During the second half of the 1970s, manufacturers exploited the relatively lenient Group 5 regulations to the full extent, creating fantastic production based 'silhouette' racers. The dominant force of the era was the Porsche 935 that was derived from the 911 Turbo. It takes a trained eye to discover the shape of the original road car but underneath the massively flared arches and slant-nose, the racer still retains some of the original metalwork. In historic racing the 935s produced for customers are regularly campaigned but at the Le Mans Classic this very rare ex-works 935 from 1977 returned to the track. Raced only once in period, it has been fully restored by Freisinger Motorsport and was raced at Le Mans by factory driver Romain Dumas.
Among the Porsches' rivals was the Ferrari 512 BB LM, which looks even further departed from its road-going equivalent. It was not able to match the Porsches on outright pace and was left to pick up the scraps. The featured example was campaigned at Le Mans twice and earlier this year starred at the Goodwood Members' Meeting, where Group 5 cars took centre stage.
Also in action at Goodwood in March, and a very rare sight on this side of the Atlantic was one of the Greenwood IMSA Corvettes. Built by John Greenwood and further developed by Bob Riley, these wide-body, big-block engined machines were among the fastest of all the Group 5 cars, particularly in a straight line. The Greenwood Corvette highlighted today spent most of its life in North America but has more recently been acquired by a Swedish enthusiast, who demonstrated it at Goodwood and raced at the Spa Classic in 2018.

In our ongoing look back at the 2018 season, it is today time to highlight several Ferraris that starred this year. The most recent of them is the Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello. Built and raced by Prodrive for the privateer Care Racing team during the early 2000s, these cars brought Ferrari back to the forefront of GT racing. They were hugely successful and eventually inspired Ferrari to officially return to GT racing, where they are still at the forefront. Unusually, all cars were retained by Care Racing for several years but now they are slowly being sold off. We already shot several of the cars in period and now also captured three examples in action at the Le Mans Classsic and Spa Six Hours this year.
Among the star cars at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix were a pair of Ferrari 312 B3s fielded by German specialist Mario Linke. Both chassis 010 and 012 were driven with great verve and former Audi works racer Marco Werner managed to place 'his' example third in his race.
One of the genuine Ferraris that raced at the Goodwood Revival was this fabulous 250 GT SWB Comp/61. Built for the 1961 season, it is one of the ultimate specification SWBs before Ferrari stepped up to the 250 GTO. The featured example was sold in period to a Swedish racing driver, who won the Mille Miglia rally. It is today raced at select events by the current German owners as can be seen in our gallery.

With last weekend's RM Sotheby's The Petersen Automotive Museum sale the 2018 auction season has come to a close. Our list of 25 top sellers is topped by the record breaking 250 GTO sold by RM at Monterey for just over $48 million. The Ferrari 290 MM that topped the this weekend's sale at the Petersen museum with $22 million also makes the top three. It slots in at a joint second with the mighty Duesenberg SSJ that found a new owner at the Gooding Pebble Beach Auctions in August. The most expensive car sold at a European auction in 2018 is this Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato. Raced in period by Jim Clark and one of just three 'super-lightweight' cars, it was sold by Bonhams at their Goodwood Festival of Speed sale for just over $13.3 million.
Due to be one of the absolute stars of the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, the upcoming, all-electric Automobili Pininfarina hypercar will be named the Battista. Powered by four electric motors, good for a combined 1,900 bhp, it will be limited to just 150 examples worldwide and priced at $2 - 2.5 million.

Over the weekend, McLaren revealed the Spider version of the highly acclaimed 720S. Compared to the Coupe launched last year, the new Spider is only 4% heavier and retains the same torsional rigidity without additional strengthening thanks to the carbon-fibre composite chassis shared by both versions of the 720S. The Spider features a foldaway carbon-fibre roof, which can be fitted with an optional glass panel. Carried over from the Coupe is the 720hp version of the bespoke twin-turbo V8 engine. The 720S Spider is available to order immediately and is priced at £237,000 before taxes, which is close to £30,000 more than the Coupe.
To mark the occasion, we have also taken a renewed look at two McLarens we saw in action this year. The earliest is one of the M6B customer Can-Am cars built for the 1968. These were based on the all-conquering M6As raced by the works team the year before. Ordered new by Jo Bonnier, the example highlighted today was somewhat unusual in that it was raced in Europe first and then shipped to North America to race in the Can-Am. Chassis 50-15 was recently re-patriated and is now raced in its original, five-litre configuration with considerable success in the Masters Sports Car Racing championship.
One of the highlights of the year was the Global Endurance Legends demo in the build to the Le Mans Classic as this brought some rarely seen machines back out to the track. Among them was this McLaren F1 GTR. In period, it was raced only in Japan and still wears the striking Team Lark colours to this day.

For many enthusiasts the Group C and GTP era is considered the golden hour of sports car racing. Fortunately, these cars are still raced today and this year there was also a Group C and GTP support race at the Le Mans Classic.
Today we take a look at five machines that had not been raced for quite some time. The most spectacular of these was this Peugeot 905 Evo 1 Bis. It was raced to two World Championship victories in period and after a spell in England has now been repatriated to France. For this season, chassis EV16 was prepared by specialists Equipe Europe using engines developed by Oreca.
Porsche was the leading manufacturer in Group C. In addition to the cars built by the factory, cars from other companies also used Porsche engines. Among them was this Cougar C26S built by Yves Courage. It was raced in the guise presented today at Le Mans in 1991 but chassis chassis C02-02 actually dates back to 1983. In the intermittent period, the car was continuously updated to the latest specifications. It raced at Le Mans no fewer than six times. Porsche also allowed others to build complete cars following the 962's design. One of these is this 962 BM, which was one of eight built by hugely successful privateer Brun Motorsport. It was raced at Le Mans in 1989 and 1990, and more recently formed part of the formidable Historic Porsche Collection. Now in new ownership, 962-003BM returned to the track.
Another car not seen racing for many years is this Jaguar XJR-12 that originally competed at Le Mans in 1991 where it placed fourth overall. The following year, J12-C-891 finished second at Sebring.
One of the most interesting cars to return to racing is this Spice SE89P. It was raced originally by Jim Miller of Pratt & Miller fame and as such helped in the development of the mighty Intrepid racing car. Used into the 1991 season, SE89P-003 sports the same works livery as the Intrepids raced later in the year.