The great melting pot — America. A country whose rich diversity is reflected equally in its car culture, imbued for generations with the international tastes of its enthusiasts. While the nation’s love of American muscle is unmistakably loud and proud, it also embraces and celebrates the gamut of everything weird and wacky from the motoring world.
Enzo Ferrari famously stated – in the early years of his firm’s road car career – that his cars would be solely 12-cylinder powered. The practicalities of that decision probably didn’t sink in at first, but by the late Sixties, even he had to admit defeat, first introducing the V6-powered 206 and then the 246GT Dinos
There are many different types of hero in this world; ones that leap off tall buildings in a single bound, those who fight off evil empires, and then ones that fight off ghosts and drive VWs in their spare time… like John Vanek.
Having taken a gamble with a cheap project car, Bobby Mahi found a trusted pair of hands when it came to bringing this show winning Scirocco to life – he built it himself.
For Those About to Rock… …we salute your superior motoring choices. For David Gowar, it’s been a symphonic E30 Baur love affair for thirty years and counting – his 300,000-mile unrestored example is still going strong.
We’re going to have to take the ‘Roadster’ epithet with a pinch of salt. Sure, to all intents and purposes this car looks like a convertible. It’s certainly what I thought it was, every time I passed it. You see, it was parked outside a neighbour’s house for a week or two. And I happened to know that my neighbour is the proprietor of Hill Farm Automotives, which was selling the 1950 Studebaker Land Cruiser that too km’ learned Colleague Mark Dixon down Memory Lane a while ago.
Fiat’s rev-happy Strada Abarth 130TC may not be the most exalted hot hatch, but it has character to spare. We try a rare survivor and come away smitten.
After the closure of Abingdon and the end of MGB and Midget production, the prospect of a new MG sports car seemed a distant dream but, at Frankfurt in 1985, Austin-Rover stole the show
A long-held love of micro-vans and trucks meant that when Phil Egan spotted this odd little Acty up for sale, it was just too good an opportunity to miss.
The Pininfarina Azzurra Spider – née Fiat 124 Sport Spider – is a pretty car of timeless character; deserves decent and timeless drives. And 50 years of marriage warrants proper celebration so Australian couple Michael and Christa Wapler headed to Germany, picked up a low-mileage, very original 1985 Azzurra Spider, drove across the Alps and toured the Italian countryside. Under the Tuscan summer sun and more.
We drive a rare example of the Jaguar XJ-S based-Monaco, one of only 12 that were converted between the early Nineties and 2001 by PBB Design, that features characterchanging glass-fibre body panels
