Panoz: the nicotine-patch millionaire who chain-smoked and saved American racing There’s an irony so cruel at the center of this story that if a novel served it up you’d say the author overreached. The man who made his fortune leading the team that invented the nicotine patch — the device meant to help people quit … Read more
Shelby Daytona Coupe: six cars to take the world away from Ferrari Before Ford stormed Le Mans, before the movie, before the GT40 became a legend, a skinny Texan with a bad heart did something that seemed impossible: he took a world championship away from Enzo Ferrari. Not General Motors with its bottomless resources. Not … Read more
Fiat S76: the Beast of Turin, the car that terrified its own drivers You’ve probably seen the video. A monstrous, ancient car sits on the grass at Goodwood, someone hand-cranks it, and it erupts — sheets of flame shooting sideways from open exhaust ports, a noise like artillery fire mixed with a warplane engine, spectators … Read more
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
Studebaker: the last independent Detroit couldn’t let live There’s a grove of 5,000 trees near South Bend, Indiana, planted back in 1937 so that from the air they spell out a single word: STUDEBAKER. You can still find it on Google Earth today. A whole automaker reduced to a piece of landscape gardening you have … Read more
Doble Steam Motors: the car that nearly killed petrol Sit down. I’m going to tell you this one workshop-bench style, because the story is worth telling slowly. Electric? No. Petrol? No either. It’s a steam car. And the company that built it is called Doble Steam Motors. I’ve just typed those numbers and I’m still … Read more
Spyker 60HP: The 1903 Car That Beat Audi, BMW And Land Rover By 80 Years Top Gear once put together a list of the most innovative cars of all time. Chris Harris has spoken at length about the cars that shaped what we drive today. Every motoring journalist worth their salt has, at some point, … Read more
The three-point seatbelt: Volvo’s most expensive decision and the patent that saved a million lives You’re alive because of a Swede who designed ejection seats Look down. Right now. The strap across your chest, the buckle by your hip, that V-shape that pins you to the seat without breaking your ribs. That’s the work of … Read more
Ferruccio Lamborghini: the farmer who insulted Enzo Ferrari and built an empire The man who answered an insult with a V12 A 47-year-old tractor manufacturer walks into Enzo Ferrari’s office in Maranello and tells him his cars are rubbish. Ferrari tells him to go back to his tractors. Four months later, the tractor manufacturer has … Read more
LAMBORGHINI LM002: The engine doesn’t match the car Pop the asymmetric bonnet of a Lamborghini LM002 and look down. What you’re seeing is a Tipo L510 V12. 5,167 cc. Double overhead cams per bank. Four valves per cylinder. Six twin-choke Weber carburettors feeding twelve cylinders. 444 hp at 6,800 rpm. That engine has no business … Read more
Bentley: the Man Who Built the World’s Fastest Lorries It all started with a paperweight. An aluminum paperweight sitting on a desk in a French office. That single object changed British military aviation, Le Mans history, and the luxury car industry forever. Because Walter Owen Bentley wasn’t a businessman playing at making cars. He was … Read more
MARCELLO GANDINI: THE GENIUS BERTONE NEVER LET SIGN HIS OWN CARS At sixteen, they gave him money to buy a Latin textbook. He bought a combustion engine manual written by Dante Giacosa instead. That act of rebellion defines everything that followed. Because Marcello Gandini wasn’t born to study what he was told. He was born … Read more
