Although it’s hard to believe today, BMW nearly didn’t survive the late 1950s and 1960s. Thirsty and expensive Baroque sedans, the hard-to-find V8-powered 507 sports car (253 built), and the tiny egg-shaped Isetta wasn’t really a formula for success. The “New Class” 1,500-cc sedans of 1962, which led directly to […]
By the early 1970s, some were predicting the demise of the inexpensive sports car. Modern small sedans like the Audi Fox and VW Rabbit were threatening to render sports cars redundant. It didn’t help that the standard-bearers for the under-$4,000 sports car class were the MG Midget and Triumph Spitfire. […]
Factory support of older Morgans is incredible. With simply a serial number, the gang in Malvern Link can supply or make just about anything for a Plus 4 There has always been an enthusiastic market (albeit a limited one) for anachronisms. Vinyl records and mechanical watches are in most respects […]
Association with the glamour of the Riviera of the 1960s and people like Aristotle Onassis can make people do silly things at auction Beach cars are frivolous, slow, and silly, but they’re cute as hell, and in the case of Fiat and Renault Jollys, the association with the glamour of […]
When Karmann face-lifted the Triumph TR4 in 1968, there were still some arthritic old bones behind the TR6’s wide smile and smooth skin The age of the biplane fighter lasted from roughly 1915 to 1941, by which time the last of the fabric-covered, fixed-gear aircraft like the Gloster Gladiator and […]
Buy a Ferrari 400 with needs and you may as well start thinking about ways to improve on Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme The mid 1970s were cruel to the entire auto industry, and the Italian exotics were particularly hard hit. Punitive taxes, fuel shortages, and a general reluctance to consume […]
The Lotus Elan will forever be remembered as the ride of latex catsuit-wearing Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in the BBC spy show “The Avengers” Colin Chapman’s fanaticism about keeping weight off makes the average supermodel’s interest in the same subject seem merely casual. The results he achieved without materials […]
Series II E-types aren’t quite the stylistic betrayal we’ve been led to believe. And they are an affordable way into the Jaguar mystique If the Series I E-type is the prom queen, the Marcia Brady of E-types, then the Series II is Jan Brady-less glamorous and forever living in […]
It still conjures up Ealing Comedy images of Miss Marple meandering absent-mindedly through rustic English villages at 25 mph The whole “people’s car” thing never went over particularly well in the upwardly mobile post-war U.S. Cars like the Crosley, Citroën 2CV, and VW Beetle screamed austerity at a time when […]
The DOHC six was proven technology, and even the collection of boobs and Marxists assembling cars for British Leyland in the 1970s couldn’t screw it up In the opinion of many, the Series I E-type of 1961-67 was the high-water mark for Jaguar. Thereafter, the company irretrievably jumped the shark […]
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