While airbags have been an almost ubiquitous safety feature on cars since the 1990s, their origins can be traced back to American engineer John Hetrick in 1952. In the spring of that year, Hetrick, his wife and his seven-year-old daughter were out for a Sunday drive in their 1948 Chrysler Windsor. Cresting a hill, Hetrick encountered a rock in the road and swerved to avoid it.
Reeves Callaway is inextricably linked with the Chevrolet Corvette, the sometime single-seater driver turned tuner having made ‘America’s Only Sports Car’ go faster than ever seemed feasible. When you produce a hotted-up Corvette with, say, the name ‘Sledgehammer,’ you know it isn’t going to be shy or retiring. The C12, however, had a title that was positively tame by comparison, but then it was so much more than a reworked Corvette. It was a road car with racing car credentials, and one that was part-German.
Giovanni Michelotti shaped a bewildering array of cars, from oneoff coachbuilt exotica to best-selling mainstream future classics. We recall the Turinese styling great.
A recent study by US automotive consumer guide Edmunds revealed around 15 000 people are injured in automobile incidents while a vehicle is reversed in the United States alone. It’s a sobering statistic; one that becomes all the more tragic when we consider that of those, 210 are fatal and 31% involves children.
Amid the hot hatch revolution, Panther planned a groundbreaking sports car. Little did it or its low-volume British rivals know, Toyota had the same idea.
Strangely, Porsche’s domination of Group C in the 1980s seems almost to have been forgotten, unlike the 917’s crushing victories in 1970/71 that are regularly celebrated. Perhaps Group C never captured the popular imagination in the same way as Le Mans does.
Starting as a motorcycle manufacturer in 1948, Honda expanded its business operations to include automobiles in 1963. Prior to that, founder Soichiro Honda (1906–1991) had his people construct the Suzuka Circuit in 1962, believing that a car could not be improved upon unless it was being raced. The first foray into this four-wheel avenue was the T360 truck, followed by the S500 sportscar in October 1963. Predictably, motorsport became embedded in Honda’s vision for his company, which included the automaker’s first participation in Formula 1 from 1964–1968, with only two victories coming in 1965 and 1967.
By 1973 Jaguar’s motorsport glories were long behind it. It had been 16 years since one of its cars had last won the 24 Hours of Le Mans while even its final entry in the race it had once ruled was way back in 1964. And with parent company British Leyland lacking the resources to go racing, there seemed little chance of Jaguar returning to the track. Yet despite all of this, the company still had a presence at the 1973 British Grand Prix, albeit with a dated never-before-seen prototype.
The homely setting of Ferry Porsche’s front room provides the backdrop for this informal gathering one evening in March 1974. This was a preliminary discussion on the possibility of cooperating with a car manufacturer in what was then the Soviet Union.
We all have cars that we love because of a personal association and for me the Jaguar X-Type is just that. Yes, I know it has its haters, and the “nice Mondeo, mate” jokes can be a tad tiresome, but for me it’s car with a connection.
