Arriving fall 1996. That’s perhaps the best thing we can say about the Hyundai Tiburon. The Korean carmaker put a show car version on display at the New York auto show in April and, according to Jim Hossack, Hyundai’s vice…
War, product failure, even political upheaval couldn’t destroy Siata, but success of the innocuous little Siata Spring did. Both success and failure can be found wearing peculiar dress. However, none perhaps, is as strange as that of the Siata Spring….
When the Mazda Miata debuted in 1989 (as a 1990 model), the smart money would have been on, well, another horse. The day of the traditional British sports car had long past, according to conventional wisdom, and the Miata would…
Surely one of the most idiosyncratic automobiles to burst onto the automotive scene since, say, the cooling of the earth is the Audi TT. Shaped something like a snap beetle with wheels, it’s immediately disliked by some. If that’s you,…
The organization for this marque is known as the Bentley Driver’s Club. Not, mind you, Bentley Owners Club. Anyone can be an owner. All it takes is a healthy checkbook and willingness to use it. Which is not to say…
The Renault Alliance was dull. Born in France as the Renault 9 in 1981 and built beginning in 1982 in Kenosha, Wis. by American Motors during that company’s, well, alliance with the French automaker, the Alliance was powered by a…
It doesn’t take more than one look the love or hate the Suzuki X-90. Appearance is the vehicle’s primary reason for being. After all, under the ski-boot styling is the chassis, engine and drivetrain of a 2-door Sidekick. Mechanically the…
Something amazing happened in 1975. For the first time in two decades, a company other than Volkswagen topped the U.S. imported car sales charts. Toyota, regardless of whose numbers you use and not including trucks, surged past the German carmaker…
Ginetta, the tiny British firm that has been cottaging away at building cars since the late Fifties, is reviving a couple of its greatest hits as well. The company’s forte has been a variety of cars, virtually all of which…
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek November 19, 1984; republished by the author Putting the top down. It’s a delight, it’s a fascination, it’s a ritual. It’s a compulsion so persistentthat it has bowled the safetycrats right off their swivel…