The Bentley Continental T is a high-end luxury car that is powerful and very stylish, often considered one of the best models from Bentley.
Car
Aston Martin DB4
The Aston Martin DB4 is a famous old sports car from the late 1950s and early 1960s. It's known for being beautiful and fun to drive, making it popular among car lovers.
Pre-war cars are cars that were made before World War II. They are often older and can be very different from the cars we see today, both in how they look and how they work.
The Jaguar E-Type is a classic British sports car famous for its beautiful design and speed. It was made a long time ago but is still loved by car enthusiasts.
The Jaguar XK is a luxury sports car made by Jaguar. It's known for being fast and stylish, and it was built for people who enjoy driving.
Car
Austin Healey Sprite
The Austin Healey Sprite is a small and fun sports car that was made a long time ago. It's easy to drive and not too expensive, making it popular among car lovers.
The Aston Martin V8 Vantage is a fancy sports car with a strong V8 engine. The 2007 version is one of the earlier models and is considered a good deal for its performance.
The Aston Martin DBS is a fancy sports car known for being fast and stylish. It's often seen in movies and is considered a dream car for many people because of its luxury and performance.
Term
4.3 vs 4.7 debate
This debate is about whether a 4.3-liter engine or a 4.7-liter engine is better in terms of performance and how the car drives.
A manual gearbox is a type of car transmission where you have to change gears yourself using a stick and a pedal. Many people enjoy driving this way because it gives them more control over the car.
A manual transmission is a type of car gearbox where you have to change gears yourself using a stick and a pedal. Many people like it because it gives them more control over how the car drives.
The gear lever is the stick you use to change gears in a car with a manual transmission. It lets you switch between different speeds and power levels while driving.
The clutch is a pedal in a manual car that you press to change gears. It helps you disconnect the engine from the wheels so you can shift to a different speed.
The Citroen 2CV is a small, quirky car that was designed to be affordable and easy to drive. It's known for being very lightweight and practical, making it popular in France and beyond.
The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow is a very luxurious car that was made a long time ago. It's famous for being really comfortable and having a lot of fancy features, making it a favorite among people who love high-end cars.
LIVE
This is The Tiger Kickers, Classic Car Chat with Max and Matt. Hello and welcome to this latest
Tiger Kickers episode. This time, it's a trade talk special, as we talk to the people selling
classic cars. Now I'm here at the classic motor hub in Bibery, I came here in January,
so time to make a return trip to talk about the market, and kick the tyres on a few cars they've
got in stock. Plus, it's also near my house, and serves good coffee. So lots of reasons for a
Tiger Kickers, trade talks, special autumn bonus episode, Bonanza. The classic motor hub is just
outside Bibery in Gloucestershire. Now, one of the big draws here is they do lots of classic
car events and meets at the weekends. It's also got some great driving roads nearby,
plus this is the big thing, two massive barns, full of mouthwatering cars for sale,
including four I really want to look at in more detail. The first is a 2007 Aston Martin V8
Vantage, which I think are both beautiful drivers cars, and probably about as cheap as they're
going to get. Secondly, an Aston Hilly 3000 Mark II, not as pretty as a Hilly 100 maybe,
but possibly a bit more usable. Then there's a Lotus Elan sprint. Sometimes I think Lotus is
get forgotten about, but the Elan is both genuinely fast, as well as a brilliant drive.
And then there's a great big Bentley Continental T. Now, is this the last proper Bentley? I mean,
we could discuss that for hours, but probably the most sinister Bentley ever made, especially in black
on black, like this one, will look at in a minute. Now, we were hoping for a drive, but Storm Amy has
other ideas, and it's absolutely pouring with rain. Two of my picks are convertibles, sensible,
and the other two are impossibly shiny, so sadly it's a no-go on getting them out.
Now, we'll talk about all those cars in a minute, but first let's hear from George McGregor,
from the MotorHub sales team about the market and his classic car season.
