Five days with a modified GT86…

“There are three Toyota GT86s, but we need a driver for the third to bring it to Japfest at Silverstone. You’ll get the car for five days if you’re up for it?” An intriguing proposition, and given that I’d never before driven a GT86, I jumped at the chance. However, I jumped at it without […]

Matra: Sports Car Innovators

Which company won the European F2 Championship, F1 World Championship (drivers and constructors), 24 Heures du Mans, the World Sportscar Championship, built its own racing V12 engine AND was involved in the production, first as a supplier then as a manufacturer, of the world’s first mid-engined production car? Hint: it’s not Ferrari. The answer, mesdames […]

Actors on track

McQueen actor

Steve McQueen blurred the lines between acting and racing as efficiently as he blurred the photographs of keen fans trying to capture him at over 200mph. Of course, he was not the only one. Actors often have a stab at being a racing driver, and they conjure up some success with that second ‘career’. But […]

NISMO – The Racers

Nismo headlights

Traditionally, most racing cars in modern motor racing follow a similar format. They are mid-engine and rear wheel drive. Very few categories asides from touring cars follow a front engine, front wheel drive formation. In 2015 however Nismo, Nissan’s in house tuning company, decided to take this formation and explore whether it could be upgraded. […]

The legendary Aston Martin DBR1: reborn in Norfolk

ASM R1 Aston Martin DBR1 road test

At first glance, there is nothing unusual about Poplar Farm in south Norfolk. Approached by winding country lanes, a traditional farmhouse nestles behind a row of trees, assorted outbuildings and sheds stretch away and fields of wheat and barley await harvest. The only clue that something special is happening inside those outbuildings, that one of […]

Braking Le Mans

le mans night

The ticket gates were all open, rubbish lay on the ground. The rubber from tyres was still warm on kerbs that only five hours earlier had been pounded upon by racing machines making their way around the eight-mile leviathan. A racetrack, particularly one such as Le Mans, is never more impressive than when everybody has just left. Doing fifteen […]