The history behind the brans that shaped the automotive world. Origins, evolution and the moments that made them great.
The Italian company that builds every IndyCar, F2 and F3 chassis — and almost nobody outside racing knows the name Forget the F1 paddock for a minute. Walk down pit lane at the Indianapolis 500 instead. Every car you see — every single one of the 33 starters — was built by the same company. … Read more
Campogalliano: the Bugatti factory that’s been locked up with everything inside for thirty years Type “abandoned Bugatti factory” into YouTube and you’ll get hundreds of results. Drone shots over a vast blue complex outside Modena. Urbex channels with creaky soundtracks pushing through cobwebbed corridors. Hagerty journalists being walked around by a softly spoken Italian called … Read more
The Biscione: Why Alfa Romeo Still Wears a Snake Eating a Man Walk past a parked Alfa Romeo. Lean in and look at the badge. What you’ll see, on every Giulia, every Stelvio, every Tonale, every 4C, every Junior, every old Spider parked in a Surrey driveway, is a blue serpent wearing a crown, devouring … Read more
Renault Gordini — What’s Left of the Sorcerer When the Sorcerer Is Gone A Name on a Hatchback You are standing in a Renault dealership somewhere in Europe around 2011. There is a Clio in the showroom. It is blue — not just any blue, but a deep, specific shade called Malte Blue. Two white … Read more
VIASA: The Train Builder That Made Spain’s Forgotten Jeep Picture the scene. It’s the late 1950s, you run one of Spain’s biggest railway manufacturers, and the order book for train carriages has just gone quiet. The factory floor is cooling down. Hundreds of workers are about to go home with nothing to do. What do … Read more
Lancia: the brand that invented half the modern car and ended up selling Ypsilons in Italy There’s a question Chris Harris has asked, more than once, on camera. It goes something like this: which manufacturer, when you really dig into the history books, turns out to have invented more of the modern car than any … Read more
McLaren: Sixty Years of Building Cars That Hurt, From a Limp in Auckland to the Top of Formula 1 Top Gear’s Chris Harris once said that the McLaren F1 is the only road car that has ever genuinely scared him. Not in the way a Lamborghini Diablo scares you with its switches and its truculence, … Read more
The French Disaster That Built Alfa: Portello, 1906 Picture this. A French industrialist with a handlebar moustache walks into a Naples hotel in April 1906, signs a stack of papers, and announces he’s going to teach Italians how to build cars. Eighteen months later his factory is bleeding money in the wrong city, his Italian … Read more
URO: The Spanish Factory You’ve Never Heard Of That Builds Tactical Vehicles For Thirty Countries Three letters, zero recognition In the English-speaking world, when someone says “Spanish car industry,” the answers are predictable. SEAT. Maybe Hispano-Suiza if the person reads about pre-war luxury. Pegaso if they know their Wifredo Ricart history. Spano if they follow … Read more
Ebro: how Henry Ford founded a Spanish brand, a Nazi-sympathising falangist built it into an empire, Nissan swallowed it, and the Chinese just brought it back Stop a hundred random British or American car enthusiasts on the street, ask them where Henry Ford ran factories outside the United States, and most will say Britain (Dagenham). … Read more
Santana Motor: the Spanish 4×4 that humiliated the British, died with the country — and just came back with Chinese blood You’ve probably never heard of Linares. It’s a small city in the south of Spain, sitting in the middle of an olive-tree ocean in the province of Jaén — historically one of the poorest … Read more
LAGONDA: THE BRAND THAT ALMOST MADE IT Lagonda has been on the verge of greatness for 120 years. It has never arrived. They won Le Mans. The finest engine W.O. Bentley ever designed carried their name. David Brown bought them the same year he bought Aston Martin. And yet, if you stopped someone in the … Read more
