Until its demise in 1988, Austin was a mainstay of the British automotive industry. Austin introduced millions of ordinary people to the joys of driving with models such as the Seven, A30, Mini, and Metro. Other highlights of the marque’s history included Austin-Healey sports cars...
From building motorcycle sidecars in a tiny workshop in a seaside town in northwest England, William Lyons’s company evolved into a manufacturer of high-quality sports cars and sedans. Over the decades, the Jaguar marque established a reputation for fast, refined cars, which it continues to...
Mini is now a fully fledged car brand encompassing estates, coupes, sports, and racing models, but at its heart lies a revolutionary small car, based on a design conceived by Sir Alec Issigonis in the mid-1950s. Now owned by BMW, the firm continues to build...
In Sir Alec Issigonis the world witnessed a true genius of automotive design, who single-handedly set the template for the modern small car. He was an exceptional talent with genuinely unique and radical ideas. An iconoclast and an outsider, Issigonis was also an individualist, and...
Acclaimed former rally driver and engineer Donald Healey became a car manufacturer in his own right in 1946. He wanted to build a high-performance, inexpensive sports car, and achieved that with the Healey 100. Launched at the London Motor Show in 1952, the two-seater roadster...
MG—the company that virtually invented affordable, fun, British sports cars—started life making stolid, unsporting Morris cars go faster, but it quickly adapted and modified them into some legendary models to produce “affordable, performance cars.”...