Well, it's been a fantastic year for sales and weather as well, which has meant that the whole
community has been able to get out there. It's one of my favourite things when I'm not even driving
an old car just in every day car, and you on the road see so many other beautiful old classic cars out,
and it's just lovely. I feel almost quite a British thing to be proud of seeing all these old cars
driving around, and people smiling, and probably my favourite memories this year revolve around
a DB4 that I sold, and the owner is very trusting, and it's good fun, and he's all up for driving
the car. I sold it, and he immediately put I think three and a half thousand miles on it,
which is just brilliant. It's what you need, and we love selling cars to people who are going to
use them and crack on and enjoy them. The DB4 did take a few months to sell as they all do,
especially when they're that expensive, and when it was in the show, it was often troublesome
with starting, because we would go off in a month without starting it, but in the new owner's ownership,
you get in that car now, it's out back in our storage, turn the key and it goes fine, because
it's been used, everything's cleared through, and nothing's been sat in it for ages.
So what are your most memorable drives that you've had this summer then? What's the best car you've
been out in? Whether it's something you've sold, or whether it's just something you've borrowed?
I took with a friend of mine to Germany a four and a half liter Bentley, so 1920, something I can't
remember, and we trailed it the UK leg just to prevent breaking down as much as we can, but we'd
needn't have done that. We'd then drove it to Holland to Germany and no problems whatsoever,
and then we drove it back. That was fantastic for me because I've driven pre-war cars, and they are
very difficult to drive, but I learned everything on that trip, and now I can get in one of those
confidently fire it up and just crack on to go down the road, which before I lacked that experience,
so it's been a lot of learning this year for me driving different kinds of cars.
Can you detect any trends then this year? Have you seen any particular trends you've noticed
and thought people are going for certain cars or certain types of cars? Yes, I think Jaguars,
we've sold a lot of Jaguars this year, we've sold a lot of Astans, but they've always been quite,
the market's always been pretty point, prices obviously come up and down, they do with everything.
But the general prices they have come down, but cars are still selling. The appetite is
absolutely still there, which is so nice. We're all worried, I think that the appetite might
disappear, but it hasn't. Well, I think if anything, falling prices make things
a lot more affordable, then people are more interested, aren't they? Because as soon as the
prices go up, you think that's out of my price range, I'm not interested anymore.
Yeah, then they come into your price range, and you're on it straight away. It's like with the
e-types and XKs, as they've come down in price, I've seen the average age of buyers also coming down.
They see the good deals, the beautiful cars, the great to drive, and they're pretty simple to
maintain as well. Particularly when you're looking at the more modern cars with all the electronics,
you know, something that that a land which is sitting in front of, that's a very, very simple car
to keep going, isn't it? Really simple, and I find often as a little healy, frog-eye sprite,
spit fires as well, they're so brilliant, because they're very affordable, and they're really
easy to maintain, and you can actually drive them on their limits, not your limits. Something like
this 150 race car, we've got here, XK 150 race car. If you're alive driving that on our limit,
we'd probably be in a hedge, but it's with the land and the Sprite and a Spitfire and MGB,
you can drive them how you want to, and you'll never feel like you're going to
quick with anything. Okay, I've poked my head outside and it's still raining, so let's head over
to the car barns. Now, I've put pictures up on Instagram, have a look at the tire kickers UK,
to see them, and then drop me a comment about what you think. Plus, here are all the ways to get in
touch with us, here at the tire kickers. You can get in touch with Max and Matt via our socials.
We're at the tire kickers UK on Instagram, and the tire kickers on Facebook.
So George, first up, what I think is a bargain of the Aston Martin range at the moment,
a V8 vantage, a 2007 4.3, just talked me through this car. It's tremendous value for money,
I think we both agree that. This car, I think we were originally asking £34,000 for it,
which is sort of middle of the range for one of these, but it's relatively low mileage at 36,000
miles. It's got a full dealer and specialist service history. Almost every single year without
fail, it's had an oil change, and it's in a very, very classy spec of silver with a blue leather.
