Auction: 1935 Bentley 3.5 Litre

We've seen our fair share of auto auctions over the years. At this point, it takes something truly rare and truly unique to catch our eye. The car in question has to be more than four wheels and a beautifully engineered engine, which explains why we're all riled over word that a 1935 Bentley 3 ½ Liter Saloon will be auctioned off by Historics at Brooklands. Yes, the car itself is something special. It wears a unique Flying B hood ornament – one of only three ever created – and has extensive documentation following nearly every mile on the odometer, but that's not what makes this particular lot so interesting.

You see, the car is being sold along with complete ownership of Freestone & Webb – the company that originally built the Bentley's special body way back when. The company is being auctioned off with neither assets nor debt, so the winning buyer will essentially have rights to the name alone. The coachbuilder hasn't built anything since closing its doors for good in 1958.

The Bentley and Freestone & Webb will be sold alongside a total of 65 other classics on June 2.

via:autoblog




Press Release

Classic Bentley to be auctioned, complete with free ownership of the company that built it

75 years after it was coach-built to the highest standards of the day, a 1935 Bentley will be auctioned at Brooklands on June 2 with a unique, free 'accessory' - ownership of the British coach-building company that created it.

Billed as one of the finest examples of its kind, the fine 1935 3 ½ litre Bentley Saloon is a jewel amongst 65 other fine classic and collector cars offered by specialist auction company, Historics at Brooklands.

Valued at between £75,000 - £90,000, the Bentley is offered by Historics with a comprehensive array of diaries documenting it's many trips in great detail. It is adorned with a single winged 'B' radiator mascot; believed to be one of only three examples of the experimental design ever produced, whilst the company which originally built the bespoke bodywork and interior of the car - Freestone & Webb - has even greater rarity value.

The renowned British coachbuilder was formed in 1923 by V.E. Freestone and A.J. Webb and, at its height, was producing 15 Rolls-Royces and Bentleys a year with exquisite hand-crafted bodywork and interiors. Freestone & Webb regularly exhibited at the London Motor Show and, for nine consecutive years, its excellence in the industry was recognised with the Gold Medal in the Private Coachbuilders competition.

Following the death of Webb in 1955, the company was taken over by HR Owen and continued to build bodies until 1958, after which the name was shelved.

The car's vendor discovered and acquired the company name and registered the limited company in 1990. It is now offered, together with the Bentley, as asset and debt free, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own not only a fine motor car, but also an iconic piece of British automotive coachbuilding history.

For more information, and to attend the Historics at Brooklands auction on the evening of June 2, call 0800 988 3838, e-mail: auctions@historics.co.uk, or see the website, www.historics.co.uk. Entry by catalogue only, available prior to, or on the evening.

3-litre Bentley Saloon.

Christened 'The Silent Sports Car', the chassis of the 3 ½ litre Bentley Saloon was built from September 1933 in Derby alongside Rolls-Royce – and indeed designed under the influence of Sir Henry Royce - earning its moniker, in part, to excellent handling characteristics and a top speed of 97mph when adorned with the lightweight bodywork.

Despite early examples of the Bentley 3 ½ litre costing around £1,500, the unique blend of style, grace and performance proved popular amongst the inter-war elite, with over 70% of the cars built between 1933 and 1939 said to be still in existence some 80 years on.

A small selection of the 65 fine motorcars consigned to the first Historics of Brooklands auction on Wednesday, June 2, includes the following. Please visit
http://www.historics.co.uk/buying/online-catalogue.aspx for the full consigned list of vehicles.

High res photographs are available of all vehicles

1930 Bentley 4.5 litre Vanden Plas Tourer

A beautifully presented 1931 Bentley 4.5 litre boasts a well-documented and wonderful history, a fabulous finish with the correct engine and period-style supercharger. Examples of these important cars rarely come to the market, and a high level of international interest is expected £625,000 - £775,000

1955 Aston Martin DB2/4 Drophead Coupe

Very original, four owners from new, long-term owner since mid 80's
£110,000-£145,000

1954 Jaguar XK120 Drophead Coupe

Discovered in a barn after 20 years and recently re-commissioned
£48,000-£50,000

1987 Aston Martin Zagato Volante

Extremely rare, 1 of 37
£45,000-£60,000

1927 Rolls-Royce Phantom I

Body by Thrupp & Maberly. Engine, body and interior restored
£130,000-£155,000

1955 Jaguar XK120 Roadster

Stunning body on uprated XK140 chassis
£45,000-£55,000

1937 MG TA Special

All aluminium body, built to very high spec, demonstrated at Le Mans Classic 2004
£25,000-£35,000

