Throughout history, French manufacturers have created some of the most unusual automotive designs ever made. Most will agree that many...
In September 2022, I travelled to Townsend, Tennessee, in the Great Smokey Mountains for Okteenerfest. The annual gathering of Porsche...
When someone says “Sunbeam,” most car people immediately think of the “Tiger.” Sunbeam was much more than just that one model, and the subject of this profile is much rarer than the V8-stuffed Tiger. Origins of Sunbeam John Marston created what would become the manufacturer of some very nice British...
A frenzy of uncorked Mini Coopers, followed by a gaggle of vintage MGs, Triumphs and other assorted vintage sports racers...
“100 miles per hour speed with 100 percent comfort and docility.” This proclamation was made in an advertisement that appeared...
Bonnie Menapace (nee Hemsley – yes, she’s my daughter) got her first Alfa for her 16th birthday. It was a used, yellow 1979 Alfa Spider Veloce, which she still has. Andy Menapace got to share that Alfa Spider when he married Bonnie, and he got to learn how to change...
Singer-songwriter Carol Connors once bet Carroll Shelby that if she wrote him a hit song, he’d give her a Cobra....
The names of the great marques roll off the tongue like poetry—Porsche, Jaguar, Maserati, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce and, of course, Ferrari....
The spectacular Mercedes-Benz 540K represented the zenith of pre-war accomplishments by the Stuttgart-based firm in the pre-war era. It is considered by many to be both a technical marvel and a styling masterpiece. An evolution of the brilliantly engineered 500K, whose independently suspended chassis it shared, the 540K was powered...
Joe Conzonire eases his 1903 Packard Model F Runabout out of his shop and pulls it into the sunlight. It...
Chatting with Barry Alan Twitchell about his Porsche 993, he remembered that during a dinner in Switzerland, the owner of...
An amazing thing happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the fall of 2019. A couple of automobile enthusiasts proposed the Chattanooga Motorcar Festival and convinced the city to allow it to happen. There was a time trial, rally, and concours. It was to be an annual event, but Covid-19 interfered and...
At the Brits At The Beach car show in New Zealand recently, among the classic Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs and Morris...
Photographer Dave Gooley and I drove over to Gus’ Barbeque in Paramount, California, – a diner devoted exclusively to meat...
How would you, as a recent college graduate, like to have a job that allowed you to drive a very limited production vehicle around the United States and Canada displaying the products your employer makes? Today, you could do that in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, but, in 1934, six young...
People were standing around this tiny roadster on display at the Hillsborough Concours, attracting a crowd, all day. It’s unusual...
About 30 years ago, BMW shocked the automotive world by introducing a sexy and technically unique 2 place, drop-top sports...
Have you ever seen a Commuter? I’m talking about a 1959 Mercury Commuter two-door station wagon. Not many of us have, because they only built 1,051 of them that year and time, and of course commuting, has taken its toll on them. In fact, there were only 148,946 of the...
“You’ve got to see this car!” said Robert Escalante, internationally known restorer of classic Packard automobiles. And he wouldn’t have...
The MGA should have happened several years before it did. The story of why it didn’t and how it came...
I was out walking the other day, and tripped on a grate in the pavement and fell hard… down hill. As I was regaining consciousness, a neighbor stopped her car and asked me if I wanted a ride back to my house. I accepted gratefully. My doctor assessed my swollen...
Dodge and Plymouth stylists hated them, Bill France hated them, but, the racers? Racers loved them, as long as they...
I was down in New Zealand recently with my good friend, photographer Dave Gooley on a working vacation, searching out...
A 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe eight-passenger station wagon’s doors are big, so climbing in is easy. The bench seats are covered in leatherette, a leather-like plastic-coated fabric designed to be tough and long lasting. The interior is roomy and handsome, though somewhat curious in that – though rich real wood...
We had spent the previous evening at Justin Marshall and his wife Shirley’s spectacular hilltop home overlooking their winery in...
Back in 1982, I bought a 1940 Packard coupe and spent the next couple of years restoring it. Once I...
More Cylinders: Jessie Vincent and the Packard Twin Six engine “The greatest piece of machinery that ever went upon the highways,” proclaimed Henry B. Joy, Packard president in 1915, extoling the virtues of the recent release of his company’s new engineering marvel, the Twin Six. Jessie Vincent, the brainchild of...
Charles Kettering, one time head of research at General Motors, once said: “People are very open-minded about new things –...
We met up with Gary Humecke in Thousand Oaks, California to see and drive his remarkably preserved 1937 Mercedes 170V...
We spotted Don Murray’s gorgeous Iso Grifo coupe at his private collection in Irvine California, and wondered what it was. It was obviously Italian, based on its styling, and obviously a high-end touring car. In fact, it looked like a Bertone-designed Ferrrari, except for its unusual rectangular hood scoop called...
