“100 miles per hour speed with 100 percent comfort and docility.” This proclamation was made in an advertisement that appeared...
Bonnie Menapace (nee Hemsley – yes, she’s my daughter) got her first Alfa for her 16th birthday. It was a...
Singer-songwriter Carol Connors once bet Carroll Shelby that if she wrote him a hit song, he’d give her a Cobra. Historian Bob Walker untangles the complicated tale of the 289 Cobra that Shelby gave her to honor that bet. The original engine installed in CSX 2067 was reported by the...
The names of the great marques roll off the tongue like poetry—Porsche, Jaguar, Maserati, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce and, of course, Ferrari....
The spectacular Mercedes-Benz 540K represented the zenith of pre-war accomplishments by the Stuttgart-based firm in the pre-war era. It is...
Joe Conzonire eases his 1903 Packard Model F Runabout out of his shop and pulls it into the sunlight. It is as dazzling and intricate as a tsarist Russian Fabergé egg. I behold a symphony of polished brass, lacquered wood, tufted leather and Jules Vern Victorian machinery. Its regal, opulent,...
Chatting with Barry Alan Twitchell about his Porsche 993, he remembered that during a dinner in Switzerland, the owner of...
An amazing thing happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the fall of 2019. A couple of automobile enthusiasts proposed the Chattanooga...
At the Brits At The Beach car show in New Zealand recently, among the classic Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs and Morris Minors I saw an unusual looking little late 1960s British car I had never seen before called a Sunbeam Imp. The car looked pleasant, though unexceptional at first glance, but...
Photographer Dave Gooley and I drove over to Gus’ Barbeque in Paramount, California, – a diner devoted exclusively to meat...
How would you, as a recent college graduate, like to have a job that allowed you to drive a very...
People were standing around this tiny roadster on display at the Hillsborough Concours, attracting a crowd, all day. It’s unusual design, high-quality restoration with attention to detail and striking peppermint-green over red color scheme made this little car one of the biggest head-turners of the day. Most people had no...
About 30 years ago, BMW shocked the automotive world by introducing a sexy and technically unique 2 place, drop-top sports...
With a shiver of trepidation, I slip behind the wheel of the museum’s grand 1936 Packard phaeton Standard Eight parade...
Although marriages of Italian styling with German machinery are seen as a rarity, the clever way that Bertone clothed a Type 964 911 Carrera, in 1994, showed that creativity and ingenuity from Turin worked well on a chassis from Zuffenhausen. The binomial of “Bertone Porsche” is well remembered for the...
Corvette’s contemporary ZO6 is enough to strike terror into the hearts of those who drive slower cars, such as Ferraris...
Have you ever seen a Commuter? I’m talking about a 1959 Mercury Commuter two-door station wagon. Not many of us...
“You’ve got to see this car!” said Robert Escalante, internationally known restorer of classic Packard automobiles. And he wouldn’t have called me unless he had found something truly extraordinary, because both of us have seen any number of spectacular classic Packards and have restored show-winning examples ourselves. But this metallic...
The MGA should have happened several years before it did. The story of why it didn’t and how it came...
I was out walking the other day, and tripped on a grate in the pavement and fell hard… down hill....
Dodge and Plymouth stylists hated them, Bill France hated them, but, the racers? Racers loved them, as long as they were driving one of them. Other racers really hated them too. They were considered weird looking, but they worked very well, thanks to the engineers who were tasked with making...
The Bugatti 57SC has long been coveted by automotive historians and enthusiasts as one of the ultimate expressions of pre-war...
I was down in New Zealand recently with my good friend, photographer Dave Gooley on a working vacation, searching out...
A 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe eight-passenger station wagon’s doors are big, so climbing in is easy. The bench seats are covered in leatherette, a leather-like plastic-coated fabric designed to be tough and long lasting. The interior is roomy and handsome, though somewhat curious in that – though rich real wood...
We had spent the previous evening at Justin Marshall and his wife Shirley’s spectacular hilltop home overlooking their winery in...
Years ago, a friend and I were in an old Dodge plumber’s van on our way to the Pebble Beach...
Throughout history, French manufacturers have created some of the most unusual automotive designs ever made. Most will agree that many of them had brilliant engineering, however the French approach to styling, especially in the mid-century era, is interesting to say the least. Weird, beautiful, ugly, strange, fantastic, modern, and eclectic...
Back in 1982, I bought a 1940 Packard coupe and spent the next couple of years restoring it. Once I...
More Cylinders: Jessie Vincent and the Packard Twin Six engine “The greatest piece of machinery that ever went upon the...
When I moved to Tennessee a few years ago, one of the first things I did was look for a British car club. I have a split personality when it comes to cars – I prefer Italian and British automobiles. The club I found, Southern British Car Club (SBCC) is...
