handling feels like pure witchcraft; there’s superb grip from the front, surprisingly little roll for such a big car and it just feels unflappably planted, with the four-wheel-drive system providing mega traction out of bends. I remember saying to Riad that it’d be a hard car to keep up with over a twisty road given just how accessible the performance is. Obviously the steering is electric and obviously it doesn’t feel like an old 911, but it has typical Porsche weight to it and it’s super direct.

The one area where the weight rears its head is under braking. The Turbo model comes with Porsche’s Surface Coated brakes, which, without getting technical, are a half-way house between the standard steels you get on the 4S and the carbon ceramics standard on the Turbo S, which are available as a £4,200 option on the Turbo. The brakes are massive; 10 piston calipers and 415mm discs up front, and they do have great stopping power, but you can really feel the mass you’re trying to reign in, especially given the speeds you can so easily reach. This means that, rather than flowing through the twisties like a Cayman, the process is more turn, flat out thrust into your seat, hard on the brakes and repeat. It makes the experience surprisingly full-on for a luxury car with no noise, you just have to keep in mind how much you always need to slow it down after hitting the throttle. List price for the Turbo is a smidge under £116,000 and this one has a fair few options taking that up to £130,000, so it’s extremely serious money, and realistically it’s probably aimed at those who also have internal combustion sports cars in their stable. The 4S comes in £30,000 cheaper and it’s still pretty darn quick, so I can see that being a great option as a daily driver.

This is an electric car that wants to be driven. In fact, the handling feels like pure witchcraft...

Let’s be honest, for people like us who thrive off noise, vibrations through the seat and interacting with the mechanicals of a gearbox, even if it’s just pulling on paddles, an electric motor is never going to do it for us in the same way as a proper engine when it comes to making the hairs on your neck stand on end, and tunnels will never be the same again. That said, judging it for what it is and understanding it as a product of the times, the Taycan seriously impressed me as an all-round package. It’s the perfect, effortless and luxurious daily that you could also really enjoy when you hit a proper road, and it doesn’t just tolerate proper roads, it wants them, and it wants to be driven hard, which is truly admirable for an electric car. I wouldn’t have one on its own, but alongside something noisy for the weekend, I imagine the Taycan would be a real pleasure to own. Hopefully running cars like this every day will mean internal combustion can be saved for a bit of weekend fun, and if this is the way the world has to go, Porsche have proved there’ll be something left for us ‘petrolheads’ yet. @porschecentresheffield_uk

Watch the video on youtube.com

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Matt drives the track-focused variants of McLarenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sports and Super Series back-to-back to find out how the baby 600LT lives up to the acclaimed 675LT. Written by: Matt Parker

To a car person, the word longtail evokes images of an iconic era of Le Mans where the likes of the Porsche 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK GTR went head to head with McLaren’s game-changing F1. Nowadays, longtail (or LT) is to McLaren what RS is to Porsche. So far, just two cars have been deemed worthy of the moniker, and like the mighty F1 they’re named after, some claim they’ve changed the game in their respective segments and finally brought some muchneeded character to McLaren’s technically impressive lineup. Today, we’ve got them both together to see how McLaren’s new baby LT stacks up against the car that revived the LT name back in 2015. First, the hard part, which one to drive first? It’s a tough one, so let’s go chronological. Based on the 650S, just 500 675LT Coupes were made. List price in 2015 was around £260,000,

but I remember seeing them for sale for as much as £400,000! Just a few years later, there are quite a few out there for less than half that.

We have this Chicane Grey car for a few months thanks to a very generous (and very trusting) SCD member who you can find on Instagram at his very appropriate handle @2manycars_official.

When we asked about how many miles we could do and all that stuff, all he said was, “As long as you rag it, I don’t care”, and we were like, “Is this guy for real?!”. Thankfully, he is, and his LT is one of a handful of cars with the full gold engine bay reminiscent of the original F1, a very cool feature the owner added after buying the car. It has the P1 style wheels which I love, the P1 seats with harnesses which the owner would very much like us to make use of on track, and of course a very cool number plate.

I think the 675LT is the best looking McLaren to date, especially in aero mode with the spoiler raised. It’s a perfect blend of elegance and purpose, and I’ve always fancied driving one, so what’s it like? Well, it has just a smidge more power than the 650S at 675PS (666bhp), but that doesn’t scratch the surface of the changes. It’s 100kg lighter than the 650S at 1,320kg which is almost as light as an original Cayman, and despite the modest power increase compared to the 650S the 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 started life in, over 50% of the engine’s components have been upgraded, and it takes on a totally different character. Let’s get the obvious out of the way, the 675 is fast with a capital everything. With some warm, dry tarmac, it’ll do 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds and 0-124 in 7.9. We do not have warm, dry tarmac today, and the 675 is seriously lively,

The acceleration is unrelenting as you grab another gear and things come towards you at a rapid rate.

but savagely fast when it finds grip. The acceleration is unrelenting as you grab another gear and things come towards you at a rapid rate. The spoiler even lowers for a more slippery profile like an automated DRS.

No one ever denied the 12C and 650S were seriously fast and accomplished cars, but critics were left a little cold compared to the excitement of the Ferrari 458 and its musical naturally-aspirated V8. The LT fixes that. As soon as you climb over the carbon fibre tub into the snug bucket seats, it feels properly racy with a reclined, legs out, wheel close driving position at least some way towards how youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d sit in an F1 car. Speaking of the racy feel, you can hear every little stone kick up in the arches and so many mechanical noises which add to the experience before you even go near the bomb under your right foot.

Once you have stepped on that bomb, the noise comes. It isn’t a musical noise, but there’s lots of it, and if you’re lucky, certain upshifts are accompanied by a hilarious crack which sounds like gunfire under tunnels. Downshifts are accompanied by a similar whipcrack, and it means you play the paddles of the excellent dual-clutch gearbox like a musical instrument, even if it’s more death metal than a Ferrari’s classical score.

If you even manage to get to full throttle, the inevitable massive numbers appear on the dash, but the carbon ceramic brakes are some of the best I’ve ever felt for bringing things back down to earth and just as quickly as the spoiler lowers under acceleration, it shoots up to a vertical air brake in your mirror under hard braking – how cool is that?! The pedal is firm, easy to modulate and massively reassuring, even when you’re thinking that you probably should have braked some time ago. When it comes to turning in, the steering is incredibly direct, but a little more naturally so than the hyper-alert Ferrari systems of late, and even in damp conditions, I felt totally at one with what the front end was doing, which is pretty rare in modern cars. McLarens before this were famed for their smooth ride thanks to their hydraulically controlled suspension, but the LT has stiffer spring rates front and rear to contribute towards its track-munching goal. Really though, it’s still perfectly usable even on bumpy English roads. In normal mode, it’s hardly a limousine, but it doesn’t jiggle you about or crash into imperfections like you might expect, and when ramped up into sport on a twisty section, body control is incredible and, while it is stiff, it absorbs bumps rather than being thrown off track by them. Can you tell I rather enjoyed the 675LT? It’s as technically exemplary as any McLaren to date but it has finally introduced a thrill and sense of humour to the brand. The only negative I could possibly suggest is that the opportunities to properly wring its neck are few and far between on the road, but then it fights back by managing to be entertaining at sensible speeds too.

How can the new baby LT live up to such a machine? Sure there’s four years of technological progress and we’ve all seen the 720S all but match the P1 around a track, but can it get anywhere close to the specialness of the 675? Based on the Sports Series 570S this time, the 600LT isn’t limited in numbers and comes in about £70,00 less than the original list price of the 675, and you can already pick one up for around £30,000 under list. What’s interesting though, is that a brand new 600 would set you back about the same as a used 675 – decisions decisions! From the outside, the 600LT looks great in Papaya Spark. I love the size of the Sports Series McLarens and those top exit exhausts are really cool, but it’s definitely more fussy than the 675 with its rear wing and big carbon diffuser. It has a rather predictable 600PS (592bhp) from its similar twin-turbo V8, and surprisingly this is the marginally heavier car of the two with a kerb weight of around 1,350kg. Like the 675, that’s 100kg lighter than the car it’s based on, and like the 675, it’s absolutely rapid.

...with owner Tony in his 600 chasing me down in the 675 echoed just how closely matched they are in the real world.

0-62 comes up in an identical 2.9 seconds and 0-124 is just 0.3 seconds behind the 675. If you think about it while driving, the sensation of acceleration isn’t quite as wild, but there really isn’t much in it, and coming out of a corner onto a straight with owner Tony in his 600 chasing me down in the 675 echoed just how closely matched they are in the real world.

I should mention at this point that we’ve given the underdog 600LT a little boost by using the Spider model and that makes all the difference by bringing the noise from the top exit exhaust that much closer to your ears. Even with the roof up, lower the rear window and you’re immersed in every whoosh and crack. The downshift whipcracks are even more abundant and addictive, although the upshift cracks seem to have made way which is a shame as they really bring out your inner child through tunnels in the 675. Unshakeable confidence in the brakes is carried over from the 675, as is the superb agility. The

steering is a little heavier in the 600, but that is most likely due to the Trofeo R tyres rather than the standard P Zeros the 675 was running. The Trofeo Rs weren’t as suited to the conditions, but traction was still impressive if you’re sensitive enough with your right foot. Like the 675, it’s a lively thing, but it feels more friendly and easier to get the best from on the road. It’s almost like a Cayman on a hell of a lot of steroids, and that’s quite the compliment for a car with so much turbocharged power. These two are exceptionally fast and capable, but you knew that already. What’s refreshing about both of them is that, unlike so many modern cars, they’re still rewarding at five tenths, but for those moments you can actually get your foot flat, they’re truly explosive.

Either way, you get a lot of car for your money in the current market, whether it’s cash or the crazy finance deals that are out there on brand new 600LTs – there’s talk on our Facebook group of people paying in the region of £800 per month

with £30,00 down for around 6,000 miles per year, with the aim of basically handing the car back after two years of fun.

As for the 675, massive depreciation from the premiums of the early days means it’s a seriously special machine for the money, especially with such limited numbers produced. When Ferrari limit a car to 500 units, prices go mad, so surely the 675 is undervalued right now?

that makes it all the more exhilarating. For me, the 675LT will remain one of McLaren’s most highly regarded cars for years to come, and one day, we’ll look back and say, “Remember when you could get one of those for less than 200 grand?”. @2manycars_official @t40ny_w

The 600LT is a very impressive bit of kit. The sound from the top-mounted exhausts is addictive, and over a road, it might even have the edge thanks to its more accessible nature. It’s a true driver’s car which deserves the LT badge, and the fact that there isn’t a lot to choose between the two is testament to just how good the 600LT is. And the 675? I love it, and I love the ferocious way it goes about its business. It gives you confidence, but there’s always an underlying threat just warning you to respect it, or else, and

Watch the video on youtube.com

IN THE PR E S E N C E O F G R E AT N E S S We spend a surreal day on the road with Tom Hartley Jnr in what he describes as the greatest car of all time, a road-converted McLaren F1 GTR Longtail.

What do you love about the McLaren F1?

For me, the McLaren F1 is the greatest car ever built, which it’s widely regarded by many others as the same. This is a car that McLaren absolutely nailed right out of the box. It was their first road car, and they sat down, Ron Dennis, Mansour Ojjeh, Gordon Murray, Creighton Brown, and they decided that if they were going to create a road car, it had to basically upset the already established supercar hierarchy. What Gordon Murray did is he basically rewrote the supercar rulebook, which has never since been repeated. Not just on the fact that it was so much quicker than anything else at the time. Everybody is interested in the speed, but it’s the fact that it was so innovative; everything was specially designed for the car, right down to the Kenwood radio system, the special pieces of luggage, the gold foil on the engine bay to keep the heat down, and that central driving position. The driving position is something that has obviously been repeated recently with the McLaren Speedtail, but that feeling that the driver gets, there’s no driver’s car like a McLaren F1. When you take time to consider what it was competing against in period, the likes of the Ferrari F50, it’s just in a different league, it is the ultimate driver’s car, and for me again, the greatest car ever built.

What makes 19R so special?

All McLaren F1s are very special cars. Of those, there were only 10 Longtail variants ever produced, and of those 10 cars, they reside in institutions; places like McLaren, BMW, the Gulf collection, and a couple of clients have all the variants — a GTR, a road GTR, a Longtail GTR — so to be able to have the opportunity to buy a Longtail McLaren F1 is a lot more special and unique than having the opportunity to purchase a road car.

This car was also the factory prototype, the development car. A lot of road F1s have been to Waitrose or Sainsbury’s or Walmart, this is a car that has actually done something. This was the first Longtail Gordon Murray penned, this is the car that created the other nine, this is the car they tested. My business is very much about selling collectible cars and we sell pre-war cars, vintage cars, and if you wind the clock forward another 20, 30, 40 years, and you have one of the Longtail cars that a privateer bought new and owned and raced, or you have one of the BMW cars, or you’ve got the actual factory prototype. This car, for me, is the car that McLaren should have probably retained in their ownership, but this car was sold on to one of their best and most successful privateer teams. Today, this is one of only two factory prototype cars that is in private hands. The first short-tail GTR that won Le Mans is still retained by the factory, that’s chassis number 1R, and I don’t see that coming out of their ownership. The next factory prototype is the car that’s owned by renowned collector and musician Nick Mason who owns 10R, and then you’ve got this car, 19R, which is the only factory prototype Longtail.

Have you dealt in McLaren F1s before?

I’ve had a lot of experience selling McLaren F1s. I think I’ve probably bought and sold more McLaren F1s than anyone else; we’ve sold seven different cars in the last three years alone, and throughout the course of my career, I’ve sold quite a few of them. I’ve sold lots of different road cars including the very special, deliverymileage yellow car I bought from Japan in 2017. That was a fantastic experience and something I’m sure I’ll reminisce on for a long time to come. It was a car that nobody knew about, it was still with the first owner, it was still in all of the factory wrappers, never been driven. To get on a plane and fly to Tokyo, not be able to speak the language of the owner and the owner not be able to speak English, but still be able to sit down with an interpreter and manage to get the deal done was a lot of fun, and I can tell you in that 72 hours, I slept something like three hours.

Another deal that sticks in my mind is chassis 45 which I sold at the end of 2018. That was a fantastic road car in grey with grey interior. I sold it to a young gentleman in America and he said, “I’ll buy it off you on one basis. I’ve never driven a McLaren F1 before and I want you to hand it over to me on a racetrack”, so, we took over Monticello for the day, which is a private track just outside New York, and it was a fantastic day. We took a helicopter from the centre of New York straight to the track, he brought up some of his other cars, and his first experience of his new F1 was around Monticello. There are so many other F1s. Because of the nature of the car, and because of my affection for the car, all of the deals stick in my mind. 14R, a short-tail GTR, belonged to a very good client of mine who I’ve been selling cars to since I was 14 or 15 years old, and I used to see the car all the time. I then sold that car to Adrian Newey. I remember delivering it to Adrian, and in the car, there was a plaque signed by Ron Dennis. Of course, Adrian Newey used to be part of McLaren and left to go to Red Bull, and when the car came off the transporter, he looked and said, “Tom, it’s absolutely fantastic, I love it, I’ve always wanted to own one, but we must maybe either cover that plaque up or remove that plaque!”.

