From the earliest days of this famous British marque, the design and manufacture of its cars has focused on quality, refinement, and reliability. As a result, Rolls-Royces have long been known as the best cars in the world, so much so that the Rolls-Royce name...
The 1920s saw huge changes in the driving world, as high-volume production pushed down prices, and it became the norm for the middle classes in Europe and the United States to own cars. An Atlantic divide emerged, with European mainstream cars mostly being powered by...
In 1926 the ailing Duesenberg firm was bought by the businessman Errett Lobban Cord, who already owned the Auburn motor company and would go on to create a famous car margue under his own name. Cord briefed the Duesenberg brothers to design the ultimate high-speed...
The Roaring Twenties was a time of great style and decadence among the moneyed classes, where traditional wealthy families began to be outnumbered by newly rich film stars, business tycoons, and gangsters. The glamour and excitement of their lifestyle was reflected in the cars built...
Despite the recession that hit much of the world in the aftermath of World War I, there were still plenty of wealthy customers in the 1920s looking for the latest and most opulent carriages to transport them across Europe or the United States. Expensive cars...
In 1926, perceiving that its customers wanted more power and greater refinement, U.S. luxury car maker Cadillac began developing a new breed of multi-cylinder engines. The result was the extraordinary V16, intended to outdo the V12 of its main competitor, Packard....
The Type 35 Bugatti was emblematic of France’s racing prowess in the 1920s. In motor sport, it was the French equivalent of the legendary British Bentley. The Bugatti was the product of an engineer born into a family of artists: For Ettore Bugatti, aesthetic perfection...
The 1920s saw rapid technological progress in the world of competition cars, as the emphasis moved from proving road cars by racing them, to developing and testing advanced engineering in race models—and then adapting it to road cars. This decade saw innovations such as multiple...
Strictly speaking, only one Rolls-Royce is named Silver Ghost: the unique, silver-painted, 40/50 hp open tourer with silver trim that was used in 1907 for a 15,000-mile (24,000-km) reliability trial. The title has, however, been retrospectively applied to all examples of the 40/50 hp made...
Car makers saved their finest work for their richest customers. Such customers would not tolerate unreliability, and demanded cars that gave far greater performance than traditional horse-drawn carriages. They also demanded comfort—an important factor on the rough roads of the early 20th century—and luxuries such...