Concepts
Blog : Time called for time-warp Ford dealer
Mike Humble Anyone who has traversed the A509 trunk road between Wellingborough and Milton Keynes will surely agree that it’s a boring and busy road swamped with fun spoiling speed restrictions and traffic calming measures. When I lived in the County of spires and squires known as Northamptonshire, I used this road on thousands of occasions [...]
May 6, 2013
· 
Mike Humble · 
44 Comments
News : MG unveils CS SUV Concept at Auto Shanghai
The arrival of the MG CS Concept is tangible evidence that SAIC Motor has serious global plans for the British marque. It’s a concept that hints at the next-generation model to be released by the company – and, although there’s no indication if it will go on sale in the UK, the Chinese company has [...]
April 23, 2013
· Keith Adams · 46 Comments
Blog : To MGB or not to MGB – that is the question!
Mike Humble Ever said those fatal words “yeah, I can do that, no problem” and wished you hadn’t? It’s something we all say, all get burnt with and never ever seem to learn from. A very good friend of mine, who also supplied me with Project Partridge – aka the 800 Vitesse coupé, is a real Brit car [...]
April 12, 2013
· Mike Humble · 11 Comments
Geneva Motor Show 2013 : JLR round-up
Words and photography Andrew Elphick In the middle of hall five, spanning adjacent stands Tata’s luxury brands, Jaguar and Land Rover stood bold as brass – and with good reason. AROnline was present at the press conference, and here our the best bits, just for you: First up, making its European launch was the XFR-S [...]
March 10, 2013
· Keith Adams · 16 Comments
Geneva Motor Show 2013 : Land Rover Defender Electric
Keith Adams, photography Andrew Elphick Land Rover unveiled its electric Defender at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. It’s currently a research project, but Land Rover says it could enter production if there’s sufficient demand. It’s a full-electric vehicle that sees its standard 2.2-litre turbodiesel engine and gearbox replaced by a 70kW (94bhp), 243lb ft electric [...]
March 5, 2013
· Keith Adams · One Comment
The Bus Section : Leyland Atlantean
Mike Humble Atlantean: bearing the weight of the world Should you be of a certain age, a bus still rustles up a mental picture of something big and noisy with large 22.5in tyres that rattles your fillings and windows with the thumping growling big block Gardner or Leyland 680 power unit. The sights, sounds and [...]
March 4, 2013
· Mike Humble · 29 Comments
Concepts and prototypes : Allegro Equipe
Keith Adams, photography, Stephen Harper In the lead-up to the launch of the series 3 Austin Allegro, newly-recruited Austin Apprentice Stephen Harper joined the team of young stylists tasked with raising the appeal of the Longbridge-built mid-liner. Harper had already come up with the LE limited edition, and the Equipe was a development of this [...]
January 9, 2013
· Keith Adams · 26 Comments
Concepts and prototypes : Wolfrace Sonic
Keith Adams The Sonic was the brainchild of the alloy wheel manufacturer, Wolfrace. The company wanted to create an eye-catching concept car to showcase its new range of Sonic alloys – you might recognise the ‘pepper pot’ style, which was used in the Ford Fiesta XR2, Capri 2.8 Injection, and MG Metro 1300. It approached [...]
December 31, 2012
· Keith Adams · 10 Comments
Concepts and prototypes : Vauxhall Equus
Keith Adams IN 1977, Vauxhall-Bedford’s hugely talented design director, Wayne Cherry, penned his idea of how a new generation sports car for the masses should look. The car incorporated a considerable amount of his then-current thinking – so it received the famous Vauxhall droop-snoot, a long, low bonnet, and stubby high tail. It was seemingly [...]
December 31, 2012
· Keith Adams · 27 Comments
Concepts and prototypes : Bertone Jaguar Ascot
Keith Adams For the 1977 Turin Show, Bertone unveiled the sensationally wedgy Jaguar XJ-S based Ascot. Choosing to create a Jaguar-based concept has always been fraught with difficulties for the Italians – not least because Jaguars have such strong DNA that whenever they stray too far away from what’s come before, that essential ‘Jaguarness’ is [...]
