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Car SOS - a sneak preview of tonight's show

We love Car SOS in the Classic Car Weekly office. It's proper petrolhead telly - and it keeps the forced drama to a minimum.

There's a new series starting tonight and the opening episode's restoration of a Volvo P1800 has an added draw - the legend that is Sir Roger Moore, who drove one in The Saint, makes an appearance to give the work of Fuzz Townshend and Tim Shaw the thumbs up! I saw the finished car when it was revealed at last November's NEC Classic Motor Show and it looked stunning, so I can't wait to see what restoration wonders the team worked on it.

There's also an AC Aceca, a BMW 2002 Turbo and a Datsun 240Z to look out for later in the series, so if you love classics with a good tale behind them it's well worth tuning in.

Car SOS starts tonight at 8pm on the National Geographic Channel.

Get your classic car out for breakfast this weekend

CLASSIC CAR owners will be showing off their vehicles at the first of a series of 2016 breakfast meetings in the Lancashire village of Wrightington this Sunday (3 April).

The meets at the Corner House pub – which follow the success of similar events last year - take place between 9am and 11.30am on the first weekend of each month. The pub's also hosted a New Year's Day meeting - pictured above - which attracted more than 100 classic car owners.

All the events will raise money for good causes.

How Vauxhall transformed the Astra overnight

A FEW subtle changes can add up to make a big difference. Just ask McDonalds.

It’s not often I venture through the golden arches of temptation but a quick stop at one at one the other day verged on blowing my mind. What I’ve grown up expecting is a slew of bored teenagers queuing up in a haze of salty smells to get a quick fix before shuffling past the paintings of Ronald and his crew to sit down on cheap plastic chairs before diving face first into a fistful of fries. Yet out of nowhere the clown’s been given his P45 and replaced with the sort of service you’d expect in a first class departure lounge.

Ordering was a case of pressing a few buttons on a giant touchscreen. A few minutes later, someone would bring your fifteen minutes of calorific shame straight to your table, where you’re able to plug your phone into one of the chargers provided or check the news on an iPad-esque tablet attached to the table. It’s the sort of overnight image overhaul Madonna would be proud of.

Vauxhall hasn’t managed quite the same shock factor with its latest Astra, largely because people – quite rightly – liked the look of the old one and at a casual glance the current one looks barely any different. Peer a bit more closely and there’s a big silver strip running across the radiator grille and an angular new treatment of the glass behind the rear doors, but basically it’s business as usual. No bad thing; the old one was one of the snazziest looking contenders for your family car cash.

In fact, the reason why it’s just won the European Car of the Year gong is because of all the little tweaks to iron out all the old one’s vaguely rubbish qualities. Knocking the Astra in this corner of the country is a tricky task because it’s built here in the North West - but I’m sure even the people whose jobs depend on it will happily admit its dashboard was far too fussy and the windscreen pillars were so huge it made it feel like you were driving a four-wheeled bird hide. Most frustratingly, it handled competently but never threw any fun into the equation – it’d do everything well but never in a way that’d make you actively enjoy it.

Vauxhall’s listened. The new car has slimmer A-pillars that make the interior airier, and now there are fewer buttons and a touchscreen to make the dashboard feel less hectic. It’s also – and I’ve just spent a few days driving various versions of the new Sport Tourer estate version around the French Alps – noticeably nicer to drive than the outgoing car. The Astra’s gone from being something I dread in games of Hire Car Lottery to a car I look forward to.

In fact, it’s pulled off something I wasn’t expecting. For the first time in nearly a decade the Astra’s a better buy than the Focus. Well done Vauxhall – have some fries on me!

Southport finally pays tribute to Sir Henry Segrave

MARCH 16, 1926 was a good day for speed.

For starters a physicist called Robert H.Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fuelled rocket from a farm in Massachusetts – the very technology that made everything from putting a chap on the Moon to watching episodes of The Simpsons beamed in from satellites possible. It’s also why you no longer need an angry partner and a crumpled road atlas to get anywhere – sat nav isn’t perfect, but it’s still wonderful.

The same day, 3,153 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, an Eton-educated racing driver decided to go out for a drive – along Southport’s beach at 152mph, setting a world land speed record in the process. Sir Henry Segrave’s stint as the fastest man on four wheels may have lasted barely a month but it’s still an epic bit of driving, because it involved having to get a supercharged V12 monster with skinny tyres and no traction control to behave itself while doing more than twice the national speed limit. On sand.