1937 MG TA

Well-known 'Team Rosbif' racing T-Type. Raced extensively from early sixties onwards in the UK and Europe
£23,000-£28,000

1955 Ford Thunderbird

Imported to the UK in early 1960's
£12,000-£18,000

1969 Chevrolet Camaro 396 SS Convertible

Genuine numbers-matching 396SS in restored condition
£30,000-£40,000
1968 Ford Escort AVO Rally

Absolutely correct period rally car, beautifully restored.
£35,000-£45,000

1939 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith by Mulliner & Co

A stunning Razor-Edge saloon with a 6,000 hour restoration.
£30,000-£40,000

1970s Mercedes C111 show car Damaged During Attempted Theft

A rare 1970s-era Mercedes-Benz C111 was the target for some thieves as the car waited on a transport trailer for a Channel crossing on its way to the Mercedes-Benz World Brooklands. They tried to nick it off a lorry bringing it to England. Of course, they didn't make it as the car the car is a mock-up and has no engine.

According to reports from across The Pond, the truck transporting the vintage concept car from Germany to the UK was hijacked by criminals looking to make off with the C111. The attempt was thwarted, but though now repaired, significant damage was reportedly incurred to one of the showcar's gullwing doors and to the front fender.

The C111 was a concept car by Mercedes-Benz which came in various alternative power train iterations, for which it was intended, throughout the 60s and 70s. Besides being fitted with turbocharged petrol/gasoline engines, Mercedes tried diesel and rotary engine power plants on it too. A C112 version also followed, fitted with a 6.0 liter V12. No version ever made it to production.

via: WCF

BMW 328 Kamm Coupé

The BMW Classic has been creating some buzz around automotive circles. Recently the BMW sub-brand instituted a Motorsport division and then they rolled down around Munich in some old-school, classy chariots.

Recreating the BMW 328 Kamm Coupé, named after the German engineer Wunibald Kamm, became a project of BMW Classic over the years. In fits and starts, various recreation programs were begun and abandoned until the Munich-based automaker found the right partners to do the work in time to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Mille Miglia win.

The project intitiall started in the 1990s, but there was a serious lack of information regarding the car. Only after receiving aid from a private collector who had detailed photographs of the car (including "a good number of shots detailing the car's tubular frame construction") could they proceed.

The bulk of the work was done by René Große, who had previously restored the BMW 328 Touring Coupé and Mille Miglia Roadster for the BMW Museum. Using modern materials, such as plastic, carbon fiber and alumimum, Große came as close to recreating the famous racer as possible given that none of the original design drawings were still in existence. 

Aside from recreating the body of the car, BMW Classic also had to deal with challenges to reproduce the drive train, radiator, and the rear axle. Looks like they have done a great job looking at the pics.





Press Release

Back to the future - the BMW 328 Kamm Coupé

Today the BMW racing cars which made history in the 1940 Mille Miglia continue to enthral and delight wherever they go. For many years, however, the fleet of silver BMW racers has been one car short. The BMW 328 Kamm Coupé, named after the German aerodynamics pioneer Wunibald Kamm, disappeared without trace back in 1953. But now - 70years after BMW's famous Mille Miglia victory - BMW Classic has recreated this legendary racing car, once again illuminating an important milestone in both motor sport history and the development of vehicle aerodynamics. "We are very proud to be able to bring this car back into the public spotlight," said Karl Baumer, Director of BMW Group Classic. "We've come up against some major technical challenges, had many discussions and racked up countless hours of research, but when you see the car for the first time you can sense the passion and expertise invested in the project by everyone involved - all those years ago and today."

BMW was quick to appreciate the unique status of its Mille Miglia cars following the victory in 1940, and they were soon moved out of Munich into a rural hideaway to save them from potential destruction during the Second World War. The evacuation was successful, with all five surviving the hostilities essentially unscathed. However, in the upheaval of the immediate post-war period BMW lost track of the cars. With Allied soldiers scouring Germany for rare racing cars, it was hardly surprising that the three Mille Miglia Roadsters resurfaced in Russia, England and America. The winning Touring Coupé from 1940 was initially seized by the Americans before being whisked away by a senior BMW employee. However, it also found its way across the Atlantic when the employee decided to emigrate.