December 30, 2012
· Keith Adams · 13 Comments
Concepts and prototypes : Ghia Ford Corrida
Keith Adams Twenty years before the brilliant Puma emerged, Ford’s talented Ghia styling studios had a crack at at building a sports coupe based on the brand new Fiesta. Although these pint-sized sports cars were all the rage with the Italians (look at the Fiat 850 Coupe or 128 3P for a couple of great [...]
December 29, 2012
· Keith Adams · 9 Comments
Concepts : Land Rover LRX
The second ever Land Rover concept was revealed at the 2008 Detroit motor show, after being previewed to the press in December 2007. It was a design masterpiece, and few would have suspected that it would go into production with almost unchanged styling just three years later. In fact, we’re struggling to think of any car [...]
November 28, 2012
· Keith Adams · 29 Comments
News : Rover P8 breaks cover at HMC
Words: Keith Adams Photography: Eamonn Burnell and Nick Dunning Disturbing photographs taken last weekend of ‘priceless’ one-off prototypes being stored in the open at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon have been sent into AROnline. The cars – including most notably the only remaining Rover P8 prototype, booted Metro, AR6, and famous ‘pizza delivery’ mid-engined [...]
October 14, 2012
· Keith Adams · 92 Comments
Buy parts with AROnline and Rimmer Bros
KEITH ADAMS Rimmer Bros sponsored AROnline‘s Polish SD1 restoration… Buying parts for your Jaguar, Rover, Lands Rover, Triumph or MG has never been easier through AROnline… HERE at AROnline, we receive a large numbers of emails from people all over the world looking for parts for their cars MGs, Rovers, Landies and all manner of [...]
August 20, 2012
· Keith Adams · 3 Comments
Concepts and prototypes : Ford Probe III
Keith Adams Back in 1981, when the development of the Ford Sierra (project Toni), was reaching its latter stages of its development, management felt the need soften the buying public. The styling, penned by Patrick Le Quement, was as avant garde as its predecessor, the Cortina’s, was conservative. So, the design team produced a more [...]
August 16, 2012
· Keith Adams · 11 Comments
Concepts : 1991 Rover Metro SP
Rover Special Products wanted to recreate the magic of the early-’80s by producing a spiritual successor to the MG Metro Turbo. The Metro SP was that car, and it made it to full-sized styling prototype. Keith Adams Special K While Rover Special Products had handed out the Montego Lifestyle and Maestro-based Tarka to Steve Harper [...]
August 1, 2012
· Keith Adams · 34 Comments
Concepts : Montego ‘Lifestyle’ estate
Rover Special Products was one busy department during the early 1990s, and proof positive is this design sketch from Steve Harper. Keith Adams Jacked-up Monty As we know, Rover Special Products was a hot-house within the Rover Group, tasked with devising niche vehicles that could bring additional profit and glamour to the company’s model range [...]
July 27, 2012
· Keith Adams · 26 Comments
Carrozzeria designs : Pininfarina Jaguar proposals
Coventry, Italian style: Throughout the 1970s, Pininfarina maintained its long-held links with the British motor industry by working with Jaguar to attempt to create the new design language that the company appeared to be looking since even before the arrival of the XJ-S. Various XJ40 proposals were experimented with, but it was the arrival of [...]
July 2, 2012
· Keith Adams · 5 Comments
Concepts and protoypes : Land Rover Discovery
Project Jay was a vitally important programme for Land Rover – it was to create a intermediate model range that sat between the Range Rover and Defender, and fight the Mitsubishi Shogun and Isuzu Trooper in the market. Designing the car, which was so heavily based on the Range Rover was a difficult task. The [...]
June 18, 2012
· Keith Adams · 18 Comments
Concepts : MINI Rocketman revisited
The MINI Rocketman Concept caused quite a stir at the Geneva Motor Show 2011. The 3+1-seater, with its three doors and an exterior length of just over three metres, offers a very contemporary take on the ‘creative use of space’ principle that’s considered a Mini core value from days gone by. The MINI Rocketman Concept’s [...]
June 15, 2012
· Keith Adams · 2 Comments