I’ve long bemoaned the lack of any sort of proper tribute to Sir Henry’s achievement – other than the name of the town’s branch of JD Wetherspoon – but the other day the car’s current owner kindly brought it back for another run. Exactly nine decades on the 1925 Sunbeam Tiger was back in Southport!

To get the actual car – which usually resides in Utah - back on the beach was an incredible achievement, but nothing quite like actually hearing that 4.0-litre supercharged engine at full chat. In an age of instant gratification where you download today’s entire Champion to your smartphone in about three seconds I listened to several people grumbling because it took two hours to get the methanol-fuelled beast up and running; in fact a few actually got bored and went home!

Yet two hours is worth the wait when you consider it’s been 90 years since the mighty Tiger last roared in anger here – and the spectacle of actually seeing the thing being given the beans and the driver fighting a twitchy rear end on the sands was definitely worth it. It was the sort of unforgettable moment I’m sure I’ll one day bore my grandchildren with – and doubtless plenty of you will too, given the size of the crowds that turned out to see it.

Good news, by the way. I’ve spoken to the driver and he tells me the Tiger’s owner is more than up for a centenary re-run in 2026 – maybe we could honour Robert H Goddard too and have a simultaneous rocket launch. Go on Sefton Council, you know you want to…

Newspress Awards 2016

LAST NIGHT I was delighted to be announced as one of the winners in the inaugural Newspress Awards, which celebrates the best motoring writers and PRs from across the UK.

I was lucky enough to pick up the award for Automotive News Writer against some very stiff competition for my work at Classic Car Weekly, where I've been working since 2013.

Among the stories that caught the judges' attention were an investigation into the disappearance of lock-up garages across the UK, an exclusive story about the Chinese discussing opening up their borders to historic vehicles.

Newspress' judges said: 'David is a standout winner with genuinely interesting stories and exclusives that were well researched. 'Stories ranging from China imports, an investigation about of the loss of lock-up garages and an 80% drop in voluntary MoT tests for pre-1960 classic cars were all proper exclusives of real interest to the target readership.'

Love driving fast? Then please try not to ruin Wales for the rest of us

BIKERS are more us than them. Devotees of all things two-wheeled are genuinely into their machinery, they’ll meet up with likeminded folk at shows and they appreciate a journey is about so much more than the destination.

They also know something I’ve rarely experienced as a car nut. The stigma of being tarred with one broad sweep of an angry community’s brush, simply because a few idiots are going out there and ruining it for everyone else.

That’s the pain I came away with after venturing out of Champion-land and reading one of the North Wales newspapers, in which frustrated farmers are teaming up with the local bobbies to condemn just about anyone who even thinks driving a certain trio of roads in the Conwy countryside for enjoyment’s sake.

The sort of heavy-handed policing traditionally reserved for hedonists with Honda Fireblades and Suzuki Hayabusas is now being mooted for people with hot hatchbacks and Caterhams. Not without justification, mind; North Wales Police is apparently getting a bit fed up with groups of cars doing upwards of 90mph on their home turf!

All of which leaves me a tad pensive. I am one of the very people some of those farmers would probably like to see banned – I’ve driven the roads in question on many occasions in my Minis and Mazda MX-5s for no good reason other than to enjoy them. It is 30 miles of some of Britain’s most enjoyable motoring, where you can appreciate all the little nuances of the suspension set up and the smile-inducing way the steering chats excitedly to you through the corners. Yet here’s the shocking thing - you can do all of that without breaking the 60mph speed limit.

The real problem’s when you get thrillseekers tearing past in even quicker bits of kit, which is exactly what happened a few years ago on a petrolhead outing a few mates and I were on. My MX-5, a Ford Racing Puma, a Volkswagen Polo G40 and a Metro GTi aren’t exactly slouches – yet all four of our cars were overtaken by a Porsche Boxster S, a Mini Cooper Works GP and a tuned Civic Type R. We were doing 60mph, but for this trio the limit just wasn’t enough.

