Exploring the World’s Cult Classic Cars
The rotary-engined NSU Ro80 was regarded by some as Europe’s best production saloon of the late 1960s. Voted Car of the Year for 1968 for its overall refinement as well as that smooth-as-silk Wankel engine, it could have changed the face of motoring forever.
Ford didn’t get much wrong in the 1960s. The Anglia 105E and Cortina were both runaway successes, while the Zephyr and Zodiac range catered admirably for the executive class. But the Corsair, built to fill a gap between the Cortina and the Z-cars, never caught the public’s imagination. This is the story of Ford’s odd one out.
The three-wheeled car was a very British phenomenon, a result of motoring laws that allowed anyone with a category A motorcycle licence to drive one. Tamworth-based Reliant took full advantage, with the Regal, Rialto and, most famously, the Robin providing affordable car-like motoring on three wheels. Nicknamed the ‘plastic pig’, we look at the history of the Reliant Robin as
Put in charge of the newly-acquired Lincoln Motor Company, Edsel Ford famously said: "Father made the most popular car in the world. I want to make the best car in the world.” When the Lincoln Continental was launched in 1939 it was the culmination of Edsel’s vision - an instant design classic that took its styling cues from European cars.
The Saab 900 Turbo was the car that truly popularised mainstream turbocharging, transforming a mid-sized family car into a missile with supercar overtaking powers. It built on the success of the 99 Turbo, the world's first mass-produced turbo car, and its unusual design, clothing equally unusual engineering, made it one of the more fascinating cars of its era.
The Chevrolet Camaro was the marque’s answer to the startlingly successful Ford Mustang, which invented a whole new category, the ‘pony car’. The American motoring world was caught on the hop by the Mustang, and the Camaro was one of a number of cars rushed out to compete head on.
The Rover P6 was the company’s bold attempt to break away from its traditional ‘Auntie’ image, with modern styling and engineering advances a clear shift from the P4 that dated back to 1949. Rover wanted to ditch its reputation for somewhat staid, conservative cars, and reach out to a new audience with what would now be called a mass-market ‘executive