Petrolicious

André Lotterer was born in a motorsport family. His father had a racing team in Belgium that has been one of the very first ones to play around with Audi rally cars. That was a long-wheelbase Quattro. A wonderful if slightly oblong mix of five cylinders sending power to all four wheels. André loved the sound especially. It was an entryway into motorsport, and soon André began racing karts. It turns out he wasn’t all that bad. In fact he was good enough to drive on the winning team three times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He earned those wins with Audi, completing a pretty impressive circle that began with seeing the rally cars his dad worked with many years ago. To make it an even more comprehensive story, he now calls this souped-up Sport Quattro his daily driver. Not your typical transportation, but then again this is Monaco we’re talking about.

Gregorie Desmons has always had a sensitivity to the aesthetic elements of life, and so for him the first impulses to own classic sports cars came from the question of form rather than horsepower. Though many will argue that art following its purest definition shouldn’t be concerned with anything practical like transportation, we all know the truth to be otherwise. For the same reasons that architecture blends with sculpture, the fact that a machine can be so beautiful to look at while simultaneously providing a solution to a problem very much rooted in cold hard physics is more than enough reason to consider certain cars something far more than a means of moving ourselves around. That’s certainly how Gregorie feels about his Mark III TVR Grantura.

The influence of modified Japanese sports cars found a new high watermark in the car enthusiast community in the 1990s and early 2000s, especially with the younger subset looking for something other than their parents’ favorite European and American fare. Skyline GT-Rs, Toyota Supras, Mazda RX-7s, and their contemporaries provided already-potent bases upon which one could build a truly personalized machine, in regards to both performance and aesthetics, and with outcomes on either end of the spectrum of taste. The model lines were nothing new, but they arguably peaked—and simultaneously—during the 1990s and early 2000s. This is when Aaron Backx grew up, so the obsession with cars like his twin-turbo rotary-powered RX-7 featured in today’s film shouldn’t be surprising. A lot of kids were affected by the so-called Gran Turismo era, but very few of them can say they grew up to own one of the halo cars of the era, Mazda’s ultimate send-off to the iconic RX-7: the Spirit R.

What happens when you call a racing driver out of retirement, stick him in a car designed by a fledgling aerodynamicist just a few years out of school, and send him off to compete in a world-class event? If the driver is two-time Formula 1 World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi and the designer is Adrian Newey, then you get a number one qualifying spot at the 1984 Grand Prix of Miami. The March 83G was part of a new era of motorsport in the early days of Group C and IMSA GTP, and it kicked off what Fittipaldi calls his second career in the sport, one that would see him completing 13 seasons of IndyCar with two wins at the Indianapolis 500 along the way. Today we follow along as he becomes reacquainted with the very same March 83G that he thanks for getting him there.

The mountain roads outside of downtown Los Angeles don’t have much in common with the ovally arenas of stock car racing, but whenever Steve Dauria takes his modified Mercury Marauder out for some exercise on these tangles of asphalt he imbues the place with the spirit of classic NASCAR, from a time when the cars were still ostensibly based on the road-going versions sitting in dealerships awaiting their purchased on the post-race Monday. The distinctively American yawp of the Merc’s V8 (which he built in his garage along with the rest of this stately beast) is enough to make you nostalgic or deaf depending on how close you are to the thing when the pedal’s on the floor. Beyond being an impressive build in its own right, it’s all the better for the fact that Steve’s hands turned the bolts.

Hadrien Le Flanchec started collecting vintage watches when he was about 12 years old, during a time in his life when he would make many visits to small markets with his grandfather to look at chronographs and divers and tanks, and he remembers always being attracted to special dials and special cases like anyone else, but for him it was always about speaking softly and carrying a special movement on your wrist. Watches are what drew Hadrien to cars, and his horological tastes have always manifested as very discreet watches that had special movements powering their timekeeping functions, so the decision to drive a factory hot-rodded Volvo station wagon should be no surprise, seeing as it very much follows that trajectory. An odd but formidable competitor in motorsport guise, the long-roof 850R remains one of the coolest Q cars in its road-going form.

Robin Grove built her career in customs brokerages importing high-end stone and tile into the United States from time to time, but her cargo also frequently included automobiles making long journeys to the United States. Her interest in cars had begun developing in her teens, but after decades of learning the ins and outs of her field—to mention nothing of the fact that she now runs importation businesses around the world—very little time was left over to spend time with her own special car. One day a friend told her that this AC Bristol would be perfect for her, and the rest is history.

To most, a Rolls-Royce is symbolic of a certain standard of life—or at least a certain degree of comfort as you live it—but for David Lee and his father, Hing Wa Lee, the winged Spirit of Ecstasy that’s perched on top of the Phantom’s stout grille stands for gratitude. His father had held the brand in high regard since his teenage years running his own business in Hong Kong, but he never bought one for himself when he could finally afford one, preferring to take care of his family instead. Many years later, David was able to purchase the then-new 2005 Phantom for his dad as a way of saying thank you putting the comfort of their lives before his. His father has since passed away, but David hasn't touched any of the settings in his Phantom, using the experience of driving his car as a way to add to the memory of the man who raised him.