Then he said, “Let’s go for a test drive”. Adrian is a good driver, but I was still very nervous because, even though he’d paid for the car, you never quite feel that the deal is done until you drive away, you’ve got your money in the bank and the client is happy. I was in the left-hand side, which is the only passenger seat on a short-tail GTR, he was driving it and I remember thinking, Adrian, just slow down a little bit, has the cheque definitely cleared? If you kerb the wheels, am I taking it home with me? I’ve sold 19R in the past and 27R which was another Longtail F1. I last sold 19R in 2017 to a very good client, but he has since decided to go in a different direction with his collection, hence the reason this car became available.

Tell us about your experience driving F1s.

I don’t know exactly how many, but I’ve driven a lot of miles in F1s and driven several different cars around racetracks, both short-tail and Longtail cars. It was a lot of fun driving this Longtail around Donington recently with yourslelves and that was a fantastic day. Donington is a great track, and to have it to ourselves was pretty special

The differences between the road cars to the short-tail GTRs to the Longtails, they’re all very special in their own ways. A normal road car is easily the most usable because it’s the quietest to travel in, you have the luxury, the leather, Kenwood radio and air conditioning, even if it is ‘90s air conditioning.

They’re a very special car to drive, and there’s something that’s particularly cool about having two passenger seats, although it is such a driver’s car in the way it was designed, that without being unsociable, you don’t actually think about the two passengers and you don’t converse much because they’re behind you. It’s a bit surreal and very much driver-orientated. It would be very nice when my two boys get a bit older to do a road trip in a road car!

A short-tail GTR is basically a road car with a few changes. It had a great big rear wing bolted on, but to actually drive the car, it doesn’t drive that dissimilarly to a road car. It’s a little bit more responsive, it’s a better handling car but then you’ve got the balance of if you wanted to do a long journey, so they have their pros and their cons.

A Longtail GTR, on the track first of all, is way better. It feels so much quicker, there’s so much more downforce, and it really surprised me driving it on the road. The first Longtail I ever purchased was was 27R, and at that time, Dean Lanzante, who is a very good friend of mine and his workshops are just fantastic, he’s the guy you want to go to for servicing your McLaren F1, he asked what I thought of it to drive, and I hadn’t driven it yet, but he told me I would be super impressed when I did. I thought he meant around the track, but he said, “No no no, on the road, it’s fantastic”. He mentioned a guy we both know who owns 28R and uses it on the road all the time and he loves it. You have to respect the car. If you look at Rowan Atkinson, he is very well known for having a couple of crashes in his car. One of them was super large and super expensive, and you have to really respect the car because of that, you want to be focused on the job at hand, but it definitely surprised me how usable this Longtail is on the road.

Tell us about the livery.

Colours make cars. When I sell ‘60s Ferraris, you can either sell them in resale red, or you get a very special Verde Pino or Blu Sera; colours make cars and they add so much more value to them, and is it the original colour, or did Jack and Bob at one time change the colour? The current livery the car is presented in today is the original livery the car was launched in at the end of 1996. It’s the livery McLaren used for their sales brochure on the Longtail cars and how it all came about is that Gordon Murray wanted to highlight and show off to the press and the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche with their respective CLK GTR and 911 GT1s the improvement McLaren had made for the 1997 season, and accentuate the extended bodywork. To do that, they decided to paint the car in black and use these psychedelic accents to highlight that bodywork. When the car left McLaren’s ownership, it was also raced in the grey and pink Lark livery which looks fantastic, and also raced in a yellow livery, and in the last few years it has been converted

back into its original launch livery. You could choose any livery a car raced with in period and it’s kind of correct, but the absolute correct way of doing it is the livery the car was originally raced in or originally launched in when it left the factory, and that’s what this car is.

It’s know by everyone at McLaren as ‘Squiggles’, which I think is a fantastic name. It really suits the car, it has aged fantastically well. Some cars in certain liveries, over 23 years, might not age particularly well as fashions change, but everybody who sees this car in the flesh says, “Wow, that’s fantastic”, and if you wanted to, you could just remove the psychedelic stripes and you’d have a factory Jet Black McLaren F1 GTR Longtail prototype — ticks a few boxes!

Tell us about the starting procedure.

The starting procedure on a GTR can be a little bit intimidating if you’ve never owned a race car before and you’re used to just putting a key in the ignition and turning it or pushing a start-stop switch, but it’s very simple. You have all of your

electronics to the right-hand side and in the middle of the electronics you have your master on and off. You switch it to on which basically is turning all the battery and electronics on, you’ve then got your fuel pump switch which needs to be on. The car will give you some feedback immediately on the display unit on the dash; it will give you the oil temperature, water temperature, it will ask if you want to reset the fuel, but you don’t really want to reset the fuel, but you don’t really want to do that, because how it works is you know how many litres the tank holds and it shows you how many litres you’ve used until you reset it. So what I normally do is fill the tank to the brim, and then you know when you’re coming close to having to put more fuel in, or if you just put 30 litres in, you know when you’ve got to your 30 litres. It will ask you to acknowledge the alarm, then you just press the starter button, it fires up and it’s fantastic. Then you can just sit there and just rev it and get all your joy and happiness from that!

What was the first road conversion of a Longtail?

19R was the first Longtail that was ever converted. The owner at the time, who is another SCD member, sat down with Dean Lanzante and he wanted to know if it was possible to road convert his Longtail, and properly do so. Not cheat and somehow find a way to just get it UK road registered like some people on some cars do from time to time, but to actually properly, legally road convert the car. Lanzante thought it would be possible, but it would be such a huge operation, that they only wanted to do it with Gordon Murray’s personal involvement. So, Lanzante approached Gordon Murray, he was up for the task, and it was quite fortunate that a lot of the team at Gordon Murray Design were at McLaren throughout the F1 project, so they already had a lot of product knowledge when it came to F1s.

They set about road converting it with loads of different changes; ride height, steering lock, fuel filler, exhaust, it was quite a big project, and they documented this whole conversion in a fantastic book that accompanies the car today. It talks about this particular car’s life before the conversion and the F1 project in chronological order. Just like 19R was a development car back in the day, it has continued to be so as every Longtail that has been converted for road use in the last few years have all been based on 19R, so the car has a habit of being the development car. Also, all of the racing parts that were removed all accompany the car today, it has a huge spares package, and if somebody wanted to return the car to full race spec, even including the spec it raced with in Japan, it could very easily be converted back.

I have to be honest though, I’ve driven the car around the track as it is and it’s phenomenal even in road spec, and kind of the best of both worlds. You could stick a set of slicks on it as it is, enjoy it around a track, and then if you want to put your normal tyres back on, you can drive it home. The F1 is a car that could drive to Le Mans, win Le Mans, and then drive back home.

You can have your F40, your 288 GTO, Porsche GT1, 959; stick them all together and none of them come close to a McLaren F1.

Tell us about 19R’s history.

We’ve spoken about many of the car’s attributes like its original launch livery, the fact that it was a factory prototype and development car, it was the first Longtail to ever be road converted and UK road registered, but it was born as a GTR Longtail. They were born to go racing, and I think what is very important with cars like this is race history. This is a car that first raced at the Suzuka 1,000km in 1997, it raced 33 times throughout its life, and it was the last McLaren F1 to ever obtain an overall victory at a major international race.

Tell us more about what it’s like to drive on the road.

I was still a little bit skeptical because it’s an out-and-out race car. Yes you’ve managed to road convert it with Gordon Murray, and the car is road registered, but how usable is it? What about the sequential gearbox? What about the ride height? Turning circle? But I just couldn’t believe it when I first drove 27R, it’s such an easy car to drive. I drove this one with you guys for many hours when we did our filming and the car is very driver focused; everything centres around the driver. The sequential gearbox is very easy to use, the clutch is as heavy as you’d expect it to be but

not too heavy. You have your headphones on so you can speak to your passenger, although I’m more interested in enjoying the hours I spend driving the car than chatting! The suspension, I imagine in full race mode, if you ran over a coin, you’d feel if it was on heads or tails, but with the road conversion, the suspension is stiff enough where you can get the benefit of the car around a track, but it’s not too stiff that you can’t drive it on the road; you’re not shaking around like a bag of nails. It’s actually a very usable car. That’s what makes F1s so special, because especially with a normal road F1, you can actually use them. A guy in the UK has done 44,000 miles in his F1 which he has owned from new. There’s a very well known story where a German businessman bought his car to be able to commute from Switzerland to Germany every day at very high speeds. Gordon Murray didn’t design them to just sit on a pedestal, he designed them to be the ultimate driver’s car, and that’s what they are.

Even the GTRs, they’re cars where you should get out on the road, you should enjoy them. I’m Ferrari through and through; Ferrari is the best brand for my business, and I’m personally very passionate about Ferrari, but there’s no Ferrari in the world that can compete with a McLaren F1. A McLaren F1 is on a different level. Everybody’s aspiration, if they’re into supercars, should be a McLaren F1. You can have your F40, your 288

GTO, Porsche GT1, 959; stick them all together and none of them come close to a McLaren F1.

At the time, it was the most expensive car in the world at like £641,000. Today, it’s like, we’ll just bring out a car without a roof, it’s not usable, it’s £2 million and we’ll have a queue from here around the M25 and back with people who want to buy them. At this time, people weren’t buying cars with a collector’s mind at the forefront. They weren’t buying them thinking I should buy this car as an appreciating asset. A lot of people today buy supercars because they think they should buy that car and it’ll go up in value. When McLaren produced the F1, they produced a car that was phenomenally expensive, but it was expensive because of the development that went into producing what was and what is the greatest of all cars, and it’s something that, until you’ve experience it, until you’ve driven an F1, until you’ve owned an F1, you can never fully appreciate it.

@tomhartleyjunior www.tomhartleyjnr.com

Watch the video on youtube.com

T H E WO R L D ’ S M O S T R E G A L C A R PA R K

This September, automotive royalty gathers in Hampton Court Palace for the world-famous Concours of Elegance.

The most astonishing cars ever produced, a line-up of world-famous luxury brands, and one of the UK’s most beautiful historic royal settings. That’s the very successful recipe for the Concours of Elegance, which returns to Hampton Court Palace from 4-6th September, with Supercar Driver in tow.

Following formal approval from Historic Royal Palaces, the Concours of Elegance – presented by luxury watchmakers, A. Lange & Söhne – is the first major international concours d’elegance event since March, and the perfect chance to gawp at one-off Alfa Romeos, race-winning Bugattis, coachbuilt American rarities and a lineup of ‘Future Classics’ from the likes of Singer, Koeniggsegg and Pagani.

Recently named ‘Motoring Spectacle of the Year’, the Concours of Elegance first began at Windsor Castle in 2012, as the only motoring event ever to have been granted access to the secretive, idyllic Quadrangle and personally signed off by Her Majesty The Queen.

Since then, the event has grown, hosted at St James’s Palace in 2013, Hampton Court Palace in 2014, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 2015, back to Windsor in 2016 and then finding itself a semi-permanent home at Hampton Court Palace from 2017. As the Concours of Elegance has evolved over the years – always with a stunning collection of cars at its heart – it has morphed into a celebration of luxury goods, fine food and drink, wonderful music and superb displays of art.

But it’s worth spending a bit of time focusing on the cars: the line-up is a veritable feast of the most famous brands in the world; Ferrari, RollsRoyce, Bugatti and Lamborghini all feature. But each car in the Concours must be invited to attend, and to get an invitation, your car must be extremely special. An expert Concours of Elegance Steering Committee of motoring aficionados pick one-offs, rarities and models with incredible backstories to invite to Hampton Court Palace to create a truly special line-up of vehicles.

Each year, the Concours of Elegance’s centrepiece display is reserved only for the most extraordinary vehicles or astonishing motoring feats. On display this year, is a specially curated collection of McLaren F1 GTRs that finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th at Le Mans 24 Hours in 1995. All five cars will be parked side-by-side at Concours of Elegance 2020; the winning Kokusal Kaihatsu Racing car, the third-place Harrodsliveried car of Andy Wallace, Derek Bell and Justin Bell, the fourth-place Gulf Racing F1 GTR, the Giroix Racing Team F1 GTR that finished fifth and the 13th-placed Societe BBA car. In addition to the spectacular McLaren F1 GTR centrepiece, visitors can expect to see two one-off Alfa Romeos in the show’s very special Main Concours display - demonstrating the best in contemporary engineering and handcrafted design. The Alfa Romeo 6C 2300B and 2500 were among the most expensive

cars in the world during the ’30s and ‘40s, featuring engines designed by one of the great automotive designers of all time; Vittorio Jano, His engines helped both cars to amass a number of impressive race victories. They finished 1st and 2nd in their class at the 1937 Mille Miglia, 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the 1937 Targa Abruzzo in Pescara, took victory again at Pescara in 1938 and won the Targa Florio in 1950. Nearly 1000 cars will gather in the Palace grounds for a number of other features, including the seventh annual Royal Automobile Club Trophy. The UK’s finest car clubs, from Rolls-Royce to Ferrari will enter their most spectacular vehicles for an opportunity to win a much-vaunted place among the Main Concours collection of cars in the 2021 event.

And if all of that isn’t enough, your tickets to the Concours of Elegance also provide access to Hampton Court Palace itself.

Clearly, it’s worth addressing the elephant in the room. With audience welfare in mind, the organisers have created a new Covid-19-safe operational plan that has including revised hospitality and restricted visitor numbers, with the introduction of separate morning and afternoon tickets. Should government guidance negate the running of the event, all tickets can be refunded or rolled over to 2021.

Alongside these magnificent cars, visitors have the opportunity to explore a vast array of streetfood outlets and can enjoy champagne by the original Champagne Charlie, Charles Heidsieck. There’s the opportunity for some luxury shopping, too, with pop-up boutiques from the likes of fine horologists A. Lange & Söhne and their intricately crafted German timepieces, and fashion brands like Niccolò P.’s signature polo shirts. With a new Official Insurance Partner, Chubb Insurance, and Specialist Dealer Displays from the likes of Fiskens, Bell Sport & Classic, Thornley Kelham and more you can find everything you need to pick up a new car while you’re there, too.

