Just a few months later, it would be swept aside by the radically aerodynamic, lozenge-shaped Sierra, but in early 1982 the Ford Cortina MkV was still a market-dominating machine in the U.K. Indeed, even after…
Posts tagged British Cars
Dodge SpaceVan: Anything But Space Age
Yup, it’s a Mopar! But definitely not one most American Dodge Charger, Plymouth GTX, or even Ram 1500 fans would recognize. This is a 1982 Dodge SpaceVan, a relic of Chrysler Corporation’s 1960s overseas ambitions…
Wolseley 18/85 & ADO17: High Tech Traditionalism
This Wolseley 18/85 was featured in our 2023 Hagerty story about the Kilbroney Vintage Show, but today, it’s time for a closer look at the car itself. Almost unknown outside of the U.K., the 18/85…
Lotus Excel: Hethel’s Best Kept Secret
It seems fair to say that the Lotus Excel is Hethel’s most underrated car. Nobody ever talks much about it, the company never again built anything like it after it was gone, and it dwelled…
Lagonda 3-Litre: Last Of A Classic Line
The Lagonda make goes all the way back to 1900, though its official founding was in 1906. Today, it’s most associated with the 1976-1990 Aston Martin Lagonda, William Towns’ wonder wedge supersedan, although more recently,…
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,…
Vauxhall Victor F-series: Tri-Five in Miniature
You don’t often see Vauxhalls in the USA, but for a little while, one member of GM’s British contingent was as transatlantic as Katherine Hepburn’s accent. What you see here is an F-type Vauxhall Victor,…
MG TC: The Archetypal British Sports Car
It was 10 years old and looked archaic on paper, but the MG TC was the right car for its place and time in a way few cars have ever been. Just 10,001 were made…
Jensen Interceptor: The Best of Bromwich
That huge glass hatch, that wide look and that V8 burble – it can only be a Jensen Interceptor. Of course, there was more than one interceptor – the name dated back to 1950. But…
Boldly Transatlantic: the “Audax” Hillman Minx
It was the MG TC that ignited American interest in imported cars, and of course, primarily sports cars. But in the export-or-die era, it wasn’t long before family fare arrived. The first two non-sporting imports…
Too Little, Too Late: Austin Marina
Like so many vehicles created in changing or troubled times for their manufacturer, the Morris Marina was intended as a stopgap model. It was meant to last only four, maybe five, years and was aimed…
Three-Wheelin’: Reliant Robin Mk1
In time all Reliant 3-wheelers, including the earlier Regal and later Rialto, came to be commonly called “Reliant Robins,” (or worse – “Robin Reliants”) so familiar were they in the fabric of U.K. life. In…