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The unending joy of beaters
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As Antti recently demonstrated, it’s entirely possible to buy a running car in Britain for £250 or less, and then drive it at least as far as Finland before beating the living shit out of it. Or, if you prefer, you could take it on as a daily driver instead. Having served time as a…
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Great automotive design atrocities of our time
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We live in a world that couldn’t be more fickle if it tried. Not only do fashions come and go like a sneeze on a sunny day, but yesterday’s sound thinking becomes tomorrow’s crazy idea almost overnight. And so it is with car design. In my lifetime I’ve seen pop-up headlights fall from vogue, a…
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Odd things that made you go "ooh" when you were younger.
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When you’re very young, the smallest things can make a huge impression. You would occasionally assign rather more value or significance to something than it might realistically merit. Such it was when I was growing up. My Dad was a Ford man for much of the ’80s, and I spend the latter portion of that…
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BMW 335d SE: The subtlest 'sleeper' of all time?
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The turbocharged, go-faster Volvo 850T-5 caused something of a stir on its release in the early nineties. For a start, it was a Volvo, and Volvo were more associated with ever-so-sensible brick shaped cars best suited for carrying elderly people and antiques. Then there was the power, the front-wheel-drive layout, the modernity of those foot-tall…
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The Carchive: The '67 Citroen ID19.
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It’s Friday night (here), and from where I’m sitting the past looks a little more appealing than the present, automotively speaking. So lets leave today simmering on the back burner, and dive into the rusty fridge to rifle through yesterday’s dubious cold cuts. And as it happens, what we’ll find is full of meaty goodness.…
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Join The Steering Committee
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Sometimes you’ll learn something that changes everything. A rumour, a theory, or a chance glimpse at something you’ve never seen before, can be enough to turn your world upside down and inside out. This was what I felt when I found that the Australian 1982 Ford Fairlane was fitted with a wildly asymmetrical steering wheel.…
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Diecast Delights: An MG 6 in 1:16th scale
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Impulse buy time. I’ve not bought many diecast models of late because, well, I thought I had all those that I wanted. Turns out I was wrong, and clearly have absolutely no clear vision of what I actually want to collect. Every model I’ve collected so far has been of either a car that I…
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Carchive Special: The endless fascination of JDM
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There’s little doubt that my favorite section of the entire Carchive is that covering Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) models. I leap on any opportunity to expand it, particularly with brochures for cars that were likely seen as monumentally dull in their homeland. Cars like the Toyota Mark II. This was an upper-midsize car, fitting somewhere…
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The Carchive: The BMW New Class sedans in 1970
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Well, it’s all going on in the world of The New, right now. Peugeots and Citroens could soon be littering North America’s roadsides (like in the olden days) , there’s going to be a two-door Range Rover again (like in the olden days), a BMW 8 Series is on the way (like in the olden…
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Car cigarette lighters are weird
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A friend was having trouble with an aftermarket sat nav the other day – there was a question mark as to whether the 12v socket was working. I suggested to her “check that the cigar lighter works”, to which her reply was “…the what?” Indeed, she had no idea that the 12v dashboard socket on…
