Ferrari F355: The Car Honda Forced Into Existence The most beloved Ferrari of the 1990s exists because a Japanese company embarrassed Maranello. That is the part of the story that gets skipped. People talk about the sound, the five valves, the Pininfarina lines. Far less gets said about the state Ferrari was actually in when … Read more
Rover 220 Coupé Turbo: the car its own gearbox held back Here’s one of those stories only properly understood by someone who’s been under a car with grease up to the elbows. In the early nineties, Rover built the fastest, most powerful car in its entire history. A gorgeous coupé with 197bhp, capable on paper … Read more
Opel Calibra: the world’s most aerodynamic car was the slowest one in the showroom Here’s one of the loveliest ironies the car industry ever produced. In June 1989, Opel launched a car that broke a world record and held it for ten years. The Calibra was the most aerodynamic production car on the planet, with … Read more
Ford Probe: the car built to kill the Mustang, saved by the Mustang’s own fans Here’s one of the greatest “what if?” stories the car industry ever produced. And it’s a tale with a doubly happy ending: it saved the Mustang and, quite by accident, condemned a perfectly good car to spend its whole life … Read more
Renault Sport Spider: The Car That Dared to Take Your Windscreen Away Picture a product meeting at Renault in the mid-1990s. Someone stands up and says: “Let’s build a two-seater. No roof. No windscreen. We’ll fit an air deflector instead, and we’ll tell customers to wear a crash helmet on the road.” In any sane … Read more
The Phantasm ‘Cuda Wore 440+6 Badges and Hid a 340 Underneath. Nobody Called It for 46 Years. Five films, three different displacements, a cloned Hemi and a vanished original. Don Coscarelli couldn’t afford the car his screen promised. So he lied. And the lie worked. Pause the VHS, the DVD or the 2016 J.J. Abrams-produced … Read more
