Devin D restoration project for sale - now on ebay

I have been writing about this Devin D restoration project before. It's a very rare find! It has been with the same owner since 1973 and comes with a clear title identifying the car as the number 20 of totally 49 Devin Ds every built. It will make a splendid vintage racer, but could also be finished as a street car. Of course, there's some work to do, but the components are available.
The odometer apparently reads only 1139 miles. The car had been raced in original red with black interior and also with Porsche silver with burgundy accents. The car had been prepared to re-paint when the current owner bought it. The instruments, wipers, windshield and other components where remove to sand and refinish. The car has remained in this condition to this day. There is an additional windshield glass from 1956 Porsche Speedster, full top, bows and side-curtains. There are other additional parts, such as exhaust and muffler and other sundry parts.
So, if you are in the market for a rare vintage racer (I know of only two D Devins in Europe) then here's an opportunity to acquire a fantastic platform to start with.
As said, it's on ebay now. Have a look.

Car magazines 100 years ago

I am currently reading in an old car magazine, a really old one. It's dated from 1906! Quite fascinating what people were writing about, i.e. about how you start, have you drive threw a bend or how you stop a car. Or what about the perfect clothes to drive a car? Or how about learning to drive in the night? This was a real topic despite the low speed (many countries/states only allowed for 10 km/h) and the minimal amount of traffic. Already in 1906 people were concerned about fuel efficiency! Legal cases around the automobile were hot topics as well. All in all the development since 1906 is amazing!

Picture of the week - Alfa-Romeo 8C 2600

Unusual, rarely seen, an Alfa-Romeo 8C 2600 in white, well not completely. It's a Swiss vintage racing car, so the colors are red and white. This one drove at the 2009 Arosa Classic in the competition class and mastered the 7.9 km long hillclimb in 5:53. Not bad for a 70 years old car. Most of the younger cars actually were slower.

Picture of the week - Bentley Blower SC with Patina

The picture of this weeks shows a detail of a Bentley Blower SC with true patina. Taken at this year's Arosa Classic, where this Bentley was entered in the racing class, this car represents what is en vogue these days, a car that looks like an old car and not an over-restored piece of art. I love it and the patina suits this hard-used Bentley well. It will not win a price at Pebble Beach most probably, but it's good for a fast blast up the Arosa hills.

Arosa Classic Car 2009 - one of the most challenging hillclimbs

Four days of exciting cars to watch, four days of challenging hillclimbing, what an event, the 2009 Arosa Classic Car.

Impressive cars
Again, and similar to the years before (this was the fifth Arosa hillclimb already) a number of impressive cars have been pulled together. I really appreciated the Alfa-Romeo 8C (brought by Vögele, see picture below), the A.S.A with Ford Falcon engine (piloted by Stefan Vitelli, see picture below), the two Lancia Stratos (see picture below), the Lancia 037 Rally Stradale (see picture below), the Grand Prix Maserati (piloted again by George Kaufmann, until he had a transmission failure), the Lotus 23 (Hayoz), the ex Graham Hill Lotus Cortina (driven by Klaus Wildbolz) vintage cars like the Lagonda Rapier, American-La France, MG K3 and MG K1 monoposto, powerful AC Cobras and Ford Mustangs, as well as the really fast Ford Escort Rallye car. There are too many to mention. The full starter list is here. People also seemed to like the JWF Milano GT a lot with its slick design and impressive noise. Pictures of the cars and the event have been posted by the official photographer here.

A challenging Race Track
It's probably quite unique in Europe, a 7.8 km long hill climb. climbing 1'800 m up (and partially down) with 78 curves. The fastest cars (actually the Ford Escort RS Rallye car was the fastest) master this track in 4:30 minutes, resulting in an average speed of roughly 105 km/h. Cars like the JWF Milano GT still do it with an average speed of 85 km/h. From a driver's perspective there's not much else than an endless series of curves and hairpins. Even after having done it six times you still can't remember the full track. To get an impression on how it's like to master this 7.8 km track, have a look at the onboard video posted here.

