History/driving impressions originally published AutoWeek October 26, 1988; republished by the author The De Tomaso Mangusta. All the visual impact of the wrong end of Dirty Harry’s gun. Organic as a cat, fluid as a crayon on the sidewalk on August 15. Slick in the dorsal region and thick in the haunches. Colored Revlon’s best […]
Holden Monaro GTS: Very American, very GM-like, yet very different as well
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek October 26, 1987; republished by the author The blokes put Australia in the right place: On the other side of the globe, down under, a looking-glass world where everything is the same…only different. Take the language. Americans and Australians both speak English, although their English is, to Americans, a […]
1970 Opel GT 1.9: Mini-Vette?
History/driving impressions originally published in Special Interest Autos, June 1997; republished by the author Compare the front clip of any production Opel GT with a ‘68 Chevrolet Corvette and you will understand why Car and Driver called the German sports car a “teeny-bopper Corvette.” The same blade bumper runs across the front edge of the […]
Rock ‘n’ roll: Mazda MX-5 Miata versus Lotus Elan
Comparison review republished by the author; originally published in Motor Trend’s 1990 Sports Cars of the World They don’t make rock ‘n’ roll like they used to. My almost-a-teenager daughter disagrees with me, of course, because that’s her job. What does she know? The Sixtiess were the golden years of rock, just as they were […]
Honda S800: Honda’s first sports coupe preceded the Prelude by 14 years
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek October 19, 1987 Singing through traffic like haiku on wheels, we are a blur of rpm and red and sun in the face, the Honda and I. The exhaust note tingles like the sound of practice/qualifying to a late arrival at the track, and it matters little whether it’s […]
1965-1968 Datsun Silvia
History originally published in Sport Compact Car December 1996 The Datsun 240Z is famous for its design, but nothing comes out of nowhere and that’s as true for the Z-car as it is anything else. The obvious predecessor to the Z is the 1500/1600/2000 Datsun roadster (read more about the 2000 roadster here) series, and […]
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