The Mazda Cosmo should have been a runaway success. After all, it was a car that Toyo Kogyo, as the Hiroshima-based Mazda was then known, specifically designed for the U.S. market and it arrived as car buyers were thinking “downsize.”…
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek February 25, 2002; republished by the author The Via Flaminia, one of the great Roman roads, was laid down by the Roman Consul Flaminius in 220 B.C., and along its measured stones Rome’s legions…
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek December 3, 2001; republished by the author You could play tennis on the poop deck of this thing. And bocce ball on the forecastle. This boat measures 230.1 inches stem to stern with a…
Event report originally published in AutoWeek on October 16, 2000; republished by the author Thirty years to the day, Range Rover enthusiasts gathered at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon, England, to celebrate the model’s birthday. The celebration fell exactly…
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek March 14, 1988 What a name! It has magic to it, that certain…rightness. Righteousness, even as good as the car itself. Surely a tag like Silver Ghost sold many a Rolls-Royce. Sure. Except that…
History/driving impressions originally published August 13, 1984 There is no better way to pave one’s own road to the automotive scrapheap of history than to become known as purveyor of obsolescent crocks. Even in eras of high demand and sellers’…
History originally published in AutoWeek September 19, 1988 It was the product of an era when the best the average man could hope for was a big cigar, a buxom blonde and a Cadillac convertible. It was, for 1958 at…
History originally published in AutoWeek October 31, 1988 Chrysler called it “Flightswept” and although 1956 didn’t bring the ultimate in befinned automotive extravaganzas from Chrysler styling chief Virgil Exner – memories of the Chrysler Airflow were still too recent to…
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…
History originally published in AutoWeek June 25, 1984 Rolls-Royce has never been predisposed to produce a range of vehicles designed and priced for a variety of pocketbooks. One was expected to aspire to the same standards as that great perfectionist,…