Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
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1967 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk III Phase II
Its door gaps were as exact as a bespoke Tuxedo and the engine bay was spotless Austin-Healey’s highly successful six cylinder cars entered their final iteration in 1964 with the BJ8 series, or Mk III. This was the high point in driver and passenger comfort for the “big” Healeys, as they became more of a…
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1903 Martini 41/18hp 4.1-Liter Type Rochers de Naye
In 1902, Martini acquired a license to build Rochet-Schneider designs and began production, rapidly establishing its reputation as Switzerland’s most exclusive manufacturer. In 1903, a Martini stole the headlines by ascending the Rochers de Naye cog wheel railway, an astonishing 11-km ascent with an average gradient of 22%. The car was driven by English entrepreneur…
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1968-70 AMC AMX
The AMX was hardly a car for conformists In 1968 American Motors finally had a winner. Maybe it’s just a law of averages type of thing, but the AMX was in many ways the right car for the right time. American Motors dumped the funky four-seat Marlin in ’68 and replaced it with a car…
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First Drive
There’s a lot going on at SCM world headquarters this month, but we’ll get to that in a minute. There’s been a milestone occurrence in the Martin-Banzer family. Last weekend, our 11-year-old daughter, Alexandra, learned to drive. Early piloting is a tradition in our family; My grandfather, Tom McDowell, taught me how to operate his…
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1964 Porsche 904 GTS
In 1963, the imminent threat of Abarth’s Simca 2000, which was to be raced in the European 2-liter championship, was the impetus for Porsche’s creation of the Carrera GTS. Porsche chassis designer Hans Tomala decided the required production run of 100 cars could not be quickly and cost-effectively produced in the traditional welded-tube frame format.…
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1948 Lincoln Convertible V12 Coupe
1942 was a tough year to introduce a new model, as the advent of WWII led to the cessation of all passenger automobile production. When Lincoln resumed production in 1946, what had been a bold restyling of the Zephyr model in 1942 was already starting to look dated. The front end retained the massive appearance…
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1967 Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider
{vsig}2003-7_1304{/vsig} Last month, we wrote “How to Get Bottom Dollar for Your Alfa,” and described a pathetically written eBay auction-item #2410837134-that resulted in the sale of a nasty Duetto for $2,651. As chance would have it, as that issue went to press, we came across another Duetto on eBay. Beautifully presented, the car, even though…
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1967 Ferrari 330 GTC
After being imported from California in 1968, some mechanical work was done to this car and it was repainted. The present vendor purchased it in 1995 with 54,414 miles, and in 1998 spent $58,000 on the engine, chassis and a retrim of the interior. $34,500 was for rebuilding the engine, including replacement of both heads…
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1967 Lotus Elan Sprint S3 Coupe
The late 1960s marked a turning point for Colin Chapman and his Lotus Company; the car racing manufacturing business had grown dramatically since he raced his Lotus Mk II for the first time in Silverstone in 1950. Typically light and simple, the Lotus 49 of 1967, with its new Cosworth Ford DFV unit, was campaigned…
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1973 Citroën SM Coupe
The SM is the symbol of demise of Citroën as an independent company. It is also the story of corporate management embracing the “bigger is better” theory, and the engineering department wanting to make a better and more sophisticated car, but ending up with something that was just more complex, less reliable and infinitely more…