Profiles
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1957 MGA 1500 Roadster
A successful outing for three EX182 pre-production prototypes at the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 1955 provided perfect pre-launch publicity for MG’s new sports car. Conceived as a replacement for the traditional T-Series MGs and launched in 1955, the MGA combined a rigid chassis with the Austin-designed, 1489-cc engine that had first appeared in…
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1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K Special Roadster
In 1933 the first of a new generation of Mercedes-Benz cars were issued from the Untertürkheim factory, incorporating advanced features for the time. The Mercedes-Benz 380 offered a fully independent suspension chassis with coil springs, unprecedented for the time. Front suspension was by dual A-arms, at the rear swing axles were used, giving ride and…
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1932 Ford Hot Rod Roadster — “Golden Rod”
In the days following WWII, man’s “need for speed” manifested itself in many different ways. If your name was Kimberly or Cunningham, you wrote a $10,000 check for a red European sports car. This wonderful obsession for performance had nothing to do with family fortunes, however, and was just as keenly felt by the garage…
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1955-62 Triumph TR3
The Triumph TR3 may be the last real bargain among English sports cars. For reasons Triumph lovers can’t understand but don’t complain much about, these cars never caught the tide that swelled prices of Austin-Healeys and Jaguars. Nevertheless, the TR3 offers all the quirky touches so dear to an Anglophile’s heart, is capable of hearty…
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1979 Ferrari 512 BB Berlinetta Boxer
Faced with having to pitch its Daytona front-engined model against the mid-engined Miura and Bora, Ferrari responded with the 365 GTB/4 Berlinetta Boxer in 1973. An entirely new car and the first road-going Ferrari not to have a “V” configuration engine, the Boxer used a 4.4-liter, four-cam, flat-12 derived from the 3-liter Formula 1. The…
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1959 Facel Vega HK500 Coupe
Some of the most exciting and flamboyant sports cars in history were produced in Paris and its surrounding areas through the first half of the 20th century. Delahaye, Delage, Talbot Lago and Panhard were some of the great marques that called this area home. However, performance and the French government’s extreme postwar taxation of higher…
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1955 Morgan Plus Four DHC
H.F.S. Morgan’s first four-wheeled Morgan, the Standard 10-engined 4/4, appeared in 1936 and formed the mainstay of production until 1950, when it was superseded by the larger and more powerful Standard-Vanguard-engined Plus Four. We are advised that the Morgan Motor Company has confirmed that this example left the factory in December 1954 and retains it…
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1958 Mercedes-Benz 190SL Roadster
Although it tended to be overshadowed by the larger 300SL, the 190SL was a high- quality sports tourer noted for its refinement and elegance. When introduced in February 1954, it was thought to be a little slow, but by 1958 the engine output had been raised to 105 bhp, commendable for a 2-liter power unit…
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1959 Kellison J-4R Coupe
Jim Kellison was a fighter pilot during the Korean War who went on to study aircraft engineering at UCLA. In 1954, he founded his own company, Kellison Engineering, and began building professionally-engineered sports cars with fiberglass bodies. A Kellison J-4 Grand Turismo coupe cost $6,700 in 1959. To put that into perspective, you could buy…
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1967 Camaro RS/SS Convertible
In April 1964, Ford introduced the Mustang and started the pony car era. It set sales records that have yet to be broken and caught the powers-that-be at General Motors completely off guard, as they had nothing in their line-up that could compete.A contingent within Chevrolet wanted to counter with a modified Chevy II but…