In 1979 the Horizon was voted Car of the Year, but that didn’t help it to achieve satisfactory sales after being re-branded under the “new” marque. Designing a car for two completely different markets: that was the goal of the “C2” project initiated by Chrysler in the first half of the 70s. The definitive car, … More The car for two worlds – Part 1
The model for Morris’s new direction, born out of the ADO 28 project started in 1968, was called the Marina, and it was a simple classic three-volume saloon, with a front engine and rear-wheel drive but which shared components with other models in the BL Group in order to contain costs. In the late 1960s, … More The extraordinary Marina
The new coupé did not offer four seats like the 530, the engineers abandoning that idea after the problems they had encountered with its design, and also discarded the classic but limiting two-seats, choosing an original solution of three seats in a single row. By the end of the 1960s Matra had gained an excellent … More Three front row seats
As for the car, with its excellent performance it was entered in competitive motor sport as well as being used widely by the British police. The SD1 may be considered to be the last real Rover, despite suffering from flaws that made it rather lower in quality than its forebears. Pausing to talk about the … More Tomorrow’s car, today
The project, named R6, successfully showed that it was possible to come up with a car which was much better than the one from which it was derived. Discussing the history of the Austin Metro, we said that its successor was presented in 1990, branded a Rover. The group had already started working on the … More A British car to beat the world – Part 2
Throughout the history of the car we have frequently witnessed the birth of cars whose arduous task was to replace models which, during the course of their existence, had taken on cult status. The result was that, faced with the immense image of the progenitor, the model originally destined to be its replacement was often … More A British car to beat the world – Part 1
Although the Magnum was positioned as a premium car, many of its components were sourced from series-production models; despite its long production life, in 18 years on the market only 6,000 examples were built. The Rayton Fissore arose in 1976 from the ashes of the Fissore coachbuilder; straight away the intention of Cherasco’s new company, … More The Giant Uno
Stylistically the Samba continued the simple square lies of the other models together with particular finishes; mechanically it had a transverse front engine and front-wheel drive. The Talbot marque, founded in 1903 by Adolphe Clément with the financial help of Lord Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, remained active from 1905 until after the Second World War, when the … More The last Talbot
Erhardt purchased the licence to produce a car locally from the French company Decauville. The name he chose was Wartburg, inspired by the name of an ancient castle located in the area. When we think of the cars from former East Germany, what usually comes to mind is the funny one, the Trabant, or Trabi … More Not just Trabant
The innovative glass-fibre reinforced polyester bodywork meant certain decisions aimed at containing costs faded into the background. In the early 1960s, sales of the American marque Studebaker were not going at all well following the 1954 merger with Packard; the fate of the two brands now seemed to be sealed. Hopes were resting on a … More Too far ahead
Cars Forgotten - Stories 