Octane

Octane is the authoritative guide to the best classic cars in the world.

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IGNITION • EVENTS + NEWS + OPINION

COMING UP… • With Monterey Car Week, Salon Privé and the Concours of Elegance just around the corner, show season is hotting up

Bentleys invade Le Mans again • Record-breaking grid in France as 71 vintage Bentleys head to La Sarthe for the Benjafields Racing Club Le Mans centenary

NEWS FEED

Museums blossoming across the globe • New collections, new features, new locations and new exhibitions in Germany, UK and USA

Jan Odor b.1935

Peter Horbury b.1950

Father, son and holy Roadster • A Lotus-inspired sports car is entrancing a third generation of a Kiwi family

Cutaways

Guy Allen • Graphic designer, automotive artist, illustrator and cartoonist who brought the Felix Petrol character to Octane

JAY LENO • The Collector

DEREK BELL • The Legend

STEPHEN BAYLEY • The Aesthete

ROBERT COUCHER • The Driver

LETTER OF THE MONTH WINS A MOUNTNEY STEERING WHEEL UP TO THE VALUE OF £300 • The writer of Octane’s Letter of the Month can select from a range of Mountney Classic steering wheels

Man with an Elan

A yen for a sports car • Rare, stylish and exquisitely engineered, the Toyota 2000GT revolutionised Japan’s motor industry – and charmed Robert Coucher

A GHOSTLY PRESENCE • Rolls-Royce’s Phantom II defined luxury car supremacy in the early 1930s. Richard Heseltine drives a special Weymann-bodied example that escaped a premature death

ONE LAST TIME • As Le Mans celebrates its centenary, Matthew Hayward heads to La Sarthe and joins the Corvette Racing team – for its swansong race

LE MANS MILESTONES

Patination state • A ‘weathered’ 1960s Italian hybrid GT might not be most people’s choice as an everyday family classic, but engineer Peter Fareham is not most people

KING FOR A DAY • There’s cool, and then there’s driving Steve McQueen’s dune buggy on a California beach cool. Mark Dixon does his best to live up to the legend

THE BOSSES’ WHEELS • 60 years ago Mercedes-Benz defined a new era of luxury cars with its behemoth 600. Glen Waddington drives the choice of celebs and despots

Marcus Breitschwerdt • Meet the Mercedes-Benz executive with a fondness for history – and a unique take on how it can help shape the company’s future

GREEN CHILE PLANT • Porsche believes that e-fuel will keep the internal combustion engine alive in an electrified future. Steve Sutcliffe travels to Chile to find out how

To Belgium for beer • 1989 BMW 320i CONVERTIBLE

OCTANE’S FLEET • These are the cars – and motorbikes – run by the magazine’s staff and contributors

Fuelish things • 1972 FIAT 500L

Good day, sunshine • 1971 HONDA Z600

The timing’s right • 1927 FORD MODELT

Thrice honoured • LANCIA, JAGUAR & LAMBORGHINI

Lancashire hotpot • 1997 PEUGEOT 306 GTI-6

OTHER NEWS

Trident tested • 2023 MASERATI MC20 CIELO & GRECALE

Eight into 12 does go • 2023 ASTON MARTIN DB12

Issigonis’s sports saloon • 1970 AUSTIN 1300 GT

Bernard Cahier • The Leica-wielding friend of the grid who helped redefine motorsport photography

Levi’s 501s • Jeans that went from ‘work pants reinforced with metal rivets’ to international fashion icon

Ruddy radiation • The dangers of radium lume need careful consideration and treatment

Seiko Grand Quartz • Not to be confused with Grand Seiko – and not to be sniffed...