“We had an established identity that we wanted to keep, but … how do you do that and make the car look fresh and new?” said Gale Halderman in 1989. He was talking to the…
Fiat 127: The Birth of the Supermini
In the 1970s, the Supermini was king of European car dealerships, and the Fiat 127 was arguably the first of the breed. The new wave of space-efficient front-drive small cars traced back to the Mini…
Honda Beat: Slave to the Rhythm
By itself it doesn’t look so small – but when it’s parked next to something like that towering Vanagon, you realize how tiny the Honda Beat really is. Taken with a wide angle lens (10mm),…
1968 Ford LTD: The Brougham Branches Out
Over the course of about 25 years, the LTD name filtered through dozens of family Fords, from the biggest and broughamy-est land yachts of the 1970s to a midsize Fox variation in in the 1980s…
1987-1990 Nissan Vanette: Total Recall
If you’re involved in almost any way with new and late-model cars, then you know that the past decade has seen a tidal wave of recalls, most infamously Dieselgate and the Takata airbag mess. Individual…
Hyundai Excel: From Small Beginnings
You see Hyundais everywhere now, and the Korean giant is light years away from its origins as a bargain-bin brand, but it’s rare to see one of the early Hyundais. They were cheap cars (which…
Flashback: Snowed In Chevy Monza Spyder
If you’re old enough you’ll remember the anxiety of heading back to your aging snowbound car after leaving it somewhere in the elements for a day or two and wondering if it will start. But…
Studebaker Lark Wagonaire: The Open Air Wagon
Short on resources but never on pluck, Studebaker slunk into the early sixties with once again slumping sales and no easy way to turn things around. The Lark Wagonaire, a wagon with new lines and…
Renault 10: Longer Car, Shorter Story
Just 12,100 Renaults were sold in the U.S. in 1966, down from a dizzying high of 91,000 in 1959. The blame for this lay squarely on the Dauphine and Renault’s haphazard approach to building a…
Flashback: Rue de l’Écureuil en Rouen
A Sunday flashback today to 1970s France and a spectacularly diverse array of machines that were, at the time, just people’s regular cars. So where are we? Rouen, more specifically Rue de l’Écureuil, circa 1971….
Peugeot 305: The Inflection Point
1.7 million of them were made and the car was a staple of European roads for decades. And yet, few people ever seem to talk about the Peugeot 305. It was an excellent family car….
Mk3 Honda Prelude: The Prelude Perfected
When the second-generation Honda Prelude came along, it defined the car. Sure, the first generation had been modestly successful, but the sedate Mk1 Prelude always drew complaints that it wasn’t fast enough or sharp enough….