Alfa Romeo SZ, 1989 SZ This limited edition GT was a collaboration between Fiat’s styling centre, where the original idea came from, Alfa Romeo, and coach-builder Zagato, the last of which looked after construction of the 1,035 examples that were built between 1989 and 1991. Its codename...
Muscle cars powered onto the American motoring scene in the 1960s, driven by ever-larger and more sophisticated V8 engines. The biggest cars were well over 7.0 liters and produced around 400 bhp. Competitive racers were even more powerful. Ford’s 427 cu in big-block and Chrysler’s...
Chevrolet Corvette Z06, 2005 Corvette Z06 The most noticeable feature of the sixth-generation of America’s star-spangled sports car were its headlights, under plastic fairings rather than of the pop-up variety. The ultra-high-performance Z06 had a lightweight alloy chassis, and the hand-built V8 engine was both the biggest-capacity...
Between 1946 and 1976 Chevrolet was the bestselling brand of car in the US. After it adopted V8 engines in the 1950s, Chevrolets, like the Bel Air, Corvette, and Camaro, became synonymous with speed and power, although the range would always be enormous and all-encompassing....
Cadillac CTS-V, 2004 CTS-V The basic CTS saloon was considerably beefed up to cope with the huge extra power from the Corvette engine, gaining a special cradle for the engine, huge brakes, and the Corvette LS6’s manual transmission. The car could do 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in...
Mass-market cars of the 1960s were often built to template, with a four-cylinder engine at the front, driven wheels at the back, and styling that did little to excite. There were plenty of exceptions, however. The best of the family cars of the era were...
LaFerrari, 2013 LaFerrari The ultimate Ferrari, and some would say it was the ultimate hypercar, of its era. Together with the Porsche 918 Spider and McLaren P1, LaFerrari marked the arrival of hybrid powertrain technology in supercars, delivering 789 bhp from its 6.3-liter, V12 engine and adding...
The most successful contender in an admittedly very small field, this German-built, amphibious vehicle was exported around the world in the 1960s. An undoubted oddball, it even developed a small cult following in the US, where around 3,000 examples were sold, and survivors are still...
Small cars became big news. With more and more people living in cities, and traffic overwhelming the road networks of London, Paris, and Rome, tiny cars were one solution for beating the traffic jams—and their size made parking much easier. There was no real consensus...
Mini Cooper S JCW GP, 2006 Cooper S JCW GP This is perhaps the ultimate version of the first, 2001-launched, BMW-era Mini. Only around 2,000 of these cars were built, signing it off before the Mk2 arrived. The supercharged 1,600cc engine pushed this car from 0-60 mph...