Oliver Smith

Oliver Smith

Smith is our Automotive Editor. Having worked with some of the world’s finest British sports cars he is a keen historic racer and enjoys in his own words ‘the evolution of engineering’ in modern machinery.

Concours of Elegance

As the sun rose on Saturday the 7t​h​ of September after an up and down year in the classic car world I was interested to see what the turnout and appetite would be for prestigious events such as the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace. For the uninitiated; these events consist of horribly wealthy older gentlemen with Panama hats and considerably younger partners. There appears to be an unspoken and unofficial competition each year for depth of tan, size of wristwatch and age gap betwixt partners. I quietly judged this year’s winner to be an American fellow in his eighties who was a deeply nurtured shade of mahogany whilst…

The sincerest form of flattery

You see it all the time in the market as people come up with more inventive ways to dance around the word Replica. A word that in my mind has always been treated a little unfairly and masked with such artistic wordplay as evocation, continuation or even tool room copy. I know that they all have subtle nuances which differentiate them but underneath they are all under the umbrella of Replica. Now we all know that every rule needs an exception and I think that that I may have found it. As soon as friends and new acquaintances learn of your passion for classic cars all kinds of tenuous conversation…

La Reserve

If, like me, you’re closed-minded when visiting a city, you want the quintessential, stereotypical experience that goes with it: haggling in a Marrakech souk, drinking espresso on a crisp Autumn morning in Rome, or perhaps a car bomb in Tel Aviv. So, when a trip to Paris is on the cards, I want to crank up the French-ness so far that the tables outside of the cafes shake and the mirrored walls in the bistros begin to distort. Let’s think Serge Gainsbourg, really strong fags, small glasses of red wine, black rollnecks, and cars made of corrugated tin. Need I say more. With my stay booked at La Reserve, I…

Rolls Royce Dawn

When I called Rolls-Royce to ask if I could borrow a Phantom Drop Head, I was a little despondent when informed, “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we’re phasing them out”. In the most first-world way possible, I was sad about this. Although that was quickly swept away by the follow up of “…have you tried the Dawn?” Thinking that, as a consolation, they were going to send me to lunch with the lady who cleans the offices, I enquired gingerly as to what he was talking about. Well, it transpires that the Dawn is just over seventeen-foot of wood, leather, aluminium and automotive pornography. Because (in England, at least) we…

Five Bells – Brabourne

The rain in ‘the Garden of England’ was coming down, as only it can in August: heavily. As I nosed the car into the car park of the Five Bells Inn, I was pleased to see the warm light emanating from the bar area. I was en route to Paris and wanted a civilised overnight stop not too far from the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone (20 minutes away to be precise) the night before. Civilised is certainly the word for the Five Bells. Standing in the doorway, giving off the appearance of a wet dog, I was greeted with a smile and shown through the warm bar, busy with the…

Ferrari 488GTB – Bella Macchina

Ferrari is probably one of the most recognised brands in the world, let alone the motoring industry. Steeped in so much tradition that even the uninitiated can often name at least one of the models. With this, you can imagine my excitement and also palpable sense of responsibility when the phone rang and the publishing director tells me that I’ll be taking the new 488GTB to France for a week. There are worse jobs, I suppose. Fast-forward three months and there I am, staring the car in the face, about to be handed the keys. The first thing that strikes me is that it’s not finished in the famous Rosso…

Bentley Continental GTC V8S

Try and recall an occasion where you have had a conversation with a friend and they’ve told you something which you find shocking and almost offensive. You know that it’s been worrying them and you want to be supportive, but sometimes the issue is so severe that there is little that can be done to hide your feelings. Never an easy situation, and one that I found myself in quite recently. Friend: ‘What car are you reviewing at the moment?’ Me: ‘I’m very lucky actually, it’s one of the new Bentley Continentals’ Friend: ‘Really? You don’t seem that excited. Is it terrible?’ Me: ‘God, no! It’s really very good, it’s…

Abarth 595 Turismo

You’ve got to be a little bit careful with the term ‘hot hatch’. For me it evokes images of mouth-breathing oiks drinking energy drink and doing handbrake turns in supermarket carparks. Luckily (and I never thought I would say this) The Italians are here!!! They have taken the slightly questionable teenage pregnancy image of the hot hatch and given it a makeover. Think Lavazza not Relentless. Lose the tracksuit bottoms and trainers and replace them with some ankle-biting linen chinos with buff loafers and sockless bronzed ankles. Burn the hoodies and sling a cashmere jumper over your shoulders. It’s Ray-Ban time so grow up, walk slower and smoke more. Bella…

Salon Prive – 2014

The world of classic and vintage cars has seen a boom over the last 10 years – and with that, so have the events related to these ageing works of art. Pebble Beach in California, Villa d’Este in Como, and now Salon Privé on the outskirts of London. Going from strength to strength, ‘England’s answer’ is now based at Syon Park after a spell at the Hurlingham club. The mastermind brothers behind this event are David and Andrew Bagley. They’ve taken the format and really established it in the motoring world, not only for securing the attendance of some of the world’s rarest and most interesting classic and vintage cars,…

