Innehållsförteckning för Volume 13 från RETROMOTIVE

BMWs can be awfully confusing when it comes to their badging. Back in the day, a 323i simply meant that it was a 3 Series body with a 2.3-liter engine. A 535i was the 5 Series body with a 3.5-litre engine – simple, right? M3s were all two-door coupes; except, they are four-door sedans now; and the M4 is now the M3 coupe; the 320i may have a 2.2-liter engine; and the 323i could have the 2.5-liter – confused? Me, too. (And, perhaps, so is BMW!) Whether it be the 3.0 CSL – that was never badged as an M-car – or the M3 – where every iteration was badged as an M-car – they all share a common DNA. In the case of the 6 Series M-car, it is…

Brad’s first Lancia love was the Beta Coupe; however, he had always longed for the Montecarlo. Pursuing this dream, he was fortunate enough to participate in the Lancia Montecarlo Consortium’s Rally Torino in 2016 – that was made possible through his long-time involvement with the Lancia Club of Queensland (in Australia). It was a memorable experience traveling in convoy with 20+ Montecarlo’s making the 1500-mile journey to Turin and back. But his modern hire car was a little conspicuous among Pininfarina’s 40-year-old mid-engine creations; and, while it made for a trouble-free journey, it did temper the overall experience. So, when – in early 2018 – the consortium announced Expressions of Interest to repeat the Torino Rally in 2019, he did not hesitate – and with it, a plan was hatched.…

The man never stood a chance. Raised among Fords in his father’s auto dealership, by four years old, the boy was standing on the front seat of the family sedan and naming all the passing cars. By 15, he had built his first hot rod, and racing dirt cars on ovals. Cars – and speed – bred into his DNA. And he is still at it, still has 20 years of ideas for customizations, restorations, and go-faster projects rattling around in his head. “I was born into it,” said Bruce Canepa from his Santa Cruz County workshop in southern California. “Cars, for me, have been a life-long passion.” That affair began with sweeping garage floors; then, moving on through every department of the family dealerships – primarily dealing Lincolns and…

If you had to provide a list of the ten most beautiful cars ever made – you would be absolutely spoiled for choice. Hell, pick up any issue of Retromotive and you would be shuffling, salivating, then re-shuffling some more, probably changing your list several times before reluctantly handing over your final cut. Our lists would most likely reflect the motorsport we follow, the posters on our walls as kids, or even the cars our relatives tinkered with on the weekend. Philosopher David Hume once said: “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; each mind perceives a different beauty.” While subjective beauty is validated daily, there have been a few vehicles over the history of the automobile which has flipped this…

It is hard to spot under the giant rear wing – but it is there. Off-center and low down in the shrouded, sculpted aero rump you see the license plate: P1 POW. Small detail, big impact: this thing’s road legal. You recognize the Porsche 911 rear lights. They are the 996 shape – the one from the late 1990s. Between them, and above that street-legal plate, it says GT1. Small number – but, once again, big impact. It is still recognizable as a 911 – but looks longer. Flatter, massively wider, and more purposeful, too. It’s a race car, right? Just missing its sponsorship livery. Yet that plate suggests it is just as entitled to cruise the highways, do school dropoff, or rock up to the nearest Sunday morning Cars…

Simcoe has had his hand in modern benchmarks from Buick’s Avenier concept to the Australian Monaro Coupe to the C8 Corvette. “I had no intention of getting to where I am,” Mike said from his home, a 25-minute freeway ride from GM’s sprawling Warren Technical Center in Detroit, and 10,000 miles from a childhood in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Mike said that his father was a bit of a car snob. While he had once owned a Holden, his dad turned to a Rover 2000; then, the 3.5 Rover Coupe. “Weirdly enough, he went back to Holden after that because I was working at Holden and he could get a discount … When he had the Rovers, I guess, is when I worked out there was something besides…

Federico Ciuffolini loves cars, light, and polygons. Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) has been a passion for Federico for more than half of his life now. His interest was piqued at 15; and, even though he went on to study computer science and coding, his passion was always CGI. For the last seven years, Frederico has worked as a 3D artist – a Pipeline Technical Director to be exact: Essentially, building a scene up to the point where it is ready to render. Frederico said: “Working for a UK-based automotive company producing on-line configurators was a primer for me. I was always passionate about cars, but my work isn’t always specifically in the automotive industry.” Federico started toying with the idea of producing a personal series of work after experimenting with a…

Subtle curves swell over the wheels, reaching up to the body-width rear wing as they dance from road to racer and back again. The Porsche 911 GT1 Evo looks alien, grafting 996 Carrera details onto a shape designed for circuit-racing victory. It plays with perspective. Huge, yet tiny. Contemporary, but already classic – somehow. Finished in the PlayStation livery, it wore to its final races. Chassis GT1-109 encapsulates the 1990s movement to build the fastest road-based GT racers ever conceived. Porsche entered the GT1 category to win. In 1994, the manufacturer developed the Group C 962 prototype into a technically-compliant GT racer to win at Le Mans, but their real focus lay elsewhere. Norbert Singer and his engineering team wanted to create a 911 which could compete at the forefront…

Engine noise: that is what gets you “in the feels” when you watch any form of motorsport at trackside. The sound does not just hit your eardrums. It goes right through you, buzzing your insides and firing off happy endorphins. Certain engine howls mean an involuntary dropping of the jaw or smile across the dial. Watch a kid when they hear a proper racing car fly past for the first time: It is an epiphany moment – it stays with you. Want to know why historic motorsport has surged in popularity? They really do not sound like they used to. Go to Le Mans Classic, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, Goodwood Revival, or any of such ilk and prepare to be “shaken and stirred”. A Porsche 917’s flat-12. The Tipo 44…

This Series 8 Bolwell Nagari came to George May some thirty-four years ago. In fact he rebuilt it from a wreck. A young George put so many new parts into the car that it might have been easier to start from scratch. Since then it has never been in an accident, has never had a respray, and has never been driven in the rain. “The soft top is there but I’ve never fitted it. I just couldn’t bring myself to drill holes into the tops of those lovely rear quarters.” This is a rare car, but this doesn’t mean he hasn’t tested it’s limits as a sports car. As his professional knowledge increased, building some dozen Cobra kit cars for clients, George soon came to realise that this elegant machine…