MEMBERS OFFER Tickets will only be available to purchase in advance and Supercar Driver members are entitled to £15 off entry tickets plus 20% off all hospitality packages. Just head to concoursofelegance.co.uk/tickets and enter the code SCDVIP

Rob takes a rare opportunity to catch up with racing driver and SCD member Max Chilton to chat about his history in motorsport, his passion for road cars and realising the dream of owning a brand-new, limited-run Ferrari. Written by: Rob Ward Photographs by: GF Williams

To imagine a racing driver’s early history in motorsport is to imagine weekend after weekend of father and son, heading off to the kart track to compete against similarly fearless and like-minded 10 to 12-year-olds. Max Chilton’s entry into motorsport was no different. In this case, karting in Cadets, Junior TKM, JIKA and ICA British and European championships with the likes of Will Stevens (Current LMP2 WEC driver) and the late Jules Bianchi, who also raced alongside Max in F1 for Marussia in 2013. Showing steady yet solid progress onto the podium in 2006 T Cars, Max finished second overall with the most victories, with our own Oli Webb just behind in third.

Me and Daniel in British F3 2009

In 2007, Max progressed to British Formula 3, driving initially for Arena International. He was perhaps the youngest ever driver to race here with a special dispensation that enabled him to qualify on the eve of his 16th birthday and race the next day.

Silverstone 2014 driving a F12 TDF for F1 Racing magazine

Chris Evans at Carfest South 2012

The fine balance of boarding school education and the real potential of a racing career was potent, with Friday and Saturday schooling skipped in favour of race meets until late on Sunday when Max would return, usually exhausted.

Those were some very special days. High downforce cars on some of Britain’s fastest tracks at such a young age, but the results showed potential, and once the exams were over, Max set his sights on the top and dedicated his life to physical fitness, simulator practice and the ultimate goal of a Formula 1 seat.

With three years in total in British Formula 3, also racing for Hitech Racing and Carlin, Max saw some strong results with 11 podiums, a number of race wins from pole and an overall fourth place in 2009 for Carlin. “These were some of my best racing days, racing against the likes of Marcus Ericsson at the time”. The car was, in Max’s words, the ultimate racing car, the perfect compromise of a light car, plenty of downforce, agility, stability and a good level of power. “That car (Dallara GP2/11 powered by a Renault engine) on the Circuito da Guia in Macau is up there with some of the best memories as the car was perfect for such a fast street circuit”.

When GP2 beckoned, things started to get serious. Now called Formula 2, this is the feeder series to Formula 1 and, as such, there’s the feeling of being watched. Max may have jumped early, leaving behind what could have been an even better fourth season, but took the next step on the path to F1 with only one thing on his mind.

2015 Le Mans 24 Nissan works team squad

were seamless with no drop in acceleration and the step up from GP2 was incredible.”

“The first time on the grid, visor still up but mentally preparing for that first race was nerveracking, but nerves are often good and I’m able to control them. It wasn’t as though I was on the first row, fighting for a position into the first corner. I was away from the traffic and just needed to finish cleanly”.

2013 and 2014 were phenomenal years. Max had reached his goal to race in Formula 1, he’d come through the ranks of F3 and GP2 to get a seat, but as the majority of drivers face when they come into the championship in a slower car, it’s tough. The Marussia car was a good four seconds a lap slower than the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes. This was a hard lesson.

Me and Gordon at 2013 USA Texas GP

Max was so used to spraying champagne most weekends during his early career, but when you’re suddenly thrust into the arena with the best of the best, those joys are few and far between. In his first race in Australia, it was a case of just bringing the car home and having a clean race.

“Motorsport is full of a lot of lows and very little highs. There are seasons when there are constant problems. The car will break or I’ll be taken out by another driver and it’s gutting, but then, just occasionally, you’ll have that clean race where everything goes your way and you’ll end up on the podium. It makes up for it all, it never gets old, it is always special but it just becomes less often the higher up you get. Some of the very best F1 drivers don’t ever get to spray champagne, that’s the reality”.

Not only are there now live pit stops and a larger audience, there is sometimes as little as a year in GP1(F2) before driving in F1. You’re sharing pit gantries with the F1 teams, so everyone is watching you, including the F1 drivers at lunch, so the pressure is suddenly far greater and this is inevitably in the back of every driver’s mind.

In his last year in GP2, Max managed to accumulate four podiums including two race wins for Carlin, both of which were start to flag. It was a solid result and one that saw Max in an F1 seat for Marussia in 2013. Max did a straight-line, young driver test for Force India at Kemble in the Cotswolds, where he experienced an F1 car for the first time. “I will never forget going flat out on a bare runway in a V10 F1 car and feeling the speed. It was just mental and sounded fantastic. The gear changes

Max has been racing for two thirds of his life already. He speaks fondly of the experiences and the path he has chosen. Some remarkable life experiences have come from travelling the world and being on the podium in Monaco or Spa (his favourite circuit) and driving next to and meeting some of motorsport’s greats. Finishing every race in his rookie year saw Max with a Guinness World Record, which of course he still holds today as no one has ever done the same. Racing, however, can have some serious lows. Max raced alongside his old karting mate Jules Bianchi in Formula 1 for Marussia. Jules was a fantastic driver and was always one to beat throughout karting and F1, and naturally, they became close.

In October 2014, during a very wet Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, Jules lost control, spun off and collided with a recovery vehicle. This saw him in a coma from which he never recovered. Tragically, Jules died almost nine months after the crash at the age of just 25.

In that year, both Max and Jules had managed to get to Q2 together, putting them at the highest grid position Marussia achieved — a special moment for both drivers and the team who had worked so hard that season. Such jubilation was sadly and memorably marred by Jules’ accident and eventual passing.

Me and Jules at Hungaroring 2014

along with Alonso’s McLaren, were the three cars that didn’t qualify for the Indy 500 last year. The car just wasn’t quick enough. Max has the ability and nearly won in 2017, however, with the car flat out where possible, taking every opportunity for those vital tenths, it just wasn’t quick enough.

It was a frustrating end to the season, but overall, Max is enjoying racing again and has clearly made the right choice in the move to challenge himself further after such an incredible career so far. As Steve McQueen famously said, “When you're racing, it’s life. Anything that happens before or after, it's just waiting”.

In 2015, Max took the arguably controversial leap into Indycar, initially for Chip Ganassi Racing and now Carlin Motorsport, having almost stepped back slightly to qualify through the Indy Lites feeder programme to learn the ovals. Max has spent the last four years making 130 flights over the Atlantic to balance his new career in Indycar with his personal life back home. Last season was a challenge for the team. This second year with Carlin for Max didn’t go as well as the team had hoped. Although there is some strong sponsorship to run the car and, as such, hopes were high, there isn’t the budget to develop the car to the levels that the likes of the longer standing Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske are able to. For example, out of 36 drivers fighting for 33 places, Max and his teammate Patricio O’Ward

Like any racing driver or sports person lately, Max has had to wait. As if the offseason isn’t long enough, the last Indycar season finished in September and the next one was due to start in April, though it has now been delayed until July, so Max hasn’t raced for nine months and has only really been in the car for eight hours in that time for a couple of test days. Just as well he is into gardening then, thanks to his eight times Chelsea Flower Show gold-winning grandfather’s genes!

Outside of racing, Max has a weekly column in British GQ, who have allowed this equally British gentleman to have his say on topics such as Formula 1 driver changes, predictions and arguably more excitingly, his own car history, because let’s be honest, that’s the topic we’re all interested in. To write for what is a very British publication suits Max’s brand and personality perfectly.

Three appearances on BBC’s ‘A Question of Sport’ have seen Max have the time of his life on a show that was a large part of his childhood memories growing up. It’s an iconic show and to have been asked three times was a real ‘This Is Your Life’ moment for Max. He won’t thank me for adding that he’s been on the losing team each time!

You won’t be surprised to learn that Max’ car history is by no means an embarrassing one with some solid choices in there. The first car Max bought when he started in Formula 1 was a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. He bought two black New York Yankees caps to keep in the car so when driving alone or with his now wife Chloe, they couldn’t be recognised. He didn’t want to be that flashy twenty-one year old with a Ferrari in his home town!

Other cars such as the original naturallyaspirated C63 AMG, 675LT Spider, 599 GTO, 997 GT3 RS 4.0 and a lovely 50th Anniversary 911 came and went and Max’s first car was a Mini Cooper S. He upgraded that to a John Cooper Works which he still owns today. One car that really sums up Max’s persona and was a beautiful gesture is the stunning 1959 Mercedes 190SL, which Max restored over a 14-month period before giving it to Chloe on their wedding day. The latest acquisition, however, is an absolute marvel. Max took 7 years trying to get into a brand-new, limited-run Ferrari. He tried but failed for the chance of a Speciale Aperta and later an F12 TDF, having made contact with both Francesco Balli and the Ferrari Egham dealership. Max missed the slot each time, and he had all but given up after the early Pista slots

had also gone, and actually managed to get an allocation for a GT2 RS when the call came from Egham to say a Pista slot was available. The spec is based loosely on a Speciale seen a number of years ago. A very classy and subtle scheme, minus the stripe and in one of the most stunning combinations of TDF Blue with Cuoio (tan) Alcantara interior. The spec process was a quick one as the basics were already lodged in Max’s mind. “I added everything you’d want but didn’t go stupid”. Some of the unnecessary options like Apple CarPlay and carbon wheels were boxes left unticked. “I don’t like stripes, so that saved me eight and a half grand”. The front sensors and camera were also options left behind to avoid interrupting the styling of the front bumper, which again added to a decent saving in the end.

“Collecting the car is a day I will never forget. Years of trying and the dream finally came true for me in November last year”. Now Max is an SCD member, we can look forward to seeing the car at an event in the south no doubt, but the racing season is back on from 1st July so we’ll have to wait for the offseason!

To further fill Max’s already busy life, is a new business, currently in its infancy. Max has just started a car storage business called BHP Stable. The newly restored facility can store up to 35 cars with free space for 13, so the business is already showing signs of success. The view here is that people just want a convenient local extension to their own garages when the car collection has got a little out of hand. Cars get valeted and covered as you’d expect and battery conditioners are included as well as a collection and delivery service if required. Statistically, Max’ facility is perfectly placed, situated in Reigate in Surrey due to the affluent areas that surround it. It’s currently used by Romans International as one of their preferred storage facilities, so based on the quality of their stock, you’ll be amongst friends!

Max, it was an absolute pleasure hearing about your incredible story so far. On behalf of myself and SCD, we wish you the very best of luck in July when you start back and look forward to seeing you at an event in the future. @maxchilton

We spend the day with John McGurk and his personal pride and joy he spent years aspiring to own, the Ferrari F40. Written by: Matt Parker

Most of us associate John McGurk with all things Aston Martin; that’s the main focus of McGurk Performance Cars after all. There’s always a very special mix of modern and classic Astons on offer and a specialist workshop to look after them too, but John’s own pride and joy isn’t quite what you’d expect.

Like so many people, John’s dream poster car was the Ferrari F40, and after experiencing them during his time with Ferrari in the ‘90s and dealing in them himself, he finally bought his very own F40 10 years ago. We spent the day with John and his beloved F40 to find out about how he came to own it, the stories of his ownership and how he even maintains it himself. “I’ve owned the car for 10 years. I’ve driven it for about 20,000 miles in those 10 years”, John tells us, ”I’ve done all the maintenance on the car myself, do all the polishing of the nuts and bolts and all that stuff with it. It’s part of the family. People always ask if I’m going sell it, do this with it, that with it, and I just can’t bring myself to do it, it’s quite an emotional attachment.

“I’m a very lucky boy and I’m punching well above my weight to have something like this, and of course, 10 years ago, values were very different. My wife and I were talking, do we get a second house or what are we going to do? Then one day, I turned up with it and said, ‘Actually, I’ve gone and done this’, and it’s been with us ever since!”.

The F40 holds a special place in so many car enthusiasts’ hearts, but what is it that makes the F40 so special to John? “The F40 is so special for the same reasons it would be for anyone and everyone. The whole poster car thing, yeah, absolutely. I remember when it was launched, there was a video that went viral of this guy in I think Hong Kong, driving on a public road, maxing the car out, doing over 300km/h, and there was video footage of one in Italy with flames coming out of the back, the big rear wing, the car was just obscene!”, John exclaims, “It’s always been such an interesting car to look at. It’s art isn’t it? There’s something going on with each panel, there’s something interesting; vents, air intakes, badges. “Fast forward a bit and I worked at a Ferrari dealer in Loughborough in the ‘90s, and of course the cars were coming in for servicing and sales, and I was always in absolute awe of these things. I remember there was a guy who worked in the service department called Dash, and he was taking a car out for a road test. I had been leaping up and down saying take me out, take me out, take me out, as you do, so he gave me a nudge one day and said come on, let’s go”.

As you’d expect, John vividly remembers his first experience of an F40. “I strapped myself into the passenger seat of this car. It’s like being strapped to a jet engine, and the take-off is so aggressive, that you can’t help but burst out laughing. It’s the thrill, the rawness, there are no creature comforts, and in terms of the way it drives, it’s aggressive, it’s dangerous, it’s a bit like riding a bike. I like riding bikes, and if you go out on a bike, you do a track day or whatever you’re

doing, and you get home at the end of the day, take your crash helmet off and you pat yourself on the back and think, I got away with that! It’s the same sensation with the F40.

“You have to be razor-sharp with it the whole time, when you accelerate, you have to respect it and be gentle with that throttle because it will bite you. The whole sensation of that, the thrill, the fear, is the kick, in a weird way. It’s just such a beautiful, beautiful thing, and it gives you the goose pimples and the sweaty palms when you’re driving it — you just can’t help it really!”

Like John, so many of us love the F40, but it’s a very small few who ever go through with buying one. Whether it’s the value, the lack of modern creature comforts and driver aids or the fear of keeping the things running, so how does one go from idolising a car to making the decision to actually buy one? “We went through a period of selling F40s, F50s, 288 GTOs, all the special stuff, when they were within reach of mortal men, then every time you sold an F40, you needed another £50,000 to buy the next one, and we kept thinking, ‘Are these things going to keep going up?’, and they kept going up and up and up”, John tells us.

“It was the one that was leftover at the end of the year. I rang the bank manager and said, I need some help, I remortgaged the house, and did everything I could to get the funds together, and turned up with it at home and said to my wife, look what I’ve gone and done, and that’s it!”, he laughs. “We’ve bought and sold a few of these over the years, but it got to the point where we couldn’t keep up, I haven’t got the cash for it, so I thought I’d hold onto this one for a while and see what happens, and of course, it got to the end of 2011 and it had gone up a little bit, then more in 2012, but by that time, the car was part of the family. I love it, and if I sell it, I just think what am I going to buy then? There’s nothing, without getting to ludicrous money, that I could look at and think I really fancy. The modern supercars just don’t do it for me like the F40 does”.

