I keep saying that 2022 was a lot like 1973 stylistically, so now that it’s 1974 I find myself strangely compelled by these Audi 50 press shots. You might know this car better as the Volkswagen Polo, which it later became, though with a lower specification initially. It lasted longer than the original Audi. […]
Tag: car design
How Jaguar Land Rover can still win its Land Rover Defender IP case against Ineos
I haven’t read the full judgement of the Land Rover Defender case, where Jaguar Land Rover sought to protect the shape of the original Defender under trade mark law, to prevent Ineos from proceeding with the Grenadier. According to Bloomberg, as reported in Automotive News, ‘The judge upheld the findings by the IP Office […]
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Z cars
I did say I’d blog when Autocade hit 4,100 models, which it did yesterday. Proof that the hundredth milestones aren’t planned: the model was the Changan Zhixiang (長安志翔 or 长安志翔, depending on which script system you prefer) of 2008, a.k.a. Changan Z-Shine. A less than stellar car with a disappointingly assembled interior, but it did […]
The last American Falcon
I’m fascinated by the 1970½ Ford Falcon for a number of reasons. The first is the obvious one: rarity. This car was built for only half a model year, from January to August 1970. If you think it looks like a contemporary Torino, you’re right: it’s basically a very stripped-down Torino. Yet you could spec it with […]
Fun for car anoraks—till you get to the factual errors
I bought Steven Parissien’s The Life of the Automobile: a New History of the Motor Car, which started off as a good history. I’m 300-odd pages in now and the mistakes are really worrying. There’s also a shocking lack of editing (one part repeated, albeit in different language, and spelling and grammatical mistakes) in […]
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Wayne Sotogi’s thoroughly modern Mini (the 10 ft long variety)
When BMW showed its Mini Rocketman concept, a lot of people applauded it: here was something that was roughly (1959) Mini-sized, rather than the larger car that it has become. In fact, the Mini Countryman gets the most criticism because it is not mini at all, but 4·1 m long (the original Mini was just […]
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Less Tumblring, less Facebooking—are email and blogging back?
I’ve been noticing my Tumblr usage drop, and judging by the count here, my updates to this blog have fallen to a bit of a low this year. But, as Tumblr drops, this blog seems to be rising. I imagine 2012 will bring with it another change in how we all share our thoughts online. […]
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Dodge revives the Dart, while UK Delta owners revive Lancia
Fiat has announced that it’s going to bring back the Dodge Dart nameplate on a compact sedan based on a stretched Alfa Romeo Giulietta platform for the 2013 model year. This was actually mentioned when Chrysler was going cap-in-hand to the US Government, so it’s not a total surprise. The nameplate, however, is. […]
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Chevrolet’s new Malibu might still look like a Daewoo
I took a few digs at the forthcoming Chevrolet Malibu on my Facebook yesterday. First: a few things GM got right. It’s right to put this on a global platform—in this case, the Opel Insignia‘s. It’s also right to make it a world car of sorts, where it can be sold globally with […]
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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 […]