Martin Port

Trauma on way to Luton Hoo. After three breakdowns in one night and a couple of days with an unleaded-induced headache, I’ve decided that I really should never tempt fate when behind the wheel of my Traction Avant. It may be a simple 1930s design, yet it seems to be able to read my thoughts. Well, that’s what appeared to happen on a 75-mile round trip to attend Peter Madden’s excellent Classics in the Walled Garden (see Your events).

I think it’s fair to say that I have a level of tolerance with the Scimitar – there are only a certain number of things that aren’t as I’d like them to be – before something else happens and tips the balance.

Martin wonders if the tragic death of a Union Minister last month will finally cause people to buckle up? Some call it stupid. Others think it an idiosyncrasy. And yet others tell me "it's not needed." But every time I get in a vehicle (front or rear), I first reach for the seatbelt. It's almost instinctive. When I think about it (and my countrymen compel that to happen more often than I would like), it just seems like common sense. To me, it's the right thing to do - not morally, or by the law. Just something that may save my life one day.

Mansour Oijeh’s road-going Porsche 935 at auction. First ever Sonderwunsch Porsche sells at Bonhams’ Spa Classic sale. Bonhams, the UK-based auctioneer of fine automobiles, has sold a unique 930-based Porsche 935 at its recent Spa Classic sale. Among a host of similarly desirable classic exotica, the 930/935made the fourth highest price of the afternoon. However, with the hammer falling at a final price of €230.000 (£187.220) including buyer's premium the Sonderwunsch Porsche came in at significantly under the lower estimate of €300.000 (£244.000), which was surprising given its history.

Porsche 911 964 RS sells at auction for £219,315. A low-mileage Porsche 964 RS has sold at an auction for £219,315, markings new high point for these increasingly popular air-cooled 911s. The 3.6-litre example created a bidding frenzy at RM Auction's latest high-profile sale, held at the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique.

Two-hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. That’s around the price you’d have had to pay if you were participating in the RM Auction at Monaco a few weeks ago and wanted to get your hands on a left-hand-drive, narrow-bodied 964 RS with only 11,390 kilometres on the clock.

The late Jim Morrison, front man for The Doors, liked to expose himself on stage, and kick back with a bevy of beauties and a head-warping cocktail of drugs after a performance. He might not be the ideal candidate for a role model, but Morrison penned a few lyrics which lucidly described the philosophies and morals by which we should live our lives. Now while some Doors’ songs focused on Morrison’s Oedipus complex (the desire to murder Daddy and marry Mummy), Morrison prescribed a simple formula for safe driving when he wrote Roadhouse Blues. In the opening lines of the song, Morrison barks ‘keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel’ with as much aggressive affirmation as Adolf Hitler delivering one of his Nuremburg Rally speeches.

Reader resto 1978 Lotus Esprit S1. The guy who loves me. After it had languished in a barn for three decades, Matt Oxley took just eighteen months to transform a £200 wreck into a white-hot wedge. Words by Martyn Morgan-Jones photography by Gez Hughes.

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