Innehållsförteckning för Volume 11 från RETROMOTIVE

He could’ve been a detective that bloke Les Hughes. Sleuthing through follow-ups and referrals to dig out scraps of history, uncover fresh angles on interesting cars and owners, incidents and accidents. This bloke loves the hunt, the places it takes him and the people he meets. Instead the genial Mr Hughes, working out of a home office in sub-tropical Brisbane, Australia, is arguably the world’s foremost authority on Jaguar motor cars. Albeit a long way from the climes of Coventry. In 1976, the teenager and Mark 1 Jaguar owner was looking after a club magazine when Jack Bryson, famed Australian importer of the British cars, died. ‘Bryson had saved Jaguar. Sir William Lyons rang and said “I’m going to the wall” and Bryson stumped up for 200 cars, S-Types and…

THE NEVER - IDLING PAUL HALSTEAD CREATED HIS FIRST GIOCATTOLO – ITALIAN FOR TOY – WITH HOLDEN V8S STUFFED INTO REWORKED ALFASUD SPRINTS IN THE 1980S. THIS TIME HIS GIOCATTOLO IS A BESPOKE 16-CYLINDER HOTROD, TRADEMARKED AND BADGED AS A HYPEROD. Paul Halstead is über upbeat about his latest project – a low and wild Giocattolo for the 21st century. This all-original Australian machine will run a pair of harnessed GM V8s, copper-burnished body up front and maybe polished alloy out back. Exposed mechanicals. Analogue instruments. No doors. This will be a steam punk supercar for the ages. Paul has spent a lifetime in and around cars, back to teenage days grafting a Standard 14 horsepower engine into an Austin Eight for his first street machine. He’s an IT guru,…

On Thursday 20 September 1957, just 12 years after the end of World War Two, an Australian newspaper carried a small article that read: The first Japanese vehicle to be regularly exported to Australia will be here soon. It is a four-wheel drive land cruiser made in Japan by the Toyota Motor Co. A shipment of 12 LandCruisers will arrive in Sydney by ship in the first week of October. The price is not yet known. Australia was the first country outside of Asia to receive the LandCruiser, with the first ever exports having gone to Burma the previous year, and the United States received just one in 1958. The LandCruiser was the vehicle that Toyota chose to lead its export drive into the world’s markets. It could be said…

It’s not often you come across a person with just the right combination of drive, passion and the business skills to succeed in often challenging times. Being great at what you do is a pre-requisite for long term business success, though never guarantees it. Rather, it is a complex combination of skills relying heavily on the ability to adapt over the longer term. Gavin King, and his 27-year business, Concours Sportscar Restoration ticks those boxes. Gavin grew up on the Northern beaches of Sydney leaving school in 1988 and starting an apprenticeship at a local Independent Jaguar workshop. Here he learnt mechanical skills and a love for all things Jaguar. On a typical day, the workshop would be full of late 80’s near new XJ’s and XJS’s as well as…

The original BMW E9 was a highly successful and stunning coupe designed in the late 60’s and achieving sales of over 30,000 during its 9-year production. Paul’s BMW E9 that you see in pictures here, can only be described as being in ‘like new’ condition, restored and upgraded to the highest quality – however it certainly didn’t start out like this for him. Some history first – the E9 coupe was first manufactured in 1968 with a 9-year production run. Whilst there were a few different models, all housed the BMW straight 6-cylinder engine with capacities ranging from 2.8 litre to 3 litre. As a 3 litre there were the standard CS and also CSL homologation versions, universally known as the ‘Batmobile’ due to its unique aerodynamic panels. The bodies…

The Opel GT was manufactured between 1968 and 1973 and in that time over 100,000 were produced. While that doesn’t make them particularly rare, they are rare in Australia; as all were produced in LHD form only, and of course not sold here. Wim, the owner of this beautiful example, imported his car in 2015, after first importing himself ten years earlier to live here permanently. Wim always had a soft spot for these cars. Growing up in the Netherlands, it was not uncommon to see one on the road. What really triggered his interest was that in the corner of the factory, where he was working during school holidays, a guy was restoring an Opel GT. This started Wim’s love for the car and in the back of his…

