Category: Classic Cars

Donald Healey was born in Perranporth, in Cornwall, England in 1898. He became a successful competition driver, engineer and finally a car manufacturer with his own business. In 1931, driving a 4.5-litre Invicta he won the Monte Carlo Rally outright, and joined Triumph in Coventry in 1933 and shortly after became their Technical Director. At the end of World War II he started his own car manufacturing business in Warwick producing Healey cars using engines sourced from Riley. In 1952 BMC’s chief executive, Leonard Lord, sponsored an informal `design competition’… Read more

The Bristol Company is probably best known for its aircraft ranging from early biplanes to the Bristol bombers which featured prominently during World War II as a major part of the RAF attack force. After the war the Bristol Company ventured into car manufacture and their first model, the Bristol 400 introduced in 1946, looked very much like the pre-war BMW on which it was based. The Bristol 401, announced in 1949, was only the second model built by the fledgling car builder. As it was a car built by… Read more

The Chevrolet Corvette has always embodied the American concept of a classic sports car. It went into production as the world’s first mass-produced plastic car in 1953 and since then has continued to prove that Chevrolets do not have to be boring. The introduction of the Corvette was seen by GM executives as a means of testing new technology. As an example, the body was to be of fibreglass as used during WWII in naval patrol boats – hence the choice of the name Corvette. By confining their testing to… Read more

The STD company was a joint British-French automotive manufacturing company which produced Sunbeam, Talbot and Darracq cars between both the two World Wars, but which unfortunately failed in 1935. Following this Anthony Lago rescued the French Talbot section of the company and commenced production of Talbot-Lago cars carrying the Talbot badge at a plant in Seine, France. Incidentally it was at this time that that the Rootes group acquired the British interests including the Sunbeam and Darracq marques. Lago was a brilliant engineer and he immediately set about developing a… Read more

Although a French manufacturer, Citroen acquired a controlling interest in the Italian sportscar manufacturer Maserati in the late 1960s. As a result of this acquisition the Citroen SM, introduced in 1970, was derived from the best features of both brands. The SM was a prestige car using a small V6 engine adapted from Maserati’s quad-cam V8 engine. Because of French tax laws which punished cars with a capacity above 2.8 litres, the capacity of the SM engine was kept at 2.7 litres. Citroen has always been noted for its innovative… Read more

  The Saab 99 became available to the public at the beginning of the European autumn in 1968, being introduced as the 1969 model. By then front-wheel drive was no longer as unique as it had been on the 92 in the late 1940s. Whereas only about 5 per cent of all cars in the world boasted the feature at that time, the figure had reached 20 per cent in 1969 and was rising steadily. Although compelled to abandon the two-stroke engine, Saab had never entertained any thought of forsaking… Read more