History originally published in Sport Compact Car, October 1998 The Fiat Strada arrived in the United States with considerable fanfare and a lot of press coverage. And why not? Fiat had been in this country for a long time. It’s…
History originally published in AutoWeek, February 28, 1983 It was a fitting motorcar for the professional, this new BMW 321, a good choice for the man of accomplishment. It was August, 1939, and to be able to afford such an…
Contemporary review originally published in Corridor Today March 15, 1988 I believe that automobiles are something like nouns in romance languages: they have gender. Oh, I know objectively that cars are innate objects made of rubber and plastic and steel…
History originally published in AutoWeek, January 9, 1984 By some strange twist of circumstances, the automobiles produced by one Swedish manufacturer have come to represent a group of people equally defined by alligators, ducks and plaids. This is, we are…
Contemporary review/history originally published in AutoWeek April 22, 1991 So the Jeep is 50 years old. For a motor vehicle, or for just about anything else, going strong at age 50 is quite an accomplishment. It’s safe to say that…
Originally published in AutoWeek in August 8, 1983. It must’ve been rather bleak at Singer Motors as 1956 approached. The Birmingham firm predated the automobile as a manufacturer of bicycles, and it entered the motor business in 1901. By 1928,…
Originally published in AutoWeek July 1, 1986 Smoother than prom night velvet, slicker than satin sheets, more exotic than a night in Bangkok, that’s the Lamborghini 400GT 2+2. Pull out the thesaurus, plagiarize McCahill and Purdy, the car is that…
Originally published in AutoWeek February 3, 1986 If this were 1967 and you were able to ask Ed Cole, then general manager of General Motors, for the hottest, meanest street-drivable automobile in the GM fleet, he would have suggested this,…
Originally published in Automobile, February 1988 Behind John Kibler’s head is a 400-cubic-inch V-8 rescued from a 1971 Chevy Kingswood station wagon. Its roar, however, is largely obscured by the distinctive pulse of a propeller cutting through the air. This…
Originally published in AutoWeek March 7, 1983 I may get some argument on this, but I believe automobiles can be – and are – evaluated in three primary categories: styling, performance and handling. Everything, from exotic GT to humble grocery…