Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
Columns
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Bookends
Stuttgart and Abingdon, happy together I have a pairing I’d like to run by you. The first choice is a 2005 Porsche 911 C4S. As you’ll recall, I bought this car last December. The second pick is a 1964 Austin-Healey 3000 BJ8 Mk III, which I more recently acquired. Each car cost me just over…
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Vochos Unidos: An Automotive Travelogue Through Mexico
By Rodrigo Gaya Villar, 308 pages, Carrara Media, April 2026, $54.99 Vochos Unidos is less a conventional automotive history than author Rodrigo Gaya Villar’s photographic journey through Mexico, using the Volkswagen Beetle as its emotional and visual centerpiece. Across more than 300 pages, he documents the streets, beaches, neighborhoods and mountain towns connected by the…
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Neat Stuff
Classic Chronograph Luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer has partnered with Gulf Oil on a new watch called the Formula 1 Automatic Chronograph x Gulf. While the Formula 1 chronograph has been a mainstay of TAG Heuer’s lineup for decades, this version features the classic Gulf colors of blue and orange. With an automatic movement, forged-carbon bezel,…
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1985 Ferrari 288 GTO
Photo courtesy 1600Veloce The first Ferrari supercar is the rarest when collecting a full set of six This 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO is one of the initial 200 examples constructed en route to achieving the model’s homologation status in FIA Group B competition and is among a total of 272 examples built between 1984 and…
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End of the Line
The Lotus Esprit Turbo S4 was the last 4-cylinder turbo model — and the best The S4 is the final, best-developed (and longest-lived) phase of the Esprit, which was launched in 1976 as a replacement for the Europa. Like that car, its appeal lies in its superb handling and performance, at less than Porsche or…
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The Heavy Burden of Light Cars
Dad’s passing was tough — and parting ways with his collection is no easier Never parting with anything means everything becomes someone else’s cross to bear There was a lifetime of hardware in Dad’s shop. Steel, aluminum and fiberglass, almost all of European descent, almost none of it expensive. And when he passed last summer,…
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Title Troubles
I recently received a call from “Charles,” who allowed me to share his story. He is the happy owner of an Austin-Healey he purchased several years ago from a California resident. The seller’s family had owned the car for many decades, and the car had spent 40 years in storage. Charles knew he had purchased…
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Kindred Spirits
David Gardner with his hand-controlled Porsche 996 Tiptronic. Photo courtesy Raymond Thompson Jr., WVU When I bought our 1991 Alfa Romeo S4 Spider in February 2022, the seller claimed it had 21,917 original miles. I had no reason to doubt that, as when the car arrived it looked like it had been well taken care…
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Prancing Horse Power
Two books trace the history of iconic Ferrari models 275 By Bacchelli & Villa, 275 pages, Artioli Editore 1899, April 2026, €599 Ferrari books tend to arrive with an expectation of grandeur, but 275 distinguishes itself by grounding that grandeur in genuine archival depth. Published by Modena-based restoration specialist Bacchelli & Villa in partnership with…
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Neat Stuff
Get Your Kicks The U.S. Postal Service has issued a set of eight stamps to commemorate the centennial of Route 66. Each stamp shows a site from a different state along the 2,400-mile route from Chicago to Los Angeles. The highway was first designated as Route 66 on November 11, 1926, though the rise of…