With production ceasing in the UK in the late 1950s, the Morris Oxford Series III was reborn almost immediately in India Renamed the Hindustan Ambassador, it was the first car to be built on the subcontinent (rather than merely assembled), and retained its dominant position...
American motoring muscle reached its zenith at the start of the 1970s. V8 engines were bigger than ever before, and delivered unprecedented power. The fastest and rarest muscle cars were the specials built for NASCAR racing, such as the aerodynamic Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth...
From respected component manufacturer to car-maker, to core brand of the Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles, Dodge has become a fixture in US motoring history that survives and thrives today. Merged into Chrysler as a mid-priced brand, it blossomed in the 60s muscle car boom, and was the...
In the late 1950s inventive American motor fanatics created an inexpensive, exhilarating new pastime for themselves—sand-dune racing. Lightweight beach buggies were constructed for the races using the remains of crash-damaged Volkswagen Beetles and a simple glassfibre conversion kit. It was back-to-basics, off-road fun, and four-wheel...
The utilitarian off-road vehicles designed during World War II matured into pick-ups, estates, and SUVs that offered comfort and convenience features such as power steering, coil-spring suspension, and automatic transmission, but still retained that essential go-anywhere capability. They made excellent towing vehicles, too, and with...
Arguably the greatest name in the history of car styling, Nuccio Bertone’s company was one of the world’s longest-lived design brands. Under Nuccio’s guidance the company created pioneering and commercially successful designs for the likes of Alfa Romeo and Lamborghini, applied ideas of genius to...
The winner of the Rally World Championships in 1974,1975, and 1976, the Lancia Stratos was developed from a striking, fluorescent orange, wedge-shaped concept car designed by Bertone and launched at the Turin Motor Show in 1971. Swapping that model’s four-cylinder Lancia engine for Ferrari’s Dino...
“I’d sooner die than imitate other people . . . That’s why we had to work so hard, because we didn’t imitate.” SOICHIRO HONDA, FOUNDER OF HONDA MOTOR COMPANY The 1970s was as turbulent for the car industry as it was for society and the world economy at...
Although Dodge was already well-established as a manufacturer of cars and trucks, it was its record-breaking achievements on the Bonneville Salt Flats in the 1950s that really got America sitting up and taking notice. Beneath a scorching sun the company smashed no fewer than 196...
In the 1960s, if you wanted the epitome of speed and style, these exotic (and expensive) sports cars provided it. The established Italian firms, Ferrari and Maserati, made the cars everyone aspired to, and later in the decade they were joined by a third Italian...