One that you can buy - Amilcar C6 Grand Prix Car

Here's again a car, that is for sale. It attracted my attention because it has a lovely patina and combines Grand Prix feeling with a road registration. It's a 1927 Amilcar C6 with a straight six cylinder engine with a double overhead camshaft, a dry sump system and a compressor. When the C6 was launched in 1926 it achieved no less than 74 victories in that year, such as the Italian Grand Prix, the Provence Grand Prix and the Brooklands 200 Miles. The C6 was also the first 1100ccm car to go reach speeds above 200 km/h.
The car for sale at VDV is in completely original state, with a fully reconditioned engine. There's no mentioning of the sales price, but it won't come cheap, but could be worth every penny!

Ayrton Senna on Honda NSX driving at the Nurburgring

I just came across this spectacular video picturing the unforgettable Ayrton Senna driving the Honda NSX around the Nurburgring. Yes, there's a lot of marketing bla bla around it, but get to 4:10 or so and you'll see some serious driving action from Ayrton. And, yes, having owned two NSX in my life, this is a car that stands out from the crowd and I don't mind owning a third one sometimes in the future.

Picture of the Week - Elva MK3

Here's yet another interesting race car to see in full action: The Elva MK3. It has been racing for years in Germany and is pictured in probably its last race here at the AVD Oldtimer Grand Prix 2006. It was quite quick and so was the driver, a very friendly chap. The car had quite an impressive history, but probably had been changed quite a number of times to continue and stay in competition. I wasn't successful buying it, so it went into a museum. Elva comes from French "elle va" which means "she goes". Elva was a pretty successful maker of race cars and partially also street cars, the best known car probably was the Elva Courier, but racers rather remember these barchettas, be it the MK2, MK3, MK4 or the fabulous MK7.

Porsche Carrera 6 for sale in the UK

Duncan Hamilton and Co have this Porsche Carrera 6 for sale! The car apparently comes with substantial history. Based on my research this must be car no 906 129, initially sold to Harrington Ltd, then owned by Michael de Udy (GB) and later by Ridgard, Toledo, Richmond, Tuffli, Hefty and Paul Howell (GB). The car competed in the Tourist Trophy, at Oulton Park in 1966, in the Targa Florio (1966), Le Mans (1966), Spa (1967), Nurburgring 1000 km (1967), and many other events. It was restored some years ago and hopefully they have kept the original steering wheel that still was mounted some years ago, compared to the one installed now. The car apparently comes with FIA papers and road registration (!). The price isn't indicated, but will probably be in the £ 400-700k range.

Diva GT 10F - highly competitive sports and race car

Diva is a car make that only few people know. However these cars were extremely successful in racing in the 60ies, they competed at the 1000 km Nurburgring race and at many other sportscar events.
The Diva GT came with Ford engines from 997 to 1650 ccm and looked quite sharp in its fiberglass Heron derived body design. The car was small and nimble and as said a good base for racing. However people didn't see it as a true alternative to a Lotus Elan or TVR Grantura at that time. That's quite different today, when a good and competitive Diva GT fetches a higher price than a contemporary Elan or Grantura, if one is ever offered on the market.

Honda S600/S800 - or how the Japanese reinvented the sportscar

The Honda S600/S800 is one of the smallest real sportscars in existence. 3.3 m length, 1.43 m width and 1.2 m height, combined with a 531 ccm, later 606 ccm and 798 ccm engine and an open or closed body. Can this really be a sportscar? Sounds more like a Mini doesn't it? Well, if you have ever driven (or at least heard) one then you won't doubt. The high revving engine (ca. 8'000 rpm) is able to generate an impressive performance. These cars were so good that they were used as race cars in the sixties, Denis Hulme for example won his class in 1964 at the Nurburgring 500 km race with an S600. And the journal Hobby even achieved a world speed record while test driving the car. Between 1963 and 1970 Honda built roughly 26'000 cars, of which one third were Coupés. Good cars are quite valuable these days, you can easily pay 15'000 Euros for an S600/S800 today in Europe.
The pictures shown here stem from an early sales brochure for the S500/S600.