Only the Kamm Coupé remained in Germany, former BMW Director of Racing Ernst Loof having acquired the car for his personal use. By this time he had become a manufacturer in his own right, supplying speedy Veritas racing sports cars to customers in a resurgent post-war Germany.

However, he also laboured consistently under financial woes and a few years later he was forced to part company with the Kamm Coupé. Sadly, this automotive gem was not blessed with a long life under its new owner, succumbing to the scrap heap after an accident in the early 1950s.

There was certainly no denying the historical value of this very special car and, after BMW founded BMW Mobile Tradition in the mid-1990s to oversee an extended reappraisal of the company's history, plans were put together to build a reproduction. But the resurrection project proved to be a tricky undertaking. All design drawings for the car seemed to have disappeared into thin air and there was hardly a rich supply of historical photos around either. It was only with the hands-on assistance of a private collector in Munich that the project team were able to gather together a much larger selection of photos showing the car from a wide variety of angles. Indeed, these even included a good number of shots detailing the car's tubular frame construction.

Now it was time to tackle the exacting task of piecing together a likeness of the complete car from the available information. Computer specialists in the design department embraced the challenge. They started by scanning in the most detailed photos to use as a basis for a 3D geometry program. Then the few reliable constants, such as the wheel rim diameters, wheel offset, headlight size, door handles, wing nuts, indicators and BMW logos, were added until they appeared in the same position in every projection. Every image provided a fresh series of reference points for wheel arches, windows and other parts linked to the fixed constants. Gradually, the well of information deepened until the experts were able to produce a virtual solid model, in which every detail looked right in every view of the car. This was used to generate a program for a five-axis milling machine, which would cut an original-size model from a massive block of highly compacted foam.

A restorer was then commissioned to stretch an original BMW chassis by 20 cm and build a steel space frame according to the templates provided by the photos. However, not long afterwards the project was put on ice. As part of the concept design process for the new BMW Museum an idea was floated of rebuilding the intricate Elektron space frame of the Kamm Coupé as a showpiece for the "Lightweight design" area of the museum. An exact copy of the original space frame was duly produced with the help of a specialist based near Munich. Aluminium was chosen as the material in place of the original Elektron, and the frame's weight duly came very close to that of the original. Although this display frame was never intended to be used in an actual car, the Kamm Coupé idea remained on the table. In the end, it was a project initiated by the Meisterschule für Karosserie- und Fahrzeugbau Leipzig-Leisnig-Erlbach (master craftsmen''s college for body and vehicle construction serving Leipzig, Leisnig and Erlbach) in partnership with the BMW plant in Leipzig that got the ball rolling.

The original plan was to cover the existing steel space frame with aluminium body panels to replicate the external appearance of the car at least. The Meisterschule produced moulds of the foam model in which the panels of the outer skin could be shaped. The finished body has since been on display at the Leipzig plant.

With the 70th anniversary of the Mille Miglia victory fast approaching, BMW Classic was determined to bring its plan to recreate the Kamm Coupé to fruition. However, highly skilled specialists were required to turn the collection of individual parts into a car that could actually be driven. With his excellent BMW 328 Touring Coupé and Mille Miglia Roadster restorations for the new BMW Museum still fresh in the mind, it was clear that René Große - based in Wusterwitz in the state of Brandenburg - would be the right man for the job.

Große used the foam model as the basis for a glass fibre-reinforced plastic mould. This was then shaped (with the help of additional wooden elements) into a strong casing which was split down the middle into two parts. The 25 mm-diameter tubes for the space frame - made from an aluminium alloy that allowed work-hardening - were then fitted into these two half-shells. Extreme precision was the order of the day here, as no corrections could subsequently be made to the outer skin. All this endeavour was aimed at ensuring that the frame would get close to the 30 kg weight of the original. For the outer skin, the team used pure aluminium body panels from a second set supplied by the Meisterschule. The newly made panels for the inside - for the inner front wings, bulkhead, double floor section of the body, dashboard and fuel tank, for example - then had to be integrated into the mould.

The body experts in René Große's team called on all their skill and experience to fit the body to the space frame. An interesting detail of the construction were the 40-mm-wide aluminium strips which were welded to the frame at the outer edges of the metal skin. The outer skin was then edged inwards around these strips to a width of a few millimetres to achieve the visually intricate edges on the bonnet, windows, doors and wheel arches. This detail, like the design of the bonnet hinge and door hinges, had been patented by BMW. And that meant there were sketches available which enabled the team to render the new parts as close as possible to their original templates.

