From the everyday life of a classic car mechanic - When was the last time you replaced the antifreeze?

Bruno von Rotz
05/31/2017

Rückstände des Kühlmittels an einem Dodge (aussen)

As classic car drivers, we are used to regularly checking the oil level (still conventionally checked with a dipstick). However, we pay much less attention to the coolant.

But just as the composition of engine oil has changed over the decades, the antifreeze that is added to the coolant has also undergone constant changes. Together with the various materials - cast steel, aluminum, brass, copper, etc. - in the cooling system, reactions occur (ion exchange) and the material is attacked. Robi Schmdli from Garage Schmidli Züri tells us that the coolant should therefore be replaced every three to four years according to the new manufacturer's instructions in order to prevent the effects documented in the pictures (thermostat housing of a restored Dodge).

Rückstände von der Kühlfüssigkeit an einem Dodge (innen)

In practice, however, few seem to follow these recommendations. This makes you wonder what the castle finds from the Erb collection, which have been standing for over a decade and were auctioned off at Bonhams' Spa Classic Sale for handsome prices, might have looked like.

Have you had similar or completely different experiences? Comment and share your knowledge with our readers!

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Too much "patina" for the beauty competition?

Bruno von Rotz
05/30/2017

Maserati A6G/2000 Frua von 1956

You may remember. In February 2015, a 1956 Maserati A6G/2000 with a coupé body by Pietro Frua was auctioned for EUR 1.72 million as part of the Baillon collection . The car was once exhibited at the Paris Motor Show in 1956 and had been in the Baillon Collection since 1959.

Now the elegant, but also rather heavily "patinated" coupé has reappeared at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este as part of the Concours. We wrote about it in our review .

As appealing as a barn find is, one has to ask oneself whether such an object has any place in a modern beauty competition. After all, it is generally the quality of the restoration and the condition that is judged and not primarily the beauty and elegance of the creation.

Motorhaube des Maserati A6G/2000 Frua von 1956

Although there are now also so-called "Preservation" classes and prizes, even there attention is primarily paid to optimally preserved originality. The 56 Maserati, with its clearly weathered paintwork and traces of corrosion, is probably well above the threshold of what a jury member considers to be a well-preserved patina.

Accordingly, the car did not receive a prize in Cernobbio/Como. And it even stopped on the lap of honor around the house, so that the former Lamborghini test driver had to reach for a screwdriver to get the car back on the road.

Valentino Balboni am Maserati A6G/2000 Frua von 1956

But the question remains. Do barn finds like this Maserati belong at a Concours d'Elégance? If you have an opinion, simply comment on this short article.

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Around the Nordschleife with a foxtail

Daniel Reinhard
05/29/2017

Opel Manta am 24-Stunden-Rennen Nürburgring 2017 (© Daniel Reinhard)

What would the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring be without the Kissling team's legendary Opel Manta B? On the weekend of May 27/28, 2017, the team led by Olaf Beckmann once again relied on the car with the foxtail.

The Manta is a legend on the Nordschleife. This model from Rüsselsheim took part in the 24-hour classic for the 23rd time in 2017. The Manta B has been a regular participant since 1998, with one exception in 2005, when the car could not be repaired in time after a training accident. The overall victory in the SP3 class was also targeted in 2017.

The car also had a matching start number, so in 2017, as always, it started with the number 122.

Opel Manta am 24-Stunden-Rennen Nürburgring 2017 im Karusell (© Daniel Reinhard)

The Manta is known like no other by the numerous fans at the side of the track. When it comes round the bend, it is applauded loudly. The Manta, which weighs just 930 kg, is always correctly equipped with a foxtail and is powered by a 1.8-liter engine with 255 hp that has been boosted to 2 liters. "We didn't keep a record of the number of foxtails," laughs Olaf Beckmann (70). Beckmann is owner, driver, chief engineer and chief mechanic all rolled into one, and he turned the standard Manta into a rally car at the end of the 1980s, with which he then took part several times in the Tour d`Europe long-distance rally, which took him and his Opel as far as Morocco and Istanbul.

After the end of this rally, the question arose: what now? A friend brought the rally driver to the Ring, where he competed in the VLN for the first time on April 23, 1994. "I still have to grin today when I think of the astonished faces when I turned up there with my high-legged rally car," Beckmann recalls. It quickly became clear that the car was not suitable for the circuit, so the conversion to a racing car began. In the meantime, the Manta has completed 82,296.692 racing kilometers (2017 not yet counted in the kilometers) in its 23 starts on the Nordschleife. There were two class victories (2002 and 2015) in the 24-hour race. Unfortunately, the team was not as successful in 2017, retiring after 71 laps.

But they won't be stopping any time soon, because: "I really want to complete the 100,000 km," laughs Beckmann.

We wish the team continued success!

