Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2025 i Classics World

I was very fortunate to spot an immaculate Dino 308 GT4 out for its Sunday drive recently. I heard it coming and knew it was something special (as I’m sure all car enthusiasts are able to do) and snapped the image above while trying not to drop my lunch as the red wedge pulled up to the lights. No longer than 4.3 metres and just 1.18m tall, it looked tiny in amongst modern traffic and certainly much more lithe than Ferrari’s modern efforts. It was turning heads just as readily however, all without the help of the loud, gimmicky design that supercar makers lean on today. Not long before my car spot, Ferrari unveiled its 849 Testarossa, a new range-topping hypercar to replace the SF90. Named after its iconic 1980s…

Coventry’s iconic Transport Museum has become the focus of major regeneration discussions that could see it relocated from its current Millennium Place site to the former IKEA building elsewhere in the city. The museum houses the largest collection of British-made road transport held in public ownership, including mass-produced cars that were built in the city, plus the Thrust SSC and Thrust 2 land speed record cars. In documents presented at May’s UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF), officials floated the possibility of building around 300 homes on the museum’s current Millennium Place site on Hales Street, within the wider City Centre North regeneration scheme. A listing shared in the Coventry Investment Prospectus said: “Coventry City Council wishes to see the Transport Museum relocated into new purpose-built facilities and,…

GOT A STORY TO SHARE? EMAIL IT TO CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK Haynes Motor Museum celebrated its 40th anniversary in style on September 7 with the inaugural John Haynes Classic, a tribute to founder John Haynes OBE. Despite some early torrential rain, the event drew more than 3000 visitors, transforming the museum site into five themed zones packed with cars, motorcycles, live entertainment and family activities. The Owners’ Car Zone stole the spotlight with over 300 classic cars and 11 clubs on display. Among the standouts were the MG SV club and a pristine 1959 Aston Martin DB MkIII. The coveted Best in Show award went to a superbly restored Volvo Amazon Estate. Motorcycle fans flocked to the Motorcycle Zone, while on the Live Stage, personalities including Edd China, Jon Bentley and Ian…

EMAIL: CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK I have been a subscriber of Classics (now Classics World) for well over 15 years now, and living on the west coast of Canada I really look forward to and love reading the magazine from cover to cover each month, but I have felt increasingly disgruntled this past year as I see edition after edition drop into my mailbox loaded with main articles on Fords, MGs, and Triumphs month after month as if these are the only classics worth featuring. Personally I’ve never been a fan of Fords, and while I like MGs and Triumphs, I’ve starting to feel these marques have been done to death now. There are so many interesting marques out there, yet Classics World seems to continually focus on these three marques month after…

Ford knew that before long owners of RS2000s would be looking to trade up to a newer car and didn’t want them seduced by an Astra GTE or Golf GTI, but the original go-faster model in the range was only lukewarm when compared to its rivals. The XR3 had been created by adding a twin-choke Weber carb to the 1.6-litre CVH engine for a total of 96bhp, which in the 925kg Mk3 shell provided performance similar to the old RS2000: slightly slower to 60mph but a higher top speed. Sitting on its 5.5-inch alloy wheels and with spoilers front and rear, it looked the part but was only the first wave of performance-orientated Mk3 Escorts. Legend has it that Ford Motorsport despatched an early RS1600i – the 1981 homologation special…

Talbot was introduced in 1902 by Clément-Talbot, an Angolo-French outfit founded by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot and Adolphe Clément-Bayard. The advent of the First World War saw things scaled back, but soon after the end of hostilities, Clément-Talbot was made part of STD Motors, a group that also included British firm Sunbeam and French manufacturer Darracq. The Rootes empire, meanwhile, began life as Rootes Ltd in 1918, established by brothers William and Reginald Rootes with backing from their car dealer father. Their business was car sales and in 1922 they gained the Austin franchise for London and the Home Counties, acquiring stakes in Warwick Wright and George Heath Motors, both big car dealerships. The Thrupp and Maberley coachbuilding business was acquired in 1925 and in 1928 both Hillman and Humber (along with…

