“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…
Browsing Category German Cars
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….
Porsche 912E: Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover
It looks like a 911, yes, but this is a Porsche 912E, a combination of the 911 shell and the 914’s 2.0L flat four. This unusual Porsche was sold for just one year, 1976, and…
BMW 1600 GT: The Last Days of Glas
It lasted for just 12 months, and in that time, only 1,255 found homes, but you can’t say BMW didn’t give it a chance. The BMW 1600 GT was, arguably, born on November 10, 1966…
BMW Z1: The Ultimate Dreaming Machine
The tall sides and wedge shape may say “eighties,” but the BMW Z1 still looks like the future even 30+ years after it broke cover. Z is for zukunft – German for future – and…
Auto Union 1000S: First and Last and Always
The four linked rings are most associated with Audi today, but they originated with Auto Union. The “Union” was an agglomeration of four German companies – Audi, DKW, Horch, and Wanderer, that came together under…
Shaping Safety: Béla Barényi and the “Fintail”
Mercedes were purposefully meant to be timeless in the eyes of Daimler-Benz’s chief engineer Fritz Nallinger, but including the subtle fins on the new Heckflosse sedans forever linked the W110, W111, and W112 designs (collectively…
Harlequin Golf: The Technicolor Dreamcoat
Those colors are unmistakable – it can only be the Volkswagen Harlequin Golf. It’s one of the most unusual special editions ever offered in the USA and proved incomprehensible to Americans. In the end, less…
Reversal of Fortune:
Audi A4 Mk1
In 1992, Audi struggled to move less than 15,000 cars in the United States. Ten years later, it moved more than 85,000. Although Audi reinvented its entire lineup in that time, one car more than…
The First 3-Series: BMW E21
It has beautiful, classic BMW lines by Paul Bracq. It has excellent handling, loads of room, and it’s fun to drive like a proper BMW. It’s even historic – the first car to wear the…