Andrew Frankel: ‘I was Richard Attwood’s team-mate for the weekend’ 

The news that the threatened 25% tariff on car exports from the UK to the US has been reduced to 10% is clearly to be welcomed. For some companies I imagine it could make the difference between having a viable business in their largest market and not. It is to be noted too that we now have a clear competitive advantage over rival manufacturers in the EU for whom the 25% tariff remains in place.

Just a couple of notes of caution. On the latter point, who knows how long that advantage might last with such a mercurial president in the White House? And will it affect in any way the trade agreement being worked upon between the UK and EU?

And one final observation. The tariff rate was not to have been 25%, but 27.5% because there was already a 2.5% tariff in place that pre-dates the current administration. Now that the rate is 10% what has actually been achieved is for our tariff rate to have been quadrupled and for us still somehow to feel lucky it’s happened. It’s great politics but will it also mean great economics? That I think remains to be seen.

You will read elsewhere in this issue my interview with Richard Attwood about his years racing for Porsche at Le Mans in the ’60s and ’70s, but every time I see him I am inevitably reminded of the weekend when I added my name to the likes of Pedro Rodriguez, Piers Courage, Vic Elford and Derek Bell as one of his co-drivers. I am all too aware that this is where common ground between myself and these driving gods comes to a juddering halt, but it actually happened so I’m taking it.

It was the Goodwood Revival, I’m guessing around a dozen years ago and I was down to share with Richard the gorgeous, unique Lister Costin Coupé in the TT Celebration race. I know; lucky boy.

“The Lister coughed, wheezed and banged its way through qualifying”

But the car refused to run right. We’d had a gearbox issue in practice, then it coughed, wheezed and banged its way all through qualifying leaving us somewhere towards the top of the middle, not right at the sharp end as we knew the car had the potential to be. We tried everything to cure the misfire until someone – possibly Gary Pearson – asked what fuel we were using, to which we replied that nothing but the best 100-octane million-quid-a-litre brew sold on site. “That’ll be your problem then. Get down to Sainsbury’s and buy some of the normal stuff.” So we did and the car, at last, was perfect.

Which was more than can be said for the weather. You can set the Lister up for wet or dry but not both. Get caught in the wrong conditions and this dream of a car swiftly becomes a nightmare. You should always play the weather you have rather than the weather you think you might be getting, so I started (because the racing snake Richard was a lot easier to install during a pitstop) on dry settings and regretted it immediately as it started to drizzle almost as soon as we got underway. I’d scrabbled past a few things at the start but now as soon as I got off the racing line to overtake and onto the wet bits, the Lister became very cheeky indeed. And then rather scary. So I had to stay put. But I was lucky and had a merely quite damp stint: almost as soon as Richard was in the car it bucketed down. There’s no one you’d rather have at the wheel in such conditions and I remember watching his still inch-perfect lines with some awe, but there was no way even he could gain ground and we wound up 11th out of 28 starters. Not bad in the circumstances, not great but I think it’s the best we could have done. But I still wonder what we might have done had it stayed dry. Win it? Little chance of that. But top five with a podium possibility? I think so. But I was still Richard Attwood’s team-mate for a weekend, and that was and remains more than good enough for me.

Reflecting on the fire at Bicester Motion it seems somehow even more awful that a place that has brought so much happiness to so many people and which has done so much for the community of which we are all part should be visited by such terrible tragedy. Right now, when the cause of the fire and the human disaster that followed are unknown, it doesn’t seem right even to comment, let alone speculate further. So instead I’ll just share one small insight into the effect this place can have even on people with precisely no interest in cars.

One such person is my elder daughter whom I persuaded to attend the April Sunday Scramble through the time honoured, touching parental tradition of paying her. I was working, needed someone to help and the lure of filthy lucre did the trick.

At the end she went around thanking everyone and telling them how much she’d enjoyed it and I just naturally assumed she was being her usual professional self and that once we were on the way home the truth would out. Which it did. She really had enjoyed it, enormously. So much so she volunteered her services at the next one and when I say ‘volunteered’ I mean in its truest sense.

“Everyone is just so lovely,” she explained afterwards. And they are. The next one is in October and if you can get a ticket, I hope to see you there.

Caterham seven CSR Twenty

Drivers don’t want capable, we want fun

Since its launch in 2005 the CSR has been the most able Seven since it was a glint in Colin Chapman’s eye nearly 70 years ago. To mark its 20th anniversary Caterham has produced this; 20 to be sold in the UK, 20 in the US. But £80k? A 420 has the same engine but costs less than half the money.

Verdict: Leave this one for the collectors.

A taste of speciale stuff

No one will mistake this for a common 296

You’re looking at a new, spiced-up 296: more power (50bhp); less weight (60kg); more downforce (plus 40%). Production numbers are not limited and the days of making a fortune flipping such machinery are gone. Let’s hope this time they end up with people who enjoy driving them…

Road-going 963: what if?

Porsche video hints at LMDh daily driver

If Porsche is not building a road version of its 963 Le Mans car, it has some explaining to do. How else can a film of Count Rossi’s street-legal 917, coupled with a dim image of what looks like a 963 under a cover and the caption “What if?” be interpreted? But will it be a one-off or a very small run of cars for its best clients? I expect the former.