MotoGP ; Laverty goûte aux joies du WRC à Monte-Carlo / Laverty enjoys Monte-Carlo rally action

Après un hiver plutôt calme, Eugene Laverty a pu faire le plein de sensations fortes en s’essayant au poste de copilote du Gallois Elfyn Evans au Rallye Monte-Carlo, à l’occasion du lancement du Championnat du Monde FIA des Rallyes.

De nombreuses célébrités du monde du sport, du cinéma et de la musique étaient invitées à participer au lancement du Championnat du Monde FIA des Rallyes aux premières loges au Rallye Monte-Carlo, avec l’opportunité d’occuper une place de copilote pour arpenter l’un des plus célèbres tracés de Formule 1, dans les rues de la Principauté.

Eugene Laverty, qui se prépare pour ses débuts en MotoGP™ avec Drive M7 Aspar, l’ancien pilote de F1 David Coulthard et la chanteuse galloise Elin Fflur sont tour à tour montés à côté d’Elfyn Evans pour voir le Gallois exprimer son talent au volant de sa Ford Fiesta RS WRC.

Eugene Laverty : « C’était encore mieux que je ne l’espérais. Regarder Elfyn (Evans) conduire, tenir le volant du bout des doigts, freiner et accélérer de la pointe des pieds… C’était incroyable ! Je passais au moins autant de temps à l’observer qu’à regarder ce qui arrivait devant ! J’ai vraiment adoré cette expérience et ça restera un excellent souvenir. »

Laverty va maintenant rentrer chez lui en Irlande pour assister à la cérémonie des Adelaide Motorbike Awards, à Belfast, où il est nominé dans trois catégories.

It has been a quiet winter for Eugene Laverty up until yesterday when the 2015 FIA World Rally Championship kicked off in style with a star studded event in the heart of Monte-Carlo of which Eugene took part in.

 Celebrities from the world of sport, film and music were invited to sample all that the championship has to offer with a very special passenger ride through the streets of the principality's world-famous Formula One circuit.

 

Alongside the Drive M7 Aspar rider Eugene Laverty was Formula One race winner David Coulthard and Welsh songstress Elin Fflur who all turned co-driver for the afternoon as Elfyn Evans demonstrated the power and performance of his Ford Fiesta RS WRC.

 

Eugene Laverty: "That was even better than I expected. Watching Elfyn [Evans] driving – holding the steering wheel with his finger tips and braking and accelerating using the tips of his toes – was incredible. I was looking across at him as much as I was looking out of the front windscreen! I really enjoyed the experience and it's certainly one that I'll remember for a long time."

 

Now Eugene flies to Ireland to attend the Adelaide Motorbike Awards in Belfast where he has been nominate for three awards.

Road Hunter episode 1: Italy: Endine lake, Iseo Lake and Franciacorta

First episode of the "road hunter", the new format produced by DMD Helmet. In every chapter DMD bikers invite our road hunter to share a drive with them.

HONDA GB250 BY ELLASPEDE

The Honda GB250 is a motorcycle that came about as a derivative of a derivative – but despite this it’s one of the most genuinely fun little motorcycles I’ve ever ridden. The single cylinder 250cc engine in the GB250 started life as a 349cc unit in the early-80s Honda XR350R enduro racer, it was sleeved down to 250cc and fitted with a double overhead camshaft in place of the original single, and then fitted to the new uber modern-looking Honda CBX250.

Some of the traditionalists at Honda felt that the CBX250 could be tweaked slightly to give it a little old school charm, so they set about taking the stock bike and making it into a factory cafe racer – the resulting bike was so universally loved that it was rushed into production with an all new model name – the “GB” referencing Great Britain for its design influences and the “250” for the engine’s capacity.

Due to the fact that the engine was developed for all the brutalities of off-road motorcycle racing it’s actually one of the toughest little mills you’re ever likely to come across – this coupled with the fact that it’s been sleeved down from the original bore-size means that it’s not putting anywhere near the same loads through its moving parts.

The result of this over-engineering is a 250cc engine that redlines at 10,000RPM, produces 31hp and weighs about as much as half a slice of toast.

Sadly, Honda’s GB250 was never officially exported outside of Japan as it was felt that the engine capacity wouldn’t be enough to excite the Americans or Europeans. Fortunately, some have been imported to Britain, Australia and New Zealand where they always end up being the centre of attention at any meet they attend.

The bike you see here was imported to Australia and eventually made its way to Queensland where it was bought by a new rider called Brendan who was looking for something a little less common than the CB250. After buying the bike he took it into the Ellespede workshop for some minor repairs and as is so often the case, the project around the popular little GB250 took on a life of its own.

An engine rebuild kit was bought from Japan and once it was all sorted the engine was painted black along with almost all of the rest of the bike. A new, lower-profile seat was fitted, a stainless steel reverse cone muffler was fitted to the polished standard header pipes and the rear end of the bike was tidied up with a new LED tail light and a bespoke license plate mount.

A slew of other minor upgrades were fitted to the bike, resulting in a GB250 that looks and rides better than it did when it was brand new. It’s now settled into its new life in Brisbane along with its sibling customs from Ellaspede – if you’d like to see them all you can click hereand if you’d like to visit Ellaspede’s homepage you can click here.

via SILODROME0

This Touring-bodied Aston Martin almost succeeded the DB6

By 1966, Aston Martins had been wearing Carrozzeria Touring-designed bodies for almost a decade, so the English manufacturer enlisting the Italian coachbuilder to pen the styling for its new two-seat coupé seemed a natural progression. But things weren’t quite that simple, as Touring soon found out…

After a bountiful early start to Aston Martin and Carrozzeria Touring’s relationship, cracks were beginning to appear. The coachbuilder’s proposal for the DB5 replacement was rejected in favour of an in-house reworking, the same fate that befell its pitch for what became the four-seat DBS. But with David Brown wanting a two-seat sports car to partner William Towns’s gentleman’s express – both of which were to house the new V8 engine when it finally arrived – Touring once again got the nod, perhaps out of sympathy for its on-going plight of receivership.

A ground-up redesign for a new era

Using a pair of shortened and significantly modified DB6 chassis, Touring built two prototypes with all-new bodywork for the 1966 Paris, London and Turin Motor Shows. In retrospect, their design wasn’t quite as elegant as the ones that had made it to production in recent years, yet it was other factors that ultimately ensured the pair remained a two-off. Problems with engineering feasibility – compounded by refocused priorities in Newport Pagnell as the result of an economic downturn – spelled the end for both Touring’s DBS and, indirectly, the struggling coachbuilder.

Well, that’s not strictly true, of course. The DBS name lived on into the 1970s and beyond, as the Touring prototypes had familiarised the public with the change in nomenclature (they were later re-designated DBSCs to avoid confusion). William Towns’s car might otherwise have been designated a DB7. The Carrozzeria Touring name was also revived recently, too – so all’s well that ends well.

Photos: Bonhams

The Touring-bodied Aston Martin DBSC seen here was sold by Bonhams in 2009, but you can still find plenty more Aston Martins for sale in the Classic Driver Market.