Simon de Burton

6 days ago | ft.com | Simon de Burton

What constitutes a horological trend is difficult to define, but the recent arrival of multiple timepieces that hark back to a method of...

1 week ago | countrylife.co.uk | Simon de Burton

What’s your ‘Lotus position’? Do you applaud the modern-day marque’s transition to electric vehicles, or do you think the only Lotus worth talking about is a petrol-powered sportster built to the ‘add lightness’ formula of founder Colin Chapman? Bad luck if you’re in the latter camp.

2 weeks ago | motorsportmagazine.com | Simon de Burton

1989 RUF CTR YellowbirdSold by Gooding & Company, £4.7mDigital technology, drones and YouTube may have taken filming to new heights but there are few examples of automotive footage to beat Faszination auf dem Nürburgring from 1989. The 20-minute promotional movie for Porsche tuning house Ruf showed Stefan Roser driving a twin-turbo CTR Yellowbird at 10/10ths around the circuit.

2 weeks ago | motorsportmagazine.com | Simon de Burton

In last month’s pages we briefly mentioned the forthcoming appearance of this unique Aston Martin, flagging-up the fact that it’s likely to be one of the star lots at the second RM Sotheby’s Cliveden House sale. Designed in-house by Frank Feeley, it was to form the basis for the successor to the DB Mk III – but after Aston Martin asked Touring Superleggera to “stiffen” the body, the Italian coachbuilder suggested starting again from scratch and created the far prettier DB4.

2 weeks ago | motorsportmagazine.com | Simon de Burton

It was back in 2014 that Historic Racing Drivers Club founder Julius Thurgood conceived the HRDC Academy, a controlled race series for Austin A30 and A35 cars built to identical specifications and with sealed 1275cc engines. The formula proved a huge hit, especially at the Goodwood Revival where, in 2016, the entire St Mary’s Trophy Race field comprised the diminutive Austins which, despite their small size and low engine capacity, provided neck-and-neck, crowd-pleasing competition.