A few years ago at auction I came across a selection of old press prints supplied by various news agencies. The Lot contained 19 images of Sir Malcom Campbell in his various Bluebird boats and cars breaking the world water-speed and land-speed records. No one else bid on these important historical original prints and I was able to pick them up for a song. On the back of many was written the original caption and instructions, with some cropped marked by chinograph pencil. Sir Malcom Campbell and his son Donald Campbell were instrumental in the golden age of speed-record breaking after the First World War until the 1960s and were true “rock-stars” of the time before moon exploration and the swinging ‘60s and the world moved on. Since I was…

Paul, the owner of this very special black Giocattolo is no stranger to the model. He, alongside Barry Lock, conceived the Giocattolo company Giocattoli Motori and its vehicles way back in the late ‘80s. Many, if not most, would know the story of the Giocattolo, as it has by now entered folklore. A car designed on the Sunshine Coast to be better than the best sports cars around of the day. A stunning iteration of the classic Alfa injected with Holden V8 mid-engine testosterone – what’s not to like. Plans were big, motivation was high, prototypes were developed, followed by the production of 15 vehicles. That is literally the end of the story. The end was swift and brutal and involved changes in government investment policy and shifting goal posts…

My first encounter with the Lancia B20 GT Outlaw came out of nowhere. It was the Tuesday morning of Monterey Car Week, just before my favourite event takes place: the Carmel Concours on the Avenue. I was driving a bit of an outlaw myself, a GTO Engineering Ferrari 250 SWB Revival car. Just as I parked in my habitual parking spot in front of Bruno’s Market off Ocean Avenue, I heard a rumble coming down a small side road. I quickly jogged through an intersection only to be narrowly missed by this devilish looking hot rod, which looked anything but American Muscle. Chopped and lowered, blacked out and not declaring its origins, it compelled me. I searched the concours field until I found it again. Still enamoured, that evening at…

Paying a visit to the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile di Torino, the Italian National Motor Museum in Turin, ‘Mauto’ as it is known, is a veritable treat. To do so when there is a special exhibition on one of the greatest of all Italian car designers Marcello Gandini and to meet the great man himself, doubly so. Marcello Gandini’s birthplace is itself the birthplace of Italian motoring, Turin, where the son of an orchestra conductor was born on 26 August 1938. Upon meeting the small, dapper 80-year-old, now troubled by a bad back, it is difficult, until one starts talking to him, to realise that he has been responsible for some of the greatest automobile designs of all time – supercars and saloons, utility and sports cars, motorcycles, push bikes, trucks,…

It is not difficult to be completely smitten by this car the moment you see it – drowning in its natural body waves, immersed in its rich colour pallette, and lulled to sleep by its wonderful exhaust note. For 40 years it was hidden from the public eye, tucked away for a long and unwarranted slumber. Fast forward to today to find it has been completely restored and has made its rounds to some of the top Concours events in the world, enticing show-goers to stop, stare and ponder its origins. We can bet that is why you are here as well – charmed by its splendour and curious to get a better grasp on just how this one-off 1965 Pontiac Vivant 77 Prototype came to be. Let’s take a…

There are not many motoring stories that start on a boat but this one does. In fact, this automotive tale began in 2012 on a yacht. Les was sailing with his friend off the coast of Queensland enjoying the salt air and wind swept spray on his skin when he noticed a sheet of newspaper in the water. Reaching out he retrieved the rubbish and in doing so the classifieds section caught his eye. Les freely admits that he never buys or even reads the Courier Mail so it was complete serendipity that this sheet of cars for sale washed up against the boat he was on. The car advertisement that took his fancy was for a 1959 “Borgward Isabella”. As a child, Les had admired a Borgward in his…