Hairy-chested '70s icons | Six of the Best

Some things have moved on a lot in 50 years. But not power chords or savagely brilliant cars...

Aston Martin V8 Vantage, 1979, TBC, £349,995

How best to encapsulate what ‘70s hero cars ought to mean to people in 2024? By watching James Bond, of course. Not the in-period films - where 007 was forced by the studio to drive an awful lot of American tat - but No Time to Die, where Daniel Craig retrieves his very own V8 Vantage from a railway arch garage. Everything about it is pitch perfect: the dust cover, the shadowy cool, the V8 growl, the tyre-smoking dab of oppo getaway. This is the ownership dream (entirely unmoored from reality, it must be said) and speaks to the heart of why it would be the epitome of manly cool to have something pristine and half a century old tucked away for the weekend. Something like this Charcoal Grey over fawn ’79 Vantage. With the 7.0-litre conversion and a manual ‘box. Burble indeed.

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Ferrari 308 GTB, 1977, 42k, £59,995

Okay, sure - more than a third of a million quid is quite a lot for anyone to spend on a seldom-used garage queen. So how about this: a heavily tracked Ferrari 308 GTB now in ’fast road spec’ and looking a million bucks following a retrim and a colour change? It positively glowers with low-slung intent after what was presumably an all-action 42k, and frankly driving a manual, mid-engined Ferrari with a roll cage pretty much guarantees your ascent to hairy-chested legend - all for the very reasonable-sounding sum of £60k. Obviously, you’d want to find out a little more about a car that’s been regularly campaigned in classic motorsport, but we can’t be the only ones totally digging the way it looks, both inside and out...

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Ford Escort Twin Cam, 1970, 100 miles, £47,500 - £50,000

Of course, if the whiff of competition has you at hello - but you’re unmoved by the thought of Italian exotica - then how about a Mk1 Escort fettled by the good people at Broadspeed? This example, currently up for auction on PH, is one of only 25 Twin Cam cars thought to have been sent to the specialist back in the day for a complete rally makeover. It looks tremendous in Ermine White with contrasting roof and bonnet and 13-inch wheels, and we’re willing to bet it sounds tremendous too following a recent engine rebuild. Moreover, unlike the Ferrari or the Aston, the Ford is as blue-collar as a job where you stand at a lathe all day - and therefore speaks to the soul of the ’70s in this country more acutely than anything else listed here. Also, you can drive it on gravel. And you definitely should.

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Datsun 240Z, 1973, 73k, POA

Having said all that, we wouldn’t want to give the impression that Europe had a monopoly on the decade’s automotive BDE. The Datsun 240Z was conceived at the end of the ‘60s specifically to rain on the Old World’s parade and thanks to its swept-back styling and precision engineering - not to mention its gutsy straight-six - it made quite the impact as a halo car for the Japanese firm. Today it’s rightly regarded as an iconic entry in Nissan’s back catalogue and they surely don’t come any nicer than this restored UK-supplied example with 73k on the clock. Yes, the blue is lovely (ditto the stance thanks to coilovers) but it might be the interior - those seats! - which has us daydreaming about touring the south coast. While its condition, rarity and POA status suggest a big outlay, it still ranks as one of the era’s finest ways to get noticed.

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DeTomaso Mangusta, 1971, 45k, €279,900

Still, there’s getting noticed - and then there’s wearing a fur coat to an MMA title fight. The Mangusta is surely the definitive ride for a cigar-smoking, tunnel-finding, red meat-eating, tax-evading ’70s lothario. Case in point: it was the car David Carradine drove in Kill Bill: Volume 2. Super-rare, super-silly - and truthfully probably not all that great to drive - but DeTomaso’s mid-engined V8 coupe, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, surely goes down as one of the definitive European muscle cars. This one, which you’ll have to go to Germany to collect, was one of the last examples built and has been bored out to 5.7 litres by Roush (among some other light restomodding) so it cranks out a very modern-sounding 430hp. But all you really need to know about it is in the pictures. It’s called X factor.

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Lamborghini Countach LP400, 1975, £1,499,950

Speaking of X factor, the automotive world lost one of its true heroes this week. Over more than half a century, Marcello Gandini designed some of the all-time greats. We’re talking vehicles of timeless style, cool and desirability - and across multiple makes, too - although perhaps nothing speaks to his genius like the first two Lamborghini V12 supercars. That the Miura and Countach were the result of one man’s vision is astonishing and shows just how adaptable and endlessly alive to innovation he was. The famous look pioneered by the Countach concept (Paulo Stanzani is the man credited with the production version) can be traced back to earlier Gandini projects like the Alfa Carabo and Lancia Stratos Zero.

The mid-engined supercar wedge that still seems perfect today - just look at the Revuelto - was being perfected by Gandini more than 50 years ago. After the spellbinding Miura, the Countach remains perhaps his best-loved contribution, and it is the earlier cars that are most faithful to his original LP500 concept of 1971. This Periscopo was only the third one delivered to the UK back in 1975 (what a sight it must have been 49 years ago) and is fully restored. As you'd expect, its provenance and historical value are reflected in the seven-figure price, but the '70s (and indeed our present) are unimaginable without it. That’s the impact Gandini had. Che possa riposare in pace.

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Code Black

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