Hot Foot at Talladega: Record setting in the Saab 900
“For my next act, I will set myself on fire.” So said Craig Breedlove after one of his speed records went awry. That was what I did not want to do when Saab invited me – along with 119 other…
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The Next, the Middle and the End: Panhard PL 17, Panhard 17 and Panhard 24
The Panhard story dated back to the dawn of the automobile age, the first Panhard built in 1890. It continued into the brass era and through the Great Depression in France with the upper class and technologically advanced Panhard Dynamic….
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Evolution and extinction: Dyna Panhard
World War II changed Europe. It was more than shattered buildings and bomb-cratered fields, though those mattered. It was more than lost time and misdirected lives, though those matters even more. It was more than row on row of chalk…
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1987 Renault GTA: Franco-American from the land of cheese
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…
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1960 Plymouth Fury: The tale (fin) of the 1950s
If there is a single icon for the automotive 1950s, it’s the tailfin. And although Cadillac in 1959 is usually cited for the ultimate fins, the case can be made for the 1960 Plymouth line. The Plymouth’s fins were just…
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1992-1994 Acura Vigor: Silent Running
It’s as if Acura had tossed a stone in a pond and saw it enter not only without a splash, it also without even causing a ripple on the surface of the water. Such was the impact of the Acura…
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1975 Toyota Corolla Deluxe: The first “new Beetle”
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…
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1968 Lancia Flaminia Berlina: Italy’s most luxurious sedan
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 marched northward to battle the Teutonic tribes. In 1958, Lancia introduced the Lancia…
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Saab The Monster: Saab goes double or nothing
History originally published in AutoWeek July 19, 1999; republished by the author It looks so innocent, like any other Saab 93 there in the Saab Bilmuseum. But with its hood lifted off and set aside, something appears amiss. Saab aficionados…
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1963 Citroen ID-19: Smooth as cheese & crackers, but not our can of soup
“Je me suis inspire d’un oiseau aquatique.” Well, it does look a little like a duck. For a car, that is. A sculptor name Bertoni – no relation to the Italian coachbuilder Bertone – penned the shape for Citroen’s revolutionary…
