The Panhard story dated back to the dawn of the automobile age, the first Panhard built in 1890. It continued into the brass era and through the Great Depression in France with the upper class and technologically advanced Panhard Dynamic….
World War II changed Europe. It was more than shattered buildings and bomb-cratered fields, though those mattered. It was more than lost time and misdirected lives, though those matters even more. It was more than row on row of chalk…
Some Ferraris are important because they won races, others because they established lasting design themes. But others are important just because they are. Such is the case of one particular Ferrari 195 Inter. Inter, as Ferraristas know, indicated for early…
No ifs, ands or buts, it was easy in 1957 to build yourself an over-the-counter racer. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer, put checkmarks next to the boxes for RPO 684 and RPO 579E, and get a checkered flag down at…
When the roll is called up yonder for great cars that no one ever thinks about anymore, surely the Lancia Aurelia Spyder’s name will be written in gold. No one really thought very much about it in 1956 when it…
If there is a single icon for the automotive 1950s, it’s the tailfin. And although Cadillac in 1959 is usually cited for the ultimate fins, the case can be made for the 1960 Plymouth line. The Plymouth’s fins were just…
History originally published in AutoWeek July 19, 1999; republished by the author It looks so innocent, like any other Saab 93 there in the Saab Bilmuseum. But with its hood lifted off and set aside, something appears amiss. Saab aficionados…
“Je me suis inspire d’un oiseau aquatique.” Well, it does look a little like a duck. For a car, that is. A sculptor name Bertoni – no relation to the Italian coachbuilder Bertone – penned the shape for Citroen’s revolutionary…
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek March 27, 1995; republished by the author Two of the least frequently noted developments regarding automobiles in France were (a) it becoming illegal to honk one’s horn in Paris except in extreme emergency and…
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek December 13, 1993; republished by the author If you can think of history as waves of rising and falling situations, sentiments and circumstances, then the story of the Dellow makes sense. It was the…