Several motor manufactures experimented with passenger carrying gas turbine cars in the post war period, most notably the British company Rover, but none got nearer to producing a genuine production car than American car giant Chrysler. As an American the company built 50 gas turbine powered coupes in 1963. These 130 bhp cars, styled by [...]

Many Italian design studies were built on American mechanics in the 1950s and 1960s, but few got beyond the stage of being a one off prototype. On that did make it trough was the Ghia L6.4 of 1960, of which 26 were built in two years.A bug coupe inspired by the Virgil Exner designed Ghia [...]

The 1987, news leaked out from General Motors (GM) that it was working on a development of the Corvette nicknamed ‘King of Hill’. They key to the new car would be a very powerful engine. Codenamed LT5, GM handed development of the vehicle over to its UK subsidiary, Lotus. The original target set fir the [...]

The Monte Carlo was Chevrolet’s answer to the Ford Thunderbird. It was an urbane coupe with a sporty image in the then popular ‘personal luxury’ mould. Based on the same platform as the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix, the handsome, clean out Monte Carlo significantly and outsold it handsomely. Chevrolet built 130,000 Monte Carlo in its [...]

The third generation of the Corvette didn’t get a very good reception when it was launched in 1968. The pundits were unimpressed with the new flamboyant styling, inspired by the Marko Shark show car of 1966. With its aggressive pointed noise, flying buttresses flanking the rear window (on the coupe) and the sharply cut off [...]

Based on Chevrolet’s basic ‘senior compact’ sedan developed from the Chevy II line of the early 1960s, the Nova SS was a miniature muscle car built for body racers with a restricted budget and a passion for large amounts of power. Although they were big cars by European standards, in their humble six cylinder form [...]

The SS was a new package on Chevrolet’s aggressive looking Impala line for 1961. Although no body knew it at the time, it was really one of the first ‘muscle cars’ produced and this has helped earn it a place in auto history. Presenting a slimmer profile with a large glass area and virtually no [...]

Win the 1957 Bel Air, Chevrolet created one of the best loved American classic cars of all, it is strong simple lines and impressive performance (from a sporty new V8 engine) appealing to a whole generation of youthful American. Based on its 150 Series, the Bel Air was Chevrolet’s top of the range car. You [...]

In the early 1950s, General Motors (GM) was trailing behind its rivals. Ford and Chrysler, in sales terms, it didn’t even offer a V8 engine in its staid family Chevrolet range. So it was while searching for a more sporty image that Chevrolet launched the Corvette at Motorama in 1953. When this dazzling road show [...]

The Checker Marathon is better known as the classic yellow New York taxi Cab, which first appeared in 1956 as the A8 and was offered as a passenger car for private use from 1960 to 1982. As you would expect, the car was based around rugged, rather than advanced engineering. After all, its designers knew [...]