It's a beautiful car. Now, you've got a few Aston Martin's here in six figures, a DB24, a DB6,
I've seen in the showroom, and yet these Aston still V8, still hand-built, still British Aston
Martin, but remarkably cheap for what they are. They are, you know, when you look at even the
more expensive models, the DBS, and then the newer cars, and even some DB7 Zigatos, they're
fundamentally pretty bad cars, and you can go and buy this car, which is so much better for a
fraction of the price. Now, this is a 4.3. There is a raging 4.3 versus 4.7 debate on the internet.
Now, I've driven a 4.3 a few years ago, not particularly quick compared to what it was
up against at the time, but still a very nice, rev-y engine, and it's a V8, so it sounds great.
Yeah, that's the thing with it, you know, it'll never be as quick as it's Ferrari competitors,
or even Porsche's, the turbos, and things like that, but it's what it does have, I think it's class,
you know, and it sounds good, it looks great, and it is still a quick car, you've just got to be
on it a bit more, and revving that naturally aspirated engine.
So, inside of the V8 Vantage, there's a lovely Alcantara roof, you really feel sat low down,
tucked away behind the dashboard. It's a great feeling car, this is a manual one as well,
so the best spec. Yeah, it's, you know, you're wrapped in luxury, essentially, but you're still in
a sports car, so I think that's, you know, if you get in a Ferrari of the same age,
they are very luxurious, you know, full of leather, but they're very hard, they're very aggressive,
these are so much more relaxing, more comfortable, and just fun, and as you said, the manual gearbox is
essential. If you look past the electric window switches and the remote mirrors from Volvo V70,
which is a fair bit of part sharing at the time, oh, and the key, yeah, the room has it, sorry,
if you take the leather off the back of the key here, there is a Volvo logo on the back.
If we skip over that, actually, the feeling inside here is fantastic, it feels so expensive,
it's all leather, it's got a beautiful seat to it, they're very comfortable, and actually the
interior, I know it's a bit old now, especially when the sat nav screen pops up, but it's still a great
looking interior. It is, and you know, it feels expensive because they, they were expensive cars,
it's sort of a shame that people have lost so much money over the years on these cars, but now,
for the average punter, you and I, we can go and get a really luxurious car, for not a lot of money
in the scheme of things. This car's just sold, actually, I think the customer's coming to pick it up
today, so we're better not put fingerprints all over it, but what's the story with these,
then a pretty good secondhand buy? Whenever we get one of these in for sale, we only get the manual
examples in for sale because they're the most desirable. Whenever we get one in for sale,
they fly out the door, usually, within a week, which is pretty crazy for us, because we're used to
selling, you know, the more classic stuff, which usually tends to, it tends to sit for a bit longer,
we love selling them. There's the classic Aston fault code problem, if you leave them standing too
long on their own. When the batteries get low, the car throws up some warning lights, and they need
to be kept on charge, but most importantly, like all cars, they really need to be driven.
Everything needs to get hot, and a lot of people make the mistake of putting them away for
six months, often longer, thinking, oh, it'll be fine, it's a modern car, but it still needs using.
Next up, a 1961 Aston Heli 3000 Mark II, this is the BT7, so it's the 2 plus 2 with very small
seats in the back, but you do get as a driver a bit more space. You do, yeah, and I think it's a real
sweet spot for the Heli Range, the 106 being a very, very pretty car, and the four lacking a
little bit of power, but still a great engine. When they went to the 3000s, they got slightly bigger,
but still the Mark II is the much prettier car with the sort of flat sloping back. When they went
to the Mark III, obviously they have bigger roofs that are much more practical to put up and down,
but they sit up really high, and I don't think they're quite as good looking, but more practical.
So what's the story on this car? It's a kind of ice-blue metallic over old English white factory
overdrive, factory wire wheels. It was restored in the early 90s, and then when it was sold
to the current owner in 2020 as part of the dealership at the time, agreed to repaint the car.
So the paint you see here is really fresh, really nice. They also added these side vents here,
which is a really cool modification. The engine has been rebuilt by a company called
Rules Motorsport, who are very well known for their Heli Racing. This is a good driver's car.
