Keith Adams One of the frustrating aspects of my past few months’ captivity due to my broken bones is enforced captivity. Don’t get me wrong, I like being at home, working in the office, and taking gentle strolls in the green and pleasant meadows of middle England, but I love travelling more. And taking away [...]

Kevin Davis The Princess Club 100 Special is surely the rarest of rare Princesses, rarer, even, than the much sought after Wolseley. The Club 100 was an internal Austin-Morris product brought about by the need to provide a car for their top 100 performing dealer principals, known as the ‘Club 100’. Rewards typically included holidays [...]

Ian Elliott In the recent thread about 2-litre Itals/Marinas, the subject of V8-engined Marinas was brought up. If I have rambled about this in any previous AROnline submission, I apologise, but here goes: Stuffing V8s into small, unsuspecting family cars is a long-practiced amusement of the hot-rodding fraternity, and the more unlikely the starting point, [...]

AROnline peeps behind the office door in the car showroom to see what skeletons lurk in the shadows: Mike Humble pays respect to the many people who inspired and nurtured his young passion for the motor trade rather than kicking him out of the showroom, while reckoning some sales staff of today, could stop and think about [...]

Another guest blog comes from Chris North, a sole trader and ex Sales Manager with Austin Rover – Honda – SAAB & Vauxhall. This man knows his onions (and his cars for that matter) I should know by the way… I worked with him!   My name is Chris North and this year marks an [...]

Keith Adams As usual, some excellent questions get posed by our readers. Take Ianto’s point in ‘Ask AROnline’ – ‘I love Roewe! The cars, the adverts and the amazing website… There is something about the Chinese interpretation of all things British that brings a smile to my face.’ It’s probably an ironic question, as I [...]

Keith Adams I must admit that the eternal soap opera that is BMC and its descendents never ceases to amaze and impress with its capacity to turn up new and exciting twists. As we all know, the drama should have ended – in 2005 – but, instead, it followed an exciting new tangent… in the [...]

Keith Adams A recent online discussion about old cars, the tag ‘classic’ was applied to a car I was discussing; more specifically, that the motor in question, a Peugeot 205 Gentry was ‘not a classic’. Considering I never said it was – but actually think these cars are quite special – I was more than [...]

Jemma Hawtry Today has been busy. I was driving through town and the car, a Renault Safrane, started to shimmy violently at any speed over 25mph. At first I thought that a wheel had come loose – since I had had a tyre replaced recently… I got out (in the busiest part of town naturally) [...]

Mike Humble says good riddance to 2011 and embraces the new year with both hands 2011 has left the building, its official. As a rule, I am often in bed long before the first strike of Big Ben come New Year’s Eve, but this last one, I made sure I was there to throw the [...]

Keith Adams It’s funny how the passage of time can sometimes take you unawares. Looking at AROnline’s fantastic ‘Archive’ feature is a great way of keeping stock of the company’s past – and it was in one of those idle moments, that I realised that the MG TF is a decade old already! To me, [...]

Mike Humble has packed his tools away for 2011 but one last job was undertaken, but this time, not on a Rover…  But he wishes it was! As I have mentioned before, Swiss Towers is situated in a deathly quiet cul-de-sac on the extreme outskirts of leafy Horsham, most of us know each other either by [...]

After spending time driving around the UK at Christmas, Mike Humble wonders if the Golf truly does lead where others merely follow. And comes to an unsurprising conclusion. Simply the best? I seem to have a certain affinity with Germany if I think and look hard enough, my record collection contains nearly everything Kraftwerk ever [...]

Richard Aucock 40 years ago this month, Sir Alec Issigonis, creator of Britain’s best-selling motoring icons, retired The creator of the original Mini, the Morris Minor, the Austin Maxi and Landcrab 1800 had reached the official BL retirement age of 65. And so, left full-time employment. He was to remain on as a design consultant [...]

Keith Adams What a shame. ‘What an absolute crying bloody shame, and a missed opportunity’. It’s all I could think after sitting through 90 minutes of prime-time car-based television adventuring thanks to the ‘boys’, and their increasingly immature, pointless old car antics. For those who didn’t watch (and I suggest you do while it’s still [...]

By Gemma Hawtry – or –  Stupid mode (well & truly): ON. Those petrolheads (sic) that follow the green side of things will have noticed some depressing stories of late. One of the more notable has been the outbreak of spontaneous Chevy Volt combustion. Another hailing from American shores is the (slightly dubious) calculation that [...]

William David In-car entertainment systems to keep children happy In daily life there are few situations more trying than a dispiriting car journey that stretches hour after hour. Having to conquer your own boredom and discomfort is one thing – but dealing with bored and fidgety children is quite another. And while adults may be [...]

Keith Adams The news that Victor Muller personally filed for bankruptcy at a Swedish court this morning comes as no surprise to me. Saabs have that effect on people – and I  guess owning the company amplifies that feeling of well-being and nurturing. In short, Saab owners care. It’s a shame, then, that Saab’s former [...]

Keith Adams Love-it-or-hate-it, Christmas is fast approaching, and that means most of us are thinking of anything but buying a new car. Well, I say ‘most of us’ – if you’re afflicted with the bug, you never stop looking, and right now, that could lead you towards some real bargains. Because with the rest of [...]

Steven Ward This is a book which came to me via recommendation as I’m no fan of American Iron. It is also largely about that unacceptable face of Capitalism that is GM. So, under duress I started reading it and within a couple of paragraphs I encountered a problem – I just couldn’t put it [...]