People and location
Classic car events are not just a series of races, but also a social gathering of people loving cars. So a lot of the time is spent in either watching cars passing by, drivers preparing for start, fixing problems or just talking to each other and hear news and interesting stories.

Efficient organization
Compared to last year the organization improved a lot and it can only be said that it worked out with almost perfect Swiss precision. Few delays happened, few smaller accidents and food/drinks were extremely well organized. Also the track was very well prepared and for the type of track quite safe. So, the organizers really did a good job. Congratulation!

The AVD Oldtimer Grand Prix 2009 - Animoto Video

Playing around a bit with video tools I found (again) Animoto, that lets you create cool videos with a couple of mouseclicks. Have a look yourself whether you like the result! This one shows some of the pictures I made at this years AVD Oldtimer Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

More than 1500 cars at the 2009 British Car Meeting in Mollis

Today the annual British Car Meeting took place in Mollis/Switzerland. With splendid weather it was no surprise that a great amount of cars gathered in Mollis to celebrate the guest of honor brand, Austin Healey.
The British Car Meeting is something special. The only common denominator is the fact that each car has to be manufactured in Great Britain. So it doesn't make a difference whether a car is old (like an MG TC) or brand new (like a Aston Martin V8 Vantage).
Also interesting is the fact, that you can see completely restored cars sitting besides, well, a car in basically drivable condition.
For somebody thinking of restoring let's say a Triumph Spitfire, the BCM is a great event, given 30-50 cars of this type can be found at one location.
And the fact that the place where everybody meets includes also a small airport creates extra entertainment with airplanes starting and landing.
The BCM is a meeting with something for everybody. A Rolls Royce parks side by side with a Mini or a Ford Anglia. True rarities such as an AC ME 3000 can be spotted on the one side, a bunch of Lotus Elise and Exige on the other side. More Morgans than most club meetings can attract are distributed over the place and probably every model that Triumph built since second world war has been brought to Mollis at least once, if not 10 to 20 times.
For TVR fans almost the whole model range showed up also, i.e. Tuscan V6, Taimar, 3000S (at least 4 cars), Griffith, Chimaera, Tamora, 350C.
It's a good event for visitors as well as for the drivers. They walk around between the cars, eat a "Bratwurst" (sausage) or a "Schnitzelbrot" (I can't translate this), drink a beer or mineral water, talk to friends, learn about other people's cars or just relax and enjoy the huge collection of British cars. What a great way to spend a sunny Sunday.
There's no element of competition involved, no concours d'elegance, no 1/4 mile race, no nothing. Good so. That's probably what people want and enjoy. Go on organizing these, the success proves that the concept is right.