I wouldn't call you the fast road spec because it's missing a roll cage and
brakes and all of that. It's just a really, it was built for sort of fun classic driving.
So the front bumpers have been removed. It's got a pair of classic spotlights, which makes it look
really, really aggressive. It's a great looking car these Helis, and again it's one of those cars
with generational change that are coming down in price. Yes, and as the prices are coming down,
the generation with the money are looking to buy cars in the 80s, but they're not stupid. They're
seeing these cars coming down and they're going, well, that's a beautiful car for the money.
And I find the average age of a Heli owner and an E-type owner is coming down at the moment.
Well, there's still iconic cars, aren't they? They're still great poster cars. It doesn't matter
if you grew up with them or not. You know, everybody who's got petrol running through their vanes
would like a Heli and would like an E-type. Exactly. And they're so unoffensive as well.
It's not like buying a yellow Lamborghini where you're going to get certain gestures as you drive
down the road. Everyone loves a Heli. Everyone loves an E-type. It's such a wonderful
experience to drive a known one of these cars. Let's get in and have a quick look at the interior,
shall we? If you go around the driver's side, I'll come in the passenger side.
Surprising amounts of space and quite comfortable actually as a passenger. I mean,
the steering wheel is quite close to you, isn't it? But you do have to get a grip on it.
Yeah, but it's brilliant because it's right there, but it's not so close you're uncomfortable,
but you really get a sense of feel for a proper old driving experience. You know,
having a bit of a razz driving quite quickly, that it's so much fun and very involving.
The gear lever comes out of you. The most bizarre angle, if you've got the clutch down on that,
I see if I can get it to move. I can't hold there yet. So actually, second is right flat on the floor.
And it makes for fun driving because you've really got to move the gears around and it sort of reminds
me a little bit of like an old Bentley or something like that. It's good fun. It's good fun.
This is a mark two. So the windows aren't wind up. How do you do that? You strap them on.
As you can see here, there's a bolt that you undo. It slots in there, and then on the top of
the outside of the door there, there's a pin that slots in. And they're good windows. They actually
seal surprisingly well. I mean, you don't want to get caught in the rain. You will get wet,
but it's handy on a chilly day when you want to have the roof down. Pop the windows on,
just gives you a bit more shelter. And then it's the mark three that have the wind up windows?
Yes, and great cars. Very, very practical. And I grew up with a mark three, so I don't feel I'm
being harsh by saying this, but I think the mark twos are the prettier cars.
So, bright, bright yellow. 1972 Lotus, a land sprint drophead coupé. This is gorgeous.
It stands out in a sea of other cars just with that super bright yellow paint.
I'm not a fan of yellow cars, maybe less than a Ferrari, but I think if you're going to have
an land, it's got to be yellow or blue. Now, I was looking at this last night and the spec of it,
the sprint is a really, really quick car. In period, it was not to 60 seconds, around six seconds,
so that was quicker than a Lamborghini Mure, I think. I'd forgotten how quick these were.
Yeah, it's faster than my modern BMW diesel. It's absolutely mad. And they are brilliant,
but when they're in their element, I think, is on roads like around the classic motor,
you know, type whiny B roads, you can really throw them around the corners and get the most out of
them. On a big open A roads, like the Fossway or something like that, you're sort of going
to be revving the nuts off the car to keep up with anything else going quickly, but they are
brilliant. They are quick, but it's the handling. It's just epic. So, tell me a bit about this one,
because we were talking about this and it kind of looks like original paint, because you've
got some cracking in the fiberglass, but it doesn't look like it's actually being restored.
No, it looks really, really nice in my opinion. And the cracking is quite, it's characterful.
