Development story

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 […]

In 1974, Leyland’s Italian subsidiary Innocenti introduced a rebodied, three-door hatchback Mini, styled by Bertone. However, within a year of its launch, BLMC went bankrupt, the company was sold to […]

When the Lotus Esprit burst onto the scene in October 1975, it had a similar effect on fans of the marque as that fateful storm had on the gardens of […]

The Rover P6 was a radical new product for its maker – and proof it was trying to move away from the stuffy ‘Auntie’ image that it had been landed […]

One of the most replayed television clips of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, is of her arriving at 10 Downing Street, having triumphed in the May 1979 General Election […]

The Austin Kimberley and Tasman, and their Morris-badged cousins, were an interesting development of the BMC 1800/2200 reserved for the Antipodean markets only. They featured conventional three-box styling and were […]

Keith Adams recounts the Vauxhall Cavalier Mk1 development story – a tale of close ties with Opel in Germany, some interesting UK design tweaks and the beginnings of an impressive […]

The Hillman Avenger was all-new from the ground up, and the first Rootes Group car to be developed under the leadership of Chrysler Europe. An excellent all-rounder, but one which […]

Keith Adams There are plenty of cars that have achieved notoriety during their lifetimes – one only has to look at the Boulevard of Broken Dreams that is the British […]

It changed the way we looked at small cars almost overnight, and sent the Designers scurrying back to the drawing boards – the Mini was little short of a major […]

The Clubman was developed through BMC’s desire to expand the Mini concept, without spending too much money. It started out as a hatchback proposal penned by Roy Haynes, and then developed into something rather less useful. […]

It’s the 60th Anniversary of the Mini’s launch in 1959. A good time, then, for Ian Nicholls to chart the origins and production history of this car in what is […]

The Talbot Samba was another car from PSA which relied on badge engineering to take it to market… However, despite that, it was a reasonable success in its home market […]

The Talbot Sunbeam Lotus was an unexpectedly wonderful collaboration between Coventry and Hethel. With 150bhp, it was quick and exciting proto-hot hatch. […]

The Hillman Imp was the Rootes Group’s great white hope to beat the Mini at its own game. However, as Keith Adams explains, the project was riddled with setbacks and […]

Just 19 months from conception to introduction, the Sunbeam was the result of a crash development programme for Chrysler in order to secure UK government funding. It worked, too… and […]

What the 1980s needed was a new Mini-Marcos, and Harold Dermott was determined to make that happen. The car he produced, the Midas, was a sensation, and Andrew Elphick tells […]