When the 750i first arrived, it was only Jaguar and BMW which could offer a 12-cylinder engine in a production saloon car. The majority of both XJs and 7 Series sold were the straight six or V8 models but both firms offered V12 power at the top of the range. The Jaguar V12 had been in production since 1972, while BMW’s V12 had been unveiled in 1987 but ironically, Jaguar’s engine was to fall foul of emissions and fuel economy in 1997 while BMW is still turning out V12s. The BMW engine was in concept a pair of straight-six engines running around a common crankshaft and even ran with two separate engine management systems – if one system failed then the system would simply shut down one bank of cylinders…

The modern-day Bentley range may be literally the preserve of the Premier League, but oddly enough in real terms the cars produced under Volkswagen ownership are actually slightly less exclusive than they were back in the Rolls-Royce days. The current range may kick off at £202,565 for the ‘entry level’ Continental GT, but back in 1991, the Turbo R was a whopping £116,265. Adjust for three decades of inflation and the exotic nature of the Turbo R is suddenly thrown into focus, with the Bank of England’s own inflation calculator putting the Turbo R at £268,992 today. Today though, the cars can be had for a fraction of that value, with their fast-growing classic status yet to give prices a boost to E-Type levels for example. Like all exotic cars,…

Ford hasn’t been a player in the big car market in Europe since the late ’90s but back in the ’70s and ’80s brand loyalty was such that if you were a Ford man when you started as an apprentice, then when you finally made it to senior level but weren’t offered a Jaguar, the Granada would have been your choice. Even in the ’90s a top-spec Granada was the sort of car which often made drivers of Audis and BMWs wonder why they were making do with wind-up windows and paying extra for a radio when the big Ford came with heated leather, air con and six cylinders. The Granada started off in 1972 and the bigger profit margins on a larger car meant it could be more sophisticated…

PART 7 As I’ve mentioned before, the Volvo 240 estate is my winter/year-round classic; in other words, it’s taxed and insured all year round. A car that was built to withstand Swedish winters in the 1990s should be more than capable of standing up to today’s British offerings. Accordingly, the principal thrust of this final part is going to be preparing the car for regular all-year-round use. Specifically, more rustproofing, paintwork protection and, because a half-decent sound system is a massive benefit when it’s cold outside, sorting out the crackling and needs-a-hefty-thump-to-work-properly radio. First, something sort-of connected with last month. When I was tackling the rear calliper that wouldn’t shift, I did at one point try removing the rear spring to improve access. This is relatively straightforward: with the car…

Best BMW ever? The case could be made of a whole host of brilliant machines, but cars like the E30 M3, the prewar 328 and the company’s sole mid-engined supercar, the M1, will more than likely be up there in most folks’ shortlists. And the common thread that runs through these icons? Their very existence was born out of a desire to win races – and that’s also true of the first BMW to wear the Coupé Sport Lightweight moniker, the glorious E9 CSL. While the CSL has legendary status within the pantheon of greats from BMW’s history, it’s interesting to have a look at its roots as it didn’t have a particularly exciting genesis. Back in the early 60s, BMW was keen to expand its model line-up and launched…

It’s a paradox, the Triumph Stag. Its survival rate is one of the highest of all the ’60s and ’70s British classics, yet back in the day when they were still modern cars they gained a terrible reputation for mechanical fragility. The story of the Stag begins in a rather unlikely place with a timeworn pre-production Triumph 2000 saloon driven to Michelotti’s studios in Turin, the intention being to use it as a motor show display car to promote his studio and design capabilities. Triumph had agreed that if the company liked the result then it would have first refusal on productionising it and it appears that boss Harry Webster was indeed very much taken with it so the prototype was duly returned to Coventry. One problem which was identified…

Mercedes W210 E-Class (1994-2003) The W210-generation E-Class, as the model was now officially badged for the first time, had big shoes to fill, replacing as it did the multitalented and long-serving W124. Starting development in 1987, the W210 was a radical departure stylistically, featuring a four-light nose alongside a more curvaceous take on the well-known silhouette. Opinions varied on how well-executed this new look was, but even the biggest W210 fan struggled to say it was an improvement. Produced around the time of Mercedes’ merger with Chrysler, the W210 also suffered from some quality reduction next to its predecessor, with cheaper-feeling plastics and altogether lower-quality materials, as well as a worse tendency to rust while still young. However, there was plenty to recommend the new car, with an impressively large…