I dread the idea of a 60mph road that can be enjoyed safely (and legally) being forced down to 40mph because of the idiots who insist on taking it at 100mph – and chances are they’ll continue doing that speed anyway. I understand how bikers feel, because a reckless minority are ruining it for everyone else who loves great cars and wonderful roads.

Chances are if you’re reading The Champion that you’re not a Welsh farmer, but if you are then please appreciate that 99% of us petrolheads are just normal, law-abiding people who like cars. On the other hand, if you’re someone who’s tempted to belt down the A543 at 100mph then sell the Honda S2000 and get something you’ll enjoy at normal speeds.

You’ll be doing the rest of us all a massive favour.

Geneva brings out my inner middle-aged petrolhead

GENEVA’S a great place to pretend you’re rich and middle-aged.

Not only is it full of banks and infused with a sense of order and tidiness, but it’s also just about the only place in Europe where you can broaden your already sagging waistline with entire shops dedicated to Toblerone. Oh, and once a year there’s a show stuffed with shiny new supercars too.

I’ve just jetted back from my first ever visit to something that ought to be on every car fan’s bucket list. The Geneva Motor Show is where you go to take the pulse of the motoring world because so many manufacturers use it to launch new cars, and it’s where the European Car of the Year gets announced (congratulations Vauxhall, by the way).

Really I ought have been sensible and reported back faithfully to your Champion-reading chums what the new Renault Scenic’s like – but I failed because I got distracted by the shiny supercars. You would too, given the choice between a Scenic and the new Porsche 911 Turbo S.

So I ended up pretending to be rich, middle aged and with just one question – which one car would I forgo the Easyjet flight for and drive back to Blighty? One of the show’s big stars – the Bugatti Chiron – is out straight away because its makers have wimped out of making it the world’s fastest production car by limiting its top speed to (just) 261mph. It’s 11mph faster than a Golf GTI and nearly seven times as powerful – but when it comes down to it it’ll still lose you a game of Top Trumps.

Ford’s GT gives just as much visual theatre for a fraction of the price but the mid-engined arrival that really won me over was Honda’s new NSX. Not only does it use clever hybrid technology to go fast in a vaguely eco-friendly way, but it looks stunning in the flesh. The Nineties original might have been a flop here, but I really hope this one does better.

The NSX is an amazing bit of kit – but the one car that really won me over was a small sports car made not by robots in Japan, but craftsmen in Worcestershire. Morgan’s EV3 might only be a one-off show car for now but I really hope they make it; it’s essentially the slightly bonkers Threewheeler, but with an electric motor rather than a tuned motorcycle engine. Not only does it look completely unhinged and promise to be on the fun side of terrifying to drive, but it’s also the most compelling argument I’ve seen yet for people like me – the petrolheads – to take up eat-your-greens electric motoring.

Count me in.

Originally published in the 9 March issue of The Champion

Want a Ford Cougar? You gotta haggle...

I NEARLY bought a Ford Cougar by mistake the other day. Having been lured in by the online prospect of a cheap V6 coupe for the price most of you spend on package holidays I ended up in North London's dodgiest-looking secondhand car lot - and ended up walking away.

Sorry for the Minder-esque opening but that's genuinely how it happened. If you're not familiar with it the Cougar's a sort of two-door Mondeo with crisper detailing and an aggressive front end, and it's now in the same price doldrums the Capri was 15 years ago. In the end the one I looked at was in the midst of a three-deep crowd of rather ropey-looking cars guarded by two rather angry dogs with a sales office operated from - and I'm not making this up - a garden shed hastily erected in the middle. Oh, and the car itself had a broken radiator grille held in place with some string and made a rather worrying whine when it started up.

But the biggest disappointment was that walking away meant I couldn't down with some Arthur Daley-esque character and thrash out a deal. My boss had already told me if I'd be sacked from motoring journalism if I couldn't bag this V6 beast for under £500, but in the end I concluded this particular Cougar looked like one very poorly cat. Which is a shame because I like haggling - but apparently the vast majority of you don't.

Apparently 55% of you would rather not talk turkey when it comes to car prices and find the experience of negotiating a deal uncomfortable. My generation is apparently the worst for it, with 71% of younger buyers preferring not to get involved at all and would much rather pay full whack and get it over and done with. Which is staggering, because haggling is a time honoured way of getting more for your money.