Lamborghini Miura - ultimate 60ies super car

When Lamborghini presented the Lamborghini Miura in 1966 it was THE sensation. Not only was it ways ahead of the competition from Ferrari (the 275 GTB and the Daytona still had the engine mounted in the front) it was also a century design. Marcello Gandini, working for Bertone, had done a great job. The car was ultra flat and for its time also quite wide. The mid engine developed roughly 350 hp from 4 liters, enough to bring the car to almost 280 km/h for the people being brave enough to try it. In a contemporary test in Hobby people were very pleased by the handling, but 40 years later you would probably rather describe it as adventurous.
The car sold very well, 765 cars were produced and brought money to Lamborghini. Faster versions were produced, i.e. the S, the SV and the Jota.
Miuras have increased in value dramatically over the last 10 years. I remember seeing advertised cars for roughly Euro 200k, today it's rather twice that much for a good one.
It's certainly not a cheap car to own, as mechanically it's fragile and spare parts are sought after. But if you look for THE 60ies super car then this one is the one to have!
In 1986 Bertone celebrated 20 years of Lamborghini Miura at the Geneva Car Show, that's were the second picture is from.

Porsche 924 Carrera GT versus BMW M3 (E30) - which one to choose?

In first sight the Porsche 924 Carrera GT and the BMW M3 (E30) seem to be difficult to compare. But when you look closer there are actually many similarities.
Both cars have been designed and built with homologation rules (FIA) in mind, so both cars are Evolution Specials. Both cars are based on a mass production everyday car, the Porsche is based on the not too popular but still well sold 924 (with Audi engine), the BMW on the very popular 3 series.
Performance of the two cars is pretty similar, despite the 7-10 years of difference in age. They accelerate in roughly 7 seconds from 0-100 km/h and reach a top speed around 240 km/h. Both cars are equipped with 4 cylinder engines. And in both cases the car manufacturers decided for more or less traditional tuning options to make the cars faster and better looking, i.e. body kits, aerodynamics improvements, engine tuning, weight saving, etc.. In both cases the result is absolutely convincing! And this is appreciated by people owning and buying these cars. Both cars hold their value much much better than their mass production sister. A well maintained M3 (E30) from 1987 to 1990 will fetch prices around Euro 15'000 to 25'000, the Porsche 924 Carrera GT typically trades between Euro 25'000 to 35'000 for examples in good condition. And, yes, both are fairly practical cars, can seat 4 people and take some luggage too. And both cars are astonishingly economical in terms of fuel consumption, at least if you believe the ECE/DIN average consumption levels.

But let's get to the differences between these cars! The Porsche 924 Carrera GT is 30 years now almost, so basically can be called an oldtimer, while the M3 still needs to wait for another 8-10 years for this "honor". While the Porsche has a turbo engine with more then 100 hp/liter, the BMW uses a high revving 4 cylinder racing oriented 4 cylinder without turbo or compressor.
The Porsche has been built 406 times and probably 90% of these cars are still around. The M3 in comparison has been produced about 17'000 times, so in terms of rarity there's quite a difference! Interestingly this doesn't impact the value too much!

If you want to buy one, then color choice will not be of great concern as the Porsche only was delivered in three colors (red, silver, black) and the M3 in only few mores (e.g. white). Condition and history are critical, as maintenance bills can become quite significant for both cars!

I have been writing about these two cars before, so if you want to read more about them, have a look here and here.

Ferrari F40 versus Porsche 959 - true benchmarks

These are two of the best cars ever produced: Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959. Both represent what was doable when they were presented. Both are still attractive today. Both were very expensive when they were sold as new, both are still good value today. The video (in French) lets them shine and sound .. wonderful! Thank goes to LP for pointing me to this great video!

Check your savings - Porsche 906 for sale in Germany

This beautiful Porsche Carrera 6 (916116) is still for sale at Freisinger in Germany. According to the must-have book "Porsche 906" written by Jürgen Barth and Ulrich Tripsel 906116 was delivered on March 15, 1966 to Baden Auto in Freiburg. First owner was Werner Brockhaus. The car competed at variuos hillclimbs (for example Ollon Vilars, Schauinsland, Bad Neuenahr), but also in the 1000 km race at the Nurburgring in 1968. It had a serious accident at the Gaisberg hillclimb and obviously was almost wrecked at testdrives on the Nurburgring in 1970. In 1971 the car was offered for DM 6'700.- (basically the price for a new Volkswagen Beetle) with accident damages. The color of the car changed from white with stripes to red and now back to white during the years. Obviously the car is now in as new condition, but the price of Euro 780'000.- isn't something for people with small budgets. Given you can build a "new" Carrera 6 for roughly Euro 100'000 to 150'000 from scratch (recreations/replicas are for example built by werkzcars) you wonder whether the history is worth the difference. But that's for the buyer to decide! As all my readers know I have somewhat a crush for the 906 and maybe one day ....

