China has contributed many great things to the world throughout the ages. Gunpowder, paper, printing, the umbrella and the compass...
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, much of the world quietly celebrated the 100th anniversary...
Tony Valadez’ elegant 1939 Pontiac convertible is everything later Pontiac muscle cars are not. The later cars were brash, flashy and fast. Tony’s vintage Pontiac is none of these things. Instead it is handsome and understated. It is also roomy, comfortable, smooth, quiet, durable and dependable. And when I say...
There were many interesting and familiar cars parked at the 2018 Hillsborough Concours d’Elegance. Ferraris, Packards, Jaguars and some vintage...
It was possibly the greatest automotive marketing slogan ever – “Ask the Man Who Owns One.” Packards were such high...
If you visited a car show in 1963 or 1964, you would have seen concept cars on display from many different manufactures, just as you do today. Concept cars are built to showcase new and futuristic designs and to capture the imagination of the public. The public’s response to these...
1990 Ferrari F40 It has been 30 years since the last car ordered by Enzo Ferrari reached its first owners....
1930 Bentley Speed Six A bloke couldn’t think of anything more dissimilar if he tried. From a Boeing 737, to...
1936 De Soto Airflow The story of De Soto begins with a record for first year sales that stood for just over 30 years. It ends when Chrysler Corporation undercut its sales with a lower-priced Chrysler Newport and killed the brand. In between, it’s an amazing tale of ups and...
1948 Chrysler Town & Country Chris Kidd called a few days ago and said, “You guys have to see this!...
Writing about vintage automobiles is great. There are rare cars to cover (“The Only One” Vintage Roadcar, December 2013), cars...
1954 Chrysler Ghia GS1 When Bob Frumpkin drove up in his 1954 Chrysler Ghia GS1 Special, at the Marina in Santa Monica, California, where we had agreed to meet, office workers and the boatyard crew came out to have a look. Several of them took out their cell phones and...
David Owen, in a 1975 article for Automobile Quarterly, Volume XIII Number 2, commented that, “If God had meant us...
It was irresistible and I just had to have it. Back in 1976, my friend Keith had learnt the whereabouts...
Prelude to Excellence There is a story that the Coventry car company name Alvis originated by taking “Al” from the word aluminum and “vis”, the Latin word for power or force. The supposed author, Geoffrey de Freville, founder of the Aluminum Piston Company, who had commissioned the company’s founding father,...
I spotted Phil Jelinek’s beautiful ’53 Kaiser Traveler Deluxe from across the Huntington Beach Concours show field. That is because...
Today, the words failure and BMW are an anathema: the Munich company is a model of success. But, it wasn’t...
Refrigerators, Motorcycles, Microcars, Sports Coupes – All Connected in a Forgotten Italian Marque Italian marques such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Fiat and Maserati are all well known to us, but there are others that after their time in the sun are no longer with us. ASA, Bizzarrini, Moretti,...
Henry Ford was truly one of a kind: egotistical yet compassionate; rich yet thrifty; genius yet ignorant. No man— industrialist,...
1955 Citroën Traction Avant Light 15 The UK’s sales brochure from the Slough manufacturers of then Citroën Traction Avant cars...
1958 DKW Monza There are many unusual and interesting cars in the Lane Motor Museum. Seldom is there a visitor who knows the names of all the cars or has even heard of all of them. One company that is familiar to some is DKW, but the 1958 Monza is...
Mathis VL 333 Alain Cerf, whose collection makes up the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum, is an inquisitive man with an...
1956 Ford Fairlane Victoria I had seen, and worked on, a lot of mid-1950s Fords over the years, so I...
1983 Ferrari 512 BBi When word gets out that a particular car will be profiled, lots of comments, mostly unsolicited, are received. In the case of the Ferrari 512BBi, the comments ranged from “it’s a beast, and it will bite you,” to “it’s a puppy dog; powerful, but sweet.” When...
1948 Delahaye 135M Cabriolet It is difficult to decide whether the Italians or the French designed the most beautiful cars...
1928 3-liter Invicta LC197 Many will know the Invicta story, one of the many projects spearheaded by Noel Macklin. Born...
Toyota 2000 GT In the world of collectable vintage sports cars, well-known names come to mind: Ferrari, Porsche, Jaguar, and many others originating from the European continent, plus a few American sports cars in the mix, like the Corvette and Cobra, but rarely any cars from the Island of Japan. The...
1977 Triumph Stag When the new Triumph Stag was announced in the UK it was welcomed as a significant addition...
Sometimes, when asked for a list of significant cars, a marque can be overlooked. It is seldom because the marque...
1964 Imperial Crown Coupe It was clear that this would be the start of something big just by opening the door on Wendy and Bob Walker’s 1964 Imperial Crown Coupe. And I mean big. The long, heavy door is just one part of a long, heavy car—longer and heavier than...
