Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2021 i Fast Car

What car, or cars for that matter, would you buy with £100k? A supercar? The latest hot hatch? A highly tuned track car? Maybe even all three if you were canny with your secondhand buys. But how many of you said a Mini? Anyone? No, we wouldn’t either. But if you did, and you managed to bag one of the limited-run Oselli Editions, you wouldn’t get much change either… as prices for this latest Mini restomod start at an eye-watering £98,000! Built by David Brown Automotive to celebrate the debut of the original Alec Issiginis-designed Mini 60 years ago, the Oselli Edition of its Mini Remastered range is limited to just 60 examples and features a larger capacity engine and a host of customisation options. Starting with the engine, the…

M-STYLE COBRA SPORT EXHAUST FOR BMW F40 Even the most potent hot hatches need a boost now and again and BMW’s M135i is no exception. As standard, it comes with a rather disappointing muted-sounding exhaust system. However, for owners wishing to unleash the beastly Beemer’s inner voice, there is an option. The latest Cobra Sport system from BMWspecialists M-Style not only improves the aural experience, but the performance as well. The gains on speed, sound and style are down to the firm’s use of 3in stainless steel pipework throughout, which is enhanced by mandrel bent curves for smoother, more efficient, gas flow. And, being a modular system, it means customers also have the option to upgrade the system in stages if preferred. A PPF-back configuration retains the stock catalyst and…

How did you get into motorsport? I raced hovercrafts when I was a kid and always wanted to get into car racing. Once I could afford to buy a car, and the right opportunity came up, I started competing in Civic Cup. Civic Cup at the time asked if Tegiwa would sponsor the series, so this was the perfect chance to start racing. What other series have you raced in? I’ve raced in a few different series over the years in some very different machinery. As I mentioned, I started in Civic Cup driving an EP3 Civic Type R, I then had an FN2 Civic before finally ending up driving a tiny CRX. I then competed for a while in the M3 Cup in a BMW E46 M3, before moving…

There’s no avoiding it. Each year it’s the same. That stomach churning wait as the MOT tester diligently scrutinises every inch of your ride and decides whether it possesses the requisite road-worthiness to be awarded with another year’s ticket. Will they find something amiss? A worn bush or a seized linkage? All these things race through your mind until the time comes that you get the pass printout in your hand and all your fears evaporate in a puff of exhaust smoke. Of course, this time, the Mazda had been sitting un-moved for nearly 18 months, as it just didn’t seem worth taxing two cars throughout the national lockdown period, so the RX-8 was put on ice. Now, although there was less chance of any mileage related wear and tear…

Correct me if I’m wrong, but for those who love tinkering with their cars, buying new wheels is possibly the best part. The wheels and tyres define the look, they speak volumes about whether your car has been built for show or go. For me, it’s something that must be millimetre right and look the part! I’ve previously been running the OZ Rally Racing wheels which do look fantastic. They were chosen to stand out from the crowd, which is what the UP’s previous role as a Milltek demonstrator needed to do. However, now the UP is my own car, I’ve had an itch to run a wheel that’s always been on my must-own list. It’s the OZ Racing Superturismo LM’s finished in Matte Graphite. Simplistic, sharp, and looking like…

The new Opel Manta GSe ElektroMOD is the latest model to jump on the bandwagon of transforming classic cars into electric-powered ‘RestoMods’, combining the classic visual style of the iconic Manta with Opel’s latest electric powertrain for sustainable motoring. The four-cylinder engine under the black bonnet has been replaced by an electric motor with 108kW (145bhp) and 225Nm of torque. The the original car’s four-speed gearbox has been retained, allowing drivers to manually change gears, or simply engage fourth gear and drive automatically. With a 31kWh lithium-ion battery, the Manta GSe has a range of around 124 miles, and like the current Vauxhall electric range, features regenerative braking to improve range. Visually, the Manta GSe features all the original car’s lines, but with a few modern tricks up its sleeve,…

Tension. It’s the number-one plot device that keeps readers reading, viewers viewing and listeners listening. You’ve got to feel tense, uneasy, unsure of the next move, in order to truly engage; there’s always the hope of some sort of deus ex machina that will arise from the ether and save the situation, but at the same time a part of you hopes that the tension will tantalisingly last forever. The Mexican standoff is the most extreme manifestation of this; a happenstance in which characters are locked in an impossible situation, quite often with three people pointing guns at each other in a triangle (like the restaurant sequence in Pulp Fiction) – no-one can take any action without forcing everyone else to act. The contemporary modifying scene is rife with this…

