Big Car
Despite what you might have seen on Top Gear, Reliant Robins aren’t death traps, and this little stunt was staged by monkeying around with the differential. But cars with only three wheels seem less safe. Surely it makes sense to put a wheel on each...
Letters on the back of a car can evoke a wealth of emotions. “D” usually means diesel, “L” and “GL” on your company car show where you are on the corporate pecking order. But for petrolheads there are other letters that spark interest. Letters...
You may have noticed that car parking spaces are shrinking. Or rather, our cars are getting wider. Fiat had the answer to the parking spot blues in 1972 when the new Fiat 126 burst on the scene. At just 1.4m wide it’s 28cm or almost a foot narrower than..
This video is going to be a little different to my normal ones. I usually need to do lots of research to get the story straight. But not this one – this was basically a brain dump! If you don’t know, I once, many moons ago, worked for Microsoft in the...
When you think of Daimler, you think of Mercedes-Benz, and that’s perfectly understandable. Up until recently Mercedes parent company was known as Daimler-Benz. The name comes from Gottlieb Daimler, a German engineer who was a pioneer in early internal...
You might love the Crossfire’s design, or you might hate it, and that’s just what Chrysler wanted. The Chrysler Crossfire was a bold design from a revitalised company, buoyed up with thoughts of world domination with its new partner Daimler. Yet...
The Hyundai Pony isn’t held in much regard by the west, but in South Korea it’s celebrated as the beginning of Hyundai’s ascendancy as a global car manufacturer. It may have rusted to nothing in some of the more extreme places it was exported to,...
If you’re lucky enough to get the chance to name a car, you should pick a name that’s obvious to pronounce. Even though Ford picked a car name with just two letters (probably a record unless you count cars like the Ford Model T), people have found...
I’ve always been a bit confused as to just what the Audi Coupé was. It launched the same time as its older brother, the insane, sure-footed Audi Quattro that proved four-wheel drive didn’t just belong on utility vehicles. This car, like a mountain...
To be truly successful, an object needs just enough material to serve its purpose. In the case of a car, and particularly a sports car, removing material not only makes it lighter and therefore faster, but can also save on cost. A light yet robust...
The Princess has got a bad reputation. By the time it featured as Terry Scott’s suburban car in the ever-so middle-class, middle-of-the-road “Terry and June”, it was seen as just another unreliable mistake from British Leyland. But the Princess was...
I live in the Pacific Northwest, that is the north west part of the United States. With evergreen forests, and the endless, endless rain, it was maybe natural that Scandinavian loggers moved here. 100 years later many of their ancestors were driving...
The Vauxhall Astra has become one of Britain’s most common cars – and something of a British point of pride, being produced in the Ellesmere Port factory in Cheshire. But rather than being more British than bubble and squeak, the first Astra marked...
I recently made a video on the many, many times British Leyland tried to update the Mini. The lack of an update helped to make the original Mini an iconic shape. The same has happened to many other iconic cars, and the Volkswagen Type 1 or Beetle falls...
The Citroën DS seemed to have come through a time portal from the future when it launched. Maybe it had, when you consider it was used as a car from 2015 in Back to the Future Part II, even though it had been launched 60 years earlier just a month before.
General Motors famously designed their world car, the Chevette in the 1970s, but before this was Chrysler’s Hillman Avenger. Well, it was initially called the Hillman Avenger on its UK launch, but it seems like it had more names than I’ve had hot...
At its most basic level, a car is a box that, by using levers and wheels, gets you to your destination. But we humans find personality and character in everything around us, especially our automotive pride and joy. The BMW 5-series exudes a serious intent
With the New Labour Government of 1997 and its youthful new Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the UK was undergoing a “Cool Britannia” transformation of identity. Britpop and The Spice Girls were sparking a renewed pride in being British as the country...
The Porsche 914 wasn’t really a Porsche at all. Well it was, but it had a bunch of Volkswagen bits in it. But then again, it wasn’t exactly unique in that respect! What was different about the 914 was the Porsche and Volkswagen badge on the back, and...
If British Leyland had a pound for every Mini reboot, they’d still be in business! Ever since it burst on the scene in 1959, designers have been trying to reimagine it for a new era. In the process their failure had made the shape of the original Mini a..