We’ve been anxious to share the new film series we’ve been working on for Petrolicious Members, and the day has finally arrived: with these three episodes, the first seasons of Master Mechanics, Homologation Specials, and Soul Made are officially underway. We visited Eagle’s E-Type operation in the UK, stuck Sam Hancock in the infamous BMW M1, and traveled to Italy to get a detailed look at O.M.E.A.’s process of hand-producing automobile badges, and this is just the start. Going forward, Petrolicious Members will be treated to one new episode every Thursday instead of three, but today’s special and you’ve all been very patient. We hope you enjoy these first episodes and the ones to come as much as we enjoyed making them for you.
Homologation Specials: BMW M1 (link to film)
The BMW M1 was destined to challenge Porsche’s lock on the podiums of FIA Group 4 and 5-sanctioned motorsport in the 1970s, but reality strayed from this plan. Homologation requirements were not met in a timely manner, the car’s production had to be reshuffled after Lamborghini’s bankruptcy, and it arrived too late with too little factory support by the time the paperwork was kosher. Still, the ProCar spec-series cars have become well-revered by vintage motorsport enthusiasts, and the road cars stand today as a fascinating outlier in BMW’s history. In our film, Sam Hancock hops into a minty white example from BMW Classic’s stash to go through its history and its five-speed dogleg.
Soul Made: O.M.E.A. (link to film)
O.M.E.A. can be considered an antithesis to mass production, a lovably stubborn resistor to coldly mechanized efficiency. The Italian company does more than make automobile badges, but when Enzo Ferrari comes to you to design a symbol for his racing cars, reputations tend to form. Indeed O.M.E.A. has had a hand in many a great Italian automaker’s badge design and production—Lamborghini, Lancia, Fiat, just name it—and today they are still deploying the techniques and passion that existed in those auspicious design sessions so many decades ago. Pockets of true, uncontrived tradition are getting harder to find, but it’s people like the ones at O.M.E.A. that provide the inspiration to keep looking.
Master Mechanics: Eagle E-Types (link to film)
Henry Pearman set up shop in 1984, and the Eagle name has been inextricably linked to the Jaguar E-Type ever since. Henry and his team at Eagle do just about everything that can be done to the svelte coupe: restoration, sourcing, sales, and other standard services were bolstered by Eagle’s fervent development of the E-Type. Improving upon the standard spec or developing the trajectory of what “might have been,” the chaps at Eagle can take an E-Type in any number of directions including back to factory spec, and they also happen to build the most accurate replicas of the legendary Low-Drag Jags as well. A business with such a singular focus should not be as diverse as this one, but it just stands as a testament to the car’s versatility and Eagle’s devotion. In this episode of Master Mechanics, we sit down with Henry as he takes us through the why and the how of it all.