GP Suisse in Berne 2009 - what an amazing rolling museum

Between 1934 and 1958 Berne in Switzerland had its own race track (mostly/partially leveraging public roads) and organized Formula 1 and 2 Grand Prix races. Some of the world greatest drivers (Ascari, Fangio, Stuck, etc.) drove in Bern and some of most adventureous machinery such as the Auto Union race cars or the Mercedes silver arrows were campaigned in Berne and won races. There's so much history and tradition that at team decided to organize a memorial in 2009: The GP Suisse 2009.
The weekend August 22-23 was selected and an amazing collection of cars gathered to drive on a 8 km long track through public roads to basically demonstrate a rolling museum.
There were motorcycles, cars and even airplanes.
The spectators had certainly something to enjoy on the road. The organization decided for a quite lengthy track and therefore limited the number of laps each car could go. This resulted in some unhappy drivers not being able to race/roll as much as they liked and probably some visitors missing one or the other car.
The cars had to drive behind pace cars that were partially much too slow, so some cars got hot, some others just couldn't show what they really can do.
With 400+ cars and motorcycles creative solutions had to be found for organizing the paddock. Most of the cars had to be put in the parking house and public access was limited for a number of reasons. Again, many visitors though didn't get the opportunity to have a closer look at especially the sportscars, while the formula cars were residing outside.
What is really phantastic about this events is how close you can get to the cars and that for example you can watch the mechanics starting these grand machines. Also it's possible to talk to everybody and to meet people you haven't seen for ages.
For the drivers it's of course quite a bit of organization to get the car to the place, have it inspected and aproved, to finally only do some 4 or 5 laps. But I think most enjoyed it anyway. I at least did and in general the event can be considered a success.
Certainly some of the shortcomings of the event can be corrected by the organizers for next time.
I wouldn't for example separate specials and so called originals. And I would have the owners select title and name of the car. Organizers can always decide to not accept a car. Also I would try to shorten the track or have larger fields distributed on the track to better entertain the crowd.
I would ask the pace cars to drive at least an average of 80 km/h. The paddocks should be organized outside for all the cars and maybe it would be better to limit the number of cars and to give them more time on the track.
But there are many things I would not change, for example the wonderful selection of cars and having the action so close to the spectators. If you want to get an impression, then have a "look" at the enclosed soundbite. You can hear an Alfetta warming up its engine and then the Auto Union C-Typ starting the engine and the Mercedes W154 firing up. What a noise!

Are vintage race cars and classic cars safe in today’s traffic?

Questions often debated in all kinds of classic car forums circle around safety. How safe is a vintage race car in modern traffic? Can you use a youngtimer or oldtimer safely every day in in today’s heavy and tight traffic? As always these are loaded questions.
Here’s my point to this.
Vintage and classic cars are clearly less safe compared to modern cars in many aspects. They have inferior brakes (narrower and less sticky tires, no anti-lock-breaking, no anti-dive, etc.), there’s no safety cell around the passengers, no pre-calculated demolition impact management and no airbags, often no safety belts, and none of the modern computer controlled safety features such as “EPS”, “ATC”, “pre safe” or automatic breaking. For example, a Jaguar E-Type takes 50-60 meter (or more) to break from 100 km/h to 0, a modern Volkswagen Golf gets this done in less than 40 meters, modern sportscars are approaching the 30/32 meters. That’s a hell of a difference as it means that when the modern sportscar has stopped, the oldtimer behind him still does 60 km/h or so. You wouldn’t want to sit in this car at this moment.
Vintage or classic race cars usually were the best of their breed at a time and often had more safety features than day-to-day cars. But compared to modern cars they still are less safe because of some of the missing features and engineering concepts.
So, does this mean you shouldn’t use them in daily traffic?
I don’t think so. Yes, the cars are less safe by “nature”, but their drivers are much more awake and much less distracted by things like navigation systems, phones and other gimmick. And last but not least, they know about the safety issues and are more careful and look ahead.

Recreations, Replicas and Originals - what can you live with?

Doing my usual scan through a number of car ad sites I found this Bugatti T37 on ClassicCarsforSale, one of my favorite sites. The Bugatti is listed with an estimate of 100'000 to 150'000 USD (RM Auction, August 15, 2009) and it's clearly marked as a (well done) recreation. It looks awesome in my eyes and I am pretty sure it's as fun to drive as a T37 original car, insured for 1-2 million USD. I have even been told that quite a number of Bugatti owners actually bought a recreation to drive, while safeguarding the original in the garage at home. So, it can't be that bad to drive the copy.
So the question really is, do you buy cars to drive them or two collect them (as an investment)? And, is the original that much better as an investment as the copy? And another question is, whether the originals aren't really recreations too. I learned for example that there's almost no Porsche Carrera 6 (906) in existence, that really still has its original chassis and engine. So, most of these cars are actually recreations too. They are traded as originals because they kept their initial chassis number, but that's it. Similar as with the Bugatti a true recreation Carrera 6 can be bought for a fraction of the price of the original and no part might actually really be different.
So, here's my take. Recreations are okay, and I wouldn't mind to own this Bugatti, just be honest and declare it as what it is. Same with the Carrera 6. If only the chassis number is left from the original car, declare it as rebuild based on original chassis number. What I don't like at all are modern copies of old cars, where new materials and manufacturing methods are used the make the car more competitive than the original. If a new Lola T70 is much faster than the original in a historic car race, then something is wrong.