Race and Street Cars too far away today? Look at the Mercedes SLS GT3

Mercedes just presented a GT3 version of their new Mercedes SLS AMG super car. The difference between the street and the race car is enormous and it's not just the big wing on the back of the car. Actually you wouldn't want to try the GT3 on normal roads. That's how far away the race car is from the street car. It wouldn't be legal also.
In the past this was very different. The street version of a Ford GT40 was very similar to the race version and actually most if not all GT40s were road registered.
And that's what I love about race cars from the past. They were pretty close to what you got from the manufacturer and the changes were marginal in comparison. Racing immediately influenced the production and made the street cars better. There's barely anything floating back from racing car engineering into series production anymore, not even for super and hyper cars. And that's a pity!

Looking for a thrill? Chevron B8

So here's something you can actually buy. If you are really ready for a thrilling drive, then maybe this Chevron B8 is the thing you are looking for? It's a 1968 model, completely restored and ready to be picked up at a specialist for kitcars and special cars in Switzerland. I am not really sure whether I would want the Rover V8 coming with it, but I like the shape and the yellow color suits the car well.
The Chevron B8 was very successful in racing in the last 60ies and is a highly competitive contender in various oldtimer racing series today. And it is probably one of the newest true race cars you can register for the road. At least I wouldn't know of any B16 that is road registered for example.

Can Pininfarina's Alfa 2uettottanta beat the old Alfa-Romeo Fastback Spider 2000?

Pininfarina presented the 2uettottanta, kind of an Alfa-Romeo Spider in the tradition of the beloved fastback spider of the 70ies and 80ies.
It's an impressive design and the car looks really sharp. The whole thing makes the impression as if production could start tomorrow. Not many prototype and concept car gimmicks, stuff you actually could build today.
Would I buy one?
The old Fastback Spider 2000, built around the end of the 70ies is one of my alltime favorites. I tried two times to buy one, but never really was successful for various reasons. It's one of the first convertibles I drove and I loved the slick gearbox, unmatched by most modern cars. The sound of the engine was like music and you enjoyed every double clutch gear change. The car was very easy to use too with its simple roof that you could bring down with one hand and without the need of an armee of electric motors. With 127 hp or so the performance was more than satisfactory thanks to the low weight.
I actually still would love to own one of these, maybe one day ....
Coming back to the 2uettottanta, would I buy one of these if they put it on the market? Maybe, but in all honesty, I would prefer the old car (once again).

The three best German Super Cars taking a 1987 perspective: Porsche 959, Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing, BMW M1

In 1987 the German car magazine Sport Auto featured an article on the best German Sportscars ever. The three cars they put into the center were the mighty Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, the BMW M1 and the Porsche 959. It must be said that Germany at that time was in an 959 euphoria. Clearly the 959 was an excellent car for its time! Even today its performance is impressive: 0-100 km/h in 3.9 sec, 450 hp, 315 km/h top speed, 3.2 kg/hp. And it was hugely expensive at DM 420'000, well that's at least what people thought. As we know today that kind of price tag is what you can charge for a super or hyper sportscar. Ferrari's answer to the 959, the Ferrari F40, at least came in exactly at the same price point. But if you compare the 959 with the M1, built 7 or 8 years earlier, it must be said that the M1 was at DM 113'000.- inexpensive in comparison. And it was fast too with 0-100 km/h in 5.6 sec and a top speed of 262 km/h. With a lower weight of 1'300 kg it had an acceptable power to weight ratio too with 4.7 kg/hp. And 33 years before the Porsche 959 a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL could be bought at DM 29'000.-. What may sound inexpensive was pretty much unaffordable at that time when a Volkswagen Beetle was probably around DM 1'500.-. But this car reached a mind boggling 250 km/h top speed and accelerated in 9 sec from 0 to 100 km/h while the Beetle could barely reach 100 km/h and you could cook your breakfast eggs in the time it took from 0-100 km/h. Now, one of the questions to ask is of course whether these were the three best German sportscars until 1987. I guess, it's a question of definition. Would you include cars like the Isdera, would the Mercedes C111 count, are street legal race cars like the Porsche 904 GTS or the Porsche Carrera 6 to be included? And what about pre war cars such as the Mercedes SSK? The three shown cars in the article are at least an attractive selection and could all go on any serious car collector's shopping list.

Why is Porsche car design so unbalanced?

