The Bill Moyers video on the state of the American auto industry in the early 1980s — as would any report on the industry at that time — heavily referenced the impact of the Japanese auto industry as...
“Bus” was different and a lot of fun to drive…unless I got stuck in mud, sand, or snow. It was the late ’60s, Woodstock was happening, and everyone displayed the “peace sign.”All photos courtesy the ...
There’s an early 1980s’ CNN report floating around YouTube in which reporter Robert Vito runs down the high-level challenges that the American auto industry faced circa 1982. But a couple years earli...
Hemmings archive photo. Senior designer Frank Hershey had been working on the rear fender design idea that had first come to him before the war, when Harley Earl led the field trip to Selfridge air b...
All images courtesy the author. When America’s favorite automotive journalist tested “one of the snappiest little cars on the road” in Buffalo, New York, he was mobbed at every stop. “The sheered off...
The “Bugtussle Caddy” has participated in more than a dozen “Treks.” Photos by the author unless otherwise stated. I couldn’t take my eyes off that Cadillac. Built in 1941, it was older than I, origi...
This year’s 25th Goodwood Festival of Speed just seemed all around the most spectacular such event, whether due to the anniversary, to steadily increasing participation and enthusiasm from car enthus...
After a special unveiling and tumultuous overture by a military band, Pan American is shown to the public for the first time at 1952 International Motor Sports Show in New York City. Queen of the sho...
Most times, automakers’ marketing efforts fall toward the ephemeral end of the scale. They are, after all, conceived for the short-term gains that lead to the next quarter’s sales figures, nothing mo...
Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” got my blood boiling and ready to drag race someone. Photo courtesy Jalopy Journal. “Great Googamooga, Shoogamooga… Hey there, all you Mommy-Os and Daddy-Os, welcome aboard...
Photos courtesy the author. We who choose to admire art, and perhaps purchase ones that “speak” to us in some way, rarely have a clue about the tedious journey the piece took to get to our eyeballs a...
Many people will point to the Eighties as the glory years for rallying with the advent of four-wheel drive and Group B homologation specials. However, as we saw last weekend, Seventies rallying was n...
Image courtesy OldCarBrochures. I wanted a Ford Mustang almost more than anything when it was introduced in late spring of 1964. It was coolness personified. The little “pony car” had dual exhausts, ...
Any student of the U.S. Interstate Highway System can tell you that the seeds for that network of roads were planted in the summer of 1919, when Dwight Eisenhower participated in a U.S. Army Motor Tr...
Headed towards Kluane Lake. Photos by the author. We awoke groggily to sounds coming from Kevin, Jim and Bill’s side of camp. I unzipped from the bear burrito and followed my nose to find Kevin makin...
Reutter seat production for Porsche, 1961. All images courtesy Recaro. The history of Recaro seats starts in 1963 in the German automotive “capital” Stuttgart in very close range to the iconic brands...
Photos by Richard Lentinello. In the 1950s, Chrysler developed cars using a functional structure. People specialized, so that one person might design nothing but axles. The chassis, body, electrical,...
The venerable Chevrolet “stovebolt” six-cylinder engine first showed up in 1929. Photo by Jeff Koch. It was the ultimate “sleeper.” No one suspected the car was fast. Only 17 and feeling my oats, I d...
I got a midlife crisis “boost” when I bought a 1984 turbocharged Plymouth Colt. Super quick, it handled like a slot car yet achieved 35 mpg. Photos by the author except where noted. I was 40, suffere...
We’ve already taken a brief look at Ionia Manufacturing, the station wagon body supplier based in Ionia, Michigan, for the Mitchell Car Museum liquidation, but this video from Vantage Point Visual pr...
The idea was to gather in one book, as many as possible of the very unusual, the best preserved and the most representative vehicles that survive in India today. Vehicles that encapsulate the very es...
All images courtesy the author. Some weeks ago, I spent a lovely Saturday morning while visiting the little Bonfanti-Vimar Car Museum set in Bassano Del Grappa, a charming town placed at the feet of ...
The story of Richard Bosley of Mentor, Ohio, typically gets doled out in drips and drops in stories about his two hand-built cars, the Mark I and the Interstate. While it’s no biography, the booklet ...
Few times in history did somebody perfectly capture a time and a place with a simple auto design as succinctly as Bruce Meyers did with the Meyers Manx dune buggy. It’s been flung across the globe, c...
The legendary Chevy 409 met its match one summer night in ’62. Photo via Hemmings Archive. The baby-blue 1940 Ford convertible with top down, engine straining, was doing 90 miles per hour. Wearing no...