The 2009 AVD Oldtimer Grand Prix at the Nurburgring - great cars and exciting races

For once I have swapped the drivers perspective with the spectators perspective!
Last weekend again the German AVD organized the Oldimer Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. It's said to be the worldwide biggest event of its kind, with 650 cars and 900+ drivers it's definitely impressive.
Well, the weather wasn't that great this year, with lots of fog causing the organizers to cancel a number of races on Saturday and delaying the program on Sunday by quite a bit.
But nevertheless superior fields and cars were offered to the spectator.
When have you last seen a Mercedes-Sauber C9 in action? The two Australians Rob Sherrard and Wayne Park brought the car to Europe to race it against some of the other remaining Group C cars of the period. But the rest of the group was clearly no match to the C9, it almost rounded the rest of the field, delivering very quick lap times. The Group C was guest at the OGP for the first time, and I am sure, all of the visitors wish them to come back next year!
But there were many other exciting races to be seen. The historic Formula 1 races were great to watch, listening and smelling the Maseratis, the Coopers and the early Lotus cars was just very entertaining.
Interesting sports cars and touring cars were there too, delivering hard but fair races and showing the limits of both the drivers and the cars.
And then of course were also the CanAm racers in the Orwell Supersports showcasing what it means when huge engines meet maximum downforce. It's unbelievable how these "big bangers" accelerate on the straights and how high the limit is in the curves. But it's even more impressive to see, how the two liter cars are almost able to follow the 8.8 liter monsters in real (racing) live.
The Oldtimer Grand Prix offered something to everybody. And the stories told by the speakers helped to survive long breaks due to the weather conditions or other issues. I learned quite a bit about the Opel history and why Opels were so popular in the 60ies and 70ies. It's sad to see that due to recent events a brand such as Opel always gets destroyed.
Finally the Motor Klassik subscribers were showing their less racy but still mostly attractive oldtimers. This was an opportunity to see cars such as the Citroën-Maserati SM, vintage Corvettes, a whole range of Porsches and even a Mk 1 Golf.
After two days of watching 15-20 races you actually have been able to screen quite a bit of motor sports history and I am sure most of the spectators will return next year for the 38th Oldtimer Grand Prix.

How driving a car today is different from the past

Few people driving cars today do remember how it was 20, 30 or even 50 years ago. Many things that were part of the routine in the past are not needed anymore, for example adjusting the ignition, changing the mix of air and fuel to start the engine (choke) or starting the fuel pump. Some people may have even forgotten that we used ignition keys for quite some time to start the engine (not a starter button and a "keyless" go system) as I noted in a former post. And as more and more cars are equipped with automatic or automated gearboxes we don't need to manually shift gears anymore today. The turning lights go back to neutral themselves, the windscreen wipers start and stop if rain falls or doesn't. Even the driving lights go on and off automatically. So, basically, very few tasks actually have to be performed by the driver himself anymore it seems. So what does the driver do with all the time he gained? Well, let's face it, driving got a lot more complicated due to more traffic and more regulation. For example, today, a driver spends a significant share of his attention span to check for speed limits and radar controls. With more streets and more complex routing he also needs to be more awake when driving. He has to program a navigation system and take phone calls. He has access to highly sophisticated sound systems and a choice of thousands of (MP3) songs at his fingertip. So, basically, all of the time he gained by better driver support systems is now focused on observing traffic and environment and handling electronics in the car. That's probably one of the reasons why driving a classic car is so enjoying. First you don't go into difficult traffic with such a car and secondly there's nothing to prevent you from enjoying the basic mechanics of such a car.

