“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...
With the ground-breaking Mini at the forefront of the 1960s swing, lovers of high-performance cars favored the Jaguar E-type. Instantly recognizable and enormously desirable, it was never quite as fast as the public imagined. However, with aerodynamic lines clearly derived from the Le Mans-conquering D-type,...
The styling excesses of the 1950s gave way to a more conservative, more tasteful era in the 1960s. The change was most noticeable in premium saloon cars, with crisp and well-honed influences from Italian designers taking over from the brash styles pioneered in America. The...
The fastest cars of the 1960s were purpose-built road machines rather than the thinly veiled racers that had gone before. Though some of them did eventually hit the tracks in stripped-out, tuned-up form, the real purpose of these cars was to provide rapid motoring and...
The sonorous name of Maserati was, for its first two decades, chiefly associated with pure racing cars. In the 1960s, however, its various GT and luxury saloon models established the marque in the same sphere as Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Porsche. Nonetheless, plenty of ups...
When it came to engines, there were two options at the top end of the sports tourer spectrum. One of these was adopted by aristocratic names such as Bentley and Aston Martin, which built their own smooth and powerful six-cylinder and V8 engines to go...
There can be few individual cars so intrinsically linked to a country’s culture than France’s Citroen DS. Introduced in 1955, the DS instantly symbolized a technical adventurousness and space-age modernity that everyone could reasonably aspire to. Naturally, France’s leaders were quick to adopt the car...
Open-top cars were a hit with pleasure-seeking motorists in the 1960s, and there was a wide range to choose from. Even drivers with limited budgets were well catered for, with cheeky beach cars like the Mini Moke, and pint-sized roadsters, such as the Austin-Healey Sprite...