What’s better than a Mk2 Escort van? A Mk2 Escort van that’s been brought back from the dead, fitted with an ST170 lump and set-up for fast-road heroics, that’s what!
Ex-RAF man John Purcell knows Britain’s quick jets inside-out – and his automotive tastes favour fast flag-fliers too. Will a 1976 TVR Taimar be his top gun?
With its V8 now to six litres and featuring fuel injection plus a modern six-speed gearbox and beefed-up suspension, this 1976 AM V8 Saloon is a modern interpretation of an always popular classic Aston Martin.
Though built 50 years apart, these two have something in common: both were make-or-break models for Rolls-Royce. We visit the man who owns them, and drive each car to see how the company’s unique qualities persisted across half a century.
Serial Mk1 modifier, Stuart Shellard is back with a bang for his sixth PVW feature. With 1.8T power, Harris trim, air and those gorgeous E30 splits, he’s got the ingredients right once again but haven’t we seen this car somewhere before?
Panel vans are prosaic machines, best-suited for goods deliveries or carting the tools of a trade with a pair of doors and seating up front, window-less cargo area down back. Yet by Australia’s mid-1970s, packs of dollied-up, bright-hued panel vans had become cult cars from Bondi to the Back of Beyond. Ford, Holden and Chrysler all turned their hand to adding sporting pretensions stripes and fancy wheels and engine options to the humble van; a marketing, and styling, exercise to cash in on a young, and mainly male, fad for dressing up work vehicles for weekend leisure. Surfing and sex were the chief leisure activities facilitated by a fancy van out of work hours.
As a young 18 year old my first car was a Mazda 1300. I had the big dream that my next car would be a Ford Falcon XY GT 351. My brother told me I was mad, you will kill yourself and so the search of an alternative ended up with the purchase of an Italian Lancia Beta Coupe. This is where my love of Fiats and Lancia’s came from, sharing a common twin cam motor and very easy to work on while offering enough performance and driving enjoyment.
If the V8 Vantage is the first British supercar, then this 1976 prototype is the origin of the species. We look at the history of the car before driving it ourselves.
If the Formula One circus wasn’t already reeling from the shock of big-haired drivers sporting pork chop sideburns and man-medallions, nothing could prepare them for the arrival of the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34 in 1976
Alan Sweet did such a great job rebuilding this 1976 Pontiac Trans Am that his friend Martin Bishop couldn’t resist buying it. Then when Martin sold it, guess who took it off his hands…? 1976 Pontiac Trans Am.
