Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
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1966 Ford Lotus Cortina
The gulf between an assemblage of parts and a functioning, front-rank racer is immense and can be very expensive to cross Ford was looking to race the Mk I Cortina in the Group 2 category, for which 1,000 “homologation specials” would be required. The obvious powerplant was the twin-cam version of the ubiquitous Ford “Kent”…
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1949 Jaguar XK 120 Alloy Roadster
The few alloy-bodied cars were essentially prototypes sold to raise desperately needed foreign currency for the factory design team During the difficult period after World War II, Jaguar Cars became the United Kingdom’s biggest U.S.-dollar earner, thanks in no small measure to the success of its XK120 sports car. Ironically, the XK120’s creation had…
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1975 Lamborghini Countach LP400 “Periscopo”
The restorers did not go overboard. They even left a few weld dimples in the door shuts to retain an original bit of character The future of the modern Automobili Lamborghini was revealed at the 1971 Geneva Auto Show with the first public display of the new Countach, believed to be so named after a…
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Collector Agonistes
Saved searches and RSS feeds are now the Pandora’s Box of my collecting life. Years ago, I would get giddy and feel the onset of the red mist once a month when Hemmings arrived (by first-class mail, of course). And when I went to an auction or swap meet, I would be temporarily overcome by…
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1967 Volkswagen 21-Window Samba Bus
As readily recognizable as the immortal Volkswagen Beetle itself, the VW Type 2 and its derivatives enjoyed an even longer period in production than their progenitor. The original was conceived in the late 1940s by a Dutch Volkswagen agent, Den Pon, who drew up plans for a van based on the Beetle floorpan and running…
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1969 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air IV Convertible
Milt Robson’s triple-black 1969 GTO Judge is a triple-threat of collectability. It has the powerful Ram Air IV V8 engine. It has a 4-speed. And it’s a convertible. It is one of the rarest 1969 Judges in the world. For 1969, the real beast GTO engine option came in the form of a Ram Air…
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1934 MG PA/B Le Mans Works Racer
This car is the sole original survivor of a three-car team put together by MG to publicize the new P-Series, which had been introduced in 1934. The idea was that three identical works cars would be entered in the 1935 Le Mans race, driven by three teams of women, with the whole enterprise to be…
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1966 Ferrari 365 California
Ferrari’s 365 California was, in so many ways, the culmination of Ferrari’s collaboration between sports car racing and customer road cars. Only 14 examples of the 365 California were built. They are almost invisible among the (relatively) boxcar loads of 275 GTBs and 365 GTB/4 Daytonas that Ferrari, along with Pininfarina and Scaglietti, turned out…
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1964 Aston Martin DB5 “James Bond”
We don’t need to introduce the Aston Martin DB5, the epitome of British style and performance in the 1960s, and the catalog description ran to a couple thousand words, so here is the quick version: “The Most Famous Car in The World” as arch-Bond fan Dave Worrall’s book of the same name termed it, is…
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1992 Vector W8 Twin Turbo
Despite being short-lived in production, the Vector W8 was the product of nearly two decades of design and development, beginning in 1972. The driving force was Gerald Weigert, who founded a design firm called Vehicle Design Force. Working with designer Lee Brown, the fledgling company’s first design was the Vector, imagined as an American alternative…