Other challenges included the technical tweaks which set the Kamm Coupé apart from its series-produced siblings, such as the set-back radiator, engine and transmission, modified rear axle and a host of other alterations requiring meticulous detailing.

The BMW 328 Kamm Coupé was finally handed over to BMW Classic in a brief ceremony in March 2010. That left only a short amount of time to prepare the newly created racing car for its big day at the 2010 Mille Miglia - 70 years after its last, memorable appearance in the race.

New Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa Concept unveiled at Villa D'Este

The Zagato-designed Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa has been unveiled at the Villa D'Este concours, and frankly, it's spectacular. Driven by the Alfa 8C Competizione's V8, the TZ3 is very much in keeping with its 60s-era predecessors, the TZ1 and TZ2, sporting similar detail elements and the same near-breadvan profile. Also like the originals, this is a legit racing car. Unlike its forbears, however, the new machine wears aluminum bodywork stretched over a tube frame and carbon-fiber chassis. Power, as indicated before, is also of thoroughly modern origin.

Zagato says the TZ3 was commissioned by German collector Martin Kapp as a special celebration of 100 years of racing from Scuderia Ferrari, Alfa Corse, Autodelta, and Scuderia Zagato. On that "special" bit, we think it's safe to say, "mission accomplished" - with class and panache to spare. Official PR pics are in the gallery below, and a full live gallery is posted at OmniAuto. Be sure to pay them a visit as well.

via:autoblog





Press Release

Show full PR text
Milano, April 2010: Zagato Atelier announces the introduction of the Alfa Romeo TZ3 Corsa at
the XII Villa D'Este Concours d'Elegance.

The TZ3 Corsa is not a design exercise.
It does not take inspiration only from the 90 year collaboration between the two brands, neither only
from the Milanese conjunction between Alfa Romeo and Zagato.
The TZ3 Corsa is a race car, honouring 100 years of races and victories across the whole 20th
century.

It celebrates men and machines of the Alfa Romeo Zagato common tradition:
Scuderia Ferrari of the 20's and 30's, Alfa Corse of the 40's and 50's, Autodelta of the 60's and
70's up to the latest Scuderia Zagato of the 80's and 90's.

Recalling these racing emotions, the TZ3 Corsa is based on a mono shell carbon fibre tubular
chassis, coupled with a tubular frame and a lightweight aluminium body.
It boasts Technical Partners such as OMP and Pirelli.

Following Zagato's gentlemen-driver heritage, the car has been commissioned by the Alfa Romeo
Zagato collector Martin Kapp, during the Zandvoort Tribute to Zagato event, where more than
130 Alfa Romeo Zagatos were celebrating the 90th Anniversary of the brand.
Martin Kapp owns, among his Alfa Romeo Collection: SZ coda tonda and SZ coda tronca, TZ
and TZ2, Junior Z and S.Z..

Tribute to the 100th anniversary of Alfa Romeo's Racing Heritage:
Alfa Romeo and Zagato achieved the best results since the beginnings thanks to the Mille Miglia
victories of the 1500 6C, the 1750 GS and the 8C 2300 Zagato of the Scuderia Ferrari. Already
in 1933 an official advert of the Alfa Romeo 8C proclaimed: "The Spider that, with the trio Alfa
Romeo - Scuderia Ferrari - Carrozzeria Zagato, brought countless victories in the homeland and
abroad for the honour of Italy."

Even the grandiose Quadrifoglio Verde was placed on the bodies of Zagatos of the Alfa Corse
team numerous times. Among the most glorious moments is the victory of the Formula 1
championship of Juan Manuel Fangio, aboard his Alfa Romeo 159 bodied by Zagato, as well as
the victorious Alfa Romeo 3000 CM bodied in 3 samples by Zagato.

During the 60's, the list of absolute victories of the Giulia TZ and TZ2 by Zagato for the Autodelta
of Ing. Carlo Chiti, was never-ending. Some of the most memorable victories included the 1964 12
hours of Sebring, the Targa Florio, the Nurburgring, and the 24 hours of Le Mans.
The single-brand Alfa Romeo S.Z. championship emphasized the Alfa Romeo ES30's
(Experimental SportsCar 3000) technical and dynamic abilities. The S.Z. delivered, and continues
to so today, constant performance and driving pleasure to the Gentlemen drivers of the Alfa Zagato
team, across the most important racetracks in Europe.