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Finding its big six- and eight cylinder luxury cars difficult to sell in the mid 1950s, BMW was looking to build something at the other end of the scale that had more mass appeal. It took up a license with the firm of Iso in italy to build its tiny Isetta ‘bubble’ cars in 1955. [...]

In the preparation for its fiftieth anniversary, Honda decided that the time had come to launch a line of stripped out high performance versions of ordinary road cars. In a similar vein to BMW’s M Series and Audi’s S types, Honda’s new range would be dubbed Type R. The result, in the form of the [...]

Throughout the 1980s the high technology content of Honda’s mainstream cars began to increase noticeably perhaps to be expected from a race oriented manufacturer. Few observers expected the mid engined NSX supercar to push so many technology boundaries at once. It was obviously a calculated attempt to challenge Ferrari and Porsche on their home territory, [...]

The 1963 Hillman Imp was Rootes answer to the BMC Mini. But, beset with problems early in its life, the car never quite grabbed the motoring public’s imagination in the same way. Enthusiasts, however, have always appreciated its novel engineering. Technically, the Hillman Imp indeed full of interest. The 875 cc engine was a light [...]

The Harrington Alpine was a special coupe based on the Sunbeam Alpine convertible. Launched in 1961, the car was a brave attempt by Thomas Harrington to expand its traditional coach body building activities. Between 400 and 450 Harrington Alpines and Harrington Le Mans coupes were built, before internal politics put an end to the venture [...]

Environmental concerns really began to hit home with the motor industry at the end of the 1960s, as the public mood world wide began to take on board at least part of the ‘green’ agenda. General Motors was ahead of the shift in the ecological zeitgeist, as it was already working on a radical electrically [...]

Before the Second World War, the Aldington brothers of AFN had marketed 328 BMW’s alongside their own Frazer Nash chain drive sports cars. After the war, the company gained the rights to this brilliant German design as part of reparations, and with the help of the Bristol Aeroplane Company (which built the engines) it intended [...]

Ford’s European arm reached its lowest modern point in 1990 when it launched the MK 5 Escort. The Escort had been king of the blue collar cars across Europe, and especially in the UK. However, the market had moved on and the Escort received a serious drubbing in the media for its deeply unadventurous engineering, [...]

In 1997 Ford finally returned to the successful formula that had produced the Capri: building an inexpensive coupe on the running gear of a mainstream car. The big difference, some 28 years later, was the sophistication of Ford’s engines and chassis. The Puma was based on the 1996 Fiesta, widely held to be a revelation [...]

Ford’s corporate machine was locked into a no risk loop when kit developed the MK 4 Escort. The no risk approach hit the buffers when press reaction to the car was so bad that, according to the industry story, Ford bosses ordered the car to undergo a significant facelift within days of the first press [...]