Dear Friends of The Motor Chain (TMC),
The classic car season has reached its midway point, with many events now in the rearview mirror, leaving strong and promising messages for the community. I’d personally like to highlight the Best in Show winners at Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach, both of which came from the Preservation class.
For many years, super shiny and “perfect” cars dominated magazine covers and event podiums, while efforts to preserve machines in their original condition went underappreciated. To be clear, I have nothing against restorations—when done with taste and, most importantly, knowledge. While a restoration may cause a car to lose its original condition, it can still remain authentic. That said, I enthusiastically welcome this shift in trend and encourage owners to approach the maintenance of their cars, and their histories, with preservation in mind.
Since 2021, The Motor Chain has been rewarding efforts to maintain and preserve the history of classic cars. We’ve awarded six “Best Documented Car Awards” so far, with the most recent given on August 14th at the Zurich Classic Car Award. This edition broke records once again, with over 100 cars participating, many of them of incredible quality and extremely well documented. The judging was intensive, and once again, the team and methodology proved to be robust. Be sure to check the Events Section to find out who the winner was!
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The Motor Chain community is also excited to welcome a new certified professional. Smell of Classics, a tasteful and methodical broker of classic and young-timer cars, has adopted our solution for sharing and transferring vehicle information during sales. Check the Partners Section to learn more about Smell of Classics.
To wrap up this introduction, I’m thrilled to share some great news: a car registered and preserved with TMC will be racing in the Goodwood Revival! Isn’t that exciting? We’re all eager to see it on the track. You can find more details in the Events Section.
Looking forward to seeing you all on the road soon!
Kindest Regards,
Julio and the TMC Team
Events
Zurich Classic Car Award 2024
In our 4th consecutive participation in the ZCCA our team and methodology probed to be rock solid. We faced the challenge of judging 100 cars which a majority brought pretty good documentation. It is also true that there is still some education work to do as we found owners with little of poor understanding of the importance to keep, organize and preserve the history of their cars.
After almost 3 hours of scrutiny the Jury gathered and made a decision, just two points made the difference.
Meet the 2024 ZCCA “Best Documented Car in Show”
We would like to make a special mention to the finalist of our special award. All of them were extremely well documented. Well done!
Goodwood Revival. 6th-8th September
We are extremely excited to announce that one car registered and preserved in The Motor Chain will be racing this year at the Goodwood Revival. Last year, we had a couple of cars attend Pebble Beach, this spring we met clients at Villa d’Este, and now, it’s Revival!
The car in question is Archie Scott’s Lister Maserati BHL1. Both man and machine are racing legends in the UK. Did you know that Scott had very limited mobility in one arm? He developed a unique driving style, sliding through corners to compensate for his handicap. The Lister chassis, paired with the powerful Maserati engine, proved to be a highly competitive package in Archie’s hands, though not without reliability problems, as evidenced by the extensive collection of letters exchanged between the racing team and Maserati.
The car currently runs an exact replica of the original engine, while the original engine, recovered from another Maserati car, remains within the owner’s collection.
Click on the photos to get a glimpse into the car’s history and documentation.
Partners
The Motor Chain community continues to grow among owners and professionals. At the time of this newsletter, we have 2,219 cars with 62,843 documents. We are very grateful for your trust—thank you!
We would like to introduce a new professional who has recently adopted TMC. Please welcome “Smell of Classics” to the family. Though new to the classic and young-timer scene, the broker Smell of Classics is betting on extremely well-curated and documented vehicles. We particularly like the selection of cars they offer and how they are showcased.
They have incorporated TMC within their sales flow, allowing buyers to access the full history and documentation of the cars remotely, in a transparent, private, and secure manner. When the car is sold, the entire history and documentation are transferred to the new owner.
Click on the logo below to learn more about Smell of Classics and check out their current car inventory.
