Of all the specialist British car makers of the 1950s, the TVR Company of Blackpool, Lancashire, had the most intimate relationship with America. In fact, the company’s early survival was due primarily to one Ray Saidel, who was the proprietor of the Merrimack Street Garage in Manchester, New Hampshire. Ray’s father opened the garage in…
To historians of MG, the fact that Cecil Kimber first modified Morris Oxford saloon cars is well documented. These humble family saloons were slightly tuned by Kimber at the Morris Garages in Oxford, England, given flutter springs, fitted with clean smart bodies, and sold at a premium. As we all now know, he was very…
As I have been involved with the Sprite’s 40th and Moss’ 50th birthday celebrations, my mind has naturally been busy with memories of Motor Sport of the ’50s. Rallying, Tin-Top production car racing, and Formula One now has a much larger audience than it did in those days, and while the basics of each side of the…
By 1978, Moss Motors was supplying parts for British cars to customers all over the world. It was a big business that had become more work than fun for Al Moss. When Howard Goldman offered to buy the business, Al took him up on the offer, and went into semiretirement. Al nowadays spends much of…
Big, emotional, bear-hugging, steak-eating, STP pajama-wearing Andy Granatelli was the last guy you’d expect to see plotting over a breakfast table with the nutty Colin Chapman. Andy’s STP dollars had brought the two together, but on this October ’67 morning, only the brilliant Granatelli magnetism could have led Colin “I never eat breakfast; only black…
(This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Donald Mitchell Healey, and as such, we would like to present an interview with him which Paul Chudecki undertook in 1986, and which gives an insight into the man responsible for those magnificent machines. Paul traveled down to Perranporth, Cornwall, to interview Donald just…
(This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Donald Mitchell Healey, and as such, we would like to present an interview with him which Paul Chudecki undertook in 1986, and which gives an insight into the man responsible for those magnificent machines. Paul traveled down to Perranporth, Cornwall, to interview Donald just…
The first car I ever sat in may have been an MG. However, I can say with complete confidence that the first car I ever saw was an MG—an MG TA back in 1938, when my father took me to the Abingdon Works on a British bank holiday. The factory was open so that families…
Lensman Dave Gooley has found himself a significant other, Susan by name. Regular readers of this column probably know that Dave does most of the photography that illustrates my articles. What makes this Susan particularly significant is that she loves to travel. Last May, she spent nearly three weeks careening through France and Italy with…
The late 1950s imported car boom in America was fueled by dozens of mechanically interesting and unusual cars that were brought from all over the world. The most memorable and collectable examples were the sleek and powerful sports and luxury cars that came from Germany and England and the low production Italian exotics, though vast…
