In September 2022, I travelled to Townsend, Tennessee, in the Great Smokey Mountains for Okteenerfest. The annual gathering of Porsche...
When someone says “Sunbeam,” most car people immediately think of the “Tiger.” Sunbeam was much more than just that one...
A frenzy of uncorked Mini Coopers, followed by a gaggle of vintage MGs, Triumphs and other assorted vintage sports racers came flying by, but incongruously, about mid-pack was a 1929 Model 75 Chrysler Roadster holding its own around this short airport road course. I was at a vintage and historic...
“100 miles per hour speed with 100 percent comfort and docility.” This proclamation was made in an advertisement that appeared...
Bonnie Menapace (nee Hemsley – yes, she’s my daughter) got her first Alfa for her 16th birthday. It was a...
Singer-songwriter Carol Connors once bet Carroll Shelby that if she wrote him a hit song, he’d give her a Cobra. Historian Bob Walker untangles the complicated tale of the 289 Cobra that Shelby gave her to honor that bet. The original engine installed in CSX 2067 was reported by the...
The names of the great marques roll off the tongue like poetry—Porsche, Jaguar, Maserati, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce and, of course, Ferrari....
The spectacular Mercedes-Benz 540K represented the zenith of pre-war accomplishments by the Stuttgart-based firm in the pre-war era. It is...
Joe Conzonire eases his 1903 Packard Model F Runabout out of his shop and pulls it into the sunlight. It is as dazzling and intricate as a tsarist Russian Fabergé egg. I behold a symphony of polished brass, lacquered wood, tufted leather and Jules Vern Victorian machinery. Its regal, opulent,...
Chatting with Barry Alan Twitchell about his Porsche 993, he remembered that during a dinner in Switzerland, the owner of...
An amazing thing happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the fall of 2019. A couple of automobile enthusiasts proposed the Chattanooga...
At the Brits At The Beach car show in New Zealand recently, among the classic Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs and Morris Minors I saw an unusual looking little late 1960s British car I had never seen before called a Sunbeam Imp. The car looked pleasant, though unexceptional at first glance, but...
Photographer Dave Gooley and I drove over to Gus’ Barbeque in Paramount, California, – a diner devoted exclusively to meat...
How would you, as a recent college graduate, like to have a job that allowed you to drive a very...
People were standing around this tiny roadster on display at the Hillsborough Concours, attracting a crowd, all day. It’s unusual design, high-quality restoration with attention to detail and striking peppermint-green over red color scheme made this little car one of the biggest head-turners of the day. Most people had no...
About 30 years ago, BMW shocked the automotive world by introducing a sexy and technically unique 2 place, drop-top sports...
Have you ever seen a Commuter? I’m talking about a 1959 Mercury Commuter two-door station wagon. Not many of us...
“You’ve got to see this car!” said Robert Escalante, internationally known restorer of classic Packard automobiles. And he wouldn’t have called me unless he had found something truly extraordinary, because both of us have seen any number of spectacular classic Packards and have restored show-winning examples ourselves. But this metallic...
The MGA should have happened several years before it did. The story of why it didn’t and how it came...
I was out walking the other day, and tripped on a grate in the pavement and fell hard… down hill....
Dodge and Plymouth stylists hated them, Bill France hated them, but, the racers? Racers loved them, as long as they were driving one of them. Other racers really hated them too. They were considered weird looking, but they worked very well, thanks to the engineers who were tasked with making...
I was down in New Zealand recently with my good friend, photographer Dave Gooley on a working vacation, searching out...
A 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe eight-passenger station wagon’s doors are big, so climbing in is easy. The bench seats are...
We had spent the previous evening at Justin Marshall and his wife Shirley’s spectacular hilltop home overlooking their winery in Paso Robles, California. It was a warm beautiful summer night. We sipped a bit of Marshall’s award-winning wine, took in the incomparable view with the Pacific Ocean in the distance,...
Throughout history, French manufacturers have created some of the most unusual automotive designs ever made. Most will agree that many...
Back in 1982, I bought a 1940 Packard coupe and spent the next couple of years restoring it. Once I...
More Cylinders: Jessie Vincent and the Packard Twin Six engine “The greatest piece of machinery that ever went upon the highways,” proclaimed Henry B. Joy, Packard president in 1915, extoling the virtues of the recent release of his company’s new engineering marvel, the Twin Six. Jessie Vincent, the brainchild of...
Charles Kettering, one time head of research at General Motors, once said: “People are very open-minded about new things –...
We met up with Gary Humecke in Thousand Oaks, California to see and drive his remarkably preserved 1937 Mercedes 170V...
We spotted Don Murray’s gorgeous Iso Grifo coupe at his private collection in Irvine California, and wondered what it was. It was obviously Italian, based on its styling, and obviously a high-end touring car. In fact, it looked like a Bertone-designed Ferrrari, except for its unusual rectangular hood scoop called...