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When the smallest is the biggest ... and an E-Type at a record price

Bruno von Rotz
05/28/2017

Ehrung für den Lurani Nibbio am CdE 2017

Yesterday, the coveted Coppa d'Oro was awarded by the public at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este and for once it did not go to a famous Ferrari or a noble pre-war classic, but to a largely unknown record-breaking vehicle called the Lurani Nibbio from 1935, whose bodywork was built by Riva.

Lurani Nibbio von 1935

The lightweight single-seater with motorcycle engines of up to 0.5 liters displacement had once set various high-speed records with Count Lurani at the wheel.

Lurani Nibbio von 1935 bei der Vorbeifahrt

The car still belongs to the family and was demonstrated by Lurani's grandson. This obviously aroused a lot of sympathy, and the audience certainly enjoyed the blue little car.

Lurani Nibbio auf der Fahrt zur Übergabe der Coppa d'Oro

There was another surprise in the evening when a 1961 Jaguar E-Type Roadster went under the hammer at the RM/Sotheby's auction in the park of Villa Erba.

Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Roadster von 1961 an der Versteigerung von RM/Sotheby's Villa Erba 2017

The estimate was already not modest at EUR 250,000 to 320,000, but the bidders were even more generous. The highest bidder (on the phone) only won the auction at EUR 520,000, which, including a 12% bidder's premium, means a purchase price of at least EUR 580,000 or CHF 635,000 for the early open-top E-Type. You could almost have bought a Lamborghini Countach Periscopo for that ...

As usual, detailed reports on the auction and the Concorso will follow shortly.

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Good preparation is half the battle - from Villa d'Este to the Swiss Classis World

Bruno von Rotz
05/27/2017

Zwischengas-Stand an der Swiss Classic World Luzern 2017

There's a lot going on this weekend. The Swiss Classic World opens its doors for two days in Lucerne today. Naturally, we from Zwischengas will be there with a stand together with our magazine Swiss Classics. And of course we also have a car on the stand, two of them to be precise, namely a VW Bus "Pritsche" and a Formcar Formula V.

Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.0 bei RM/Sotheby's Villa Erba 2017

At the same time, we are also at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este and had a look around yesterday. We've already been to RM/Sotheby's and photographed the sensational Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.0 with 12 kilometers on the clock and 40+ years of dust on the rear wing.

Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Plexi bei RM/Sotheby's Villa Erba 2017

And we didn't walk past the Ferrari Daytona 365 GTB/4 Plexi without taking a closer look.

Verhuellter BMW im Park der Villa Erba 2017

Villa-d'Este organizer BMW also leaves nothing to chance in Cernobbio.

Tribüne für die Versteigerung und die Motorrad-Ehrung in der Villa Erba

And the grandstands for the RM auction and the motorcycle awards ceremony are already in place.

So it's going to be an eventful weekend!

BMW Motorrad Concept Link 2017

Oh yes, before I forget, two world premieres were also presented last night. On show was the BMW Motorrad Concept Link, a kind of electric scooter of the future, and a new 8-series coupé, shown as the BMW Concept 8 Series, which is rumored to be very close to series production.

BMW Concept 8 Series 2017

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The other book by Alfred Neubauer

Bruno von Rotz
05/26/2017

Buch von Alfred Neubauer "Heute lacht man darüber" aus dem Jahr 1951

Alfred Neubauer was the great racing manager of the pre- and post-war period, who helped Mercedes-Benz to many motorsport successes. But he was also an author and most people know his book "Männer, Frauen und Motoren" (Men, Women and Engines) from 1958.

However, this was Neubauer's second book, as "Heute lacht man darüber" was published in 1951. The edition at the time was 2000 copies, they were hand-numbered and signed and were probably distributed/distributed in a small circle.

2000 nummerierte Exemplare mit Unterschrift des Autors

In principle, it was a collection of short stories about the automobile, at least some of which had previously appeared in the Luxembourg Autorevue.

An Zwischengas reader was able to get hold of a copy on eBay at a reasonable price and wrote: "The book consists of short stories about the automobile; however, the historical value exceeds the literary value."

Incidentally, the cover was designed by Walter Gotschke at the time and this alone certainly makes the booklet attractive. When Neubauer looks back about half a century in his stories and tells many entertaining and smile-inducing anecdotes from the early days of the automobile, he had about the same distance back then as when we comment on magazine reports from the sixties today. And that makes you wonder about one thing or another.

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Roger Moore, the car gourmet

Bruno von Rotz
05/25/2017

Lotus Esprit mit James Moore und Barbara Bach bei den Dreharbeiten zum Bond-Film

Roger Moore, probably better known to most as the (elegant, humorously blessed) James Bond, whom he played in six films, passed away in Switzerland a few days ago.

But he also starred in the TV series Ivanhoe, was the saint in "The Saint" (Simon Templar) and the nobleman in "The Two".

