Guy Martin - Volvo Amazon - 12 x 8 Autographed Picture

  • £25.00


This is a 12 x 8 autographed images of Guy with his beloved Volvo Amazon which he signed on the 23rd of September 2018 in his Lincolnshire kitchen and this is what he's to say about it:

People are surprised when I tell them that I have only two cars. They expect me to have a garage filled with supercars. They are even more surprised when I tell them that one is a 13-reg Ford Transit van, which I use almost every day, and the other is a Volvo estate, which I use only on special occasions. This is fine by me — I don’t see the point of boasting about my cars.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve had my fair share of supercars. But none of them has been a patch on the Volvo Vöx . It is a 1967 estate, in beautiful battleship grey, and every time I get in it, it just twists my mind — and it would do the same to you too. Although it looks like a standard Volvo, I reckon it is about the fastest car in Britain — quicker than any Ferrari, Porsche or even Bugatti. That’s not me boasting — I don’t want to come across as big-headed. It is just a fact.

The truth is, this is the quickest machine I have ever driven or ridden. My GSXR Suzuki superbike is about 220bhp and probably a bit quicker to 100mph, but if you put them on the road together the Volvo would leave it for dust between 100mph and 200mph.

I can still remember the first time I saw it. I was competing in a TT race two years ago, and one of the other riders called me over to show me something on his phone. It was a picture of a grey 1967 Volvo Amazon.Even at the time it looked beautiful; then he explained what had been done to it and I was hooked. I had to buy it.

It probably helped that at the time I was driving an Aston Martin Vantage V12, which I was fed up with. When I was 21 I owned a BMW E46 M3 CSL and then a Porsche GT3 RS but I always wanted an Aston. It is the sort of car you grow up dreaming of owning. But I had nothing but bother with it. The windows seemed to jam, the seats seemed to seize up and I couldn’t get the claimed top speed out of it on a track — not big things, but I was disappointed. But the worst thing about it was the lights.

Whenever I saw an Aston on the road, the thing I always noticed was the sidelights glowing in the gloom, giving the car that classic Aston look. I always loved that. But when I bought the Vantage I discovered that those lights didn’t come on automatically: the driver had to switch them on.

It may sound a small thing, but to me it was massive. What? You have to put the lights on manually? That seemed a bit close to posing — ostentatious. I can’t really explain why it put me off, but it did. It was as though the whole Aston look was a fake.

I sort of feel the same about supercars in general now. When I see someone in a Ferrari, I think: “They have bought a Ferrari because they don’t know anything about cars.”

I find it funny that people feel if they spend a fortune on a car they are somehow more important than their peers who don’t. Someone once told me: “I’ve got a 458 Ferrari. Vinyl stripes on the bonnet are £7,000 extra, but you have to have them, don’t you?” I thought to myself: “I’ve got a mate in Ireland who does vinyl strips for my Tranny for around £50.”