An amazing thing happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the fall of 2019. A couple of automobile enthusiasts proposed the Chattanooga...
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 – for our weekly pastrami and beer “business” luncheon. We pulled into the parking lot in my ’40 LaSalle coupe, and to our surprise, there were several other vintage cars...
How would you, as a recent college graduate, like to have a job that allowed you to drive a very...
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 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...
With a shiver of trepidation, I slip behind the wheel of the museum’s grand 1936 Packard phaeton Standard Eight parade...
Although marriages of Italian styling with German machinery are seen as a rarity, the clever way that Bertone clothed a...
Corvette’s contemporary ZO6 is enough to strike terror into the hearts of those who drive slower cars, such as Ferraris at the Nürburgring. Well, okay, perhaps not terror, but certainly a modicum of frustration. That’s because today’s ZO6 offerings have blown the doors off of competition that costs many times...
Have you ever seen a Commuter? I’m talking about a 1959 Mercury Commuter two-door station wagon. Not many of us...
“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 to be is one of the goals of this profile. Another goal is to introduce you to two very nice examples of the MGA line. It’s your choice which you...
I was out walking the other day, and tripped on a grate in the pavement and fell hard… down hill....
Dodge and Plymouth stylists hated them, Bill France hated them, but, the racers? Racers loved them, as long as they...
The Bugatti 57SC has long been coveted by automotive historians and enthusiasts as one of the ultimate expressions of pre-war automotive design and engineering, with a precious few chassis originally constructed and each example appreciated as exceptional and bespoke. Some versions of the 57SC have achieved stratospheric desirability and value...
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...
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,...
Years ago, a friend and I were in an old Dodge plumber’s van on our way to the Pebble Beach...
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...
When I moved to Tennessee a few years ago, one of the first things I did was look for a...
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 W136 roadster that was custom built in Germany for export to Britain. This last detail is evident because it is right-hand drive, and is equipped with British lighting and signal...
Why an auto manufacture would choose a motto, “Le Juste Milieu,” that means “The Happy Mean,” will remain unanswered despite...
We spotted Don Murray’s gorgeous Iso Grifo coupe at his private collection in Irvine California, and wondered what it was....
Beverly Rae Kimes has been called the “First Lady of Automotive History” for good reason. She has written histories of many of the great cars of the 20th century. Her article titled “Auburn – From Runabout to Speedster,” published in Automobile Quarterly Volume V, Number 4, provides an interesting opinion about Auburn automobiles:...
In the 1940s, Chrysler Corporation’s Dodge division had a reputation for building solid, dependable, conservatively styled cars. That was fine,...
Alex Bacon grew up a student of automobile design. He cut his teeth as a teenager with a ground up...
Pontiac had built a well-deserved reputation as General Motors performance division by 1967. Innovative performance enhancing engineering, matched with attractive but aggressive styling, set the division apart from the pack. The legendary Wide-Track chassis introduced in 1959 captured the public’s imagination and the automotive media’s praise. Motor Trend magazine named Pontiac...
