Champagne and Fast Cars

Time for a less serious post about some of my passions. Summer has thankfully arrived at last here in the Silicon Cape! Winter always seems to drag on a bit too long at the end, but it’s finally time for cocktails, convertibles and concerts. I’m a real summer person, and with 30 degree+ days soon to be the norm, bring on the lazy afternoons braaing by the poolside, lunching in the winelands, or perhaps getting out on the water and doing a bit of wakeboarding.

It’s no secret I’m a lover of good wines and champagne, and fate played right into my hands the other day when I popped in to Traffic with the guys from Skyrove to talk about their marketing strategy, and our communications manager Lucy presented me with a little gift.

Veuve Clicquot. Tastes like honey. Seriously.

As she also handles the communications for luxury goods company LVMH, which happens to include a few top champagne brands like Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot, she’d gotten her hands on some bottles of Veuve with their new design “ice jacket” sleeves, which keep a bottle cool up to 2 hours when you take it out of the fridge for a summer picnic or a lie by the pool. Very nice. The famous Yellow Label happens to be one of my absolute favourites too.

From fine wines to fine cars… a few weeks ago, a collection of Franschhoek wine farms participated in a festival called Franschhoek Uncorked, ushering in the summer wine tasting season. As a fully paid-up petrolhead, I naturally figured this would be a great excuse to visit L’Ormarins, not just to sample some of the wines, but also because it’s home to Johann Rupert’s personal garage, otherwise known as the Franschhoek Motor Museum.

Ferrari F60 Enzo at Franschhoek Motor Museum.

We arrived to find the curator, Wayne Harley, doing demo sprints of the Ferrari Enzo around the parade circuit. Not a conventionally pretty car at all, but it has that truly classic Ferrari V12 sound that can’t help but bring a smile to your face. He later took the Porsche Carrera GT around for a few laps as well, itself also a musical instrument on four wheels. As these cars are both left-hand-drive and unregisterable in South Africa, it’s a rare sight to enjoy. We raised our glasses of crisp, cool white wine with appropriate reverence.

Enzo engine bay. Glorious engineering artwork.

The Ferrari F50 is also back on display, after needing some repairs (you might recall the press mistakenly reporting that it had been written off). This has to be my all-time favourite of the Ferrari supercars. It’s a real driver’s car — nothing beats a proper manual gearbox bolted to a big howling V12, itself bolted directly to the carbon fibre tub chassis. Excellent work.

Ferrari F50 makes it's welcome return

But local enthusiasts might be most excited to learn that the McLaren F1 which recently arrived is now out on display. This car used to belong to Jackie Stewart’s son, and features the family crest all over it in subtle places. It also has the optional high-downforce kit. Still considered by many to be the ultimate supercar, reigning over all for more than 15 years since initial production began in 1992,  it’s awe inspiring to see one in person and on local soil.

The McLaren F1. A real childhood hero car.

Less than 70 road going versions were ever made. As far as I know, this is only the second one ever to make it to SA, the other residing in Joburg. It was also designed by a South African, Gordon Murray, and features a unique three seat layout, with the driver seated in the middle and two passengers either side. This car can do 0-100km/h in 3.2s and a top speed of 390km/h. It’s still the ultimate benchmark for naturally-aspirated supercars.

I was fortunate to be present when it first arrived from the UK some months ago, and to hear it fire up. All I can say is that the six litre V12 which lives in that gold-leaf-lined engine bay is quite possibly to this day BMW’s finest hour. A true masterpiece and it sounds unlike anything else I’ve heard. I can highly recommend a visit to Franschhoek soon to go and take a look. Enjoy these pictures in the meantime of what you could say was the original modern hypercar.

BMW supplied the legendary powerplant for the F1. This is it's lair.

A closer look.

Central seating position still unique to this day.