Prototypes that promised the future and never left the showroom.
Lancia Megagamma: Lancia invented the modern MPV in 1978 and Fiat buried it Quick quiz. Without looking at Wikipedia. Who invented the modern MPV? The boxy family hauler with the flat floor, the five doors, the room for five people plus their luggage plus a bike inside? The category Top Gear used to mock relentlessly … Read more
BMW X5 Le Mans: The SUV That Beat the Cayenne Two Years Before the Cayenne Existed Hans-Joachim Stuck took a BMW X5 around the Nordschleife in June 2001. Seven minutes, forty-nine seconds, ninety-two hundredths. Three hundred and eleven kilometres per hour on the Kottenborn straight. The first SUV in history to break the eight-minute barrier … Read more
Lancia Stratos HF Zero: the wedge that was 33 inches tall and won three world titles If you grew up watching Group B onboards, or if Sanremo and the Acropolis mean something to you because of Munari and the orange-and-white livery, you already know the Lancia Stratos. What you probably don’t know is that the … Read more
JAGUAR C-X75: THE SUPERCAR JAGUAR CHOSE NOT TO BUILD A British supercar that beat Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche to the punch Three years before LaFerrari, P1 and 918 Spyder were even announced, a British firm in Coventry had already engineered a 890 hp plug-in hybrid supercar with a 1.6-litre engine that revved to 10,000 rpm … Read more
CHRYSLER ME FOUR-TWELVE: THE AMERICAN SUPERCAR MERCEDES MURDERED A 248 mph American hypercar, born inside the wrong corporation McLaren F1Before the Bugatti Veyron set a new bar at 253 mph. Before the Ferrari Enzo was fully digested by the collector market. Before the McLaren F1 looked replaceable. Detroit had a car ready to leave them … Read more
BMW GINA: the fabric-skinned car Chris Bangle spent seven years building in secret to ask one question Chris Bangle is, depending on who you talk to, either the man who destroyed BMW or the man who saved it. Probably both. If you read any British or American motoring press from the early 2000s, you’ll remember … Read more
BMW NAZCA C2: THE M1 SUCCESSOR BMW WAS TOO SCARED TO BUILD A 350 hp BMW V12 that weighed less than a Mini Cooper S For all the heritage BMW has built around the M1, for all the magazine covers Top Gear and Evo have given the M1 Hommage and the more recent retro pieces, … Read more
MERCEDES-BENZ C111: THE GERMAN SUPERCAR STUTTGART REFUSED TO SELL Bronze-orange testbed, white cheques on the counter Every now and again, a car arrives that breaks the rules of how concepts are supposed to behave. It is not killed by its parent company. It is not abandoned because the engineering does not work. It is not … Read more
Lamborghini Marzal: One lap of Monaco, then forty years of nothing There’s a photograph from May 7th, 1967 that tells you everything you need to know about the Lamborghini Marzal. Grace Kelly is sitting in the passenger seat. Prince Rainier III is driving. The car has glass doors that run from the roofline all the … Read more
The V16 Goldfisch: BMW’s Secret Engine That Forced Mercedes to Build 85 Prototypes in Response Most automotive readers know the headlines on this one. A brown BMW 750iL with science-fiction air scoops behind the rear wheels and the radiators stuffed into the boot, hidden in BMW Classic’s warehouse for decades, finally rolled out at Techno-Classica … Read more
Volkswagen W12 Nardò: the supercar that was always a test rig If you watched Top Gear in the early 2000s, you remember the era. Clarkson worshipping the McLaren F1. May still mourning the death of the V12 Vantage. The Veyron was about to land like a meteor and rewrite everything we thought we knew about … Read more
ALFA ROMEO B.A.T. 5, 7 AND 9 — WHEN ITALY INVENTED THE FUTURE WITH WOOL THREAD Turin, 1953. A man tapes wool threads all over a car’s bodywork. He drives it onto the road. Another car follows alongside, photographing it at speed. When they return to the workshop, the man studies the photos. He looks … Read more
