Contemporary new-car review originally published in Road & Track 1995 Buyers Guide Following is a list of affordable mid-engine sports cars: Toyota MR2. Yes, that’s it. That’s all of them. And if you want to buy one new, you better buy it now, because it won’t be around forever. Toyota has already announced that when […]
Lotus 47: Hard to get in, easy to go fast
History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek November 12, 1984 Down the hill and out of the right-hand turn, down the straight. Building revs and shift. A glance at the pits to my right, and then the chartreuse letters spelling “Lime Rock” on the pavement flash underneath. For all that I, with eyeballs a yard high […]
Porsche Boxster: Highballing the trunk line
Contemporary review originally published in Road & Track Sports & GT Cars 1998 I was on the way home from taking my 14-year-old daughter to music camp at Mansfield University when I stopped at a Texaco station in the little burg of Wysox, Pennsylvania. Earlier, my wife had looked at the Porsche Boxster and said […]
Maserati Bora: Manly, yes, but she’ll like it, too
History originally published in AutoWeek August 29, 1983 It’s a bullet, big bore and Magnum-packed, a missile, ICBM for the Interstate, pregnant with malice. It has the shape of motorized malevolence and the punch to back it up. The Maserati Bora is surely the most masculine, most testosterone-loaded design ever to come from the pen […]
1965 Matra-Bonnet Djet: The first mid-engine production car
Originally published in AutoWeek, April 25, 1988. 1965 Matra-Bonnet Djet, photos by John Matras. Europa. Miura. Manguta. Dino. Stratos. Pantera. Countach. Boxer. Bora. Esprit. M1. 308. Mondial. Testarossa. GTO. Compile a list of favorite enthusiast cars and often as not you’ll find the engine is in the middle. Excuses are low polar moment, front-to-rear balance, […]
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