It needn't be unpleasant and it's not about rude or abrasive to whoever's trying to flog you a set of wheels - all it takes is a polite "Can I make you an offer?" and doing your homework beforehand. Far from being intimidating, haggling is a wonderful game of motoring chess to be enjoyed and a skill to be honed. You learn what the car's going to be worth elsewhere and factor it into the negotiations. You use the little niggles and faults you find as bargaining chips. Most importantly you know the power of politely declining and walking away - if the deal isn't right or the seller's rude or dismissive, you stay calm and remember patience is the key to finding the right car.

That's part of the reason why I never go for classified ads which tersely end with 'NO OFFERS' - it almost seems a bit unsporting. Ending things with 'ono' - as in Or Nearest Offer - gives you and the seller the chance to strike up a deal that works for both parties, and it's important because it helps keep the market on its toes and prices realistic.

If you're thinking of getting another car don't be put off by the idea that haggling is frightening - it really isn't, and the more you do it the better a deal you'll get it. Top tip though; if it involves batting your way past angry dogs and chatting to shifty blokes in garden sheds, it's probably best looking elsewhere.

Originally published in the 2 March issue of The Champion

Volvo has the key to end your car starting woes

IT WAS one of those mornings when I wished I’d stayed in bed. I’d been given the key to a freshly restored Ford Capri – and managed to break it clean in half before I’d even started it!

My face recoiled in horror as a clearly very brittle slither of steel snapped in my hand. Happily, the car had a spare key so it wasn’t a case of stopping play, and the people who owned this 44-year-old car were very nice about it to the red-faced and hugely apologetic journalist. I’m sure I can’t be the only person it’s happened to but it’s definitely up there in my list of all time automotive fails.

If only it’d been sometime next year and a brand new Volvo instead. That’s when, if the Swedish carmaker gets its way, you won’t need to bother with keys at all.

The manufacturer that gave you seatbelts, The Saint’s wheels of choice and slightly mad 1990s estate cars now reckons all you need to start a car up is an app on a smartphone. Simply bring it with you, strap yourself in and your brand new V90 will faithfully fire up, ready to whisk you to your destination.

Interested? It gets better. Volvo says you can share the app with your wife, husband, delinquent teenage son, or your dog, so they can drive your car down to the garden centre without needing to physically pick a set of keys up off you. I can see it working a treat where I work, where I’m forever having to traipse to the other end of a rather long office simply to pick a set of keys up. All I’d need is the app and permission from the car’s owner.

It even works between different cars so that you won’t need a set of keys if you go on holiday and rent something, although whether you’d need to insist on borrowing only Volvos isn’t yet clear. It all sounds a bit Tomorrow’s World but I like the idea enormously – it’s a bit like wondering why we signed for payments in a world before chip and pin or how society ever functioned without the barcode.

All we need now is for Volvo to make the system as foolproof and boringly safe as its cars are. It will still make keys for nostalgic types who remembered starting up cars back in 2016 by twisting a quaint piece of metal, but the real challenge is to make it impossible for someone who steals your phone to also to steal your car. It’ll also need to make it a doddle to use, and not just for people who understand how LinkedIn works. Everyone knows how a key works – so to replace it successfully Volvo’s app will have to be unbelievably easy to master.

Oh, and Volvo must ensure that in no way can David Simister find a way of accidentally breaking it. Nail that last part and the future of motoring is secure.

Originally published in the 24 February issue of The Champion

Cholmondeley Power and Speed: A cool new name and more features for Cheshire motoring spectacular

CHOLMONDELEY Power and Speed. It might sound like the world’s poshest brand of energy drink but it’s actually a vow to bring three days of high octane fun right here to the North West.

Chances are you’ll already know it by its not that dissimilarly named predecessor, the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power. It’s long been a good idea; give the grounds of a stately pile in deepest Cheshire over to some car nuts for three days, flood the grounds with every Jaguar XJ220, Noble M600 and Ariel Atom you can find and see what happens.

For the past eight years the Pageant of Power’s managed to win over folk who don’t normally go to car shows. Don’t me get me wrong, I love wandering around parks looking at rows of Ford Anglias but I fully understand if it’s not your thing. Cholmondeley, on the other hand, offers you the chance to see Ferraris being raced against the clock and to hear the anarchic growl of Group B rally cars being driven in anger. It’s got a thrill factor that pulls in people with even the faintest interest in cars.

