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
MAYBACH: THE BRAND THAT HAS DIED THREE TIMES AND KEEPS COMING BACK There are brands that fail and disappear. And there are brands that fail, disappear, come back, fail again, disappear again, and yet someone in a boardroom says: “But this time it’s going to work.” That brand is Maybach. And the most twisted part … Read more
Barreiros: The Spanish Mechanic Who Beat the British, Defied Franco and Ended Up Building Engines for Fidel Castro The black Dodge 3700 GT rolls up Claudio Coello Street at half past nine in the morning. December 20, 1973. Three men inside. The driver, José Luis Pérez Mogena. The bodyguard, police inspector Juan Antonio Bueno Fernández. … Read more
Pegaso Z-102: The Story of the Spanish Supercar That Was the Fastest in the World Not Enough Cylinders — Unfiltered Automotive Opinion There are cars that define eras. Others defy logic. The Pegaso Z-102 did both. Born in post-war Barcelona, in a factory meant to build trucks and buses, this Spanish V8 had the audacity … Read more