One of the most animalistic tendencies of human beings is our propensity to get carried away with things. For all of our species’ superiority by virtue of how we have the ability to do things like live in houses, operate mobile telephones, extract corks from bottles, and have thumbs, there’s no denying that we all have animal urges lurking just beneath the surface. If you think it’s barking mad when you see a dog running round in circles chasing its tail until it throws up, or a cat batting at a ball of tin foil for hours on end, or a hamster scampering in a wheel until the spindle starts smoking, remember that you do this too: whether it’s powering through a box-set in one sitting, smashing back sambuca shots…

The comedy double-take is a masterfully cinematic trope of modern life, and this Fiesta is jam-packed with them. For a generation of modifiers, the Mk2 was the archetypal hatchback of their formative automotive experiences, whether it be practising for their driving test in mum’s 1.1L, or gazing with envious eyes at flame-spitting RST-swapped XR2s haring down the seafront and outrunning the fuzz. We know these cars inside out, so when we spot details like the custom Carbon Delight bumpers and the shortened rear number plate recess, the eyes can’t help but flick back for a second look. And anyone who’s twirled spanners beneath a Mk2 Fiesta bonnet will know that they’re usually hinged from the front, not the back… The 1980s were the true glory days for the European hot…

“You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge,” spits Dr Dre on NWA’s legendary rap tune ‘Straight Outta Compton’. Yes, we jolly well are. We witness plenty of home builds here at FC Towers but they are usually carried out in the relative sanctuary of a garage or lock-up. Serious props are thus due to the owner and builder of the stunning 2001 Honda Accord Coupe you see before you, Parker Wayne Thomas Burke, who completed much of the project at the side of the road. Service writer, Parker, hails from Wichita, Kansas, in the good ol’ US of A. The start of his automotive journey was distinctively less gangster than his current ride in the shape of a 1997 Mercury Mountaineer that his grandparents handed him…

Yellow is always a gamble, isn’t it? There are some cars that really suit the banana-hued shades they’re offered with in factory form, like the Sporting variants of the Fiat Cinquecento and Seicento; the Ferrari 488 Pista and F12tdf wear their Giallo Triplo Strata with impeccable panache, and who can forget the Citrine Yellow on the Mondeo Si? Simon from The Inbetweeners may have been devastated at the Coldplay motif, but his old man was onto something. Some models, however, can look a bit crap. The Nissan Juke is offered in a shade of yellow which has clearly been devised by a generation of designers who are too young to make the connection that it’s exactly the same colour as used by British Telecom on their vans in the 1980s.…

‘Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.’ This well-known phrase that describes the relationship between a manufacturer’s on-track performance and their forecourt sales couldn’t be more appropriate than when it comes to explaining the automotive niche of rally replicas. With the road cars bearing such close resemblance to those seen tearing through the muddy lanes of a Welsh mountainside or snow-covered Finnish forest, it was only logical that manufacturers would capitalise on their success on the special stages to bolster their sales in the showrooms. And the public has been smitten ever since. Even now, with many of the original manufacturers and models no longer competing in the WRC, the cars that forged their reputations in the heat of rally battle are still seen as performance icons to be revered. And…

The last 12 months or so have been pretty crap, haven’t they? We’ve missed an entire year of summer shows and events, meeting up for a Sunday morning coffee and chat with our mates came to an abrupt halt, and the idea of going for a drive purely for pleasure would see you slapped with a fine. But now the sun is now shining and the darkest days are behind us, restrictions have eased and we can now drive our cars, have meets and even attend shows, so it’s high time your car came out of hibernation and hit the streets. However, after a year on the side-lines, our cars might not be as keen to get going as we are. Cars aren’t designed to sit unused for long periods…

The next stage of this project is going to be to fiddle about with the Civic’s chassis a bit. This has taken some research, because while I managed to get it all spot-on with my old EP3 (which, incidentally, has just been written off by its new owner, sadface), things are slightly different with the FN2. The front end’s basically the same deal, but whereas an EP3 just needs a set of camber arms at the back to give full adjustability, the FN2 requires mucking about with camber shims, toe shims and so forth, and calculating the sizes thereof. But we’ll get there. And a key part of the makeover will be to replace the tired stock shocks and springs with some decent coilovers – I’ve been talking to BC…

