The Jaguar XK120 was the fastest production car in the world when it was first released in 1948, with a...
The Jaguar XK120 was the fastest production car in the world when it was first released in 1949, with a...
With its French curves, 120 mph performance and a price tag of £988, the XK120 was Jaguar’s most important roadster. In 1948 it set a new standard of post-war performance which progressed into a comprehensive motor sports campaign and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times in seven...
Independent automotive designer Bill Flajole worked on a number of important designs, including the Nash Metropolitan, before turning his attention...
Before WWII, the company which became Jaguar was called Swallow Sidecars and it had diversified into making special bodies for...
It was done in haste. It was to be an alluring delivery system to introduce Jaguar’s brilliant new XK engine intended to power the substantial Jaguar Mk VII luxury sedan. But the Mk VII wasn’t ready, so Jaguar Chief William Lyons and his men created a quick solution. They shaped...
Following the demise of motor racing during the Second World War years, there were those enthusiastic individuals, at a very...
The restored Jaguar XK120 that set a production car world land speed record for the Flying Mile with a clocking...
John Fitch lived a life filled with adventure and invention that is difficult to capture in a brief such as this. For starters, his namesake ancestor built the first successful steamboat 11 years after the Declaration of Independence severed the bond between colonial America and Mother England. In his own...
1962 Tojeiro-Buick Photo: Pete Austin “Just turn the key and it will start,” I was told, as the door of the...
It’s nearly 50 years since Bob Smith started his business RS Panels in Nuneaton, England. Over that time he has...
The main thing about the 1953 race at Watkins Glen was the question of whether there would be a race at all. The previous year there had been a fatality on the 6.6-mile course that ran right through town on Franklin Street. The Austin-Healey 100 pace car leads the pack...
Georges Lemaître actually finished 2nd in the 1894 Paris-Rouen Horseless Carriage Competition in this Peugeot 3hp, but was awarded victory...
Race Retro 2011 will celebrate one of Britain’s best-loved, if not the best-loved, sports cars next year when it returns...
A Rogue, an XK120 and the World Record that Took 5 Years and Stirling Moss to Break. It was a car the likes of which had not been seen before. Fitted with a truly inspired DOHC six-cylinder engine and clothed by a streamlined flowing coachwork, evocative of that hopeful post-WWII...
The steering feel; that’s what I remember best. The pinion perfectly meshing with its rack was a tactile delight in...
The famed Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will celebrate its 60th anniversary this August by recognizing the 75th anniversary of Jaguar....
There is a section in The Sunday Times called In Gear and it is basically boys’ toys, with cars as...
It is astonishing what you can learn about different countries if you follow motor racing. I have no real knowledge about tax except for those tear-stained begging letters I receive from the Inland Revenue, but I have picked up a few things. Cunningham, Scarab, and Chaparral were all major American...
For two consecutive years—1969 and 1970—Porsche won the World Manufacturers Championship. Brian Redman was an important part of the teams,...
I remember that the Reader’s Digest used to have a series of articles titled some-thing like “The Most Unforgettable Character...
Scottish racer, Bill Dobson, who passed away on October 13, 2008, was one of the first drivers to join David Murray’s Ecurie Ecosse team, along with fellow privateers Ian Stewart and Sir James Scott Douglas. Motor sport enthusiast Murray, a chartered accountant by trade, had persuaded Dobson to sell his...
On August 28, we lost our great and good champion, Phil Hill. The entire world of motor sports is saddened....
The Jaguar XK series made its first public debut at the 1948 London Motor Show in the shape of the...
I have included a few remembrances about Lance in some previous Vintage Racecar columns, but because he was such a fascinating character, I thought a column explicitly about him would be appropriate in order to wrap up the theme. I wrote what was hopefully an amusing story about a party...
During the Fifties, a number of women were involved in the sports car craze. This was during a time when...
My first car after leaving active duty in the Army in 1953 was a 1948 Buick convertible that I sort...
