Prototypes that promised the future and never left the showroom.
Dymaxion Car: Brilliant and Forgotten Walter Chrysler wanted in. Henry Ford wanted in. Henry Kaiser wanted in. Three of the biggest names in American manufacturing looked at Buckminster Fuller’s three-wheeled aluminium teardrop and reached the same conclusion: this thing changes everything. Ford offered him anything in the catalogue at seventy-five percent off. Chrysler believed it … Read more
Lancia Sibilo: Gandini’s last wedge, a Stratos in alien clothing Picture this. Turin Motor Show, April 1978. The car industry is five years deep into a hangover that just won’t lift. The 1973 oil crisis has rewired everything. Big cars don’t sell anymore. Safety regulations are forcing designers to bolt rubber bumpers onto everything like … Read more
The first journalist to drive it was also the last Bill Thomas didn’t know he was making history. Nobody at Bentwaters Park on August 19th, 2008 thought they were making history. They thought they were making a magazine feature. Top Gear had arranged a photo shoot with Mazda’s Furai concept at the former RAF airbase … Read more
The American supercar that needed the Space Shuttle to not melt itself In January 1995, Ford had an engineering problem that no car manufacturer had ever needed to solve before. The exhaust system of its most ambitious concept car generated so much heat that it could melt the carbon fibre body panels surrounding it. The … Read more
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