Yet – even as one of the event’s biggest fans – I’ll freely admit the same thing every year was beginning to feel a bit staid, which is why I’m glad the people behind it are vowing it’s not just a case of Opal Fruits being rebranded as Starburst.

For starters all the car clubs, who for years have been relegated to the edge of the public car park, an eternity away from all the exciting stuff, are being moved somewhere visitors will actually find them. That’s great news because they always bring along scores of wonderful cars – think TVRs, Audi Quattros and Nissan Skylines – and now you won’t have to walk miles out of your way to see them.

The renamed event also has more in the way of tie-ups with car manufacturers – including the chance to drive some of them for yourself on the opening day – as well as a renewed focus on having lots of supercars being put through their paces at this year’s event. It’s also telling that while the organisers could have picked somewhere in the North West to announce everything, they did it in London instead. Yes, that London, all the way down there in the South. The new Cholmondeley will be so good that people ‘daahn saaf’ will want to join us!

The one thing I’m keeping my fingers crossed for is Cholmondeley resisting the rather obvious path of becoming the North’s answer to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Having been to both I actually prefer what we’ve got because it’s friendlier, less corporate and – crucially – you see cars rather than the back of people’s heads. Whatever happens, make a date for June 10-12.

Just when I was going to give Cholmondeley a miss this year because I’ve seen it all before they go and shake things up a bit. Even if it does sound like a posh energy drink.

Why the Citroen Spacetourer is a breath of fresh air

SOMEONE at Citroën is clearly a kindred spirit. They know what it’s like to grow up as part of a larger family – and they’ve come up with a solution.

Growing up with lots of brothers and sisters has all sorts of problems. For starters they eat into the parental funds that should rightfully be reserved for the BMX and games console of your choice, and getting ten minutes in the bathroom in the mornings requires the sort of planning that’d give the scientists at CERN sleepless nights. Growing up in that brief period of history with dial-up internet connections made it even worse; I vividly remember the rows over who got access to the one computer and the looks I’d get when a squawking modem would disconnect my sisters’ phone calls.

But worst of all was having to cram into the back of my parents’ Land Rover, because that was one of the few vehicles that had the requisite eight seats. Every childhood holiday involved sitting on side-facing benches in the back of a bouncy old 4x4, but at least Land Rovers are vaguely fashionable; just about the only alternative was sourcing a Ford Transit minibus, which would have killed my passion for cars stone dead at the age of nine.

Even today getting more than eight seats in your wagon’s tricky. At the last count I found just four on offer; Ford’s Tourneo Custom, Mercedes-Benz’s Vito Tourer, Volkswagen’s Transporter Shuttle and the badge engineered, virtually identical twins that are Renault’s Trafic and Vauxhall’s Vivaro Combi. The anoraks among you will already spotted what they’ve got in common. While none are especially nasty to drive, they’re all based on vans rather than cars.

Which is why Citroën’s new Spacetourer will be a breath of fresh air for over-productive parents and taxi firms specialising in airport runs and picking up groups of plastered partygoers from Liverpool city centre. It’s got nine seats so it’ll be able to heave each and every one of your offspring about, but rather than being a van with more windows and seats it’s basically the same as the Peugeot 308 underneath. So it’s 2014’s European Car of the Year with an extra four seatbelts.

Which is great. Someone on the other side of the Channel has realised parents who have more than five children might want to drive something other than a Transit van with some seats bolted into the back – and that hopefully will encourage other car makers to offer up rivals to the Spacetourer.

It hits the showrooms later this year – if you are looking for something vaguely interesting to cart your six children to school in it, it’s well worth thinking about.

The Land Rover Defender is one car none of us wanted to lose

IT’S FINALLY happened. A car that’s spent the best part of two decades dodging the Grim Reaper has finally been offered a final parting drink and ordered out to face the music. The Land Rover Defender is no more.

Yesterday the whole of the motoring world seemed to sigh reflectively as the last of the traditional Land Rovers rolled off the Solihull production line, bringing 68 years of production to an end. Not bad for something only ever intended as a stopgap to increase the number of cars the old Rover Car Company (remember them?) could export in the late 1940s.