GOT A STORY TO SHARE? EMAIL IT TO CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK Rustival, the all-inclusive car gathering created by YouTubers Matt of Furious Driving, Steph from idriveaclassic and Ian and Carly of HubNut, built on its successful debut and sequel events last year to return to for a third time on August 30. True to its motto, ‘clapped out to concours’, the event welcomed every type of vehicle regardless of age or condition, filling the grounds of the British Motor Museum with more than 850 cars of all sorts. Cars on display ranged from pre-war rarities to a brand-new Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, and even a 1940s Gunsmith tractor courtesy of YouTuber Lawrie’s Mechanical Marvels, which took home the ‘Vehicle of The Show’ award. Further standout exhibits included a patinated Bond Bug that…

Some cars make it to the status of modern classic rather faster than others and the reason is often that the cars are robust enough to still be in daily use. Sadly there aren’t many Jaguars which fit the bill, but plenty of early ’90s Mercedes and BMWs fall into this category and rarely raise a glance as they pass in the street. Even more anonymous but far more significant to the evolution of our current streetscape though is the Lexus LS400, the first of a new wave of crushingly competent cars from Toyota with a steely focus on taking a share of the lucrative prestige market. The name itself tells you all you need to know: according to Toyota insiders it’s a contraction of ‘Luxury EXecutive for the USA”…

In some ways the second-generation Range Rover was doomed before it even appeared, due largely to one rather fundamental problem: the market had caught up during the original car’s long lifespan and its replacement could never hope to make the same kind of impact no matter how good it was. Land Rover also faced rather more competition than it had back in 1970 when the Range Rover had been very much a unique product. The Japanese brands were producing equally capable multi-purpose 4×4s like the Shogun and Land Cruiser which blended mud-plugging ability with family duties, while those just wanting 4x4 for the occasional bad winter could now also choose from the increasing number of all-wheel drive cars from the Ford Scorpio to the entire Audi range. Oh and for…

Sir William Lyons has been given much credit for Jaguar’s design direction and the XJ was no exception, but it was Pininfarina which took the Lyons original and managed to improve it, the brief being to extend the life of the original design for long enough for the XJ40 development programme to reach conclusion. The work was incredibly subtle but very significant and managed to make the car look longer and sleeker whilst actually raising the rear roofline to create more interior space. An enlarged glass area reinforced the sense of roominess and the interior was suitably modernised too. Engine options carried over from the Series 2 included 3.4 and 4.2-litre XK straight-six and 5.3-litre V12, with the 4.2 gaining fuel injection and both six-cylinder cars now offered with the…

Next year we’ll no doubt see much written and said about the Rover SD1, the car which suddenly made Rover’s existing P6 range – and much of the competition – look old-fashioned. Its Daytona-inspired looks and sleek fastback shape looked space-age next to the Mercedes W123 and even the XJ6 while the addition of V8 power was a masterstroke. Sure enough, the SD1 duly walked off with the Car Of The Year award before industrial relations and quality issues conspired to blunt its appeal, but under the skin it was in fact less adventurous than its predecessor and its combination of executive car and V8 power was in fact nothing new. The first Rover product to employ the long-serving V8 was in fact the P5 which offered as much quiet…

The British-built Hillman Avenger carries the dubious honour of having had three different identities during its long career, starting off life as a Hillman in 1970 before being rebadged as a Chrysler in 1976, only to become a Talbot for its final couple of years in production. By the time the last example rolled off the line in 1981, almost 790,000 Avengers had found buyers. Even by the standards of 1970, the rear-wheel drive Avenger was conventional in its layout, featuring MacPherson struts up front, coil springs and a live axle at the rear, overhead-valve engines and a four-speed transmission. Rootes wasn’t alone in playing it safe, but the Avenger’s long run meant that by the time it went out of production, it was seen as distinctly old-fashioned against a…

While the CSL was the result of painstaking work to make it a winner on track, or perhaps because of that painstaking work, the CSL also makes a stunning road car. The cockpit doesn’t give away the fact that this is, at heart, a thinly disguised racer – there’s still a wood dash – but the Scheel sports seats grip you well and hint at the cornering potential within. Getting underway requires muscles – there’s no power steering – but once above walking pace the steering lightens, and while it’s slightly vague around the straight-ahead, once you have some lock applied it firms up nicely and chatters to you through the delicate wheel rim. While it’s not a hugely quick machine by today’s standards, it still feels quick, in part…

