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2 weeks ago | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
By It is the quintessence of tranquillity.
Waves lap, gulls circle and swoop, and there isn’t another soul for miles.
Nor cars, for that matter, save the Formula 5000 racer that lives inside the lighthouse across the way.
Nobody appears to know why it’s there, just that it is. Seems reasonable.
Crenellated towers that look like battlements are losing their slow-motion fight with gravity, serving up a reminder that the Isle of Man wasn’t totally immune to conflict.
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3 weeks ago | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
“It grew from there,” he continues. “We had an eight-car garage and lock-ups scattered all over the place, and that no longer cut it – especially when we got into American vehicles.
“The first US purchase was a 1959 Cadillac ambulance.”
Hence the decision to establish a permanent home for the collection, which, within a few decades, comprised around 130 vehicles.
“It wasn’t all cars, either,” Darren adds. “There were lorries and buses, too.”
“Having them all over the place wasn’t ideal,” he says.
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1 month ago | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
The revelatory part is that this 1980s throwback doesn’t want to kill you. It’s almost civilised. Sort of. Ish.
You expect to emerge as a bundle of frayed nerves and in need of oxygenation, but no.
This was a period when it wasn’t uncommon for the aftermarket industry to slap turbos on to just about anything without making concessions to such trifling matters as drivability. That, and life expectancy.
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Dec 26, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
By Our genial host ushers us to the veranda, past the mother of all bookshelves.
It’s rude to stare, but you can’t help it. That’s quite the library.
“Oh, that’s nothing. I have thousands of books on motor racing going back to the year dot,” Howden Ganley smiles, barely breaking stride.
He then sets about outlining a life less ordinary.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
By Conversation has taken an unforeseen turn, which is quite something given the topics we’ve explored thus far.
It has ricocheted through everything from Roger Vadim’s celluloid classic Barbarella to the origins of the zoot suit.
Oh, and let’s not forget Googie architecture, the coachbuilding mastery of Joseph Figoni, and Chameleon Car Company Mercedes-Benz makeovers of the 1980s (primarily, the excesses of gold lamé interiors and gullwing doors).
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
By There is method to the madness here, but it might just as easily be the other way around.
So here we are, driving what appears to be a wedge of cheese in a locale that is not within walking distance from anywhere.
The speedometer is pegged at the sort of velocity that is usually accompanied by a police siren, but no.
It’s all pretty normal in these parts. You could get into trouble, but you would have to work hard at it.
And besides, you’re not even the fastest gun here.
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Sep 1, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
By With the power of political patronage, there is every chance that things could get messy.
A state-backed car manufacturer is in desperate need of cash for its vital new model, so it devises a fiendishly clever way of raising funds.
A lottery scheme attracts punters into parting with large amounts of money for the chance to win one of these new cars.
A date is set for the draw, but then it all goes very quiet.
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Jul 31, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
The Citroën Visa Trophée is communicative beyond merely being vocal, although ‘fidgety’ is perhaps closer to the truth.
What is conspicuously absent is the sort of speed normally associated with Group B.
In the mind’s eye, this was the knife-fight-rules era of rallying, the mere mention of it conjuring images of bestial, mid-engined monsters teetering on the brink of oblivion.
What doesn’t spring to mind is a 1.3-litre hatchback with twin carbs and go-quicker stripes.
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Jul 28, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
By Some cars incite chills of dread, not anticipation. The Tornado-Fiat 600GT is one of them.
On first sight, it’s hard not to look on in puckered silence.
There is no façade of normality here, just a small Italian shopping car with a Lotus Twin Cam slung behind the rear axle.
It just looks so, well, out there – like some sort of Darwinian fluke whereby two disparate species somehow mated and produced a mutant strain. It cannot possibly work.
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Jun 17, 2024 | 
classicandsportscar.com | Richard Heseltine
Sure, the proportions are a bit skew-whiff, a by-product of the need to accommodate the unmodified 125 platform and its lofty scuttle, but cues from all sorts of highfalutin luxury GTs were transposed on to a smaller canvas.
Stand back far enough then squint a little and it could almost be a Maserati.
The irony is that it wouldn’t have registered much of a flicker outside its homeland were it not for a London casino owner.
It wasn’t even meant for British consumption at all.
