Before there was the Twingo, there was the Renault 4. It celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, as I was reminded on Tumblr earlier today. From Autocade: Renault 4 (R1121). 1961–94 (prod. 8,135,424). 5-door estate, utility convertible. F/F, 603, 747, 782, 845, 956, 1108 cm³ (4 cyl. OHV). Replacement for 4CV conceived as a response […]
Category: cars
Cars and the automotive industry.
Slowly but surely, Autocade gets to 1,250 models
Autocade hit 1,250 models today, with a car that’s slightly unusual to non-antipodean eyes: Ford LTD (FE). 1984–8 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan. F/R, 4089 cm³ (6 cyl. OHV). First LTD series with no V8s, with EFI six as standard, delivering 120 kW. Alloy head as with Falcon; electronic engine management, called EEC IV, delivering more […]
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MG taps into BMC’s small-car heritage to market the 3
SAIC is doing a great job in tapping to the heritage of MG and the companies that have gone before. Hop over to the SAIC–MG site and you’ll see this image to tie in to the launch of the B-class MG 3 hatchback: The imagery tells a good deal of the story already: the […]
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James Bond’s Zinger
Apart from sounding like a burger, the Mitsubishi Zinger—or, to give its full model name these days in Taiwan, the Super Zinger (not kidding)—is one of those oddball vehicles I come across when editing Autocade. It’s a minivan based on a truck chassis—in this case the first-generation Mitsubishi Challenger—and a pretty ugly one at that. […]
Thoughts on Players, the Indian remake of The Italian Job
It’s been known for some time that Players, the official, licensed Indian remake of The Italian Job, will film in New Zealand, but what surprised me is that Wellington is to take the place of Torino in the 21st-century version. At least they changed the name, because the American remake of The Italian Job […]
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Johnny Foreigner might be better at running a car company in Shanghai
As I made links for the last post, I noticed there were a lot of comments on AROnline about the replacement for the Roewe 750, the Chinese car that is based on the old Rover 75. The replacement will be on the Opel Insignia platform, owned by GM. It’s been followed by a lot […]
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Roy Axe gives a sincere look at his career
Keith Adams is well known to many motorheads out there. We probably encountered him initially at his excellent AROnline, formerly The Unofficial Austin–Rover Resource. More recently, some of us have got to know Keith as a writer for Octane, where his well researched articles remind me of some of the best motoring journalists’ work. They […]
The big and the small of it
Spotted on the Lucire website today, an advertisement for Consumer magazine. It’s a Flash animation, suggesting that not all car insurance policies are perfect. The opening frame shows a car with oversized coins for wheels, and the wheels shrink to a more standard size at the end of the animation. The copy reads, […]
Retro moment: the first American Ford Granada
Above: The US Ford Granada in a contemporary advertisement, as posted at americangranada.com. Not the European car, but the American one of the same name: the Ford Granada was marketed as a US alternative to a Mercedes-Benz. Not as overstyled as, say, the Ford Maverick, this was an extremely heavy car, and Ford’s marketing […]
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An ideal surfing camera, and why we love the Saab 9-4X more
My friend Gareth Rowson is now review editor for WideWorldMag.com (alongside his design practice). Here is his test of the waterproof Oregon Scientific ATC9K Action Camera, filmed while surfing at Vazon in Guernsey. I thought this was very nicely shot. Less well shot, but significant, is the official video from Saab USA about its […]
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