Perhaps England doesn’t produce more eccentrics than any other country. Maybe it’s only that in England eccentricity is cultivated to such a high degree. Adam Smith’s nation of shopkeepers is also the home of the tinkerer, the inventor and the…
Reading sports car specifications and descriptions of features can be entertaining but compared to driving, it’s like love letters versus being there. Which is why we looked forward to getting behind the wheel of the 2010 Jaguar XKR Coupe. We…
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…
No doubt, from the bottom of its 16-in. Michelin mud-and-snow tires to the top of its Paris-Moscow-Beijing Rally externally mounted rollbar, the Land Rover Defender 110 looks like a prop for a Banana Republic window display. It has that same…
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 July 18, 1994. The hood is narrow, much more so from the driver’s seat them when viewed from outside. The edges are emphasized by the slim fender ridges, sharp as exclamation points. The passenger…
The banjo-strung Blumel’s Brooklands steering wheel is close, good for huddling for warmth, but it still leaves my elbow in the chill autumn morning air and my upright posture would be more appropriate in a front row church pew than…
Original history/driving impressions originally published in Motor Trend’s Sports Cars of the World-1990, republished by the author “Only $2,575,291.” That’s how much GM paid for all of Vauxhall in 1925, according to Alfred P. Sloan in his book, My Years…
History/driving impressions republished by the author, originally published in AutoWeek October 6, 1986 Well-known late-night comedian: “This car is really small.” Audience: “How small is it?” WKLNC: “This car is so small that if Santa brought you one for Christmas,…
History/driving impressions republished by the author; originally published in AutoWeek March 20, 1995 It helps to imagine a British movie of the early ‘50s, one in which an R.A.F. pilot retells the story of the Battle of Britain, smoking a…