Of course, F40s don’t come around every day and examples vary so much in condition and history, so we ask John all about the ins and outs of his particular car. “This is a 1991 car. It started life as a cat car with non-adjustable suspension, and as it often is with these cars, the early history is a little bit unclear. We have the details of who owned the car, who supplied it and some service history, but with buying F40s in particular, you need to become a bit of a detective with each car.

“You’ve got the paperwork over here, and that’s great, but you’ve got to look at the car, because so many of them haven’t had a great life, some of them have had accident damage that no one wants you to know about, some people disconnected speedo cables and used to drive them around Europe then bring them home again. Lots of that sort of stuff went on, so you’ve got to look at them and make your own mind up as to whether you think it’s a good authentic car or not.

“The guy who owned this car before me was 70odd, French guy, lovely fella, and he’d owned the car since 1998. I met him in 2010, and I actually bought the car from a Ferrari main dealer in Europe, but I said I want to meet the guy who owned the car previously. He really appreciated the fact that I wanted to meet him, we had a lovely afternoon talking about the car, and it really helped relax me as a buyer when I was spending every last penny I have and everyone else’s money I could borrow! “The dealer was great, and I spent two days looking at the car. I was crawling underneath it, had it up in the air, pulled it to bits, and you’re making sure all the carbon is in the right place, is that painted black? Should it be black? Should it be that? Just going over it as much as you possibly can. The cars do have little numbers stamped in different places, and you want to make sure all those numbers are right.

“Then, I drove it, and it was all good, and it all worked out to be ok, so I put it in a trailer, brought it home, then I looked at it a little bit more and then thought come on, it’s all alright, and you become a little bit more relaxed about it. Actually that’s not true, I’m never relaxed about it! There are always things that bother me about it, but it’s just that kind of car. It can’t be perfect because then you’re never going to drive it. I’m the kind of person where the little bits do annoy me, but you have to just think, well, whatever”.

It might not be the sort of car you tend to mess with, but we can’t help noticing John’s car sounds particularly amazing, so we ask what fettling he’s done with the car. “I haven’t done any upgrades to it with the exception of the exhaust. The standard silencer was this great big thing, it was huge, and the amount of heat it created was in the back of the car was too much. It’s made of carbon, they do go up in flames as we see every now and then, and the one thing that scares you about it is that it’s going to catch fire. When I first had it, the fact that it was too quiet was annoying, but you kind of forgave that for the flames it threw out of the back, which at night time going through tunnels was spectacular. “But the heat that was created was such that you couldn’t touch the back of the car, it was too hot, so I’m thinking this is crazy because it’s just going to go up in flames. I looked at Tubi and all the most obvious things and I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I have a friend in the motorsport world and he custom made an exhaust for me. He did a cracking job of it, it sounds brilliant, the flames aren’t quite so dramatic but that’s probably for the better, and the back of the car is the right temperature and not dangerously hot all the time.

“As it gets hot, at about 4,000rpm, the noise the car makes changes quite a lot. When you’re out on the road and you open it up, the noise from it is sensational. It’s loud, and it’s really good! My car runs quite rich, and you let off the throttle at 3,000rpm, it pops, cracks and bangs really loudly. It does it more when it’s cold than hot, in fact particularly when it’s cold and it’s hilarious.

One of our local clients saw me going down the A46, and he purposefully slowed down so I could go past. When I went past him over the crest of a hill, I let off and chucked this great big flame out of the back of the car and you just think ah, that’s brilliant, it’s so good! Apart from the exhaust, I’m leaving it well alone”.

Just like John recalls his first experience in an F40, he recalls how careful he had to be the first time he actually got behind the wheel. “I’ll never forget my first ride in an F40 with Dash, I’ll never forget him putting his foot down and the boost, the turbos, the whole thing just took off. When it was my first drive in the car, you have to be mindful all the time that you have a steering wheel, a throttle pedal, some brakes, and you are on your own. Even now, a few weeks ago, dry roads, third gear, put your foot down, in comes the boost, I was nowhere near flat, I was about half throttle, and it just starts to move around the road. It just reminds you that it does that, and you have to be super careful of it, but it just goes back to the thrill of sweaty palms! “It’s very point and shoot in terms of the drive. When you’re driving the F40 down the road, you’re having to watch out for potholes, cat’s eyes, anything that will change the direction of the car, because the car will change direction all by itself if you’ve got an uneven road, like the grooves lorries leave in the road, that sort of stuff. There’s no finesse to it, it’s just raw. It belongs on a track, on a smooth surface, and it’s difficult to drive on the road because, of course, you’re on the wrong side of the car, but all of that just adds to the whole cool thing about it. “Even with the exhaust system it has, the turbos make a loud noise, that’s kind of exciting. In fact, my daughter was in the car with me at the weekend and said, ‘What’s that whistling and chirping noise?’, and then we started talking about turbos. “There are lots of things about the car that anyone would find fascinating, but I can’t go on about it enough. The throttle pedal, you just have to go a bit at a time and not just floor it, or it’ll end in a big mess! You’ve got to have both hands on the wheel all the time, and again, it’s like being on a motorbike in terms of it making sure you’re 100% paying attention to what’s going on”.

One thing people always talk about with F40s is turbo lag. Is it really as bad as they say? “The turbo lag is awful. A Golf R would murder it up to 4,000rpm, in fact I think most things would have a go at it up to 4,000rpm, a Range Rover would probably have a go at it! You can drive around that, but if I was in fourth gear at 2,000rpm and I wanted to put my foot down and overtake something, you’re going to read a book before the thing comes in. When you’re going to overtake something, be ready to overtake, so you’re in the right gear, you’re on boost and it’s going to go. It’s not just pull a paddle and off you go, you’ve got to really drive it, and that’s what it’s all about”.

Having a car of such value, especially such a lairy one must be a little nerve-racking, and we wonder if that detracts from the enjoyment of driving it. “There’s always a degree of nervousness about driving it. There’s a degree of nervousness about, well, I don’t want to damage it, stone chips and things, well, it’s getting stone chips and I’m going to have to deal with that at some point, but every time I’m in it, I sit there and I start smiling to myself. Aren’t I a lucky boy? Isn’t this incredible? You have a right bottom lip wobbling moment about the whole thing.

time I get stuck with it is if there’s an electrical problem, because I haven’t all the plug-in stuff with it, but that’s once in 10 years I’ve been stuck with that. The rest of it is pretty basic stuff really, and that’s kind of the appeal of owning it.

So many F40s live in climate-controlled cocoons surrounded by other exotica, but John’s is refreshingly different. “I only have a single-car garage at home, so I always have this tantrum at the beginning of spring when I want to bring the car home from being stored at work, I want to have it in the garage, and I literally throw everything else out of the garage because I don’t want anything to fall on it or anyone to touch it, and I hide the key for the garage and all that sort of stuff. It’s an emotional car to have, because I love it”.

Owning such a car must bring with it some incredible experiences, so we ask John to recall his favourite moments with his F40. “The gathering at Silverstone was something else. There were so many cars, all lined up, all going around Silverstone together, and I have a photograph I took of the cars in the pit lane before we went out. I could make out the number plate on the back of my car surrounded by all these other cars, and it’s such an amazing photograph.

“That always comes back to the people asking if I’m going to sell it thing, well no, I don’t want to sell it. I’m sure I might sell it at some point or might have to or whatever, but while I’ve got it, I’m driving it and I’m going to have as much fun with it as I possibly can, and as I say, it’s part of the family”.

Earlier in our chat, you might have clocked John saying he does all the maintenance himself and thought, is he serious? He goes on to explain, “I love messing with cars. Cars that are basic cars, like the Cortina we race, we do all the prep work for that here, I love getting involved and doing all of that. From when I was a kid, I was building cars in the garage or building engines or painting cars, I was doing all of that, and I quite like the fact that I maintain it. I enjoy it, and you know more about the car than anybody. “Every now and again, you get a bit stuck, and when I get stuck, I ring a man that knows and say, ‘Can you help me out with this because I don’t know what to do with it?’, but it’s basic stuff. What tipped me over the edge with it was, when I first had it and it had all the history of servicing in France and Germany, then I brought it over here and took it to a Ferrari dealer, and I’m watching them servicing the car through the window. I can see the guy, he’s lifted the back of the car up and done an oil change or what have you, and I watched him measuring the oil level, and I thought, he hasn’t done that right at all, and I could see him scratching his head thinking there isn’t any oil in it, where’s it all gone? And I’m thinking that isn’t how you do it! So from that point on I thought stuff that, we’re going to do it. “So, overalls on, we all get stuck into it, and it’s not difficult. We just took all the dampers of it, sent them away, had them all redone and put them back on, and it’s basic mechanics. The only

“If you fast forward to things like LaFerraris where all of a sudden you have batteries and things, and forget it, I’m never going to be able to do anything with stuff like that. But this, this is not an expensive car to maintain and look after really, and it’s just kind of the whole buzz for me. Someone said to me, ‘You’ll kill the value of it’. No I won’t, I absolutely won’t kill the value of it, because the person who buys this car from me will love it as much as I do, and will totally understand the fact that I didn’t want anyone else to do it, I just wanted to do my own thing with it, and I like the fact that you learn loads about it, so why not?”.

“I remember when we were there, everyone’s cars were lined up, and there was one guy who had just bought his car, and I remember him going around the car picking faults with it. He didn’t drive the car there, it was trailered, and he was going around saying this isn’t clean, that isn’t clean and I thought oh come on! I thought he’s probably going to drive around the circuit, put it back in the trailer and never get in it again. The event was mega though, it was an amazing bit of history to be a part of.

“Other than that, if we talk about memorable trips with the car, it’s always memorable. I can’t think of anything really specific, but it’s every time you go out in it. A lot of it is to do with other people’s reactions when they see the car, and that’s nice, because you get the people who really really appreciate it, especially young kids with cameras, so I always pop the headlights up and wave. It creates a load of attention; I’ve had people overtaking me on the motorway and the passenger is leaning out of the window trying to get photos of the car. You get the guys in the Seat Cupras who wheelspin next to you. It’s always a memorable thing. “I’ve been out in the car with a pal of mine who has an XJ220, and that was really cool, the two cars going together. I’ve been out before with a friend who has an F40 as well, and we were driving along together, so having two F40s on the road, I mean come on! All that sort of stuff is mega, it really is”.

...you have to be mindful all the time that you have a steering wheel, a throttle pedal, some brakes, and you are on your own.

Now, we know John has experienced the F40’s successor, the F50, and there’s often a big debate between the two cars, so what’s John’s experience with the F50 and how the two compare? “My F50 story is that I went to Germany and I bought an F50. This F50 had done like 3,000 miles from new and it had absolutely perfect carbon weave, it was gorgeous, and this fella I bought the car off was asking when the transporter was going to turn up, and I was like, it’s not, I put my bag in the car, and this bloke was just distraught that I was going to drive the car home. So, me and a pal jumped in this F50 and drove it home, all the way up through Germany and France, stopping in Reims on the way back. “The F50, to drive, is great, it’s incredible. The noise it makes, the gearbox, everything about the whole history of what that car is, 110% it’s incredible. The F50 on a motorway at speed is steady as a rock, no problem whatsoever. You’re cruising along and then it rains and it’s no different, it’s still steady and you can be totally relaxed with the fact that the car will drive and do everything you expect it to do.

“If I was on the motorway in the F40 and it started to rain, I’d be thinking, hmm, I’m not very happy about this, because it’s so aggressive in its power delivery. The F50 will behave itself beautifully, it’s nice and smooth, the F40 is all or nothing. You can drive it as tamely as you want to drive it, but I wouldn’t fancy driving it in the rain. I could and I have, but I don’t want to! “We had an F50 once with a straight-through exhaust system and that was just ear-splittingly amazing — you had to wear headphones! It’s a totally different driving experience to the F40 though. The F40 has more of a fear factor and there’s so much I prefer about it over the F50; the way it drives, the way the boost kicks in, the way it looks, the pop-up headlights, all of it. The F50’s looks are a bit Marmite, but when you’ve driven one, you get it, it’s a knockout car”. John is clearly still smitten with his F40 even 10 years later, and seems to have a pretty firm answer when people ask if he’ll sell it, so is it here for life? “I’d love to say that I’ll keep it forever, but the problem with the car is that it’s

a selfish thing to have, in as much as wife, two children, all the rest of it. Life is about creating good memories, but it’s something you want to do with everyone else, which means at the weekend everyone is taking turns having a go in the car. I’m punching above my weight with it to the point where the car is worth an amount of money where, wow, what could I possibly do with that? “Again, I’d love to say I’ll keep it forever, but I don’t know, you don’t know what’s around the corner, but it will be a sad day when it goes, if it goes!”. @mcgurk_performance_cars

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Thanks to our friends at CAR Iconics, Jonty gets behind the wheel of a car which may have been responsible for some of the great supercars of the 90â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Written by: Jonty Wydell

When the name Lotus is mentioned in the car world, it instantly brings to mind small, lightweight cars with very little need for power. Colin Chapman’s famous ethos of ‘simplify and add lightness’ was applied to nearly all Lotus cars, except for one in particular — the Lotus Carlton.

As a way of raising the profile of GM’s European brands, Vauxhall and Opel, Lotus was asked to develop the Carlton to compete with the big boys of BMW and Mercedes, and rather than just matching their performance figures, they obliterated them, putting many supercars to shame. I’ve always been interested in the Lotus Carlton due to this, and also the fact that

I own an S2 Exige. How does the Carlton with its bonkers straight-line performance compare to my small, low-powered S2 that’s tuned to perfection for handling?

When the chance came to visit CAR Iconics to drive one of these rare beasts, I experienced more than a little nervous excitement whilst wondering how good this big bruiser would actually turn out to be. This was my first visit to CAR Iconics; I had been told there was a cool mix of toys hidden inside their showrooms and I was certainly not disappointed. From classics to race cars to just unequivocally iconic cars. Not one but two Ferrari 575M, both sporting the rare HGTC pack, Series 1 E-Type Roadster, BMW 850

CSI and one of the prettiest modern cars made, an Alfa Romeo 8C Spider with just 70 miles on the clock. Lurking outside, with its thuggish demeanour, bulbous bumpers, skirts and dark Imperial Green bodywork was the Lotus Carlton I had come to see. I eagerly took to the nearby country roads, taking it steady at first to warm the car through. Once it reached temperature, I decided a second gear pull would be the best way to become acquainted with the Carlton. Wow, I was expecting fast, for its day at least, but as far as saloon cars go, the acceleration is most surprising. It’s smooth too; I had visions of horrendous turbo lag like you get in an F40,

This car is not just quick for 1990 but it’s fast for right now...

but instead there’s a progressive power band to work with all the way up to the redline. It’s pretty relentless with no letup in ferocity in the next gear. I don’t doubt that even today it would have no problem at all achieving its original top speed of 177mph.