Porsche only built one official Speedster variant of the last air-cooled 911 (the 993), and that car was constructed for none other than Ferdinand Alexander “Butzi” Porsche. Later on, Jerry Seinfeld would send his 993 Cab to the factory and pay an untold but obviously lofty sum to have it converted. A few third party workshops made their own conversions over the years, but in other words, the 993 Speedster barely exists, and was never sold to the public from Porsche. But for Karen and her husband Jäger, both avid 993 fans, it was a shape too captivating to forget. So, they bought a 993 Cab that already had a few 964 Speedster pieces fitted, did a bunch of research over the course of a few years and few trips around the world, and got to work. With the help of John Fogg, the car that emerged on the other end of their Speedster quest lives up to the one that had taken up residence in their dreams, and they’ve been enjoying the unique P-car ever since.

Often confused for its four-doored siblings, the Mercedes-Benz W111 Coupe is about as stately as cars come. The first of many a great pillar-less coupe with a three-pointed star on its nose, the W111s are arguably among the most regal automobiles ever produced; here is a car designed to be let into the driveway via remote-controlled wrought iron gates. For the owner of this 1968 280SE 3.5 Automatic example, Jayesh Patel, it’s all about the luxury and the history embedded in this big coupe. It’s got an automatic gearbox, and while that may leave heel-toe enthusiasts wanting, you don’t buy these cars for their agility and sportiness. This is the ultimate cruiser, a leather-swaddled land yacht that is equal parts engineering triumph and sensory indulgence.

Loris Kessel received an Alfa Romeo Giulietta from his parents as a present for his 18th birthday—an auspicious beginning to his automotive adventure. He used that little Alfa to get his racing license, and it evolved into a wide-bodied hillclimber of sorts, with his first competitive event being a timed sprint through the hills between Bormio and Stelvio. He continued to pursue motorsports, and after some time in Formulas 3 and 2 Loris found an entry into the top tier of the sport. To race in F1—in any era—is something that few people experience and that many dream of, but to compete in 1976 when Lauda and Hunt were in the throes of their great rivalry surrounded by a grid of stacked talent? That’s something to cherish forever. Loris is sadly no longer with us, but his son Ronnie is keeping the enthusiasm rolling, campaigning his father’s favorite F1 machine in historic racing today.

You’re a Porsche enthusiast running his own restoration and sales operation in the UK. A client’s request for a 1973 Carrera RS sends you to Japan to inspect a possible candidate, and the shop owner mentions another unique Porsche you should see before you fly home later that day. You find a rusty, dust-covered Targa that hasn’t moved for decades. What do you do? For Alan Drayson, founder and proprietor of Canford Classics, the decision was simple: it had to be saved. Saved, but not restored, for how could you erase the history of a Japanese 911 barn find in pursuit of a shinier coat of paint?

Growing up in Pittsburgh, Rich Plavetich became a car enthusiast in his grandfather’s garage while the two of them worked on the white Lincoln Continental featured in today’s film. It came to the family in a roundabout way—the original Continental sold to his grandfather as a new car was in fact a used car, which was replaced with this “executive demo” example—but it set Rich on a path from an early age. At just 19 years old, he landed a job at GM Design, moved to California not long after that, and has been designing cars ever since. His grandfather’s Continental, the one that started it all, is still with him.

If you drive a Spyker long enough, you’ll begin to memorize your answer to the inevitable at-the-gas-station question: what the hell is that thing? The Dutch supercar company can trace its roots back to the late 19th century when it was coach-building cars and airplanes, and even though the current owners have little to do with the origin story, the C8s were still produced in the Netherlands during the car’s decade-plus of limited-series production. Today we take a ride with James Chen and his 2006 C8 Spyder on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

*paid advertising from hyundai dressed up as usual Petrolicious content* Mason Filippi is a young guy living in California. He races cars for a living. Put those two facts together, and you might think he’d be a little jaded when it comes to automobiles that have the capacity to excite. And yet, despite competing with a factory-backed team in a major racing series, Mason’s enthusiasm for his daily driver is still pure puppy dog. Racing in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Series with the TCR version of the Hyundai Veloster N, his road car—a 2019 Veloster N—is the perfect complement to the tool of his trade.

Is it practical to ride an Italian sportbike from Amsterdam to Cape Town? Hardly. But if you have the mechanical know-how to improvise repairs on a Ducati 998 in the middle of the desert, the only thing holding you back from a continent-crossing adventure is the will to start one—at least according to Peter Muurman. He has some solid supporting evidence though, seeing as he’s taken his 998 through 54 countries and racked up nearly 100,000km in the process. It takes a certain outlook on life to take on journeys of this scale, and if you complete them, you’ll never see the world the same way again.

Over the last year, we've followed the journey of Kurht Gerhardt, his copilot Derek Boycks and their Porsche 912 in preparation for one of the most difficult rallies on Earth - the Peking to Paris.