Looking at Porsche sportscars from the fifties to today it's interesting to see what worked from a design point of view and what didn't. Let's take it car by car.
The Porsche 356 was a very modern car with an aerodynamic shape and lots of innovative engineering. A master piece. Also from a design point of view. We may dislike the narrow wheels today and where they are placed at the body, but it's certainly the work of a genius.
The Porsche 911 tried to continue the basic concepts of the 356, but to modernize everything. And succeeded. Again, a design that worked over many years (until today) and looked great.
Then in the late sixties the first design failure. The Porsche 914 clearly was a modern car, but many people disliked its shape and the fact that the front and back almost look the same.
With the Porsche 924 Porsche tried again to do a low cost model and diverged from the old style engine in the back approach. The car was fairly successful and the design seemed to work. The design was improved with the Carrera GT and the 944, but finally was almost destroyed with the late facelifts (Porsche 968) that tried to bring the car closer to 911 and 928.
The Porsche 928 was a trial to finally replace the 911. Not successful. The design was very brave, very different from anything else done before by Porsche and even other manufacturers. The old Porsche fans didn't like the car and it didn't help that it was heavy and thirsty and more a GT than a sportscar. Still, the car is a design icon today.
The Porsche 959 was another attempt to create a modern variant of the 911 theme. An impressive car. And it brought some design elements coming much later with the other cars. But basically, the car was a 911 derivate.
With the Porsche 964 they tried to make the 911 ready for the 80ies but failed. It looked too fat and not slick enough. This was corrected very successfully with the Porsche 993 that brought back the old lines and inserted many modern design attributes. It's a classic already today, and being the last aircooled model probably fetching high prices for the foreseeable future.
The Porsche 996 was a bigger step, bring water cooled engines and enlarging the car along all dimensions. Many people disliked the design of the front lights and all in all it certainly wasn't the best car Porsche ever produced. It sold well however and inspired the other models of the marque, for the good and the bad.
The Porsche Boxter, showed as a prototype 1993 in Detroit, was the next attempt after the 914 and the 924 to add a line of cars below the 911. With its mid-engine layout it clearly was different than the 996, but the final design brought it closer to the 911 derivates and maybe helped to sell it. But design wise it was a big step back from the initial prototype. The Cayman shared all of the design elements.
The Porsche Carrera GT with its formula 1 style ten cylinder engine represented everything that was good about Porsche, also design wise. That's how the Boxter should have looked like. That's what could have replaced the 911 if Porsche had wanted. Not with a 10 cylinder but with modernized six cylinders.
And then came the Porsche Cayenne. Horrible. An absolute design failure. Even its twin sister Volkswagen Touareg looked so much better. The combination of typical Porsche design elements such as lights and bumpers with an SUV is difficult to digest. But from a sales point of view it worked. Interestingly enough.
With the Porsche 997 another continuation of the now more than 30 years old theme was introduced and it looked so much sharper and slicker than its predecessor. Good work for a facelift. Actually it was more than this and besides still being rear engine driven everything has changed over the last 30 years. But the customers continue to buy.
Finally with the need to increase production numbers even more the Porsche Panamera was presented. A four seat for door limousine in the shape of a stretched 911. Again, the design doesn't work really and the back is really a big mistake. But it sells, as many people like the advantage of four doors. How much better however the addition of a four door limousine can be done to an existing sportscar range is shown by Maserati with the current Quattroporte and Aston-Martin with the Rapide.

So what's the take away here?
Porsche designed and built some really ground breaking cars, but they also introduced designs that didn't work and were probably the work of the marketing department, not created by people with passion and love for aesthetics. The need to produce bigger and bigger numbers of cars created dependencies that make the result suffer.
Here are my all time best of Porsche:
356, 356 Abarth, RSK, 550 Spider, 904 GTS, Carrera 6, 911 Carrera RS. And with a bit more distance 924 Carrera GT and 993.

Neglected future classic car? The Maserati Quattroporte 1994-2000

If the used car price is a measure for whether cars can become sought after collector's item then the Maserati Quattroporte IV, built between 1994 and 2000/2001, is a lost case. Despite the rarity, only about 2'800 cars were built, these cars are quite cheap to buy. A good one will change hands for the price of maybe two large inspections. It's actually not easy to understand why. The designer was Marcello Gandini, who was responsible for such famous cars as the Lamborghini Miura or the Lancia Stratos. The car was with a length of only 4.55 m quite compact, especially if you compare it with its successor. Engines with 6 and 8 cylinders were used to deliver more than satisfactory performance. So what is wrong with this car really? Nothing really, if you like the shape. Maybe it suffered a bit under the bad reputation of the Biturbo area, but you can't blame this car for that. If there wasn't that much electronics used in it, I would consider buying one.