With 377bhp (about the same as the Ferrari F355 released four years later) and 420lb ft of torque, there’s no wonder this car is quick despite its 1,655kg weight disadvantage. All this power however did mean that the gearbox of the standard Carlton would have never been up to the job, so Lotus delved in another GM parts bin and came back with the ZF S6-40 gearbox from

a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and a limited-slip diff from a Holden Commodore.

Whilst experiencing this impressive power, it rapidly dawned on me that the long straight I was enjoying ended with a rather tight bend and, as such I would imminently discover if Lotus had achieved what they do best and sorted out the handling as well as its straight-line speed. I remember cars from this period being notoriously dreadful in the corners; my dad had a Ford Sierra for a while and I remember the insane amount of body roll you would endure whilst cornering. Applying a fair bit of force on those big 12.9 inch four-pot AP brakes to wash off some

speed, I was able to stick the nose straight in and get back on the power early without as much as a twitch of drama. It really is rather amazing how a 30-year-old car can feel every bit as nimble as one of our Golf R pool cars. This car is not just quick for 1990 either, it’s fast for right now! It was faster than the Porsche 911 Turbo and the V8 Ferrari of its time, the 348, and it was even as fast a Testarossa! To put that into perspective, the equivalent today would be a four-door, rear-wheel-drive saloon giving a Ferrari 812 Superfast a run for its money, which is pretty mind-boggling.

I’ve been forever banging on about the ’90s being the best era for supercars due to so many advancements in power and speed. Is it maybe possible that a lot of that was down to the Lotus Carlton? Had supercar manufacturers become a little blasé about how fast they needed to be until a big four-door saloon car embarrassed them? Could this car be even more legendary than we first realised?

Criminals became very aware of the performance of the Lotus Carlton, meaning they were often stolen and used as the perfect getaway car. One car in particular, carrying the registration 40 RA, gained notoriety when it was stolen from its home on 26th November 1993. What followed was rather embarrassing for the

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police after the car was used in several petty ram-raids. The police were reported as saying, “We can’t get near the thing”, as the fastest car available to them was the Vauxhall Senator with a measly 207bhp. There are unconfirmed reports that when they took to the air hoping to improve their chances, the Lotus Carlton actually outran a Police helicopter! Due to so many being stolen and never recovered and the resulting increase in insurance premiums capped off with a recession, the Lotus Carlton never reached its full production run of 1,100 cars. Instead, only 950 were produced. This means that they’re now extremely rare, and as a result, prices have continued to increase, especially for examples such as this one. Is there

another car that can make so many claims to fame? The fastest saloon of its time, the most thuggish car of its time and one which may even have influenced supercar performance of the ‘90s? With just 17,600 miles on the clock and one owner from new, this 1991 example is an amazing buy for any retro collection. @cariconics

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ALL ABOUT SETUP THE BENEFITS OF ALIGNMENT.

We are often posed the question, “How will my car benefit from an alignment?”, or ,“Why does my car need aligning, does it not come out of the factory perfectly?”. In both cases, the answer is that all cars will benefit from an alignment for one reason or another; some more obvious and pronounced and others more subtle and related to driving pleasure.

Matt from Suspension Secrets discusses how road cars are compromised from the factory, and how you can change that. Written by: Matt Cowley

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THE ISSUES WITH FACTORY-BUILT ROAD CARS.

When a manufacturer is designing the geometry and suspension for a new car, they have many hurdles that they must overcome and incorporate into their design. One of the most prioritised items on that list is safety. The car must be deemed to handle safely on multiple types of surface (as the car is being sold around the world) and in all different weather conditions from dry desert heat through to Scandinavian snow. This means that the geometry of the car is such that it can cope in all of these scenarios and remain drivable and safe at speed on motorways. The result of this ‘safe’ geometry is that it often removes some of the driving pleasure that the enthusiast customers desire.

Another reason behind the reserved settings for the alignment is that when these cars are being sold, anyone of any driving ability is able to purchase one of their cars, therefore, if the car was aligned with a fast setup with a tendency towards oversteer (such is the choice of many advanced drivers) then someone without much driving experience could have a large crash when they begin to push the car. This would reflect badly on the brand and therefore a limited setup is applied to the car. A final design reason that we will touch on as to why the grip of the car is not maximised out of the factory is due to the tyre wear regulations that manufacturers of a certain size must adhere to. In most cases, the route to getting more grip out of your car is to work the tyre harder. This can be achieved in a few ways with the main route being your geometry settings. If the cars were set to maximise grip then the tyres would wear too quickly and would not pass regulations. For the enthusiast, a small increase in tyre wear is a small price to pay in order to unleash the handling potential of your car.

Furthermore, on cars that have had some use for a few thousand miles or more, the standard geometry can become affected due to the number of potholes, kerbs, lumps and bumps that the wheels have encountered in that time. All of these aggressive inputs to the wheel cause geometry alterations which can result in reduced braking efficiency, increased or abnormal tyre wear and a general reduction in grip, so it is always worth having the geometry at least checked over periodically. All of the above applies to everything from supercars right down to hot hatches. The same rules apply to all and, in some cases, it is the supercars that are held back the most in order to prevent inexperienced drivers from crashing them.

HOW AN ALIGNMENT CAN TRANSFORM HANDLING.

Now that we have talked all about how your car can benefit from having an alignment, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look at how that is possible. Every car comes with some level of geometry adjustment from standard. In most cases, you will have the ability to adjust the camber and toe geometry of your car at the front and the rear. All cars will have front toe adjustment which is a key factor in improving handling quality.

By adjusting the camber and toe settings of the car, we are able to effectively work the tyre harder. This will increase temperature in the compound, increasing grip, and will engage more of the contact patch through corners, increasing lateral grip further. By increasing front camber, tyre wear will slightly increase but the benefits received from mid-corner grip make the adjustment a must at the front and rear to load up the contact patch through the mid-corner section, letting you carry more speed through corners.

For toe adjustments, these vary based upon the engine and driven wheels configuration of your car and are also based upon how you like the car to handle and respond to your inputs as a driver. With toe adjustments we are able to make the car feel more stable at speed, more agile through corners, much more responsive on turnin and also balance the oversteer and understeer characteristics to your preference. As well as increasing the performance and responsiveness of the car, we are able to check the geometry over to ensure that it has not been moved or affected from use on road or track. If a particular wheel has been affected and the toe has been knocked out, then the high-speed stability of the car will have been affected. Along with this, a wheel that has

moved will also be less effective under braking and acceleration, making the car feel uneasy and slower than it was before. Simply resetting the geometry is a benefit to handling even if you are not particularly interested in increasing the performance of your car.

In SUVs like the X5 or Cayenne, camber can often alter, accelerating tyre wear and increasing the amount of tyre changes required. A quick geometry fix can make sure that these issues are no more.

HOW ELSE CAN I UNLEASH THE POTENTIAL FROM MY CAR?

If you are interested in removing all of the compromised parts from your car to unleash the true handling potential from it, then you can continue to upgrade your suspension in the form of a good set of coilovers with a designed spring rate for your most common application. They will lower the chassis and centre of gravity, and will stiffen the ride and roll rates, improving cornering, braking and acceleration. Coilovers will also allow you to corner weight your car due to the adjustable spring perches, enhancing balance and handling even further. @suspensionsecrets

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J O UR NE Y Six years, six cars; SCD members Rob & Molly Taylor takes us on her and her husband Robâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey of Porsche GT ownership, with thousands of miles spent as intended across the UK, Europe and on track. Written by: Molly Taylor

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We were Aston Martin people first. We had a lot of fun, made a lot of friends and went on many adventures. There were European and UK tours, Le Mans, PistonHeads meets, there were even a couple of days spent on location around the Evo Triangle with Evo magazine in the company of Messrs Meaden, Catchpole, and Bovingdon.

However, we had some bad luck too. Our first V8 Vantage was quickly upgraded to a Vantage S and Robert, always wanting more, had that fettled by a specialist firm. Sadly that car was written off (neither of us driving) but it was quickly replaced with another new V8 S and more fettling! It was a very pretty car in Stratus White with an exhaust note that was made for tunnels! Unfortunately though, it had a bad habit of letting us down, and when you are touring abroad, that can be more than just annoying! Let’s just say there were some unresolved issues!

It was in August 2014, driving home from yet another visit to the service department of Aston Martin, Cheltenham, that Robert had the good fortune to stop off at the brand new Porsche Centre at Tewkesbury. They had only been open for a matter of days and were very happy to talk to potential new customers. Robert loves to chat about cars too, of course, and so began a beautiful new relationship.

We weren’t really in the market for a Porsche at the time and weren’t even looking for a replacement for the Vantage, so when Dan (sales manager) asked if there was anything we were interested in, Rob told him only the virtually unobtainable new 991 GT3. Much had been written in the motoring press about Porsche’s new flat-six wonder, but getting your name down for one was as likely as winning the lottery!

I really don’t think it could happen now, but it seems that there is such a thing as the right place at the right time! Our customer profile ticked the right boxes for the dealership: in area, conquest sale against another brand, able to proceed and place a deposit, not to mention the rapport struck up between customer and dealership that lasts to this day.

Imagine Rob’s surprise getting a call from Dan the next day who said, “I can get you a GT3 build slot if you can give me a £10,000 deposit NOW!”. It must have been another 24 hours before he built up the courage to tell me we were changing the car thereby ending our on-off love affair with Aston Martin forever.

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Photo: Cliff Taylor

Much decision making on the Porsche configurator and advice from the dealership resulted in a classic spec Guards Red GT3 which we collected in December 2014 and began using straight away. No one could ever accuse us of owning a garage queen and by the time we parted company, the mileage and stone chips certainly told a story!

The big trip with this car was organised by a Scottish guy on PistonHeads, gathering a great group of Porsche GT cars and getting us up to Scotland along with local enthusiasts Tartan Tarmac. It was April and we had typical fourseasons-in-one-day weather including snow, of course! The stone chips mostly came courtesy of our great car mate from the Cotswolds throwing grit at us from the plump tyres of his 997 GT3 RS, the same car which had given us a degree of Porsche envy when touring in the Alps some years before. Now we were hooked. The free-revving nature of the car just had you changing gear all the time to hear that engine noise. Everything felt right and precise. There could be no going back from this!

On the horizon came the prospect of the RS version and Rob would have sold his soul to get one. He must have smiled at the right people, said the right thing or jumped through the right hoops. He was in the garden spraying weeds with a large spray container on a backpack when Emma from sales at Tewkesbury phoned him

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with the news. His abiding memory of the call was his emotional excitement and the container leaking down his back as he struggled to remove it!

In January 2016, we took delivery. I don’t know why we have this pattern of winter collections of GT cars, but we do! This was the car that I really had the big love for. A Lava Orange 991 GT3 RS which just looked fabulous with that outrageous rear spoiler and a slightly illegal size stick-on front number plate. To quote Chris Harris driving this generation for the first time in Germany, “Have you seen the size of that WING?!”.

Probably the biggest tour with this car was Ireland in May 2016 with Petrolhead Tours. The bumpy roads were wrecking other cars (I remember the demise of a new Ferrari California) but nothing phased the RS. It was a fabulous thing!

Porsche, as a manufacturer, doesn’t stand still and there’s always going to be another GT car being developed in Weissach, and so came the prospect of the 991.2 GT3. This time, jumping through the right hoops involved an early change of car. Visiting the Tewkesbury showroom in September 2016, Rob was asked how many miles the RS had done. It was already over 8,000 miles so Dan quickly laid down a plan. The very next day, we were back collecting our first ‘pre-loved’, but highly specced and low-mileage Porsche, a January 2016 Jet Black Metallic Cayman GT4 with silver side decals and PCCBs

to tide us over with the promise of being on the shortlist for the next GT3 when it came out.

Two days later, we were back in Scotland and up to the North Coast 500 again with a bunch of friends. Dan had been right to prise the RS from our grasp while he could as more reckless miles were enjoyed. It was fun having a manual gearbox again and the car was an absolute cracker. The lead car of this group was a V12 Vantage which could pull away from us on a straight but had trouble losing us overall. Our Aston Martin-owning friends were more interested in this car because of the manual gearbox, but for us, well, it just wasn’t a 911.

It was April 2017 and we were out playing in Wales with the same group of friends. On a pit stop, Robert got another call from Emma at the OPC. We were on ‘the list’ for the new 991.2 GT3. I seem to recall emotional tears, and they weren’t from me! We had done it again.

On 30th September 2017, we were back in Tewkesbury collecting our Miami Blue machine. This latest incarnation of the 911 GT3 had a 4-litre engine that was pure joy to have under your control! This time, there was a cheeky visit to ABP Motorsports for a Sharkwerks exhaust bypass. If you ever heard this car, you wouldn’t forget it in a hurry! Before the end of the following month, we were back on the entrancing NC500 (around 600 miles from home incidentally) and carefully

Photo: Cliff Taylor

watching the running-in miles. Ironically, there’s a YouTube video of James, Mr JWW, doing exactly the same thing in his brand-new Miami Blue GT3, also in the far north of Scotland but the following year. ABP fitted his Sharkwerks bypass after this, his first experience of driving the NC500. Maybe James had heard rumours of a better-sounding version of his car that had already passed that way!

Many times over the years, Rob has been asked, “Do you let your wife drive?”. That always makes us laugh and I think his usual reply is, “Try stopping her!”. I tend to get my turn on the return trip from the pub (I’m sure that’s not a great surprise). In this instance, it was a ‘morning after’ situation. We set off from Tongue in the company of four Aston Martins going west and then south from the tip of Scotland. Somewhere between Durness and Kylesku, Robert checked the mileage and gave me the thumbs up, permission granted to take it to the redline, the full 9,000 revs! As road trips go, I think that is my happiest driving memory ever! The noise, the feedback from the car through the steering, the throttle, even the seat, just the whole package of driving a 911 at its best! When you purchase a new Porsche, your dealership will arrange a trip to the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone for some track time, tuition, fun and experience of the range of cars they offer. We have been very lucky to do this quite a few times now and Rob always shares the track time with me. Do not turn down

the chance to go if you get offered! Other invites might be forthcoming too for instance tickets for the Porsche Carrera Cup which runs alongside the British Touring Car Championship. Through this both we and our Cotswold 997 GT3 RS friends had come to follow the progress of rising Carrera Cup star, Dino Zamparelli.

We heard from Dino that he had an out-of-raceseason gig leading an exclusive driving tour in Germany starting at the Porsche Museum and visiting the factory in Stuttgart in late May 2018. It was time to make that pilgrimage to the birthplace of our Porsches! If you’ve ever been to the Museum, you will know that its a fascinating place. We were like an excited bunch of kids when we were given permission to park on the paving right outside with lots of photographs being taken. Obviously, everything about the actual Porsche factory itself is precise, immaculate and impressive. It was early days for the new 991.2 GT3 RS coming out but there seemed to be plenty buzzing around Stuttgart that day, most of them in stunning Lizard Green livery.