1994 Rover 214 ● SWVA, July 31 Sold for: £2800 plus fees Showing just 33,328 miles, this 214 SEi presented beautifully in Metallic Nightfire Red, complemented by a black half leather interior, and had been meticulously maintained by its long-term owner. It was estimated at a mere £1500-£2500 but sold above that higher estimate. 1989 Vauxhall Nova ● SWVA, July 31 Sold for: £9750 plus fees A tidy and unrestored example, this Nova SR proudly retained all of its original factory features, down to its original head unit and rubber floor mats. It showed a mere 30,697 miles and easily bettered its £5000-£7000 guide price. 1991 BMW 318iS ● SWVA, July 31 Sold for: £9800 plus fees Joining several BMWs in the sale was this E30-generation BMW 318iS. Said to…

If you’re in the fortunate position to have a healthy five-figure sum to spend on a fun car, the used sports and supercar market offers a world of opportunity in 2025. Some of the greatest performance cars of the early 2000s have seen their values level out following some pretty aggressive depreciation, with modernday considerations like fuel, road tax and servicing costs helping to suppress prices, as well as some undue concerns about reliability in some cases. While some have started to gain the attention of collectors, the list of potential premium-badged, high-performance, head-turning bargains is long. Some of the cars on this list are already universally appreciated as modern classics, while others are overdue their moment in the spotlight and should be considered as potentially savvy investments as time…

Well, this is the final episode of our high-mileage VW Caravelle 2.0 TDI 140. The Transporter T5.1 six-seater is in remarkable condition inside and out considering the 202,000 miles it has covered, mostly with the two owners before us. We were now working to a deadline to finish the few small jobs on our list, as the owner of our Caravelle, Ian Cushway, – fellow journalist and editor of VWt magazine (https://shop.kelsey.co.uk/vwt-magazine) – was coming over from his home in France to collect it. A spanner in the works which could potentially prevent me from working was the approaching Storm Bert – I needed to paint the roof rail gutters (outside in calm conditions). The other issue – the outside mid-afternoon temperature was about to drop to below 7°C! I…

Surrounded from an early age by friends and family who all happened to own Fords, it’s little wonder Gary Oxley ended up taking a similar path. “My father was a blue oval man, and we’d often end up looking at all the second-hand cars for sale at our local Ford dealerships on a weekend,” he smiles. “During my teens, it seemed all my friends were all driving around in Mk2 and Mk3 Escorts too.” Unsurprisingly, Gary was keen to join in and bought himself an early carb-fed XR3 in the now almost extinct shade of Prairie Yellow. “That XR3 was a noticeable upgrade from the Fiesta 1100L I’d had before,” Gary laughs. “Even with a four-speed gearbox and 100,000 miles on the clock, it felt a quick car.” While Gary’s…

It’s probably my age or an appreciation for the acting career of John Thaw – a man who loved Classic cars as much as classical music – but I had to rub my eyes when I spotted this iconic Jaguar Mk2 sweep past in the Melbourne sunshine. Was it the TV star? Kelvin Tiplady’s Mk2 is not a dead ringer for the Jaguar saloon that Inspector Morse pedalled around the English countryside on the way to solving innumerable crimes. Morse’s television car was in maroon and had a black vinyl roof. But it is close enough to have stopped me in my tracks and ask the driver, “Can I have your autograph?” Kelvin smiled. “The car does turn a lot of heads but I haven’t been mobbed as yet…” That…

The Sunbeam-Talbot 90 was released at a pivotal moment for both the British car industry and Great Britain as a whole, with the end of the Second World War bringing about a period of recovery and careful rebuilding. When released in 1948, the Sunbeam-Talbot 90 accordingly married a many of the features from its prewar Sunbeam-Talbot 2-Litre predecessor with forward-thinking styling to bring Rootes Group into the ’50s. As time went on and the babies started booming, the 90 evolved with the times, improving its underpinnings and becoming ever more aspirational. The Mk2A we borrowed from Steven Hunter Specialist Cars is one such example. This car was painstakingly restored by Stephen’s late uncle, and at first glance, it’s clear that the work has held up very well indeed over the…

