Cars that defined an era and are still legendary. History, mechanics and the soul of true classics.
Rover P6 3500: the engine Detroit threw away and Britain made immortal Every gearhead in America knows the Buick 215. Or thinks they don’t, until you tell them the story. It’s the little aluminum V8 that Buick and Oldsmobile built for their compacts at the dawn of the sixties, the one that powered the Buick … Read more
De Tomaso Pantera: The Dream That Fit in a Poor Kid’s Hand Thirty grams of painted metal. That was my Pantera. A little diecast rolling across the living room floor while I made the engine noise with my mouth, because I’d never heard the real one. I was a kid. I didn’t know what a … Read more
Citroën Traction Avant: the bet Citroën lost How an aviation engineer, an Italian sculptor, a trip to Philadelphia and an impossible 18-month deadline gave birth to the car that made half the European industry obsolete, ruined its creator, and laid down the technical DNA of every Citroën that followed Paris, 18 April 1934. Motor Show. … Read more
Golf Cabriolet Mk1: Seven Let’s get one thing straight before we start: I’m about to spoil the ending of Se7en. If you haven’t seen it, close this, go watch it, come back. I’ll wait. You’ve had since 1995. Still here? Good. Here’s what makes that film a masterpiece instead of a cheap shocker. John Doe … Read more
Alfa Romeo 75: The Last Real Alfa Romeo, the Car That Closed a Century of Independent Marque There are three things any serious Alfisti will tell you about the Alfa Romeo 75 before you’ve finished saying hello: One: the 75 is the last Alfa Romeo with transaxle architecture in the marque’s history. After the 75, in 1992, no … Read more
Alfa Romeo Alfasud: The Most Advanced Compact in Europe That Rusted Away Because of Politics More than a million units built between 1972 and 1989. 893,719 saloons produced between 1972 and 1983, plus 121,434 Sprint coupés between 1976 and 1989. A massive industrial figure by Alfa Romeo standards — a marque that had historically built … Read more
The Car That Was Too Honourable to Survive Chris Harris has a line he reaches for when a car does something special: it feels like it was built by people who cared more than the accountants wanted them to. He usually means it as the highest praise. But there’s a version of that sentence that … Read more
The Italian egg that saved BMW How a microcar designed by an aeronautical engineer for an Italian refrigerator maker kept the lights on in Munich until the Neue Klasse arrived There’s an image the German press of the 1950s made viral before the word viral existed. A man in a hat, suit and tie, opening … Read more
From refrigerator to grand tourer How Renzo Rivolta made the most improbable leap in Italian industrial history, hired a former Ferrari engineer, and built two cars with American hearts that still embarrass Maranello today There is an Italian gentleman you already know without realising it. He’s the one who in the 1950s ran a refrigerator … Read more
The Last Real Citroën. And the World’s Fastest Diesel. How a French saloon designed to replace the DS ended up setting world records, ferrying a communist head of state to his office, and being the last car with pure Citroën DNA before PSA homogenised the marque September 1974. Paris Motor Show. Citroën enters formal financial … Read more
The GT That Sank Citroën and Took Maserati Down Too Citroën SM: how an Italian V6, a steering system that wouldn’t talk back, and a French manufacturer’s ambition turned the most advanced Grand Tourer of its era into the most expensive industrial bill in seventies European motoring Geneva Motor Show, March 1970. Citroën stand. A … Read more
Built to Spite Rolls-Royce, It Ended Up Hauling Trains Some cars are born from a vision. Years of sketches, a lifetime’s ambition distilled into metal. The Bugatti Royale was born from something far more petty and far more human: wounded pride. At a dinner, an English lady is said to have compared Ettore Bugatti’s cars … Read more
