When Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries ousted President Batista from power in 1959, it signalled a rapid departure for most Americans from the island paradise. The US trade embargo subsequently imposed on Cuba meant that the cars they left behind—1940s and 1950s Cadillacs, Buicks, Fords, Chevrolets, and...
Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) started life as an aero engine manufacturer in Munich, Germany in 1916, before diversifying into road vehicles. The company had a burst of glory in the 1930s, but it was only in 1961 that BMW really started its journey to become...
The world of top-level espionage never stands still. Maverick MI6 agent, James Bond, may have become inextricably linked with Aston Martins, the DB5 especially, but things changed in the 1970s and ’80s. The very latest in British motoring excitement was required, and Lotus stepped into...
The small-car template set in the mid-1970s matured in the '80s. Front-wheel drive, a transverse four-cylinder engine with the gearbox and final drive on the end, and a hatchback body with three or five doors became the format for the majority of car sales in...
A colossus in the world of design, Giorgetto Giugiaro is often regarded as the greatest car stylist of all time. A precocious talent, he showed an aptitude for design while still a teenager, and created some of the most beautiful car shapes in history. He...
Fast cars took a radical new direction in the 1980s. Led by Audi’s Quattro, a new generation of performance machines adopted four wheel-drive for the first time, delivering optimum traction and improved handling. The Quattro was soon winning in rallies, where loose-surface traction is vital,...
A true pocket-rocket, the 1980 Renault 5 Turbo was clearly related to the company’s popular Super Cinq, but in terms of engineering, construction, and performance it was a whole different beast. Intended primarily for rallying, and therefore pitted head to head with cars such as...
“Mud, snow, water, woods—you can take a rented car anywhere. True, you can’t always get it back—but that’s not your problem, is it?” SATIRIST P.J. O’ROURKE IN HIS 1987 BOOK REPUBLICAN PARTY REPTILE (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ...
There was a greater choice of affordable, high-style coupes in this decade than there had ever been before. Some had two doors, some were offered with three, and almost all were based to some degree on the engines, transmissions, suspension components, and structural platforms of...
A galaxy of legendary road and racing cars has carried the Porsche family name since 1948. There is an unbroken lineage from the earliest 356 to the current 911, spiced with countless race successes, although Porsche's non-sports car models have proven even more popular with...