While it was often associated with Russia in the west, and indeed it was the most common car on Russian streets before the advent of the Lada, the Zaporozhets was actually built in Ukraine, and…
Nissan Figaro: The Retroest Ride
People seeing a Nissan Figaro for the very first time are always charmed by those cute and happy looks. Few cars look so winsome and even fewer are capable of defying the forces of time,…
Ford Fiesta Mk1: The Blue Oval’s Supermini
“Mini cars,” Henry Ford II infamously once said, equal “Mini profits.” Ironically, what he’d have termed a “mini” car turned out to be the Blue Oval’s most important product of the 1970s: the Mk1 Ford…
1969-73 Opel GT: GM’s International Sports Car
It must have been an odd sight – a miniature Corvette sitting in a showroom across from herds of loaded Buick land yachts, but the Opel GT was a success for Opel and for U.S. Buick dealers.
Mercedes W111 250SE Coupe: The Finer Things
Even in the long evolution of Mercedes-Benz style, few cars have looked as timeless as the W111/W112 coupes. They were designed 60 years ago, but they don’t look like a car of 1960. The coupes…
BMW L6: The Luxury Liner
Everybody knows BMW’s M cars. Those fastest and most electrifying of Bimmers, date back to the M1 in 1978 and the M535i that soon followed, are of course more well-known and varied than ever today….
Matra Rancho: Birth Of The Crossover
Almost nobody realized it at the time, but 1977 was the year “crossovers” were born. They took two very different forms, and it was 20+ years before such vehicles started to become commonplace in the…
1988-92 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Wagon
Most Americans buy their cars off the lot, but in Japan built-to-order is the norm. Customers tailor what they want from a wide array of models and buy them from an equally wide array of…
1979 Chevrolet Caprice Wagon: Yorkshire Yank Tank
We post many examples of global cars that have come to American roads, but today it’s the opposite. These old GM wagons were once as familiar as sunrise and sunset in America, and usually seen…
1982-87 Lincoln Continental: The Bustle
Sometimes you lead, and sometimes circumstances dictate that you follow. In the case of the mid-eighties Lincoln Continental, the first downsized car to wear that name, Lincoln was definitely a follower. In 1975, Cadillac’s “internationally…
Lotus Elite Type 14: The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Fast
When the Type 14 Lotus Elite wowed the crowd at Earls Court in 1957, just nine years had passed since Colin Chapman had built his very first race car. After a meteoric rise in motorsport,…
Acura Integra Type R: JDM Hot Rods Come To America
Now that many are 25 years old, Americans can enjoy a large swath of amazing now-classic JDM cars, but in the Dot-Com era the very hottest JDM rides were often unobtanium due to the cost…