Last month we reported on the Mitsubishi Evo Tommi Makinen Edition that sold for over £100k at auction. Well, it seems that wasn’t the only homologation special that’s value has gone through the roof, as there’s a host of other ‘80s and ‘90s machines that are also making waves when they go under the hammer. The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is one such rising star, adding an average of £20,200 to its value over the last year alone. Rare in unmodified form, the very best are now demanding significant prices, with both Bonhams and Silverstone Auctions recently valuing examples for £75,000. The Audi Quattro Sport is another significant riser as, 12 months ago, an ‘excellent’ example of this shortened, box-arched Group-B homologation special had a value of £265,000. Today, that…

Enzo Ferrari was famously against the idea of mid-engined cars, complaining that putting the engine behind the driver was ‘like putting the horse behind the cart’. His front-engined Formula One cars were doing fine in the 1950s (and it’s worth remembering that Enzo never really wanted to build and sell road cars anyway, they were just a necessary evil to pay for the firm’s racing endeavours), but in 1960 the 246P was tested in F1 – the firm’s first ever mid-engined racer, running a 2.4-litre Dino V6 engine. The first mid-engined Ferrari road cars – the Dino 206 and 246 GT – didn’t arrive until 1968, because again cantankerous old Enzo felt that the general public couldn’t be trusted to handle such a layout. But, as with the F1 cars,…

With great stance comes great responsibility, and you can’t just throw any old rims under the arches of your show car. Jordon is keenly aware of this, and he’s fitted eight different sets of wheels to the Polo in the last decade. The current set is his favourite, however: a unique quartet of staggered Braid 3-piece split-rims. Braid is a Spanish company renowned for making wheels that are just as strong as they are stylish – you’ll find Braids on machines as diverse as Dakar Rally winners to the McLaren Speedtail. “I fitted these wheels a couple of years ago, after rebuilding them,” says Jordon. “A while back I was bored and scrolling through eBay, and by chance I found these custom rims for sale in Germany – they’re the…

The wheel choice involved a lot of head-scratching and lateral thinking, as Kevin was adamant that the TT roll on something you’re not going to see on every other VAG ride on the showground. The Schmidt Velgen XS5 design was what he really had in mind, although their unavailability in the Audi’s 5x100 PCD was something of a hurdle… but as any seasoned modder will agree, there are no problems, only solutions. Liaising with Schmidt Wheels and Kean Suspensions, he found a way to have a set made up in the correct PCD, with staggered widths and offsets for on-point fitment but still running a square setup of tyre sizes so as not to confuse the quattro system – it’s a cleverly conceived fusion of form and function, and something…

TAROX ‘SPORT COMPACT’ BIG BRAKE KIT PRICE: £1500 CONTACT: tarox.com The VXR’s beefy turbo motor puts out a torrent of torque making it one of the most rapid hatches of its time, but that potent performance can put extra pressure on the braking system and anyone looking to up the power even further should look at some upgrades. On models without the upgraded Brembo setup, we’d recommend Tarox’s Sport Compact big brake kit. Featuring six-piston calipers and 321mm drilled or grooved discs, a set of ‘Corsa’ trackday pads and braided hoses, the £1500 Sport Compact kit has got everything you need to tame that turbo’d powerplant and keep the paintwork shiny side up. BILSTEIN COILOVERS PRICE: £696.92 CONTACT: bilsteinsuspensionstore.co.uk While the Corsa’s shape does lend it to being dumped on…

1 WHAT IS AIR-SUSPENSION AND WHAT DOES IT DO? In its most basic terms air suspension replaces your stock or ‘static’ suspension (coil spring, strut, etc) with an air-inflatable and adjustable ‘air spring’ which allows for adjustable suspension on-the-fly. In most cases this allows for extreme drops and the ability to raise back up to ‘stock height’ for drivability and to aid the manoeuvrability in turns, or where you need a raised body height such as driveways and speed bumps. 2 ARE ALL AIR-SUSPENSION KITS THE SAME? No, all air suspension ‘kits’ are most certainly NOT the same. Just like most automotive aftermarket modifications, there are different levels which include high quality, reliable options to very low quality options (that could leave you stranded), and everything in between. Also, depending…

The twisty, nadgery nature of Scotland’s best known motorsport venue – combined with elevation changes of around 200ft over the whole circuit – makes every lap an automotive adventure. Built in the early ‘70s when local farmer Tom Kinnaird had a vision to change the use of his sheep farm into something more exciting, it wasn’t until the fledgling track changed hands in 1983, when it was bought by motorcycle racer Derek Butcher, that Knockhill got some proper investment and started its journey into the professional racing venue it is today. A real challenge of man and machine, Knockhill is notably heavy on the brakes as the 1.27-mile circuit dips and climbs and the tight nature makes Taylors hairpin the only real place for outbraking attempts. Doing so requires some…