Every car guy, collector and car designer knows the two major categories that separate car designs—Pre-war and Post-war. Pre-war cars...
Vintage Roadcar Columns
Has history caught up with the electric car? I mention in my column on the other side of the magazine...
When people hear I am a car designer, questions come up: “What is your favorite car?” “What car do you drive? “What makes a car beautiful and how come cars are not as pretty as they used to be?” The first questions are easy to answer. The last one, a...
Do these bellbottoms make my car look fat? Show of hands…how many of you sported a pair of bellbottoms in...
Car design has been a key part of automotive history since the very first series of carriages was built for...
Some 9,500 miles separate Davenport, Iowa, and Victoria, Australia, but this great distance is no obstacle for a group of people who all share a common bond, a love for Corvettes. I received an email from Joe Calleja, managing director of Apex Steel in Victoria. Joe owns a 1966 Corvette...
In the automotive world, surprisingly, quite a lot. Just prior to this November’s Los Angeles Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz made the...
In 1954, the AC company, in Thames Ditton unveiled a new car, a beautiful coupe called the AC Aceca. Many...
Let’s embrace the enthusiast passion… even if we don’t always understand it. I was recently having a conversation about a car show, with a colleague, when he launched off into a rant on the inclusion of “Rat Rods” in this show. For those unfamiliar, Rat Rods are an “homage” to...
So often the cars I research come with stories permanently attached. Stories of celebrity ownership or the classic “Fangio drove...
Casey Annis Editor/Publisher Jaguar is apparently a cat with more than six lives to live. Last month is this space,...
Not too long ago, a very good friend called me about his 1967 4.2 Jaguar XKE OTS. He had two precise questions for me to research and a task. First, was his XKE a Series 1 or Series 1.5? Second, was his car originally equipped with an enclosed headlight bonnet...
Alfa Romeo’s return to the American market is great for Alfisti and enthusiasts in general. At the time of this...
If you’ve spent any kind of time in the collector car world, then you’ve certainly heard the word “provenance” bantered...
Three-owner Kellison was extracted from a barn, in 1986, and restored by author, racer and rally organizer Rich Taylor. I should have known better. I stood next to the 1959 Kellison J-4R as the owner clambered in through the window. Key inserted, he started the car. Better said, he lit...
The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (formerly known as the Monterey Historic Automobile Races) is 40 years old this year! Pheww,...
As classic car enthusiasts, we live with a foot in two completely different worlds. One foot is firmly placed in...
There’s an old adage about “the steady march of progress.” The truth, in fact, is that when it comes to technology and innovation, game-changing, massive leaps in progress are highly sporadic. Years or even decades can go by with just small, incremental gains before one key discovery or innovation comes...
Can you hear that sound? It’s me, beginning to climb way out on a limb. Like most enthusiasts, I was...
It’s hard to believe that the bane of every Lotus Elan owner has just turned 25. It was early February,...
I pulled my Alfa over into a little layby, off the twisty road that climbs from the Pacific Ocean, up to the top of Southern California’s Palos Verdes hillside. It’s a solid 2,000-foot climb that snakes its way up to the tallest point along the Los Angeles coastline. It’s also...
If you think about the classic car community, as a whole it is obsessed with categorizing things. It’s difficult to...
I stumbled across a story the other day that caught me off guard. It was a report that a three-man...
Volkswagen recently sent out a press release announcing that production of the iconic T2 VW Bus would soon be coming to an end. Huh? Volkswagen is/was still making the ultimate Baby-Boomer, Hippie-wagen? As VW aficionados will be well aware, despite being discontinued long ago, VW Beetles and Transporters (nee buses),...
You may recall that back in April I wrote on these pages about the unprecedented pace that the collector car...
Last November, in this space, I addressed the hot button issue of where tomorrow’s enthusiasts and collectors will come from....
I have to confess to being Corvette prejudiced. Growing up I was never a fan of the Corvette, in fact in my automotive youth I pretty much looked down my oversized nose at it. When friends or schoolmates would wax whimsical about their dream car being a Corvette, I would...
Thorough Events Ltd, organizer of last year’s inaugural UK Concours of Elegance at Windsor Castle, has announced an equally prestigious...
Not sure why, but I seem to be having a number of automotive epiphanies lately, as a result of driving...
Living in Southern California, we’re admittedly pretty jaded when it comes to the classic cars we see on the road, on a day-to-day basis. Porsches, Ferraris, Cobras (real and re-imagined) for sure, but even exotic pre-war machinery. It’s like living in an alternate dimension when you see a Type 35...
