Have you ever seen a Commuter? I’m talking about a 1959 Mercury Commuter two-door station wagon. Not many of us...
A frenzy of uncorked Mini Coopers, followed by a gaggle of vintage MGs, Triumphs and other assorted vintage sports racers...
We had spent the previous evening at Justin Marshall and his wife Shirley’s spectacular hilltop home overlooking their winery in Paso Robles, California. It was a warm beautiful summer night. We sipped a bit of Marshall’s award-winning wine, took in the incomparable view with the Pacific Ocean in the distance,...
Back in 1982, I bought a 1940 Packard coupe and spent the next couple of years restoring it. Once I...
Joe Conzonire eases his 1903 Packard Model F Runabout out of his shop and pulls it into the sunlight. It...
“100 miles per hour speed with 100 percent comfort and docility.” This proclamation was made in an advertisement that appeared for the Bentley 8-Litre in the April 17th, 1931 issue of Autocar magazine, touting the performance of what Bentley claimed was, “The world’s finest car”. Nearly a century later, many...
How would you, as a recent college graduate, like to have a job that allowed you to drive a very...
The MGA should have happened several years before it did. The story of why it didn’t and how it came...
The names of the great marques roll off the tongue like poetry—Porsche, Jaguar, Maserati, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce and, of course, Ferrari. And, the best of these manufacturers reserve a special model name for their most significant cars. Think Carrera GT, Silver Ghost, SSK and Ghibli and you need no further description...
In September 2022, I travelled to Townsend, Tennessee, in the Great Smokey Mountains for Okteenerfest. The annual gathering of Porsche...
We spotted Don Murray’s gorgeous Iso Grifo coupe at his private collection in Irvine California, and wondered what it was....
Dodge and Plymouth stylists hated them, Bill France hated them, but, the racers? Racers loved them, as long as they were driving one of them. Other racers really hated them too. They were considered weird looking, but they worked very well, thanks to the engineers who were tasked with making...
At the Brits At The Beach car show in New Zealand recently, among the classic Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs and Morris...
Beverly Rae Kimes has been called the “First Lady of Automotive History” for good reason. She has written histories of...
About 30 years ago, BMW shocked the automotive world by introducing a sexy and technically unique 2 place, drop-top sports car prototype at the Frankfurt Motor Show. This exciting show car was the first creation to come from BMW’s new skunk works – BMW Technik GmbH. This was a group...
Singer-songwriter Carol Connors once bet Carroll Shelby that if she wrote him a hit song, he’d give her a Cobra....
Throughout history, French manufacturers have created some of the most unusual automotive designs ever made. Most will agree that many...
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...
The spectacular Mercedes-Benz 540K represented the zenith of pre-war accomplishments by the Stuttgart-based firm in the pre-war era. It is...
Chatting with Barry Alan Twitchell about his Porsche 993, he remembered that during a dinner in Switzerland, the owner of...
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...
We met up with Gary Humecke in Thousand Oaks, California to see and drive his remarkably preserved 1937 Mercedes 170V...
A 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe eight-passenger station wagon’s doors are big, so climbing in is easy. The bench seats are...
Charles Kettering, one time head of research at General Motors, once said: “People are very open-minded about new things – so long as they are exactly like the old ones.” Studebaker tried to prove him wrong but lacked the capacity to make an impression. Then came the Mustang. Ford’s Pony...
When someone says “Sunbeam,” most car people immediately think of the “Tiger.” Sunbeam was much more than just that one...
People were standing around this tiny roadster on display at the Hillsborough Concours, attracting a crowd, all day. It’s unusual...
David Dunbar Buick David Dubar Buick was born in Arbroath, Scotland, in 1854, and brought to Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 2. By the 1880s, he was a successful inventor in the plumbing field, inventing among other things, the lawn sprinkler and a new process for coating metal bath...
“You’ve got to see this car!” said Robert Escalante, internationally known restorer of classic Packard automobiles. And he wouldn’t have...
More Cylinders: Jessie Vincent and the Packard Twin Six engine “The greatest piece of machinery that ever went upon the...
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...