Lotus Esprit S1 im Film "the Spy who loved me"

He also had access to interesting cars in almost all of his appearances, such as the Lotus Esprit S1 in his third Bond film, ....

Aston Martin DBS in der Fernsehserie "Die Zwei"

... the Aston Martin DBS("The Two"), ...

Volvo P1800 und Roger Moore - Fernsehserie "The Saint"

..., the Volvo P 1800(as Simon Templar) ...,

Lotus Esprit S3 und Roger Moore

... or the L otus Esprit Essex Turbo- again as Bond.

AMC Hornet X im James-Bond-Film "The Man with the golden Gun"

It goes without saying that he also drove various other cars in films, for example a Hornet X from American Motors Corporation, in which he played a role in the air in a Bond film.

Citroën 2CV Sonderserie "James Bond"

Or there was a duck ( Citroën 2 CV) , which in turn served as an escape vehicle in a Bond film and even became the basis of a special series.

Yes, Bond was certainly a car connoisseur, although he also had a half-fare travelcard for the Swiss Federal Railways. However, we will remember him as the driver of the right-hand drive white Lotus Esprit S1, which emerges from the water on the beach and disposes of a fish that had entered the Esprit submarine for some unknown reason ...

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What drivers used to know - anticipatory downhill driving

Bruno von Rotz
05/24/2017

For the modern driver, uphill and downhill gradients are no reason to take special precautions. The brakes of modern cars can cope with prolonged braking and modern automatic gearboxes even automatically downshift to a lower gear to utilize the engine's braking power.

Things were very different in the past. Not only did the brakes tend to fade early on if they were applied over long distances, but the engine had hardly any braking effect in top gear, which might have been engaged on the top of a mountain pass.

An old driver's rule was therefore that you should drive down the mountain in the same gear as you drove up it. In many cases, this was even second or first gear, as cars were no rockets uphill either.

Of course, caution was required when changing down, as the car was in danger of speeding up when idling (when accelerating). That's why prudent people applied the handbrake before downshifting, so that if you couldn't engage the gear, you didn't suddenly accelerate to too high a speed in neutral. After the shift maneuver, the handbrake was of course released again. All this might have happened at 20 or 40 km/h, because you didn't go down a hill much faster than that. This is also completely unthinkable for modern drivers.

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Generation meeting - BMW 3.0 CSL and M4 DTM

Daniel Reinhard
05/23/2017

There are just 44 years between the BMW 3.0 CSL and the M4 DTM. Prince Leopold of Bavaria, known as "Poldi" for short, and Jens Klingmann were together at the Lausitz Speedway on their way to pick up the lucky winners of a cab ride. The successful works coupé from 1973 still raises its front wheel on the inside of the bend quickly, which made "Poldi" very enthusiastic.

The aerodynamics of the current DTM racer prevent such escapades and remain glued to the asphalt.

Stuck and Amon's 3-liter coupé, which won the 6-hour race at the Nürburgring on July 8, 1973, looks absolutely perfect, which is beautifully underlined by the bold but stylish paintwork.

It's just a shame that we weren't able to experience this great time of the duel between the Ford Capris and these BMWs live!

Comparison of the two BMW models:

Model	BMW 3.0 CSL	BMW M4 DTM
Year of construction	1973	2017
Engine concept	Inline six-cylinder	V8 engine
Displacement ccm	3498	3999
Power hp	370	500
Power transmission	5-speed gearbox with manual transmission	Sequential six-speed sports transmission with pneumatic actuation via shift paddles on the steering wheel
Unladen weight kg	1062	1120
Top speed km/h	270	285

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Hardly any different than today - the DKW Elektro

Bruno von Rotz
05/22/2017

Some things never seem to change. Electromobility was already widely announced 60 years ago and even then there was a considerable gap between the sales results and the communication.

At the end of 1955, Auto Union GmbH presented the DKW electric car . The drive motor of the DKW Schnell-Laster, which had been converted into an electric vehicle, had an output of 4.8 kW at 80 volts. Without batteries, the van cost DM 7100, and DM 900 more as a panel van. The batteries cost DM 3956 and were pushed into the side of the van. That was 2 x 20 cells. With a payload of 800 kg, the total weight was 2580 kg. A range of up to 100 km was promised, with a top speed of 30 to 40 km/h.

20,000 sales brochures were published, although widespread sales were never planned. In the end, there are said to have been around 100 of them, which were bought by public institutions or driven on motor vehicle-free islands in the Baltic Sea.

DKW Elektro Prospekt von 1955 im Buch "Auto Union DKW - im Spiegel der Werbung 1949 bis 1966" von Delius Klasing (© Delius Klasing Verlag)

And where can you find out all this? In the new book published by Delius Klasing Verlag. which deals with the sales literature of the DKW era.

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