The petrolhead parts of Facebook and Twitter lit up with misty-eyed tributes to the Land Rover, and footage of the final Defender even made it onto the BBC’s news bulletins. It’s hard to think of any other car that’d provoke such an emotional response – people are genuinely sad to see it go, just as they were when the last Mini was finished off 16 years ago.

Yes, I know a big, boxy four-wheel-drive is hardly moving with these eco-conscious times and that EU safety rules were the final nails in its coffin. I’m also aware that the Defender is fairly terrible to drive on the road, has no shoulder room whatsoever and handles corners like it’s drunk, but in tricky situations on tough terrain it was the Ray Mears type you wanted by your side. Having grown up with them it was like a family friend, a sort of Labrador with locking differentials and transfer boxes.

My parents had a One Ten so I spent virtually all my childhood holidays, shopping trips, school runs and – shock, horror – off road outings in the back of one. Inevitably I’d end up getting taken to places like North Wales and the Lake District, where every farmer and mountain rescue team had one trundling around doing useful things. There aren’t many cars you can genuinely count as being British motoring institutions, but the Land Rover is definitely one of them.

That’s before I mention all the foreign battlefields, remote African villages and Outback farms they’ve been serving in for generations. It has one heck of a CV, which is why I’m hardly surprised Land Rover hasn’t yet lined up something to replace it.

Farewell, old friend. I’m sure I can’t be the only one saddened that one of Britain’s best known exports is no more.

James May is proof you don't need explosions to make great car TV

ABOUT A YEAR ago I had confirmation of something most car nuts suspect. Given the choice of a quiet evening, your local pub and any of the former Top Gear trio to go for a drink with, chances are you’d pick James May.

It was at a press conference in London where he was announcing a display bringing together his favourite pioneering automobiles, but being a busy TV presenter he had time to field just two questions from the assembled journalists. I can’t recall what the first question was but I definitely remember holding my hand up like a teacher’s pet with the second on the tip of my tongue – if he was going to do it again in ten years’ time, would his choices have changed?

I was looking forward to hearing him contemplate whether the car industry had stopped belting game-changing cars, but instead his PR man picked someone who genuinely asked ‘Did you get back from Argentina alright?’

There was a brief awkward silence at the stupidity of the question, but the Top Gear presenter who’d clearly made it back Buenos Aires just fine just smiled politely and gave a thoughtful intelligent answer that took the mickey out of Jeremy Clarkson. More often than not he’s motoring’s voice of reason.

That’s why seeing his Cars of the People back on the air last Sunday was such a breath of fresh air, particularly at a time when the tabloids are photographing every car Chris Evans gets in or out of.

Given he’d rounded off the last series by neatly supposing the ultimate car of the people is the Volkswagen Golf I had been wondering what ground hadn’t already been covered, but last Sunday’s episode was a genuinely fascinating bit of social history, exploring how Japan had swiped the car market from right under America’s nose. The journey with three Detroit car experts discussing the city’s downfall from a Ford Mustang II was genuinely educational stuff.

Best of all was the gentle ribbing of the car usually fêted as everything wrong with our own car industry. James could have done with the Austin Allegro what he did with the 2CV in the last series – pummelled it with machine gun fire, in the name of TV entertainment – but he didn’t.

Cars of the People is proof you can make great motoring telly without massive egos and explosions – which is why I’ll definitely tuning in for this Sunday’s episode. I’m glad James made it back from Argentina alright.

This Southport motoring event is one you won't want to miss

SOUTHPORT is finally getting its moment in the motoring spotlight.

Anyone up on their local history will know the town actually does pretty well on automotive heritage – and that Red Rum isn’t the only sort of horsepower our part of the world can be proud of. A century ago we were building Vulcan cars here, followed by Corgi scooters well into the 1950s, and when the beach wasn’t being used to hone future Grand National winners it was being used as a race circuit for blokes in Minis and Hillman Imps. We’re also home to the oldest Morgan dealership in the world (which has been selling Malvern’s finest since 1926) and just up the road in Banks there’s a chap who’s made more than 400 re-creations of the Lotus Europa.

Yet our finest automotive hour has been all but forgotten. Five years ago I remember writing for The Champion that the day Sir Henry Segrave set the world land speed record right here in the North West – March 16, 1926 – was marked only by the name of the town’s branch of JD Wetherspoon. The resort’s stint as the fastest place on earth had been all but forgotten - until now.