Lotus Elan - an alltime handling benchmark

The Lotus Elan, built between 1962 and 1972, was a significant success for Lotus. While its predecessor, the gorgeous Lotus Elite was a financial disaster, the Elan made up for it. Almost 10'000 cars were built and sold partially as kit cars, partially as completed cars. Lotus produced coupés (from the S3 onwards) and convertibles, called DHC in this case.
Compared to other and bigger cars the Lotus Elan was quite expensive, but this didn't hinder people to buy them. Performance was good thanks to a low weight of 680 kg or so and power was with up to 128 HP sufficient to beat much bigger car. The best though was the handling. Different to other cars where good handling is reached by sacrificing ride quality the Elan offers quite a bit of comfort and still is a great handling car.
Lotus Elan were very successful in racing also and are sought after cars today to compete in the pre-1965 GT classes. The twin cam four cylinder engine can be tweaked beyond 160 HP and the Elans can even compete with cars like AC Cobra or TVR Griffith 200, assuming the right track and weather conditions come together.
I never owned one of these yet, but it keeps being on my shopping list.

The Alfa Romeo GTV 6 - best post-80ies Alfa soundtrack

The Alfa Romeo GTV had been around for quite some time when they decided to put the 6 cylinder from the Alfa Sei into it. And this totally changed the car and its positioning.
The Alfa Romeo GTV 6 was directly competing with the contemporary smaller Porsches and for example the Renault-Alpine A310. The price point was set at around half the value of a Ferrari 308 GTB, so it was somewhat affordable.
The Alfa Romeo GTV 6 is a car where the engine is (almost) everything. And what an engine this was! In the GTV 6 disguise it developed roughly 160 HP, featured a fuel injection and produced an unbelievable soundtrack. Different to other cars where you need to wind down the windows this soundtrack is always extremely present also in the interior and reason enough, not to order a stereo for this car. Why should you? The rest of the car was okay but not really great. The transmission mounted in transaxle setting was difficult and not exact to operate. Breaks and suspensions were acceptable but not really performance car like. The interior was improved against the older GTVs but still much less attractive than for example what came from the UK at this time or even partially from Germany.

But as a package it was a great car and the reviews from the different car magazines were quite positive, again especially for the engine. Fuel consumption was quite low too, performance with roughly 8 seconds from 0-100 km/h and 220 km/h top speed pretty competitive during the early 80ies. There was a kind of Mark 1 and a Mark 2 (with more plastic and some improvements). It was built between 1981 and 1986. Rust and corrosion were still a topic but less so than for the years before. The car sold quite well.
I haven't yet owned a GTV6, but it's one of the 80ies Alfas to consider and I believe there hasn't been one since then (maybe with the exception of the outrageously expensive 8C) that sounded as well as the GTV6.

Milestones - the BMW M1, closer to racing than most other cars

When BMW presented the BMW M1 in 1978 it was the first time for a long period after the BMW 507 that a true supercar was announced. But not all people fully appreciated the concept. The body was fiberglass, the engine had "only" six cylinders, while the price was on Ferrari 512 BB level offering 12 cyclinders and a lot more racing pedigree in comparison. BMWs plan had been to produce a homologation special to compete in international racing. However, due to a regulation change, there wasn't really anymore a good racing series to compete in with the car.
BMW produced 460 cars and then abandoned production due to lack of interest. They created their own racing series - Procar. Formula 1 and other famous racing drivers competed in an all BMW M1 racing series with runs before the formula 1 races. It was spectacular and exciting, but only lasted for two years. Later BMW M1s competed in the German championship, drove in Le Mans and participated in other series as Group 5 cars with some success.
The street car was very close to the racing car in reality. Same engine, same suspensions with slightly different setting, a bit more comfort. It sounded terrific and was actually able to compete with the 512BB in terms of performance despite the lack of engine volume and cylinders. The design done by Giugiaro is somewhat timeless and after a dip BMW M1 have continuously gained in value, reaching roughly 2-3 times their initial price today. There were only few colors and most seem to be either white, red or blue. I would take any of these colors ...

Investing in a BMW M3 E30? Think again!

Investing into a future classic car seems like a good idea. Let's take the BMW M3 E30, one of the best homologation specials on the market. It's an icon of the 80ies touring car scene. Awesome to drive, good to look at, even 20 years after its birthday.
And the value is increasing continuously. The cart shows (in green) how the money you have to put down for an M3 in good shape went up since 2000. And it can be expected that the value continues to increase.
So, this would be an ideal candidate to invest in, right?

Well, no. If you only assume reasonable cost to keeping the car in good shape (garage, basic maintenance, insurance, etc.) you will spend much more money on the car than what you can ever get back for selling it. That's the nature of car ownership. Doing nothing is not an option, storing it outside is a good idea neither.
So if you are looking for a good investment and you don't like stock certificates then maybe consider watches or stamps.
However, if you are also looking forward to having fun then owning a car like the BMW M3 might be one of the financially quite attractive hobbies and that's what it is meant to be. "Freude am Fahren" (driving with passion).