Just when you think you are in Porsche heaven, you find there is one more level to attain. Leaving Stuttgart, we all chased Dino, who was driving a 911 loaned to him by Porsche GB with the coolest registration, ‘A 911’, for the half-hour journey to Weissach. If you are a Porsche fan, you probably just heard some sort of angelic music in your head like that moment when the clouds part to reveal a beautiful clear blue sky and a couple of

cherubs do that cute little thing with a harp. If you are not familiar with Weissach, allow me to explain.

The Porsche Development Centre, including their test track, is at Weissach. I quote, “A place where engineering and enthusiasm have always gone hand in hand. Where visions are born and every model is developed completely from scratch. From the initial idea to the finished design. From the very first touch to the final test drive. From the race-bred sports car to the thoroughbred race car”. You cannot buy a ticket to this place. This was the ‘exclusive’ part of Dino’s driving tour that he had managed to keep secret from us.

Cameras and phones were handed in at reception and only half the group were allowed in at a time. When we got to the part where they were loading up the RSRs to take to Le Mans, Robert was more or less a gibbering, excitable wreck! The rest of the tour was pretty good too of course and Rob’s abiding driving memory is of the tour organiser’s Swiss-registered, totally tricked up BMW M3 that just couldn’t stay with our GT3 on a particular run through the Black Forest.

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Incidentally, my worst Porsche driving experience was to come on the return journey to Calais in torrential rain on the French motorway while Robert had a kip beside me. Oh well, at least he trusts me when he hands over the keys!

Back home in Herefordshire, I was aware of someone with an attention-grabbing exhaust around town. An occasional fleeting glimpse of an Audi R8 V10 Plus led me to discover @ mattadioss on Instagram (it’s a Capristo exhaust, by the way). From his posts, he plainly had doubts that there were any other supercars around our way. I gave him an Instagram nudge and we found ourselves a new friend and he (Matt Farman) was fairly insistent that we should get signed up to Supercar Driver.

As luck would have it, our local Audi dealership was keen to loan us an R8 in the hope they might lure us away from Porsche. On 8th November 2018, we went out on our first ever SCD event (as guests before signing up). It was very wet and, for a change, we weren’t in Wales or Scotland but in Somerset and Devon. Also for a change, we weren’t in a GT Porsche, but in an Audi R8. On that first drive out, we made friendships that I’m guessing will endure beyond club membership. I certainly hope so, although we’ve no intention of leaving SCD either! Aside from the Audi experience, we also had the loan of a Lamborghini Huracan Performante last

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summer and before that (a while back) a flirtation with Ferrari (Robert had a day at Thruxton and the chance to put his name down for a 488), but nothing and nobody has yet convinced us that there is something out there to suit us better than a GT Porsche. You might have noticed that we are not shy of putting miles on these rare beasts. Four cars into our GT journey and typically circa 8,000 miles on each, some might have said we were a bit reckless! Well, we are not reckless, just keen to grab life and all the experience we can get out of it. We are not typical supercar owners. Together for 22 years and both widowed before that, we really understand the true meaning of life being too short to miss opportunities. However, the opportunities for buying another new GT car were now slim. Our friendly local Porsche dealership was now well-established and had a large customer base clamouring for the chance to be on the GT list. There must have been ‘letters of intent’ flying around all over the place! The hoops one would have to jump through now were just too tricky and too expensive unless you were the sort to invest in a fleet of Porsches for your staff in order to get your dream car for your collection. We had no staff and no car collection, just our special Porsche, a VW daily drive and a practical pickup. Could this be the end of our GT journey?

Robert, bless him, is really quite good at keeping his finger on the beating pulse of GT Porsche prices. Sometimes he will randomly shout out a description of some fresh used car stock he has seen online and ask me what it’s worth (not always right but usually not too far off the mark!). So, as the miles went up on our Miami Blue machine, he was busy getting a feel for values of used 991.2 GT3 RS. It was time to hone his used car buying skills.

Typically, it was winter and a couple of Lizard Green RS were drawing his attention. We seriously contemplated having a deal with a dealership in Northern Ireland and taking the ferry crossing to swap cars in January. The dealer principal was a smooth talker and made us lots of tempting promises, but fortunately we realised it just didn’t make sense. That’s when Andrew Walker at Porsche Centre Chester started to talk a proper deal with Rob and somehow came up with the goods. On 18th January 2019, their covered trailer delivered our May 2018-registered Lizard to us and took away the GT3. There was a fleeting glimpse on the driveway of the same number plate, GT03 MOL, on both cars, and there it was, deal done, on trust, without a showroom visit and we owned the next level, latest, greatest GT car to come out of Stuttgart.

By now, we were fully signed up to Supercar Driver and joining every drive that we could: Brecon Beacons, Cotswolds, Secret Meet at Donington. This car was fast and photogenic! In the small world of GT ownership, we were at a Porsche Club event staying in Llandudno for ‘Porsches on the Prom’ when we heard a conversation across the table debating the purchase of a particular Miami Blue GT3. Yep, they were talking about our last GT3, and Craig was persuaded he should definitely get back to Porsche Chester for a deal. About three weeks later, we met him again driving it on a track day at Anglesey.

2019 with the Lizard was all action. It was the year of the track day, playing at hill climbs and loving life and driving, but the best event we did, without doubt, was with Supercar Driver.

On 27th June, we met up with Adam and Jonty and a whole gang of fellow owners to spend a day and a half celebrating these fabulous cars on SCD’s Porsche GT drive. The driving part of the event was in mid and north Wales, but ironically the venue for our initial meet was at Porsche Centre Chester. Over to SCD to provide a suitably colourful photograph or two from the event which could be hard to choose as there were so many great ones. Maybe best you just look up the video as it is stunning and well worth watching again!

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I think it may be that in winter the lack of car stuff going on makes us restless. Ok, so we had just been to the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone again, but generally speaking, no one is going far or doing much in January. This time though, the Lizard had done over 8,000 miles but it didn’t matter — it was a keeper.

Somewhere on the outer reaches of our radar though, up there in the clouds with those cherubs, was the prospect of just one more rung of the GT ladder in order to reach the pinnacle: the 911 991.2 GT3 RS Weissach Pack. Andreas Preuninger, head of Porsche’s GT division, had worked some extra magic on this model. Carbon fibre was used to best effect to bring the weight down a little more here and there, for instance, the roof and bonnet, the stabiliser bars and stabiliser coupling rods underneath and inside the car the paddle shifts and steering wheel trim.

Some Weissach RS logos inside the car, a titanium roll cage and a huge Porsche logo on the carbon fibre wing and you have a lightweight

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race car for the road. Apparently only about 80 had made it into the UK.

It was the first weekend in February, and in true ‘just looking’ shopping style, Rob had started to check prices and movement at the dealerships. There was fresh stock at Leeds; a GT Silver Weissach Pack registered at the end of October 2019 in the showroom with 99 miles on the clock. The dealership had closed already but he left a message and we got on with our weekend. We’d had a very pleasant Sunday morning walk with our collie and the three of us were in the pub when Rob got a call and went outside to get a better phone connection. He popped back in to pick up his pint and told me he was having a chat with Nick from Porsche Centre Leeds. Back indoors having another beer the phone rang again. After another similar round of events played out I asked how he was getting on. “We’ve narrowed it down to negotiating on the road tax”, he said! We drove the Lizard for the last time the following weekend. In between the chaos the

gales had caused, we made our way to Leeds and returned with our sixth, and most special Porsche GT car. It’s hard to believe that we have such an amazing car in the garage, but that’s where it is right now. I write during lockdown and the one favour it is doing us is we are actually keeping the mileage down on this one! An SCD breakfast meet at Topaz Bristol and one last drive in the Brecon Beacons before Covid-19 stopped play and that’s all we’ve been able to do. If you are old enough, you might recall an advert for a fancy bubble bath with the slogan, “Things happen after a Badedas bath”. As a kid, I used to idly wonder what mysterious ‘things’ they were referring to. As a grown-up, I want to adapt this slogan to, “Things happen after you purchase a Porsche GT car”, because I can’t quite take in all that has happened in the last six years on our GT Journey. @mollygt3 @robertrobbietaylor

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Ruining all the fun for Supercar Thieves

SmarTrack discuss one of the most important aspects of your supercar ownership, keeping your pride and joy safe and secure. Supercars are enjoyed and envied in equal measure, but what happens when the envy gets too much? Too often, supercar owners fall victim to car theft, whether their pride and joy is stolen to order, taken for a joyride, used as a getaway vehicle fit for Hollywood or taken as part of an elaborate worldwide scam, the theft of supercars is a painful and costly event for any owner. High-quality security systems within homes, garages and gardens can provide a level of protection against thieves but career criminals are most certainly becoming more technically advanced with each passing day, and can seemingly cheat even the most advanced and expensive in-car or at-home security programmes. In recent years, we have been inundated with footage that shows thieves making off with hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of vehicle within seconds, and this trend shows no sign of abating. One part of vehicle security tech that thieves have failed to outsmart is vehicle tracking solutions. These devices, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, can be fitted within

hours — the location of each tracker is a closely guarded secret — and have the capability to constantly monitor the location of your car, whilst a 24/7 support team can quickly and easily flag any suspicious or illegal activity such as the ignition starting without the presence of the key or key fob. No other security solution provides such consistent live data, nor can they be used to effectively recover vehicles following a theft. It is this peace of mind that is seeing vehicle trackers being fitted to thousands of cars every single year.

SmarTrack, part of the Global Telemetrics family, has been fitting trackers to supercars since its launch in 2006. Since then, it has helped to track and recover thousands of vehicles, including over £16.4 million worth in 2019 alone, including the safe recovery of a £1.8 million McLaren P1. It will come as no surprise that supercars continue to feature in SmarTrack’s ‘most wanted’ list. The Ferrari 488 and Porsche 911 make a regular appearance, whilst the Lamborghini Aventador and Huracan and Ferrari F12 also feature in the top 10 most expensive recoveries — which totals in excess of £4million — bookended by the likes of Rolls Royce and Bentley.

Gavin Hennessy, operations manager at Global Telemetrics, said, “It would be easy to think that spending tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds on a vehicle would guarantee security, however this isn’t always the case. For car thieves, these top-end cars are just too good to miss, which is why they have developed ways to snatch their car of choice off driveways, streets and out of car parks within minutes. We really are talking about gone in 60 seconds! However, car thieves remain unable to outmanoeuvre our tracking devices. They aren’t prepared for the speed in which we can put into motion our theft and recovery processes, they underestimate our relationships with local and national police forces, and best of all, they consistently fail at finding the tracker or jamming its signal. Powerful results for something you can hold in your hand!”. To find out more about SmarTrack’s marketleading vehicle tracking and security options, please visit www.smartrack.uk.net or call 01530 275920.

At a Glance — Global Telemetrics (SmarTrack) Vehicle Tracking Systems The secure control centre is managed by fully-trained security liaison officers, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The team monitors vehicles for illegal movements such as the vehicle moving without the ignition turned on. The SLO will call the customer to confirm the vehicle is safe. They also monitor vehicle battery levels and will contact the customer if the battery is running low or has been fully disconnected. All Global Telemetric systems are Thatcham Quality Assured and utilise secure cloud-based CRM/Databases to manage customer information and billing. They specialise in secure data aggregation and management using highly encrypted off-site servers for additional protection.

Global Telemetrics works closely with local police forces across the UK. Together, the police force and Global Telemetrics data enables quicker vehicle recoveries, with the quickest recovery ever being under 30 minutes!

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Global Telemetrics also proudly shares its intelligence with the police and crime commissioners to help reduce car crime and identify new theft techniques and trends. Global Telemetrics has over 1,000 TRI Thatcham-approved installers nationwide. Fitting normally takes around two hours and all trackers are covertly fitted to your asset with no sign of installation.

The Global Telemetrics D-iD™ Android/Apple app provides live data regarding the vehicle location, with immediate response times regarding vehicle movement. D-iD™ is a true industry first and is paving the way for new multi-use security solutions. Throughout 2019, Global Telemetrics recovered over £16million worth of vehicles, the most expensive of being a McLaren P1 priced at £1.8million.

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Electrifying

Rob catches up with SCD members David and Jon of Lunaz Design. Once strangers on a plane, now stylishly and sustainably preserving and electrifying automotive icons. Written by: Rob Ward

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We’ve all been there, you board a flight alone, sat next to someone you’ve never met. You inevitably shove your reading material and belongings into the literature pocket in front of you and lose yourself in your favourite playlist. You drift off to sleep and the three-hour flight is hopefully over in no time.

The pilot announces that you’re 15 minutes from landing and the pressure is starting to uncomfortably build in your ears as the aeroplane descends. Imagine then that the passenger next to you, having seen your hastily discarded copy of SCD magazine, makes reference to the fact that you are both members!

Frustratingly, you now have 15 minutes left of the flight to have what could have been a hugely enjoyable conversation about a common passion that we all know can easily last three hours in the company of someone interesting. For David Lorenz and Jon Hilton, this fortuitous exchange not only cemented a friendship based

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on a shared love of cars, business and of course SCD, but was the realisation that Jon was the business partner David needed to take the technical lead and managing directorship for his new company Lunaz.

The brief is simple, to create some of the most beautiful, tastefully developed classic cars ever restored and electrified, ensuring they remain on our roads for future generations whilst making them ever more reliable and usable. “This venture was always to do with futureproofing classics”, David explains, “building the ultimate driving car, the best car we knew how to build”.

With the development and engineering behind these cars by artisans from RollsRoyce, engineers from McLaren and with Jon’s experience winning back-to-back F1 World Championships with Renault F1 as well as stints at Cosworth and, finally, Flybrid systems (his own company that developed a flywheel based

KERS system), they are also cars that you can use for 20,000 miles a year and on a daily basis. “You can drive your dream classic car without fear of breaking down”.

“As we all know, the electrification of cars has always divided opinion”, Jon admits. Although it seems to be an inevitable conclusion, Lunaz was never about electrification as such. If electric wasn’t the way to go, then another future-proofing method would have been used. “It wasn’t about just going electric. These cars answer the growing question of sustainability, but making them a usable, drivable and reliable proposition has always been equally as important”. This is done from the ground up, with no replacement for perfection. A bespoke and modular, electric powertrain, modern electronics, safety systems and conveniences are all reverse engineered into the existing, stripped and prepared chassis and bodywork.

Lunaz’ business plan is to complete the development of the current three cars and bring them through into production, where 10 of each will be produced against customer orders within a year, amortising the one-off development cost required for each new model. Each year, another two new models will be launched.

These will have bespoke finishes and specifications based on Lunaz’ vast colour and spec palaete. Interiors will be specified from ethically sourced materials. Should the customer wish, vegan leathers can be commissioned in addition to stunning wood grains and intricate details to complement. Exterior finishes and wheels are then chosen to keep to the vehicle’s original appearance.

