Super-Rare Hawker Hurricane takes to the skies

Last week, we brought you news that an ultra-rare Hawker Hurricane from World War II is to be auctioned by Bonhams this December. This week, we’ve gone one better: take a look at our exclusive video of the deadly fighter in action with a serving RAF pilot at the controls.

One of just a dozen still in commission, the Hurricane will go under the hammer as part of Bonhams’ auction at Mercedes-Benz World on 3 December 2012, with an estimate of £1.4 - 1.7 million.

Sardaigne Day 2 (Loeb and Neuville crashes) - 2012 WRC Rally d'Italia

What a day, this is definitely turning into a rally of attrition... Today we have lost Sebastien Loeb and Thierry Neuville, both Citroen drivers. We have also lost both Ford drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg. All of these drivers should be re-starting tomorrow morning, but the end result is an unexpected overnight podium. Overnight leader is Mikko Hirvonen (Citroen-Michelin), this is not unexpected as he was pushing Loeb and matching his pace. The surprise is that the Ford young-guns of Evgeny Novikov and Ott Tanak go into the overnight 2nd and 3rd overall.

Drawing car ! Ararê Ilustração Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

VDS Racing GT 001-R: Belgian GT2 endurance racer with Maserati V8

Well this is… er… colourful. Produced by Belgian motorsport team VDS Racing, the GT 001-R will make its debut at the 24 Hours Of Dubai in January – and will thereafter spawn a small series of homologated road cars.

Raphaël van der Straten has been his family racing team’s driver for the past 12 years, and has now embarked on his most ambitious project yet: designing and building his very own GT2 endurance racer.
The GT 001-R project was overseen by former Belgian racing driver Tony Gillet, who himself produces limited-series race and road cars under the Gillet company he founded in 1994. As a result, the VDS car has an extended and modified version of the carbonfibre chassis used in the Gillet Vertigo .5, and also shares the same 480bhp 4.2-litre Maserati V8 and six-speed sequential transmission as its Belgian running mate.


In terms of coachwork, the GT 001-R has custom-made bodywork which resembles a cartoon-like amalgamation of the Kamm-tailed Alfas of the 1960s and the present-day Ford Mustang. And while the finished result may not look as visually coherent as some of its gridmates-to-be, it does reference the company’s history. Indeed, Raphaël’s grandfather Count Rodolphe van der Straten Ponthoz founded the team by racing Alfa GTAs in the 1960s; more recent efforts have seen the team field Mustang FR500Cs.


Once the GT2 version is complete, the team intends to produce up to 22 street-legal versions of the car. VDS Racing hopes to sell each of the GT 001s in a highly customised state, which explains the lack of pricing information available.

with http://www.classicdriver.com