BMW began production of a large saloon in 1968 under the ‘E3’ model code but the 7 Series tag didn’t arrive until 1997 when the first generation ‘E23’ car was launched, identified by its characteristic sharknosed prow. Never a huge seller in the UK, the E23 is something of a rarity today and generally found within BMW enthusiast circles. Its successor however, the E32, moved the game on considerably and represented BMW getting serious in the luxury car game. Where the first generation had seemed too sporty against rivals like Jaguar yet underpowered compared to the Mercedes V8s, the E32 was a clean-sheet design with crisp, modern looks which made the S-Class and indeed the XJ look old-fashioned. It was also technologically up to the minute and although it launched…

Launched in 1965, the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow represented a sea change in the way Rolls-Royce approached car production, and reflected a gradual change in the type of people who bought them. Spawning everything the Crewe marque created until its involvement with BMW, the Shadow left its mark on over 30 years of Rolls-Royce and Bentley history. Its replacement, the Spirit has yet to capture the hearts and minds of classic car enthusiasts in quite the same way. The Silver Shadow was Rolls-Royce’s first car to use a modern unitary construction, but was destined to use the same engine and gearbox as the outgoing Silver Cloud, which meant a V8 of 6.2 litres coupled to a four-speed automatic gearbox. Available from the factory initially only as a four-door saloon, some coachbuilders…

The W116 launched in 1972 may have been the first of the cars officially to bear the Sonderklasse – S-Class – tag but it drew on a long line of world-class big saloons from Stuttgart. As such it represented the state of the art in car engineering and was nigh-on impossible to improve. So Mercedes didn’t even try, instead letting the car run relatively unchanged until 1979, when its all-new successor, the W126, was unveiled. Amazingly, the two cars were produced in tandem for the first year such was the demand for the older model but the new car did move the game on a long way. Unlike the gimmicky technology highlighted in many of today’s unveilings, the S-Class ushered in some significant engineering advances which have since become commonplace.…

For those of us in the classic car world the CSL tag will forever be associated with the flying Batmobiles, but the name was destined to be recycled in more recent times. First was the special edition of the acclaimed ‘E46’ M3 produced in 2003, of which 1383 examples were produced. Tricks like a carbon fibre roof and thin-walled exhaust reduced the car’s weight by 110kg to 1385kg which was coupled with a power hike to 360bhp. Sitting on 19-inch rims, a measure of the car’s serious nature came in the fact that it was supplied on semi-slick Michelin Pilot Sport Cup rubber. The next outing for the CSL tag was on the 4-Series, when BMW M celebrated its half century in 2022 with a return of the 3.0 CSL…

The revival of Skoda as a viable brand stands as testament to the industrial might of the Volkswagen Group. Thanks to some clever engineering, expert marketing and ultimately the introduction of a number of great, cheap cars, the Czech marque was born again and is now a household name for all the right reasons. While it was the Golf-based Octavia saloon that got that ball rolling, its supermini sibling was the car that really hit home in the UK. The Skoda Fabia was officially presented at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1999, with production starting in October of the same year. It was the first car to use the Volkswagen Group’s next-generation A04 platform, shared with the Volkswagen Polo Mk4 and Seat Ibiza, using almost entirely Volkswagen Group parts.…

If traditional Jaguar buyers were taken aback by the XF when it was rolled out as a replacement for the S-Type, the firm’s treatment of the new XJ in 2009 was even more controversial. Like the old car, it was sleek and easy on the eye – but here’s the rub. It couldn’t have looked more different to the old X350, a design that had gently evolved over the past five decades since the first XJ appeared in 1968. Like most of us, Jaguar had learned to keep a close eye on weight and had pioneered the use of aluminium, magnesium and composite alloys on its previous XJ. However, to add refinement and create more room inside, the firm made the X351 both wider and longer, which resulted in the…

Nearly 30 years ago, Mercedes launched the first generation M-Class. Traditionalists may have found its soft, bulky lines hard to stomach, but nobody could deny that it was an important car for the brand – the first SUV to bear the three-pointed star. The G-Wagen may have been in production since 1979, but it was always a utilitarian vehicle, even after Mercedes attempted to civilise it. Mercedes had to make a totally different product, especially if it was to continue to be a strong force in the all-important US market. By the early 1990s, SUV sales in the United States were booming. In 1990, they accounted for almost 7% of all US car sales, representing 929,000 units and rising to a mammoth 1,750,000 in 1995. Mercedes were already looking to…