Classic cars and their value over time

In my experience there are three basic scenarios for cars on how they will depreciate, respectively gain in value. By the way, of course cars of this category can increase in value beyond the initial sales price. We have recently seen low mileage Mercedes 300 SL (R107) offered for more than 50'000 Euros, which is clearly more than the 60-70'000 DMs (30-35'000 Euros) that were asked for a new car in the 80ies.

Scenario C (red)
The car is an instant classic and collector's item. There's much more demand than market from begin on. The car never really drops in value and typically gains a bit in a continuous way. Few cars really fall in this category. Some seem to belong in there in the beginning when people are paying premium prices to get an early one, but most of them then still depreciate. Exceptions probably are the Ferrari Enzo (?), Ferrari F40, McLaren F1. But as said very few cars make it into this category.

Scenario B (green)
Cars that fall into this category are usually neither volume cars nor everyday cars. They typically are pretty rare from the beginning and bring some sensation with them. Many if not most of them are either convertibles or sportscars. While they do depreciate over the first 10-20 years they still lose less value than the mass production cars. They are always sought after during their whole career. After some years they start to continuously gain in value and can actually even outperform their initial sales price. Cars that fall into this category are the Mercedes SLs (R113, R107), the Porsche 911 and derivates, TVR 3000 S, Morgan +8, BMW M3 (E30), BMW Z1, BMW M1, most Ferraris, some Lamborghinis, some Maseratis, etc.). You get the picture.

Scenario A (blue)
This is the most common scenario. Most cars actually fall into this category. From begin on they depreciate (rather fast) and reach over the years (let's say 7 to 15) the bottom, a fraction of their initial sales price. Some then become collector's items and raise in value quickly, some others slower. If you take a Volkswagen Golf Mk1 for example, this car has been produced in millions, but after 20 or 30 years only a handful remain in a market and they become somewhat exclusive. So their value increases and can actually become higher than the initial sales price. In the exhibit this is illustrated with graph A1.
A very special category are race cars. Quite expensive when new they have almost no value after few years and can be purchased for very little money sometimes. This was especially true in the late sixties and the seventies, when Ferrari GTOs or Porsche 904/906 were on the market for a few thousand USD or DMs. Thanks to the developments are historic racing some of these became later very expensive. The Porsche 906 was sold for roughly 30'000 DMs when new, changed hands for maybe 6'000 DMs in the late sixties and is today valued at around 600'000 Euros (multiply with 2 for DMs). This is indicated by graph A2.
Cars in this category are everything from the Volkswagen Beetle, to Fiat 850 Sport Spider or Ford Mustangs. But it includes also cars like the mentioned Porsche 904/906, the Lotus Eleven or the prewar race cars. Actually cars that can't make it into B or C end up in A. Or they disappear totally.

Now there is one comment to be made: To really gain substantial value over time the car must remain in driving condition and often needs to be restored multiple times. The cost for maintaining or restoring the car can be easily higher than the value gain driven by it. And even if the car is barely used it will still ask for quite a bit of maintenance and a dry garage and insurance and .... So, if you are only interested in cars for making money, you may be better in buying something else. But if you like cars and love to drive them, making money with them is just a bonus on top and of course makes the hobby even more attractive. See also my previous post on a comparison of cars and their value when new and now.

Gaisberg 2008

The idea of bringing vintage race cars and sport cars together, having them climb a hill and pushing them around the Salzburgring is really excellent. It's so much fun and even the rain couldn't stop the happy faces of the drivers. A really impressive mixture of cars found its way to Salzburg, from Alfa P3 to Porsche 904 GTS, from Borgward to Aston Martin DB3S. The goal of the competition was regularity, but many of the drivers stepped on the throttle and achieved impressive lap times at the Salzburgring. My Devin TR 1957 behaved well and was impressively quick. It was so much more fun to drive than many of the modern cars I have been using lately.
Gaisberg, see you again, next year!