Martin Buckley

United Kingdom

Senior Contributor at Classic & Sports Car

Writer at Freelance

motoring journalist

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Articles

Mercedes-Benz 220SEb Cabriolet vs 280SE 3.5 Cabriolet: a numbers game

1 week ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By Some cars never really go through a ‘cheap and cheerful’ period. Bought new for £7249 in 1970 (£97,500 in 2025 money), a good Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Cabriolet – one of 68 right-hookers – might still have been worth £6000 in 1974: that’s 83% of its new value, when a contemporary Aston Martin DB6 Volante had by then lost 30% of its £5684 list price.
The specialist: Mercedes-Benz Heritage GmbH

1 month ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By At the beginning of 2023, Mercedes-Benz consolidated all of its classic-car-related activities under Mercedes-Benz Heritage GmbH as a wholly owned subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz AG. Given that the firm built the first practical automobiles and has had a factory museum for more than 60 years, this feels like a significant vote of confidence in the role that historic vehicles have to play in a fast-changing automotive landscape.
Driving a BMW 3.0 CS on the 1000 Miglia Experience UAE: Dubai meets Brescia

1 month ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

Pre-war highlights were Martin Stretton’s booming Lagonda LG45, a German-owned Lagonda V12 Le Mans car (although it looked too shiny to be pukka) and a throaty, sinister, UK-based Ford V8 Business Coupe in black that came well up in the final standings.
Mercury Monarch: grandeur out of a crisis

1 month ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By Released concurrently in the autumn of 1974, the mechanically identical Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch were born into a nation that, by Federal decree, had suddenly decided that anything to do with performance was both figuratively and literally toxic. It was a world in which luxury, economy and perceptions of status trumped all notions of excitement and driver appeal.
Also in my garage: Citroën Méhari

2 months ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By Ray Hillier was trained by Rolls-Royce at its Hythe Road works in London and subsequently travelled the world servicing the Crewe-built cars before teaming up with Tony Hill in 1985 to form Hillier Hill in Buckinghamshire, one of the most respected independent Rolls-Royce and Bentley experts in the UK.
Bentley Continental R Mulliner, Brooklands and Azure T: a new era

2 months ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By As well as perpetuating the important commercial success of the Continental R (1854 examples sold over 12 years), the Bentley Azure and Brooklands were conceived to reaffirm the make’s status, under German ownership, as a standalone luxury name. Not just hand-finished, but truly elite, handmade cars: a credible attempt to reinvent the glamour of the genuinely coachbuilt models of the 1950s and ’60s for 21st-century sensibilities.
Triumph Italia 2000 vs Sunbeam Venezia: Latin lessons

2 months ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

In the land of zestful Fiats, sophisticated Lancias and sporty Alfa Romeos, there was a living to be made, it appears, from selling Hillman Minxes and Austin A40s (supplied in knock-down kit form) to those Italians who simply wanted something different.
The specialist: Armstrong Siddeley Owners’ Club Ltd

2 months ago | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By The Armstrong Siddeley Owners’ Club, a not-for-profit limited company, has been supplying parts for more than 50 years. That’s longer than Armstrong Siddeley existed as a car maker before falling victim to the jet age in 1960: as part of the Bristol Siddeley group, Armstrong Siddeley designed the Olympus engines that powered the Vulcan and Concorde.
BMW 2600L vs Borgward P100: Munich meets Bremen

Feb 10, 2025 | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By A variety of myths, rumours and conspiracy theories surround the circumstances that led to the premature demise of Borgward in 1961, but it has always been fairly clear to me that the Bremen-based firm provided the template for what BMW was to become in the ’60s: a purveyor of sporty, high-quality, middle-class saloons that trod a careful line between mass-market and specialist appeal.
Bentley S2 Continental: a unique chop and change

Jan 20, 2025 | classicandsportscar.com | Martin Buckley

By The world of Rolls-Royce and Bentley has always attracted its fair share of eccentrics, probably because the sort of wealth associated with the cars tends to bring out the extremes of behaviour associated with the kinds of big egos that (usually) go hand-in-glove with big money. Derby (and Crewe, post-1945) was always mindful of the effect that oddball demands from oddball customers might have on its well-groomed, carefully manicured image.