The Aston Martin company has had a truly chequered career. Over the years there have been a number of times when it looked certain to be going to the wall but on each occasion it was saved by fortunate circumstances ¬– like a major win of a title or at More
‘Muscle cars’ of the late 1960s were probably introduced mainly for the spectacle of drag racing, which had become extremely popular in the United States at that time. Plymouth was always one of the leading exponents of the ‘muscle car’ and a lot of this was based around an engine More
In the early 1970s the two door market boomed in Australia taking 20 per cent of the sales. It was led by the Holden Monaro. Ford followed with a hardtop version of the Falcon and Chrysler with the Charger, which was a shortened version of the Valiant with styling changes More
The Triumph car originated as a sideline for the successful motorcycle business which unfortunately went bankrupt in 1939, and Triumph was finally bought up by Standard in 1944. In 1946 the first Standard-Triumph car appeared. It was the 1800 Roadster which was aimed at the export market and had three-abreast More
The AC Cobra was a high performance cross breed; a British AC Ace with a Ford V8 engine. The first 75 production cars used the Ford 4.2-litre engine but this was then replaced by the 4.7-litre V8 from the Ford Mustang. Only 560 of these 4.7-litre Cobras were built in More
The Bugatti Type 43 used a supercharged 2.3-litre straight-eight engine fitted to a shortened wheelbase ladder chassis developed from that used on the Type 38. In fact the engine also came from another Bugatti; the Type 35B but it was used in the 43 in a slightly detuned form. The More
The rear-engined Hillman Imp, first launched in 1963, remained in production until the mid-1970s. Over that period more than 440,000 variants were produced but the number could have been greater had it not had to compete with BMC’s popular Mini and the Rootes group had not had financial problems. In More
On first sighting most BMW owners would probably never believe that a car of this design carried the famous logo of this marque. Perhaps on reflection they may realise that BMW is also famous for its range of motorcycles and hence could understand that such a vehicle could have come More
The brothers Alan and Richard Jensen began their motor-building activities by re-bodying an Austin Seven in a form which proved particularly pleasing to the eye. The chief engineer of the Standard Motor Company was suitably impressed with its appearance and in due course had a Standard chassis delivered to the More
Some Ferrari stories start with an engine, and the story of the very pretty little Dino road car is no exception. In the 1950s Ferrari’s development team, which included Vittorio Jano and Enzo Ferrari’s son Alfredo, were involved in a program of developing a V6 engine for racing. Initially the More
