Contemporary review originally published in Road & Track Sports & GT Cars 1998 I was on the way home from taking my 14-year-old daughter to music camp at Mansfield University when I stopped at a Texaco station in the little burg of Wysox, Pennsylvania. Earlier, my wife had looked at the Porsche Boxster and said […]
1934 Brewster Ford: Beauty was more than skin deep, but not to the frame
History originally published in AutoWeek October 9, 1995 The Great Depression was no kinder to the makers of luxury automobiles than it was to most other businesses, and perhaps it was even worse. Cars are, even for the wealthy, a deferral purchase. Remarkably, the 1930s produced some of the grandest motorcars ever made, as some […]
1973 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe: What’s not to like
Feature originally published in European Car July 1994 Double overhead cams, tidy handling, Italian style: what’s not to like? Well, how about emissions controls as clumsy and power sapping any on earth? Federal bumpers aesthetic as a double-knit leisure suit on Michelangelo’s David? U.S. smog and safety laws did horrible things to Fiat 124 Sport […]
Innocents Abroad: Phil Stiles and George Schrafft and the Crosley Le Mans
History originally published in Automobile Magazine, June 1993 No one had expected this much of the first timers at Le Mans, not even the entrants themselves. Yet here they were, a couple of American sports car crazies and a highly modified Crosley Hotshot, holding their own against experienced Index of Performance players and slipping past […]
Arnolt-MG: Wacky’s Small Wonder
History originally published in Sport Compact Car. February 1998 Stanley H. Arnolt Jr wasn’t a big man, but to casual acquaintances, he seemed taller than his actual five-foot-ten-inch frame, partly by his high-heeled riding boots and partly by his manner. He liked his nickname, “Wacky,” and seemed to try to live up to it in […]
1978 Dodge Warlock: Playing with Adult Toys
History originally published in AutoWeek October 29, 1978 Dodge advertised “Adult Toys” in the late 70s. To Dodge dealers, this meant trucks: 4×4 Ramcharger SUVs (though the term wasn’t in use yet), the gaudy Macho Power Wagons, and the Street Van, based on the commercial Dodge Tradesmen, the source, Dodge suggested, for your own custom […]
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