CarPort

It starts at $11,590. Yes, the smart car (the makers prefer lower case) has arrived in America. Actually Roger Penske’s Penske Automotive Group has been taking reservations for the smart for about a year; the first cars were delivered last month. I saw my first smarts in Paris in 2001. A two-passenger urban automobile, the….
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Studebaker’s last new bodies came in 1953. In 1956 sedans were given more massive noses and tails in order to look contemporary, but a different approach was called for on the lithe, low coupe body. Instead, a more modest nose- and tail-job was accomplished with very little sheet metal change, just a new “bustle” trunk….
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The French have a word for it: Rétromobile. Having coined “automobile” from Greek and Latin roots in the late 19th Century, they’ve given 21st Century flair to what Americans might unimaginatively call an “old car show.” In its 33rd iteration at the Porte de Versailles in Paris, Rétromobile is an exposition of automakers, clubs and….
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Until 1952 it was, after Austin, the second-best selling import in America. We called them “English Fords,” not “British,” and the company did, too. Imports began in 1948, of the Anglia and Prefect models, with slightly more than 3,200 sold. They were cute, funky and many of them ended up as hot rods and dragsters.….
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The words “Nash truck” may conjure up images of the four-wheel drive Quads that fought in World War I. But the Quad wasn’t the only early Nash truck. When Charles Nash took over the Thomas Jeffery Company he inherited a line of Jeffery commercial vehicles that carried the Nash name for a while. Nash trucks….
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Ford’s blockbuster Mustang, of course, begged for a response, but it was three years before The General could raise it. When he did, it was a two-parter, the so-called F-body twins, Chevy’s Camaro and Pontiac’s Firebird. The Firebird, of course, was a tribute to the far-out Firebird I, a concept car of 1952. F-cars were….
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I’ve long considered the 1941 Dodges attractive. My cousin Woody had a ’41 sedan that was a good-looking, if not exciting car. The 1942s were more striking, in a complex sort of way – almost Cadillac-like in the grille. But all that was lost after the war, with the eggcrate-faced D-24 models built from 1946….
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We have a winnah! First to report in with the correct answer to last week’s “list quiz” was Jonathan Baker from Australia, who was also the only one with the correct answer. With no equivocation he said the common denominator in the ten cars was their Continental engines. Actually, it’s more accurate to say “Continental-derived,”….
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As old year turns to new, journalists, particularly, have an obsession with lists: Ten Best, Ten Worst, Ten Most Significant, Ten Things I Hate, Ten Predictions for the New Year, ad nauseam. Truth to tell, I’m sick of lists, other people’s lists, lists that have no real purpose except to spill their listers’ fatuous opinions.….
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Today is Boxing Day in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries. Nothing to do with prize fights, Boxing Day was the time that the gentry gave gifts to their employees and those of the lower classes. Its name derives from the Christmas box (which might or might not have been something in a real….
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