Organisers The Atkinson and Aintree Circuit Club – the people behind the Ormskirk MotorFest – have vowed to mark the 90th anniversary in style. I’ve seen the plans for the event and it’s exciting stuff; they could have parked some classic cars outside The Atkinson and left it at that, but they haven’t. They’re planning an entire week of events, topped off by a re-creation of the actual run on 16 March using a Sunbeam Tiger (the V12-engined vintage monster, not the 1960s roadster) just like Sir Henry did.

That means it’ll be the second land speed record re-enactment in a year, following the return of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird to Pendine Sands in Wales. To have something like that happen right on my doorstep is hugely exciting, which is why I can’t wait to see this event getting off the ground and witnessing a 1920s racer capable of more than 150mph fire into action on the very beach it wowed the world.

The event’s called The Southport Festival of Speed and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more on it The Champion in the coming weeks. See you there!

Bentley goes back to the stone age

NORMALLY it’d take a couple of days for some robots to bolt your next new car together – but they do things differently at Bentley.

Order the latest version of the Continental GT or Mulsanne and it turns out the production process actually started about 200 million years ago, in a part of the world that’s now at the bottom of an Indian quarry. That’s how long it’s taken for a type of stone to become just about good enough for the luxury car boffins to use as it as a new kind of dashboard veneer.

Yes, you read that correctly. As part of a new service being offered by Mulliner – Bentley’s in-house coachbuilding service – your nearest Premiership footballer can have their new car offered up with what’s effectively a stone dashboard. About time!

I genuinely find it hard to believe that in the era of Grand Designs and iPads that the vast majority of cars come with a choice of two interior finishes – grey plastic, or black plastic. Materials matter, which is why I’m surprised it’s taken the car world so long to realise that stone is a wonderful material to work with (and light too, given Bentley’s is just a tenth of a millimetre thick).

I’d love the idea of a car’s dashboard being trimmed with a dark, brooding slab of stone straight out of the Honister Slate Mine. Having been tempted by the gift shop right outside its front door I’ve seen firsthand how it’s possible to make everything from chopping boards to garden tables out of the stuff. Surely a bit on a car’s dashboard to replace the horrid wood-effect plastic on some of today’s hatchbacks can’t be too far a stretch? Marble would look magnificent too, if the front of most high street banks are anything to go by.

Nor should imaginative interiors stop at stone either. You only have to look at the body coloured flourish streaking across a Fiat Coupe’s dashboard to know the effect exposed metal can have in the right colour. It looks wonderful but very few manufacturers (take a bow, Volkswagen) actually do it.

For now I’ll have to stick to wood-trimmed classic cars to get an exciting interior, but if I go get a sudden windfall I know where I’ll be going. Back to the stone age, courtesy of Bentley!

Volkswagen gets generous with its New Year update

VOLKSWAGEN has clearly made kitting its cars out more generously one of its New Year resolutions if a quick update of its Polo, Golf and Passat models is anything to go by.

The Polo SE has been replaced by the Polo Match, which might cost £100 more but throws in normally optional extras worth £900. There are also upgrades for the Golf, with the R-Line and GT replaced by the R-Line Edition and GT Edition models, and the SE Business version of the Passat has also been updated.

To find out more about the offers - and the rest of the current VW range - have a look at the manufacturer's website.

New classic car show for Lancashire in 2016

CLASSIC car owners across the North West are being encouraged to get their entries in for a new show being held in May.

Mawdeseley Cricket Club has teamed up with car clubs based in the county to put together the new Mawdesley Classic Car and Motorbike Show, being held at the cricket club's ground on Bank Holiday Monday, 30 May. The show takes place between 1pm and 4pm, and is free for classic owners to enter. There's also a classic car run through the Lancashire countryside immediately before the show, which starts at 9.30am and costs £10 to enter.

To download an entry form head to Mawdesley Cricket Club's website. All the funds raised by the show will go towards the club paying for its newly-installed pavilion.

May the force be with the new Honda NSX

STAR WARS fans have had it easy – they’ve only had to wait ten years for a follow-up. If you want to see real patience then spare a thought for anyone saving up for a new Honda NSX.