It is likely that 95% of clients will attend their specification session with a basic idea of what they want, perhaps the base colour or something taken from an existing car. Lunaz will then guide the client through the process of specifying each detail, similar to what you’d expect from a new vehicle. Lunaz are open to off-piste requests, but generally, as the options are so vast, the client will be guided towards the Lunaz palette. We all know there’ll be that 5% that just want what they dreamed of the night before, something very bold, but mirror balls and shagpile carpets are just not what Lunaz is about! “It is easy for a car to become more famous than the brand sometimes with social media and the huge amount of content available so instantly. This isn’t something you want as a business. Rob Dickinson has famously stated that Singer will never make a car that he is not proud of. Lunaz are no different”.

With each vehicle, regardless of its history, it will never ‘just get the electric powertrain added’. It will always, without exception, go through the whole Lunaz process of a complete strip down, assess, re-build, upgraded electronics, complete bodywork, bare-metal restoration, chassis check. Everything.

You just don’t know what is under the paint until you strip a car right back and believe us, we’ve seen some huge surprises...

“You just don’t know what is under the paint until you strip a car right back and believe us, we’ve seen some huge surprises so this has always been non-negotiable. We will not let a car leave our factory that is not perfect”. Unequivocally, the car will retain its original registration plate. It would have been easier to re-engineer more of the parts to aid the build and design process and give it a new registration than it was to retain so much of their original structure as this has been a huge challenge for the team, but another solid decision from the outset was that these cars always had to rightly retain their identity. These cars are built and supplied to be handed down through generations. There is no point in future-proofing a car if it isn’t going to either retain its history or, more importantly, last for the future. David has a fastidious attention to detail evident during our interview, and if only half of this makes it to each vehicle, we’re looking at some very high levels of quality, imperative to achieving the customer confidence needed with a business such as this. “If a supplier isn’t able to meet our expected levels of quality, then we simply do it ourselves”, David admits, “We are striving for 100% perfection with every part, finish and standard”.

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The experience of the driver is of utmost importance. Perfection or nothing is a fantastic mantra to heed when, in so many cases, money is a far stronger driver. However, this is inevitably where the majority of the debate comes from between design with passion against engineering, feasibility and cost with these volumes. I look forward to visiting to Lunaz to see some of their work and determine which party has won.

Every interior trim panel is re-manufactured completely. Cut and sewn patterns for the whole interior have been re-developed to a standard akin to the opulence of Rolls-Royce and Bentley of late. David has been very demonstrative when it comes to the interior and driven much focus. Let’s be honest, you spend five minutes admiring your own car from the outside, but you literally spend hours pawing over the inside, looking at your chosen stitching colours, quilting, piping, dials and gauges. That’s where the real detail is and all of this can be bespoke. “Even down to how a switch clicks is important. It’s all part of the package and feeling of the vehicle and we engineer this ourselves”. Lunaz is a composition of F1 mindset, OEM structure and company directors connected to the ownership experience resulting in the desire and ability to make each component ‘perfect or better’. “If it doesn’t exist, we will make it”, Jon tells us, “This allows you to drive forward without the need to rely on the market or suppliers”.

A supplementary result of this is the overall manufacturing CO2 levels of their vehicles are around a third that of a Tesla due to the number of parts upcycled, as opposed to buying parts in from abroad. Parts are either re-used, upcycled or re-made in house, where 3D printing and laser scanning enable reverse engineering and much more modern thinking. “There’s a leather pouch to store your iPhone, as well as somewhere to charge it!”. “We’ve thought in great detail about adapting these cars in sensitive ways to modern

requirements. There’s somewhere to slip your iPad or laptop without it flying off of the passenger seat when you brake, because the brakes are so much better now too!”.

The first complete car was the Jaguar XK120 and it is performing exceptionally well. The Rolls-Royce Phantom is now complete too and will soon join the fleets of some of the most prestigious hotels and private collections of the world.

The Jaguar XK120 has a new, custom rear axle and an added limited-slip diff. Shocks are now adjustable and springs on the front and rear are upgraded. Wheels are one inch wider than standard but aesthetics are maintained. Weight is slightly increased due to the inclusion of battery cells and the distribution is moved rearwards from an even 50/50 to 48/52 to the rear which helps with traction. The car now has traction control so the extra torque is both manageable and useable, and ABS to help safely slow the additional weight. “You can break traction but you do need to try hard and, of course, that’s a lot of fun! Clearly it’s much faster than the original. We set out to make the ultimate driver’s car with the characteristics of the original, but with the added comfort of power steering!”.

Although the application of the powertrain technology is bespoke and modular to enable it to be introduced and engineered into each vehicle, the development, testing and source of the technology is something that has been bought in as a product. Design and application has been done with the initial assistance from Warwick University and advice taken from source regarding the vital operating conditions in which these units work. Every vital statistic is sensed continuously and measured, with limits written into the vehicle’s mapping to ensure vehicle and cell protection at all times. This also ensures the all-important battery life and range, quoted at 1,200 cycles with a range of 250 miles, ensuring battery life of more than 250,000 miles.

Skilled individuals drawn from brands including Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Ferrari, VW and Aston Martin joined a team of highly specialist technical contractors to assist with the first build and continue to oversee current prototype production in house with drawings checked and verified before build.

In-car entertainment has had a huge investment and the quality of this is something where there’s been a lot of pressure from David. Apple Car Play, Google Maps and Bluetooth have all been added and speakers updated to suit. The RollsRoyce also has a split system, with rear screens so the occupants in the rear can have their own choice whilst the driver can concentrate on the route — all tastefully incorporated mind you. That said, it’s always the things you don’t think of that bite you. “Heating was an interesting challenge we’ve had to overcome. It is not something you get for free anymore with wasted heat from the engine. This has to be made in a much more complex manner so as not to steal 10% of the car’s range”. It is by their own admission that the electrification of vehicles at all, let alone some of the most iconic, historic classics is going to divide opinions. Purists will call it sacrilege, engineers will undoubtedly marvel at the huge leaps in technology and quality that Lunaz are about to unveil. The nostalgic softies amongst us, I hope will jump at the chance to keep their memories alive.

By virtue, David and the team are doing just that. Preserving those iconic shapes and styles, to keep them on the road and not subject to the fateful jaws of legislation. Without those icons and classic designs, we wouldn’t have our cars of today. @lunazdesign www.lunaz.design

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2010 - 2020

David Baker talks 10 years of supercar ownership and 10 years of SCD membership, discussing his personal highlights, the cars heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s owned, and why heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stuck around for so long. Written by: David Baker

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When did you join SCD?

Before it was even SCD really! Adam would get a few cars together for ‘Supercar Sundays’ by posting on the various popular car forums at the time. I think my first meet was April 2010, one month after getting what I would class as my first supercar, a Porsche 997.1 GT3. The GT3 replaced my Subaru Impreza WRX STI, which I sold to a friend who ended up joining SCD for the first few years.

What made you buy your first supercar?

It was a combination of things. I had a significant birthday, more free time, and I wanted to get back to enjoying cars again. I was driving around a lot for work, but a 5 Series BMW didn’t cut it for weekend fun. I had spent 12 months doing hours of research before deciding on a GT3 RS, which was a considerable investment at the time. I loved the idea of smiles per mile and buying a car for sheer driving pleasure; a car which was considered one of the best driver’s cars rather than for bragging rights or being the latest and greatest, and for me, this still holds true today.

My must-haves were ceramic brakes and Clubsport, and this proved difficult to find having heard of and seen many having an ‘off’ during track days and being ‘fixed’. Do your research if you’re after a straight one! In the end, I compromised, a little, and purchased an ex-press car. A GT3 in Cobalt Blue with Clubsport and ceramic brakes. I had no issues in buying a Porsche press car, knowing it was maintained to the ninth degree and all consumables replaced before sale.

Tell us about your favourite SCD memories.

2010 was all about the drives, typically meeting in Sheffield and heading out into the Peak District with like-minded car geeks in some amazing cars. Driving cars and taking cars was what it was all about, and many of the people I got to know in that first year I still consider good friends today. By 2011, I was settled into the GT3 and took it for my first summer road trip in it with SCD member Andy in his tuned M3 CSL, before SCD offered tours themselves, and it was a brilliant experience. I remember going on the SCD Secret Supercar Rally up to Scotland in July. It

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was raining on the way up and I was following the now-famous Veyron Super Sport WRE, and SCD’s then-newest member Rupert on his first event in his RS4 cab, roof down. If you go fast enough, you don’t get wet... hmm. What I thought was funny was having to stop every 60 minutes or so as the Veyron needed fuel. The number of looks we would get when we all stopped for fuel always raised a smile and chaos as we took over the forecourt. I have two personal highlights of that trip; following Fraser in his 997 GT3 RS on the famous military road that goes nowhere, so you just turn around and go back again, and trying to keep up with the Veyron, going flat out in the GT3 and watching it disappear away in front of me.

2012 brought a new advantage of SCD membership, finding my next car. If you read about SCD member Tim’s experience in the previous issue, then you may realise I bought his Blu Abu Dhabi Ferrari 430 Scuderia from him. I had to sell the GT3 and I remember getting £55k for it, yes, I know, and yes, I wish I still had it! Little did I know, though, that when I bought the Scud, it was at the bottom of its value curve. I remember turning up to the secret meet in March 2012 at Graypaul Nottingham with the biggest grin on my face. This year was all about events, from my first SCD trip to Abersoch in Wales, then heading up to the Lakes, the sun always seemed to be shining. I remember Adam asking me if I’d be interested in being of the first to drive the then-new Lamborghini Aventador, but I would have to drive to Edinburgh to do it. As fate would have it, that would be on my birthday. Of course I said yes, so a 4 am start and a road

trip to Scotland was planned around it.

2012 was also the year of SCD’s big weekender, part of which included a stand at Silverstone where Ferrari were celebrating 25 years of the F40. Seeing such a mass gathering of F40s in one place is something I’ll never forget. Other highlights of 2012 include taking the Scud to the centre of Sheffield for supercars in the city and taking part in the ‘rev-off’, and in September being involved in the world record for having the most cars of a single type in a single convoy, with the Scud standing out in a sea of red.

2013 started with a life goal, being part of the Top Gear audience thanks to SCD member Mike. It was the one where Lewis Hamilton was on and I got to speak to him — result! 2013 was also the year SCD started to get involved more with the dealerships, which led to a test drive in the then-new McLaren 12C Spider. One event I will not forget is the M6 Toll drive. I don’t know how Adam managed it, but SCD was allowed on the toll road early one Sunday morning after we had all donated to the air ambulance. The local police were aware and came along to see us off, then stayed at the services, allowing a great photo opportunity and the opportunity to pair up with a Gallardo Performante for a play! The real highlight of 2013 was the first SCD road trip to Europe. 25 cars, six days and around 2,000 miles to include Bugatti HQ at Molsheim (rolling up with the Veyron Super Sport WRE helped), the Susten, Grimsel and Furka passes, the famous Stelvio Pass (where a certain Gallardo caused an avalanche), Lake Constance,

Mille Miglia museum, Lamborghini and Pagani factories, Senna memorial, Ferrari Galleria, Monaco and the Route Napoleon. The Scud was the only car to do them all; some cars decided to pass on some activities to spend more time at others, and unfortunately, reliability meant a few cars didn’t make it all the way around. I’m pleased to say the Scud was faultless, the trip was simply brilliant and it reaffirmed lifelong friends.

2014 continued with the Scud and more dealer drives, first in the new F-Type Jag, the other in the facelift R8. 2014 was the first time the secret meet moved to Bruntingthorpe, and that was my first look at a McLaren P1. I remember thinking it was a spaceship compared to anything else on the road! 2014 was also the year I took the Scud back to Scotland for the SCD Highland tour, which brought rain, sunshine and a conversation with a police officer — a nice birthday present which thankfully went no further! Towards the end of the year, I received another call from Adam, asking if I’d be interested in

bringing the Scud to Evo Max, a Vmax event supported by Evo Magazine who wanted a few interesting cars to be there for some photos. I didn’t need to be asked twice! I was allowed a few speed runs and managed 185mph. I finished 2014 with a trip to Europe again with a few SCD friends, and a decision was made when I returned — it was time to sell the Scud. Scud prices were getting silly and I would actually make some money when I sold it, which was a crazy prospect at the time. Again, I know, and yes, I wish I still had it! But what could replace it? My first brand-new supercar, a Ferrari 458 Speciale. 2015 was a quieter year for me as I waited for the Speciale to arrive, but for that to happen, a quick trip to Italy was needed for the Atelier program, allowing some customisation of the specification. It was a fantastic experience and one I would recommend if you get the opportunity. The secret meet came and I volunteered to be the car park attendant, in the rain, but it did look good having all the same

brands parked together and I got to see an amazing collection of cars, so it was very much worth it. For my birthday, I got involved with SCD and their charity event which was a bit special. Passenger hot laps in the big three: LaFerrari, 918 Spyder and P1 with SCD member Paul and his racing driver friends — another brilliant day that would not have been possible without SCD.

My Speciale arrived and got taken pretty much straight away to Adam’s wedding in the Lakes. It was great to see it parked up next the Speciale Aperta owned by Tim who I bought my Scud from, and even better seeing Adam taken for a ride in the road-legal FXX. As well as various dealer meets, I also went with SCD to the Wings and Wheels event where we went flat out down the runway at the Top Gear test track. The Speciale managed 175 mph. To put that into context, an SCD member’s LaFerrari managed 192mph! I took a road trip to Italy with a few friends late in September, and before I knew it, 2015 was over.

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2016 was another year of change. After just nine months and four and a half thousand miles, I decided to sell the Speciale. I had intended to keep the car forever, but prices were going crazy and, in the end, my head won out as couldn’t justify ignoring a six-figure profit. Again, I know, and yes, I wish I still had it. I ended up jumping from one Evo Car of the Year to another with a Porsche Cayman GT4.