It shows you the cars had a life and it's not a car you need to be worried about using. You get
on, drive it and have fun. And this car has a very nice, freshly reable engine that's a little
bit hotter than the standard sprint engine, but it's also got a roll cage fitted to it. So,
it was built for proper fast road use. Right, let's try and get in this one, because it looks so
small. It looks even smaller than the Heli, but actually when you get inside the lands,
they do have a remarkable amount of space. This is more spacious than the Heli, isn't it? This
is a bigger car on the inside. It's weird, isn't it? The dash is quite far away from you,
which it sort of gives you a real sense of size. It makes you feel like it's a lot bigger than
it actually is. Now, in the Aston Martin Vantage, we pointed out the Volvo electric window switches.
It would be remiss not to point out that these door handles were also in the marina at the time.
Yes, yeah, exactly. But it's such a cute interior, isn't it? It's very small, the steering wheel
is tiny, it's like a 10-P piece, and all the switches have that slight kit feel to them,
but they do look good. It looks really great, and I can imagine when the car came out,
getting in one of these would have been quite something. Just describe what this is like to drive.
Very engaging, you've got a very short throw on the gear change, which everyone loves, and nippy,
really, really nippy. You know, you can really feel the power that they've got, and I think with
the gearbox being so low down, it creates a wonderful driving experience. 700 kilograms
this, so it's about the same weight as a 2CV, and with that engine, which is quite a quick engine,
it's a seriously fast car, and I think people forget that about a lands when they're comparing them
with other cars from the 60s and 70s, is that how quick and how surprisingly quick these can be.
Yeah, when they came out, I can imagine they were people thrashing the nuts off the
round central London, and all over the countryside, and people would be overtaking by them and go,
wow, I want one of those. It is a bit of a kit car, isn't it, because the
block came from a Ford, a Ford Kent block with a Lotus head. The front suspension came from a
trim, Harold, I think, and then Colin Chapman did the suspension at the back. So there's a hint
of kit about it, but actually it does feel like a very resolved sports car sitting inside.
Absolutely, and some of the best cars ever made have come, bits and bobs of the car have come from
different marks and people over the years. How popular are they? They're very popular,
I think, only when they're priced correctly. Let's go down to this, pull the marina door handles.
It's haunted, they were in a maxi as well or something like that. I think so. It's a whole BL,
and this is a classic generic BL door handle. Now, I think going from the tinier land to this next
car is sublime to the ridiculous. If you're in a state agent and you were pricing cars on square
footage, the land is overpriced, but this next car is massively underpriced. It's a 2002 Bentley
Continental T. Now, these are huge when you stand next to them. Absolutely massive. I mean,
they are ridiculous, really. When you look at them and you drive them, this car is really,
it stands out from the normal ones you see on the market because it's lived in a fabulous collection
of Bentley's of the era, quite a lot of them. The chap who owns it has genuinely treated it
with a no expense spare attitude. It's had an engine rebuild. It's actually been mostly restored
over the years. It's really hard to find another one that's had the level of money spent on it,
but this one has. This is a black-on-black car. It's so menacing. If this was in a pub,
you just walk out of the pub as quick as possible. If it started looking at you, it's an amazing
looking car. Imagine seeing this thing coming up in your rearview mirror at 100 miles an hour.
You think it's some old drug dealer coming up behind you. Very stylish drug dealer, though. Now,
the Continental T's are different because there's only 300 of these made, 300-ish. I think only
100 in right-hand drive. As opposed to the Continental R, they shorten the wheelbase by four inches
and then flare the arches and just the look of them. The paint works in really good condition.
It's been repainted in its life, which is difficult to find. Another one that has the whole car
has been repainted. It's just been really, really well looked after. I don't think we're asking
crazy money for it. I think it's actually quite a good buy. What is the price on the windscreen?
I can see the car park pass from Polo, from the Cartier International Polo. That gives you a hint of
what this car's been doing, but how much is it? It's £90,000, which you can buy cars for less,
but they won't have had the care and detail put into them that this car has had.
Right, let's get inside. I do love these Continental T's. They're just such a threatening car.
When you walk down the side of it, the rear wheel arch is stick out by about five or six inches.
Huge chrome buttons to get in and then it's launched itself into the passenger seat.
