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Aston Martin repeats history at Hotel de France

7 June, 2015

For a period spanning a decade — between 1953 and 1963 — the Aston Martin race team for the 24 Hours of Le Mans would set up shop at Hotel de France at La Chartre-sur-le-Loir. What did this entail? Well, in the more relaxed days of yesteryear, the team’s drivers and mechanics would prepare their cars in the hotel courtyard before driving them — on public roads, no less — to the circuit.

Image: Drew Gibson

Following Aston Martin’s final days in the town, it remained a mecca for those with petrol in their veins. Unfortunately, the Aston Martin team didn’t return — until now. It is 52 years on, and history is repeating itself.

Image: Drew Gibson

After two days of testing at Le Mans, Aston Martin have returned to recreate some of the 1950’s most famous photo and film footage of their cars being prepared at the hotel — the 2015 effort stars the team drivers, Kiwi racer Richie Stanaway, Darren Turner, and Mathias Lauda, along with three of Aston Martin Racing’s Vantage GTEs.

Image: Drew Gibson 

Chairman of Aston Martin Racing David Richards says, “The Hotel de France is an important part of Aston martin’s motorsport heritage.

“This year, we wanted to recreate the nostalgia of those days, when the racing cars had their final preparations alongside the hotel before being driven some 40km to the circuit, along public roads.”

Performance art

4 April, 2025

Shelby’s targets were Superformance — a South African company that wanted to sell its versions of these cars in the US — and the US-based Factory Five. Their defence was that the name and shape of the Cobra car were abandoned when Shelby American ceased production of these particular models back in the 1960s.
Shelby countered with: “We spent millions of dollars creating the name and the car and winning the world championship. These knock-off-car guys don’t deserve the credit or the profit for what my team and Ford accomplished in the ’60s.”
Superformance painted an even bigger target on its back by also producing a version of Shelby’s Daytona coupé. Other cars in its production stable were Mk1 GT40 and 1962 Corvette Grand Sport replicas, but we’ll focus here on the Daytona.

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.