A Drive Through the Desert It started out as many driving adventures have – subject to precious little deliberation but with an ambitious goal to use a British sports car as regular transportation to get from one point to another just like occurred on a regular basis ‘back in the day.’ In this case, the…
The Indianapolis 500 might be considered America’s greatest race, but Britain has left an indelible mark on the legendary contest with multiple victories for both cars and drivers, and countless compelling story lines to enliven the story of the greatest spectacle in motorsport. The first British citizen to win the race was Dario Resta…
The Peel P50 is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s smallest car. Originally manufactured on the Isle of Man from 1962 to 1965 by Peel Engineering, it was advertised as the perfect vehicle for “one adult and a shopping bag.” Along with the bubble-topped Trident, the P50 featured tricycle design…
Almost ten years before the Mazda Miata would rekindle the world’s affection for small roadsters, Tony Stevens wanted to produce an affordable alternative to the designs offered by larger manufacturers. Stevens, who had been an engineer at the Rootes Group, working on various Sunbeam, Humber and Hillman designs had already dabbled in the small manufacturer waters…
Sid Hamblin was a proficient panel beater based in Dorset who fashioned an aluminum body for installation on an Austin Seven chassis in 1956. The design was attractive and the mechanicals were plentiful and inexpensive to obtain so Hamblin decided to offer the body for sale as a kit. The Hamblin Deluxe was launched in…
Unlike most of England’s men in sheds, Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennett was an accomplished man prior to his involvement with automobiles. He served in the Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force and was appointed to command the Pathfinder forces during World War II. He piloted the first commercial airliner out of Heathrow following the…
Sir William Lyons was born in Blackpool in 1901, the namesake of an Irish father and an English mother. A bright boy, he was curious about machinery and good at school work. His family secured for him an engineering apprenticeship at Crossley Motors where he developed an intense interest in the burgeoning automotive industry. In…
Despite the fact that plans for the TR4 were well underway by 1960, the ever present problem of insufficient funds led Triumph management to question the wisdom – and financial viability – of replacing the TR3A with Michelotti’s TR4. An alternative was proposed that would have been much cheaper (and far less effective) to implement…
The fact that the high-performance MGB GT V8 shared the same appearance as its more pedestrian siblings was deemed harmful to its position in the marketplace especially as it was difficult to distinguish the more potent car in various advertising efforts. As always with most British manufacturers, cost was an issue but it was deemed…
From the debut of the MGB in 1962, Abingdon had worked to develop an attractive – and marketable – coupe from the roadster that could be sold alongside the open car and entice new customers into the fold for whom the standard car was impractical. Most of the primitive design studies suffered greatly in comparison…
