Month: December 2019

Was the Beetle really that great? And was Sir William Rootes really that foolish? This opinion piece was originally published in the Canadian paper Old Autos. It is reproduced here […]

We love receiving emails like this one. ‘Hi, I own an Austin Metro rally car with some interesting history and thought you might like to do a story on it.’ […]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Here we are – another year older and probably not much wiser. It’s certainly been an interesting one – what with months and […]

It’s perhaps not surprising that the Mini was a big success in Ireland as the cars were launched at a time when British firms dominated the Irish car market. As […]

Mention British Leyland to anybody today and you will probably be told that it was a badly managed company that made terrible cars and its workforce were always on strike. […]

It’s that time of the year again, and you might be looking for something MINI related for a loved one – or perhaps yourself. Frank Stephenson, the Designer who gave […]

The Rover Metro/100 Series (R6) was about the most brilliant low-budget revamp of an existing model in automotive history – it really was extraordinary how the wide-track wishbone front end […]

The Chrysler ownership of the Rootes Group should go down as one of the lowest moments in UK automotive industry – it was as big a missed opportunity as when […]

In 1970, with the launch of the Hillman Avenger in two- and four-door saloon form, as well as five-door estate, it looked like Rootes-Chrysler had a ready-made range of cars […]

Lotus was working with Chrysler in the mid-1980s/early 1990s on a number of programmes. The only one to make it to production was the DOHC cylinder head for Chrysler’s 2.2-litre […]

The Panther Solo was a short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful mid-engined, four-wheel-drive sports car designed to replace Lotus and TVR at the head of the UK sports car industry. But the […]

Only the geekiest of our readers will know what this car is, and yet it’ll look just familiar to just about everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Chevrolet Hatch in […]

Some might say that a car as pretty as the Jaguar F-Type probably didn’t need facelifting. Although the X152 was said to be based upon a shortened XK platform, there’s […]

Back in 1982, BL Technology unveiled the interesting ECV3 Prototype. This fascinating family-sized hatchback was the first all-new prototype to be publicly released by Spen King’s Gaydon-based think tank, which was […]