As is often the case with the cheapest new cars, nobody expected very much of the Ford Festiva. When new, it was a bottom-feeder. It was a cut above similarly cheap cars like the Hyundai…
Volvo PV445 Duett: Birth of the Volvo Wagon
At first glance the Volvo Duett looks like a simple wagon version of the Swedish automaker’s PV444 and 544, but under the skin it’s a very different story. The 444 was a radically advanced car…
Renault Goélette: Martinique Minibus
A gaggle of rare French machines from the OldMotors archive today; once again from Martinique. A trio of Peugeot 403 pickups are fronted by a Renault Goélette minibus, set to take people from Fort-de-France to…
Lincoln Town Car FN36: A Land Yacht For The 1990s
“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…