That car brought with it new opportunities including writing for this very magazine. The one article I will never forget writing was comparing my GT4 with a GT3 and a GT3 RS, back to back, same route, same driver. All three were brilliant, and I’m always grateful to SCD dealer friends TOP 555 for the opportunity. 2016 also took me down south to SCD detailing sponsors Topaz where so many amazing cars turned up as the day passed, I got my GT4 on the lake at the annual Tom Hartley summer BBQ, and enjoyed a Porsche only drive in the Peak District. Although now with SCD for seven years, 2017 brought a number of firsts for me, including a

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tour of the Bentley factory in Crewe with the opportunity to drive a Continental GT, and lots of stand access at the Geneva Motor Show to write up the show for the SCD magazine. That year’s secret meet included an appearance from the UK’s first Bugatti Chiron, and a chance to sit in one of just five Bugatti Veyron Pur Sangs. My final 2017 highlight has to be my first Supercar Days event at Anglesey in the GT4. It was an amazing track day with some amazing cars, and my GT4 was in its element. The real highlight however was not in the GT4, it was getting a hot lap with SCD’s racing driver friend Oli Webb in the Aston Martin Vulcan, the only car so far that has made me feel a little queasy, in just one lap, thanks Oli! 2018 brought not one car change but two. The GT4 left in March (yes, I know, and yes, I wish I still had it) to be replaced by a brand new AMG GT-R named Bruce (if you see me, ask me why), with a return to Ferrari in the form of a new 488 Spider due later in the year. I was getting greedy on the car front. AMG were kind enough

to loan me a GT R for that year’s secret meet, with mine arriving in time to visit Aston Martin Works and have a go at hand-rolling a DB5 wing panel. May brought The Supercar Experience at Meadowhall in Sheffield which raised lots for charity, as did my first go at RAF Leeming for their charity track day. I was getting to know my GT R, then the Ferrari arrived in time for summer. I took it to various car meets before heading to Europe and cracking 200mph on the German autobahn.

In 2019, I still had both cars, with the GT R heading to my supplying Ferrari dealer in February for my first meet of the year, and the 488 to the secret meet at Donington. More meets came and went, along with another trip to the Ferrari factory for my first Tailor Made experience, and again, if you ever get the opportunity, grab it with both arms, it’s truly amazing. The GT R was taken back to RAF Leeming for another charity track day and the 488 to that year’s Coventry MotoFest in glorious sunshine. One event I’d missed out on in the past

and was determined to attend this year was the pirate island day hosted by SCD member James and his family, and I was not disappointed — SCD giving you something you simply cannot get anywhere else. By late summer, it was time to say goodbye to the 488 Spider, making room for the next Ferrari arrival due next year. It was perfect for what I needed it for, great for touring in in the sunshine, but it had to go. The GT R was staying. And here we are in 2020. I did a few events in February, enjoying meeting up with other members after the winter break before we entered lockdown in March, and now it’s all about the drives, more on that later.

Tell us about how SCD has evolved over the years from your point of view, and why have you stuck around so long?

At the start, SCD was all about the cars, seeing the cars you had never seen and having them be

used as intended. Often for me, even just seeing the cars in those early years was a real treat, and knowing you could just go and have a natter with the owner. It doesn’t matter if the owner is a multi-millionaire with a fleet of super or hypercars or if they have one car they’ve worked all their life for. We all love cars and we were all one big car family, always seeing familiar faces and cars and catching up. It was a truly great time.

As SCD grew, it evolved and went from strength to strength, adding more to the team, more events, and of course a lot more members. This has its positives and its negatives just like anything else, but one thing I learned over the years is you will get out of SCD what you put into it, and Adam and the team listen to feedback, both positive and negative. I honestly didn’t think I’d still be a member of SCD after 10 years, but I keep coming back. Why? Well, for one thing, I still have a lot of friends who I meet just through SCD, another, I still enjoy experiencing car-related stuff that I simply could not do

without SCD, and finally, without SCD, I don’t think I’d be doing even 30% of the stuff I do with my cars, which would be a real shame.

What do you have planned for the rest of 2020?

2020 has been a funny year, we would all agree, and I personally think that 2020 still has a few surprises to bring us. Having re-taxed my AMG GT R, I’m now getting out on drives (if I’m quick enough to register that is!) and car-related fun has resumed. The big Mercedes has just 3,500 miles on it after two and a half years, which some would say is criminal, but I’ve had other cars as well as the AMG. While the others have now gone, the AMG remains. The reason being, firstly, I’m the only owner, and thus it is specified just how I want it, with all the carbon bits, track pack, ceramic brakes and so on, so it would be very hard to get another like it, and secondly, it would cost me around £70k in depreciation if I sold it, which is a big pill to swallow. Finally, the main reason, it’s just like no other car I’ve owned; it has a lot of road presence and you don’t need to be driving it flat out to really enjoy it, so I intend to use it a lot more, and Bruce is here to stay for a while yet.

As we head further out of lockdown, I’ll do more than the odd drive, and look forward to more events where socialising with other SCD members is more of the norm because, for me, this has become the main reason for sticking with SCD. It may sound crazy for a car nut, but dare I say it, you do become somewhat immune to the cars. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see the cars, but as I’ve matured as a person over the last 10 years, much like SCD has matured as a club, it’s meeting the people behind the cars, whether they’re old friends I’ve known for much of my 10 years of membership or new SCD members who want to come and talk cars. It’s something I intend to keep doing for many more years, and despite what my wife would stay, with many more cars. Long live SCD! @dav4_b

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2014/64 BUGATTI VEYRON GRAND SPORT VITESSE Carrara White & Blue Carbon with Blue Leather

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18/68 ALPINA B5 BITURBO 4.4 SALOON Finished in Special Order Alpina Blue Metallic with Ivory White Exclusive Nappa Leather with Exclusive Stitching & Piping. 3,300 Miles..........................................£74,950 19/69 ALPINA B4S BITURBO EDITION 99 Finished in BMW Individual Grigio Medio with Alpina Black Leather and Alcantara with Grey Stitching. 1,680 Miles...........................................................................................£69,950 16/66 ASTON MARTIN VANQUISH VOLANTE 6.0 V12 TOUCHTRONIC 3 Finished in Onyx Black Metallic with Pure Black Caithness Leather and spicy Red Stitching. 10,800 Miles ............................. £109,950 17/67 ASTON MARTIN VANQUISH COUPE 6.0 V12 TOUCHTRONIC 3 Finished in Q Special Order Ceramic Grey Metallic with Obsidian Black Leather & Alcantara With Cream Truffle Piping and Stitching. 7,775 miles...............................................................................................................................................................£99,950 18/18 ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE 4.0 Finished in Hyper Red Metallic with Obsidian Black and Spicy Red Caithness Leather. 3,700 Miles ..............................................................................................................................................£91,950 12/62 ASTON MARTIN VANQUISH COUPE 6.0 V12 TOUCHTRONIC 2 Finished in Q Special Order Magma Red Centari with Obsidian Black Hide with Quilted Accents and Red Stitching. 16,800 miles .............. ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................£79,950 12/62 ASTON MARTIN V8 VANTAGE ROADSTER 4.7 MANUAL Finished in Tungsten Silver with Obsidian Black Caithness Leather and Silver Stitching. 9,700 Miles..................................................................£49,950 19/69 AUDI R8 V10 SPYDER PERFORMANCE ‘CARBON BLACK’ EDITION Finished in Daytona Grey Pearl Effect with Black Fine Nappa Leather with Diamond Design Stitching in Steel Grey. 2,700 miles. .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................SOLD 17/67 FERRARI GTC4 LUSSO 6.3 V12 Finished in Grigio Silverstone with Nero Leather and Charcoal Alcantara. 8,000 Miles............................................................................................................................................................. £169,950 17/67 LAMBORGHINI AVENTADOR ‘S’ LP740-4 Finished in Grigio Estoque (metallic grey) with Black Sportivo Alcantara with Metallic Gold Stitching. 1,500 miles ............................................................................ £229,950

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20/20 MERCEDES-BENZ G63 AMG Finished in Obsidian Black Metallic with Classic Red/Black Exclusive Nappa Leather. 280 Miles ................................................................................................................................ £171,950 18/18 PORSCHE 911 (991.2) GT3 RS 4.0 PDK Finished in GT Silver Metallic with Full Black Leather and Alcantara Interior with Silver Grey Stitching. 4,200 Miles........................................................................... £184,950 16/16 PORSCHE 911 (991) GT3 RS 4.0 PDK Finished in Lava Orange with Full Black Leather and Alcantara with Lava Orange Stitching. 3,600 miles................................................................................................. £156,950 19/19 PORSCHE PANAMERA TURBO S E-HYBRID SPORT TURISMO Finished in Volcano Grey with Full Satin Finish PPF with Black and Crayon Two Tone Smooth Finish Leather. 5,600 Miles .......... £124,950 17/17 PORSCHE 911 (991.2) TURBO S COUPE 3.8 PDK Finished in Paint to Sample Slate Grey with Full Black Leather. 8,100 Miles ........................................................................................................................................... £124,950 14/14 PORSCHE 911 (991.1) GT3 3.8 PDK Finished in Rhodium Silver with Full Black Leather and Alcantara. 11,100 Miles................................................................................................................................................£99,950 19/19 PORSCHE CAYENNE TURBO COUPE 4.0 V8 - NEW MODEL Finished in Black with Black Smooth Finish Leather. 5,000 miles....................................................................................................................................£99,950 17/67 PORSCHE PANAMERA TURBO S E-HYBRID EXECUTIVE PDK Finished in Sapphire Blue Metallic with Black Smooth Finish Leather. 14,400 Miles.......................................................................................£89,950 17/66 PORSCHE MACAN TURBO WITH PERFORMANCE PACKAGE 3.6 PDK Finished in Volcano Grey Metallic with Black and Carrera Red Leather Interior Package. 25,800 Miles ...................................£54,950 12/62 PORSCHE 911 (991.1) CARRERA 4S COUPE 3.8 PDK Finished in Aqua Blue Metallic with Black Full Leather Interior. 36,600 Miles ...........................................................................................................................£54,950

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Ferrari 488 3.9T V8 Spider F1 2018 -

1,400 miles -

Auto

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139 miles -

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30,406 miles -

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BUYING

2019 -

204 miles -

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Porsche 911 3.8T 991 Turbo S

£234,900

Porsche Cayenne 4.0T V8 Turbo £103,900

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Porsche 911 4.0 991 GT3 RS

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MERCEDES AMG GT R PRO £185,950 / 2019 / 331 miles

PORSCHE 991 GT3RS £184,950 / 2018 / 2,344 miles

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Ferrari 328 GTS

Aston Martin V8 Vantage

2009 | 9,200 miles | £84,850

1989 | 21,000 miles | £49,850

2013 | 19,900 miles | £49,850

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Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta 2015

Porsche 991.1 GT3 RS 2016

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Porsche 718 Spyder 2019

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Bentley Azure Mulliner 2006

Porsche 997.1 GT3 RS 25,000 Miles

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Aston Martin DB6 Vantage 1967

Jaguar XK120 Roadster 1949

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500

2017 (17)

BMW 635 CSI Coupe £21,950

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1986 (D)

Defender 90 XS TD £35,990

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C63 Premium Saloon £31,990

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V12 Vantage AMR (1 of 100) £149,990

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1981

R8 V10 Performance £129,990

200

2020 (69)

Ferrari Testarossa £115,990

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McLaren 720S Performance £159,990

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Porsche Macan GTS £53,990

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2018 (18)

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911 3.8T 991 GT2 RS PDK 2dr Mileage: 25 mi Year: 2018 18

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GTC4Lusso 6.3 V12 F1 DCT 4WD (s/s) 2dr Mileage: 10,764 mi Year: 2018 18

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£92,990 Year: 1999 T

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488 Pista Mileage: 150 mi

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430 4.3 Scuderia 2dr Mileage: 16,647 mi

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650S 3.8 V8 Spider SSG 2dr Mileage: 13,973 mi

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Year: 2018 18

GT3 RS Weissach Mileage: 350 mi

Year: 2018 18

£184,900

Ferrari

£179,900

Aston Martin

£104,900

Year: 2008 08

£105,900 Year: 2015 15

£73,990

911 3.8 991 Carrera GTS PDK (s/s) 2dr Mileage: 23,985 mi Year: 2015 65

Email: info@baytreecars.com @BaytreeCarsLtd

Porsche

488 3.9T V8 Spider F1 DCT (s/s) 2dr Mileage: 9,739 mi Year: 2016 16

Vantage 4.7 V8 AMR 2dr Mileage: 1,440 mi

Lotus

Exige 3.5 Cup 380 2dr Mileage: 6,000 mi

Year: 2018 67

£69,900 Year: 2017 67

www.baytreecars.com

Baytree Cars Ltd, 31 Chequers Lane, Derby, DE21 6AW

A pre-owned Ferrari: when Approved, it stands out.

MORE THAN 190 POINT-CHECK

WARRANTY EXTENDED UP TO 2 YEARS

ORIGINAL CERTIFICATION PROGRAMME ISSUED AND APPROVED BY FERRARI

Ferrari F12tdf Year: 2016: Miles: 129 External colour: Giallo Triplo Strato Internal colour: Nero £799,000

Ferrari Portofino Year: 2019: Miles: 3,262 External colour: Bianco Avus Internal colour: Mandarino Antigua £157,000

Ferrari GTC4Lusso T Year: 2018: Miles: 1,988 External colour: Nero Daytona Internal colour: Nero £173,000

Ferrari 458 Speciale Year: 2015: Miles: 1,890 External colour: Grigio Ferro Internal colour: Nero £275,000

Ferrari FF Year: 2014: Miles: 20,500 External colour: Grigio Titanio Internal colour: Crema £115,000

Ferrari 488 GTB Year: 2018: Miles: 1,097 External colour: Rosso Corsa Internal colour: Nero £184,000

Ferrari 458 Speciale Year: 2015: Miles: 3,641 External colour: Rosso Corsa Internal colour: Nero £279,000

Ferrari 458 Italia Year: 2011: Miles: 17,984 External colour: Rosso Corsa Internal colour: Nero £138,000

All listings accurate at time of publication.

OFFICIAL FERRARI DEALER

Graypaul Nottingham

Graypaul Nottingham Lenton Lane Nottingham, NG7 2NR Telephone: 0115 837 7508 nottingham.ferraridealers.com

ferrariapproved.com

To find out how our sponsors can benefit your ownership experience, visit supercar-driver.com/sponsors If you would like to become a sponsor email info@supercar-driver.com 141

10% off for all SCD members - mention SCD10 when buying.

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Exclusive Registrations are proud to sponsor SCD and have some of the most exclusive number plates money can buy available.

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A selection of recent events for SCD members

Cotswolds Drive

Sunday 14th June West Midlands

Solstice Dales Drive

Saturday 20th June Yorkshire

143

Solstice Midlands Tick

Peaks Evening Drive

144

Saturday 20th June East Midlands

Wednesday 24th June South Yorkshire

Yorkshire TDF Drive Day

Peak District Drive Day

Friday 26th June Yorkshire Dales

Friday 3rd July South Yorkshire & East Midlands

145

Sherwood Shuffle

Cheltenham Loop

146

Sunday 5th July East Midlands

Sunday 5th July West Midlands

FUND YOUR PASSION We offer exceptional personal service and bespoke funding that has been designed for enthusiasts, just like you... For a competitive quote call 020 3603 0085, WhatsApp 07468 475 268 or visit jbrcapital.com

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Finance and terms subject to status. Advances between ÂŁ25K and ÂŁ10M.

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0800 001 66 66 www.xlltd.com info@xlltd.com