This dashboard reminds me of an organ in a church because it's right up staring flat at you.
It's a huge slab of, and this is turned aluminium. It reminds me of
being in the cockpit of an aircraft with all these dials. This is the red starter button in the
middle of the dash, which is just absolutely epic. I mean, you feel like you're going to take off
when you drive this thing down the road. Now, I'm going to do that thing you did when you're a child
and sitting in car showrooms, is play with the switches. They're all incredibly solid, aren't they?
It's a real feel of the organ pull vents for the air. Yeah, that's amazing.
Even the noise of the starter button, it's just brilliant. Everything is built really well.
Everything you touch feels pretty expensive, but that's what you expect from a car that cost,
must have cost an absolute fortune when it was new. I think they were the most expensive car
on sale for a while, weren't they? It's the world's most expensive car and it does feel like it.
I'm just going to describe the dashboard because we've got water temperature, turbo boost,
petrol. You'll need that a lot outside temperature gauge, clock, oil temperature and batteries.
You've got this array of gauges staring you in the face and then you've got the speedo and the
rev counter. It doesn't rev a huge amount of this car, does it? Because it's a really torque car.
Very torquey, big V8, they never tend to rev that high, but you can feel it when you drive it,
you just know. You never need to rev this car high and actually when you do floor them,
I find being an auto unless you force it to be in the lowest gear possible. They'll change gear
quite early because they must know it's got all the torque in the world and it just doesn't need
to rev to the red line. What do these like to drive? They are a little bit dated, they are a little
bit wafty, they don't handle that great, but you know people used to use these to smoke around
London and then blitz on the motorway at 100 miles an hour. So it was never supposed to be fantastic
handling cars, but they do, they're all right, they handle okay. It's surprising coming from
the Elan because the Elan is a small car that felt big inside. This is a massive car that feels
quite small inside and actually where you've got your seat, the back seats, you don't really have
any leg room and for a car this big, it's a very small cockpit. It is actually and I think when
they made the new shape continental, what I call the VW continental, things got a little bit more
spacious in the inside. You can actually fit quite tall people in the back comfortably,
because of these, they were still, the back seats are pretty useless in most cases. Black
headlining, black leather everywhere, big black steering wheel, it just makes you feel sinister,
this is a Bond villain car. It is, it just makes you want to light up a massive cigar.
Right, lifting the bonnet to have a look at this absolutely massive engine. Now this is the very
traditional kind of like Rolls Royce 6 and 3 quarter liter engine, wasn't it, but with a great
big turbo on it and it's vast. The engine was used up until the Mulsan, which I think ceased
production in 2020. So they used this engine for a long time and it originated I think someone
might correct me, you are a silver shadow nut. But it's the same sort of basic engine that came
from that. The sound of that bonnet, it's like a door, exactly. Yeah, a barn door on a
Georgian house is just slammed, isn't it? It's perfect, absolutely lovely. All the cars we've
talked about today are for sale, they're on the website, if you want to go and do a bit of
window shopping, particularly look at the Bentley Continental T, which is tremendous and that lovely
little Lotus Alana, I was really taken by that. So that's it for this episode, thank you very much for
listening, see you next time on the tire kickers, goodbye.
About this episode
Max and Matt return to the Classic Motor Hub for a trade talk special, diving into the classic car market with insights from George McGregor of the MotorHub sales team. They discuss standout vehicles like the 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage, the 1961 Aston Healey 3000 Mark II, a 1972 Lotus Elan Sprint, and a 2002 Bentley Continental T. The conversation highlights market trends, memorable drives, and the importance of using classic cars to maintain their performance. Listeners will appreciate the detailed car reviews and the engaging discussions about the classic car community.
Bonus episode alert! Join Max and George from the Classic Motor Hub in Bibury as they talk about the classic car market and do some tyre kicking on classic cars in stock, including an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Healey 3000, Lotus Elan and a Bentley Continental T. Parental advisory - this episode features talk of Volvo V70 window switches and Marina door handles. Your children may think this is very boring.
