Affordable Classics

The motoring press went wild when Jaguar brought out the F-type in 2013. Normally sober critics such as Car and Driver described it as “the car you want to be seen in.” Even my own spouse went a little starry-eyed over the F-type the first time I brought one home. She compared the car to…

Sunday during a mildly cold California winter. An empty highway and a trip to San Diego. Legal issues had come up, and an attorney was going to come in handy. I arrived at the meeting in my Dodge Durango, only to be greeted by the coolest lawyer I have ever met. He made his entry…

BMW produced the last of its i8 plug-in hybrid sports cars this past summer. With a few more than 20,000 units sold, the i8 could be called successful, but it never really caught on after its initial splash in the summer of 2014. At launch, the 2015-model-year i8 carried a price tag of $135,925. The…

Everything proper and correct has a price of entry. Everything has fine print. There are no deals. On top of that, the world is exactly upside down — bizarro. What is affordable anymore? What defines value within the car world? Is the auction result of $55k for a 2010 Aston Martin DBS (Lot 352, RM…

You don’t have to dig around very much to find horror stories about the Lotus Europa. Colin Chapman’s strange mid-engine “bread van” design is known for major structural problems, dodgy fiberglass and the kind of mechanical troubles only Lotus enthusiasts can tolerate. The car’s reputation has kept prices low, but the Europa also has a…

“Midgets suck. Get an MGB.” That was the considered opinion of my friend Chad when I expressed my intention to buy a rather crusty 1970 MG Midget back in the late 1980s. Luckily, I resisted peer pressure and bought the car. It turned out to be one of the best automotive decisions I ever made.…

The affordable European sports-car pantheon usually comes down to just four cars: the MGB, the Triumph Spitfire, the Fiat 124 Sport Spider, and the Alfa Romeo Spider. I can already hear the seismic rumble of readers jumping up to mention the MG/Austin-Healey Spridget, Triumph TR-series, Opel GT, Sunbeam Alpine, Volvo P1800 and, God help us,…

In 1958, Lotus Cars founder Colin Chapman came up with a design for a basic sports car that could be road-driven all week and then raced on the weekend. His previous (and very similar) design was called the Lotus Mark VI, so this new model was naturally called the Seven. Chapman wasn’t overly impressed with…

If you were a young man in the mid-1980s, you wanted a 4×4 Toyota SR5 pickup truck. By any name, these trucks embodied the virtues of the mid-1980s — they were stylish, a little bit boastful and a lot of fun. It’s no coincidence that young Marty McFly dreamed of owning a tricked-out Toyota SR5…

Subaru WRX and STI models offer the unique combination of genuine World Rally Championship heritage, outstanding performance and excellent reliability in an all-wheel-drive, 4-door sedan or wagon. Other than the Mitsubishi (with the Evo), no other manufacturer offers a 300-horsepower sports sedan with high safety ratings for under $35k. These Subarus offer the classic “Q-ship”…