It seemed like a great idea – take a respected small car designed in Germany, where engineers know about good dynamics and quality cars, manufacture it cheaply in South Korea, then sell it in America…
Saab 9-7x: An Oldsmobile Becomes a TrollBlazer
Not-so-old Motors today and the famous (infamous?) “TrollBlazer.” Saab’s 9-7x was the least Saab-like Saab of all time and came to be a symbol of GM’s mishandling of its Swedish subsidiary. It seemed like an…
Bonnet Djet: The Mid-Engined Arms Race
The “D” in Djet was there purely for pronunciation purposes. The car’s creator, the already famous René Bonnet, wasn’t sure if his fellow French would properly pronounce the English-language word “Jet!” the way he wanted….
Toyota Sports 800: Toyota’s Little Lotus
Today the Toyota Sports 800 seems so different from the kinds of cars Toyota is largely famous for that it’s hard to believe the same folks who came up with the Corolla also designed it….
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…
Infiniti M30: The Leopard’s Different Spots
It was new to Americans, but the Infiniti M30 was almost half a decade old when it first appeared in what were then brand new Infiniti showrooms in 1990. Baseball-loving Japanese would refer to the…
Flashback: The Yaki Imo Man’s Suzuki
Feeling down? Need some comfort food? Don’t worry, the Yaki Imo man is here to help. In this flashback, we take a trip through the OldMotors archives to Japan, circa 1976, and this Suzuki Carry…
Z Magnette: MG’s Modern Sports Sedan
MG is so closely associated with sports cars that some people forget the company always built family cars. The earliest MGs were, of course, just tuner car versions of Morrises, often complete with room for…
Saab 95: Swedish Family Style
The Saab 95 was the first car from Trollhätten to truly expand on the Saab formula. It arrived a decade after the first production Saab, the 92, but its roots in the “Ursaab” project of…
1956 Packard Caribbean: Last of the Line
1956 would end up being the last year of the “real” Packards – many regarded the Studebaker-based models of 1957-58 as a kind of strange hybrid (sometimes derisively referred to as “Packardbakers”). But even though…
Flashback: Peugeot 204 en Bourgogne
Today’s photo from the archives goes back to 1960s France, where somebody’s looking for directions to the next winery behind the wheel of a Peugeot 204. Like the wines of famous Côte-d’Or vintner Jacques Seysses,…
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…