David Brown Speedback at Techno Classica Essen

14 April, 2015

Following the recent appearance of the David Brown Automotive Speedback GT at Retro Classics in Stuttgart, the car is due to wow the crowds at Techno Classica Essen — the largest classic car show in the world.

The Speedback GT’s combination of modern engineering and retro styling provide a novel twist on a modern ‘Grand Touring’ design, and there is little doubt that this special car will receive a great reception at Techno Classica.

“We have had a very strong response in Germany since the early days of Speedback,” says David Brown Automotive. “We’ve taken several orders from the market, so we are aware that Speedback has many qualities that resonate very strongly with affluent German enthusiasts.”

Performance art

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

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.