Hexagon Modern Classics: a car lover's paradise

Accompanying the cars is one of the UK’s best collections of automotive wall art – posters, paintings and photo images – and Michaels’ own office (into which favoured visitors are invited) contains an array of automobilia of such astonishing depth that any visitor would take several days to appreciate it all, let alone hear the fascinating tales inevitably attached.

Michaels has been using the Hexagon brand since he started trading in cars from a tiny Belsize Park mews back in 1963. His father was a car man who was forever bringing home interesting machinery, and when the time came to leave school and seek a career, the young Michaels knew exactly what to do next. “I founded the business in 1963,” he says, “and began messing about with cars.”

‘Messing about’ isn’t quite the truth of it. Michaels, full of energy for the car business, set about building a modern multi-franchise business – before such conglomerates became fashionable in the City – and at various times held agencies for Alfa Romeo, Lotus, Reliant, Marcos, BMW and even Monteverdi, always using the Hexagon name, which was chosen because Trident, Quadrant and Pentastar were already taken. He even started a van-based performance improvement wing called Hexagon Tune, but he had to find a name that more precisely defined its activities when he started getting calls from local owners of pianos…

His business grew rapidly, dealing in all kinds of interesting modern machinery, eventually becoming London’s premier BMW dealer, and when the funds became available, he also moved into racing, another passion.

First, he started racing D-Types, before moving into hairy and spectacular Formula 5000 racing. Then in 1973-1974, years he describes as Hexagon’s “most adventurous period”, he moved to Formula 1, first buying a March with an odd-looking nose (which they corrected) and eventually a Brabham BT44 from then team owner Bernie Ecclestone and retaining John Watson as driver. The grand prix involvement was short but memorable. And as many period pictures on Hexagon’s walls make clear, Michaels will always be proud of what his tiny team achieved: a fourth place in the 1974 Austrian Grand Prix and six priceless championship points in the bag.

Racing remains a passion, which is one good reason why the Highgate showroom still contains a near-perfect 1987 Porsche 962 that he bought 16 years ago because it finished sixth and later eighth at Le Mans. It’s technically for sale, but you get the impression that it would take an outsized cheque to prise it from Michaels’ ownership.

Apart from the Lotus franchise, dealing in new cars is behind him now, Michaels says. It’s time to indulge his love of classics, especially Porsches. Air-cooled Porsches are one of Michaels’ special passions and he often has as many as 40 in stock. He not only admires their unique specification and legendary lasting qualities but also seems to feel that he can find better homes for deserving cars than the next person. Car trading is no charity, clearly, but for Michaels it’s most definitely a passion.

He also has a thing for the “crazily undervalued” Porsche 928 V8 range. “They’re terrific,” he says, “although they can be very expensive to keep going.” We view a fine GTS auto in the showroom at £40,000-ish, but he reckons a really good manual is worth as much as £20,000 more.

Michaels’ own eclectic collection of 20-odd cars is a movable feast – to the extent that he keeps a list in chalk on a blackboard outside his office. Fixtures include a 4.7-litre Eagle E-Type roadster (his smoker on sunny days), an Aston Martin DB4 Zagato Sanction Three, a 1952 Fiat pick-up, a lightweight Ford GT, a Land Rover Series 1, an Aston DB2 and various Jaguar XK120s. And various Porsches. “I was a dealer,” he says. “I know how good they are.”