Sadly, the ten-year run of the Fiat Barchetta coincided with a period when Fiat was notably absent from the U.S., once Turin’s primary market for sporty droptops. When Fiat Auto boss Paolo Cantarella first proposed…
Posts tagged Radwood
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….
1988-92 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Wagon
Most Americans buy their cars off the lot, but in Japan built-to-order is the norm. Customers tailor what they want from a wide array of models and buy them from an equally wide array of…
Gallery: Radwood PNW 2021
We usually post show galleries to our Facebook page, but not everybody uses that platform, so for the first time ever we’ve decided to host a gallery here. All of these photos were taken at…
Honda Accord Aerodeck: The Shooting Brake Experiment
At the end of the eighties the Honda Accord became America’s best-selling car, the first foreign car to achieve that title, though this Accord Aerodeck wasn’t involved in that particular quest. It was 1989. Honda…
Ford Festiva: The Cult Favorite
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…
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…
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…
Subaru Justy: The Little Guy
It was basic transportation in the eyes of American consumers. As small a car as you could get, with as small an engine as many of them could remember. The Subaru Justy, which arrived on…
Decade: 10th Anniversary Mazda FC RX-7
Everybody’s celebrating “100 years of Mazda” this week (though it did not build any vehicles until 1931) so here’s an actual anniversary Mazda – 1988’s 10th Anniversary RX-7. Mazda’s road to recovery from its slump…
SUV Mania: 1993 Ford Explorer Limited
The year was 1985. Just a year earlier, famous auto exec and future Chrysler and GM product Czar Bob Lutz had returned to Dearborn, Michigan. He was still working for Ford then, and fresh off…
Sprezzatura, Swedish Style: Volvo 780 Bertone
At the time of Volvo’s first collaboration with Bertone in 1976, Volvos were still distinctly middle-class cars. By 1991, they were “premium” machines, at least in the U.S. At the very top of the line…