The chaps at Honda are insistent that their new mid-engined supercar will be landing in the showrooms sometime in the spring of 2016, meaning it’s been more than 11 years since the last original NSX rolled out of the showroom. It’s been even longer since Honda actually launched a supercar; Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister when that happened.

It’s weirder to think the new NSX’s predecessor arrived at a time when most of us were still driving Ford Sierras, which makes you realise just how far ahead of the game it was. I was lucky enough to drive one the other day, and it just didn’t compute in my petrolhead grey matter that a 1992 car developed in the late Eighties felt slicker and more modern than the 15-reg Astra I’d been piloting half an hour earlier. So I can understand why this automotive iPad would’ve made its Windows 3.1 rivals, the Ferrari 348 and the Lotus Esprit, feel a bit prehistoric.

The NSX moved performance motoring on so much that Gordon Murray used it as his benchmark when he was developing the McLaren F1 – which is why the new one has an even bigger weight of expectation than The Force Awakens did. Ferrari and Porsche upped their game after the original NSX came out and made its party trick of being exciting and easy to use their own, which is why any of you could step out of a Ford Focus and into a 488GTB without feeling too frightened. Both it and the new 911 are hugely talented acts, so unless the NSX is astonishingly good it risks floundering onto their patch looking like the car world’s Jar Jar Binks.

Thankfully the omens are good. Honda’s raided its big cupboard of motoring tech for the new NSX, which is why it’s got four-wheel-drive and a dual clutch transmission with not five, not six, but NINE gears. Oh, and a 3.7-litre V6 that’s given a helping hand by two turbochargers and three electric motors.

I’ve no idea whether that’s enough to tempt rich Champion readers out of their 911s but I’m very much looking forward to my own test. If in 23 years’ time it feels more modern than a new Astra then I can go home knowing it’s done its job.

Shortly after which I’ll probably write a Life On Cars column comparing it to the 19th Star Wars film – see you there!

All I want for Christmas is - a Triumph TR6

FATHER CHRISTMAS will be cursing my dad this year. It’s always a squeeze getting every last present onto that sleigh – so there’s no way there’s room for a Triumph TR6 too.

All twelve reindeer will be gasping for breath as they struggle to pull 1,100kg of beefy British sports car through the sky behind them on their big festive delivery, and chances are the bearded wonder himself will be reported for breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act for making his flying companions haul unreasonably heavy loads. Then there are the logistics of getting a two-seater roadster down a chimney successfully. It’s all that fault of that man who wrote in asking for a TR6 rather than a festive jumper – and that pesky Champion car bloke who encouraged him!

Luckily I don’t think my dad’s expecting the elves to do all the hard work for him – but he has been worryingly thorough in his plans to pick up a bit of classic car heritage to enjoy his retirement in. He’s already worked out, for instance, that plenty of TR6s the Americans bought new are now being repatriated - and that it’s potentially cheaper to buy one of these and have it converted to right-hand-drive than it is to pay a small fortune for a Blighty-spec original.

The thought of a TR6 is an exciting one. Most importantly, he hasn’t done the thing I dread most of all whenever I hear someone thinking about buying an old car – the idea of buying it as an investment.

Classic cars as investments belong in a sad world that forever seems to appear in the glossy supplements you get with Sunday broadsheets. The one where bottles of expensive wine and whiskey gather dust in basements full of delicious liquids destined never to be drunk, toys are unplayed with and carefully tucked away in their boxes and holiday cottages sit unoccupied for months at a time, pricing the locals out of the market. Their owners have no intention of using them for anything other than to make money – and they put the prices up for people who truly enjoy them.

There’s nothing wrong with being clever with your motoring purchases – I know one tale of a chap who bought an E-type when they cheap, enjoyed it until it outvalued his house and then used the proceeds to pay off his mortgage. Smart move, but the word ‘enjoyed’ is the most important word in that sentence. Old cars thrive on being used and enjoyed – there’s nothing sadder than seeing one carted from show to show in a trailer when you know it never does any meaningful miles.

That’s why if a Triumph TR6 does show up anytime soon I’ll insist it gets used on country lanes on sunny afternoons and appears at car shows. Otherwise I’ll have to give Lapland’s finest a ring – they’ll have to come out and take it back. Merry Christmas!