In bygone times of limited media communications, motor shows gave a unique opportunity to admire and compare the newest models and learn of the latest developments in automotive design. Events in Paris, Turin, Geneva, Detroit, and London attracted many thousands of visitors. Car manufacturers used...
In the 1930s the French motor industry had been one of the most vibrant on the planet, but after the war, in the mid- to late 1940s, it struggled to regain its momentum. Peugeot had dabbled in electric cars before production was stopped by occupying...
Parisian Andre Citroën started business life in the gear-making industry (this is obvious in the double chevrons of the helical gears in the marque’s logo). He amassed a fortune manufacturing shells in World War I and, having studied Henry Ford’s car-making methods, decided to spend...
Low-cost motoring had been popularized in the 1920s and 1930s by the Ford Model T in the US and the Austin Seven in the UK. In the 1940s many more small economical cars arrived to provide motoring for the masses—often using tiny, two-cylinder engines....
Motor sport was too frivolous a hobby in occupied France, but at least these adults could enjoy the spectacle of children racing in pedal cars. Like toy cars, pedal cars had been around since the early days of motoring. They reached their height of popularity...
Bombastic, chintzy, overblown—these are some of the criticisms regularly levelled at the designs of Harley J. Earl. But this undoubted overlord of 1950s’ American auto styling certainly knew how to design cars that the public craved. In doing so, he created some of the most...
US car-makers big and small kept buyers interested in the latest models by accelerating the introduction of bold, new, full-width styling and by updating designs annually as the 1940s wore on....
Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino, or the Italian Car Factory of Turin) was founded on 11 July 1899, by Giovanni Agnelli and quickly established itself in almost every automotive sector....
Produced from 1935-55, the MG T series was a popular range of small, convertible sports cars, mostly steel-bodied on a wooden frame, and capable of around 80mph (129 km/h). . ....
With the motor industry hitting its stride again after the war, thoughts could turn to sports cars once again. Jaguar introduced the XK120, the fastest production car of the era, which went on to set speed records and sire successful racing machines....