The last American Falcon

25.01.2018/22.18

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 […]

It took a little longer, but Autocade reaches 12 million views

03.01.2018/11.21

It’s a little disappointing to note that Autocade has taken slightly longer to reach 12 million page views: it ticked over to its new milestone earlier today. I really had hoped that we’d get there before 2017 was out, but it was not to be. Part of it might have been the slower rate […]

Wikipedia corrects serious error after 12 years

05.11.2017/09.30

Well done, Wikipedia, you got something right. It only took you 12 years. Nick, who appears to be a senior editor at the site, fixed up the complete fabrication that a user called ApolloBoy entered about the ‘Ford CE14 platform’ in 2005, after I wrote a pretty scathing piece on Drivetribe about Wikipedia’s inadequacies, […]

Consumer’s choice: how I bought a car from the UK over the ’net and shipped it home

01.10.2017/08.51

Originally published at Drivetribe, but as I own the copyright it only made sense to share it here for readers, too, especially those who might wish to buy a car from abroad and want to do the job themselves. It was originally written for a British audience. Above: The lengths I went to, to make […]

Too many white cars make fake news

17.09.2017/22.39

A photo taken in Wellington with a test car I had for Lucire. White cars aren’t the over-represented colour in New Zealand: guess from this photo what is. A friend of mine put me on to this Fairfax Press Stuff article, entitled ‘Silly Car Question #16: Why are there so many white cars?’. It’s a […]

Fun for car anoraks—till you get to the factual errors

08.07.2017/10.26

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 […]

Go well, Dave Moore

02.06.2017/00.15

I was very saddened to learn of the passing of my colleague and friend Dave Moore on May 31, which I learned about a few hours after. You don’t expect your mates to drop dead at breakfast while on a press trip, especially not at the age of 67, and it’s particularly painful to […]

Selling Opel: what’s good for China is good for General Motors

15.02.2017/12.01

Above: The Opel Astra K: on the roster. I’m not so sure that GM going into talks to sell Opel and Vauxhall to PSA (Peugeot–Citroën) is that big a surprise. We obviously hold a lot of nostalgia for these brands, and it’s only right that we perceive GM as selling its family jewels. Opel […]

Why the next Holden Commodore will have a traditional boot

01.12.2016/13.24

Above: The Holden Commodore SS-V, facing its last year of manufacture. The current wisdom appears to be that when the Holden Commodore VF leaves production in 2017, it’ll be replaced by the liftback version of the Opel Insignia B. After all, the only big sedan Ford Australia’s offering in place of the now-defunct Falcon is […]

Drivetribe will be a mecca for motorheads—Autocade readers welcome

22.11.2016/13.38

Now that the first episode of The Grand Tour has aired, and we’re nearing the official launch of Drivetribe (November 28), we’re beginning to see just how good an investment £160 million was for Amazon when it picked up the cast of The Goodies, I mean, Top Gear (sorry, I get those BBC shows mixed […]