Bentley Mulsanne

So, we’re five up and the speedometer is reading 130mph. I then hear a ‘bing’ and a message appears on the central screen. It reads: ‘Your tyre pressures are too low to safely proceed beyond this speed’. Disheartened, I lift off, feeling that discretion is the better part of valour, only to see another message appear: ‘Bing. To reach 170mph, you will need to inflate your tyres to the following pressures’. That really sums this car up. It has a can-do’attitude. Chances are, you’ve made your millions by probably not taking no for an answer. Why then, after shelling out £250,000 pounds on a motorcar, would you want it to…

Porsche Boxster

Never has a car been plagued so badly by cheap clichéd jokes as the Porsche Boxster. ‘Girl’s car’, ‘hairdresser mobile’, and even the intellectual leviathan that is Jeremey Clarkson waded in and gave the world ‘cockster’. But what caused this? Why the hate? Back in the halcyon days of the Porsche 930 Turbo being bought by the city’s emerging middleclass or yuppies in the mid-1980s, Porsche was a badge that the lower end of the gene pool saw as an easy target, and one that the less fortunate loved to hate. Less than a decade later and combine this badge with a car that, upon launch, had cheeky looks along…

Rolls Royce Wraith

Only a handful of times during a lifetime do you really experience one of those moments when the planets align. Let me tell you about one of those moments that happened to me. The planet was Jupiter as composed by Gustav Holst. The place was Doughton on the A433 in Gloucestershire. And the car was the Rolls Royce Wraith. For those of you who don’t know the piece of music, there is a point when all goes quiet and through the expectation builds a rousing instrumental of the well-known hymn ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’. It’s hard to communicate, but on that sunny Friday afternoon, wafting along in the…

The Baymen

The Baymen is a new luxury jungle retreat being built in the Cayo district of the Belizean rainforest. Ever wished that you could get away from the drudgery of everyday life, whilst relaxing in the wilds and not having to worry about your money? Well, funny you should say that. Pack your machete and Louboutins, folks, were going to the jungle. The development is a combination of all-out luxury, with a romantic, old-age pioneering feel. This is carried throughout, with the individual wooden lodges being named after the glorious explorers of old, such as Shackleton and Livingston. The romance of four-poster beds shrouded in mosquito nets, along with open verandas…

Know your Vintage

I like to think that we’ve all been there (in truth it’s probably just my very small warped mind that’s obsessed about this, but you’re reading it, so hey-ho). Allow me to set the scene: I was having a lovely evening in polite company and someone had brought an American with them. Either as a quaint distraction or through a genuine love of all things dumbed-down. Whilst said American was grappling with a receptacle that holds less than one (US) gallon of drink and was staring at knives and forks with confusion, I found myself feeling constantly uneasy at the next topic of conversation or misnomer to be blurted out…

Put up your Dukes

Bored of floating around on the fickle winds of fashion? I think that you need something reliable in your life. As a country boy, I work on the premise of ‘If it’s not in fashion, then it can never be out of fashion’. And I pride myself on my mantra of ‘Tradition, tradition, tradition’. However, contrary to what you may now think, we don’t just wear baggy-arsed red corduroy trousers with turn-ups at half-mast. When not slowly pickling oneself in port for the six months of darkness, the winds of fashion do occasionally blow through the ‘the sticks’. These winds tend to bring variations on tweedy classics and the odd…

Jaguar F-Type

I haven’t found a review of the 3.0 F-Type so telling myself that Jaguar thought we were edgy and cool with a kind of anti-hero take on sports cars and not a small publication who isn’t to be trusted with the V8. They lent us the V6 one – not even the V6 S. I’m fine with that. I think I seem fine. Much like the F-Type, I’ll do different levels of review. The first is what I call the entry level review: buy one of these. It’s properly fast and sounds like a race car. Don’t go for white as it looks shit. The second review is more luxurious…

Jaguar XJR

As it comes sweeping into the car park, I ask myself if the XJR really is the short wheelbase. It is, but it also looks massive. Looking similar to a pissed-off battleship, this car says, ‘Yes, I own the company and, yes, I have no qualms about my source of income. Kalashnikov anyone?’ Jaguar have tried very hard to shake off the Brummie pub landlord image of the Jaguar XJ, and I can say, if you still think that, the new XJR will metaphorically smash a pool cue in half whilst striding towards you with a fixed stare, wearing the sharpest suit you have ever seen. Respect it. First impressions…

Thank you for Smoking

Everyone has their prejudices. In my experience, they tend to be on a scale – but I find the scary thing is that the prejudice is only voiced, not on how logical it is, but on its popularity. Some folks are racist, but they would be deterred from voicing their prejudice, not because it’s groundless, but because it not popular. As we move up the scale and the idea grows in popularity, prejudice becomes more vocal. Let’s take speeding, for example. People feel free to tear a strip off of people who speed in cars. The reason for this is that the idea has been made popular, because the government…

Loyal Defender

‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. An adage that you could apply to many things in this world, but none more than an item as steeped in heritage and tradition as Land Rover’s Defender – or so you would think. As old as the hills themselves, this iconic vehicle is woven into the very fabric of our country. For decades we have farmed in them, taken the family out in them, and when the mood takes us, we’ve occasionally invaded in them. From its birth as the Series 1 in 1948, through to what we know as the Defender, Land Rover’s trusty workhorse has changed very little. Well, you…