The Volkswagen Type 2 is better known by the nicknames it received in the various countries where it was sold, the Americans usually call it the the Bus or Hippie Van, the Brits call it the Camper and every Australian I talked to knows the Type 2 only as the Kombi Van. Following on from…
Flat Racer is a boutique London-based company that produces some eye-catching accessories for vintage BMW motorcycles, the bike you see above started life as a stock 1990 BMW Monolever before being kitted out in a new full-fairing – giving it an entirely new lease on life. When the team at Flat Racer set out to…
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster is one of the enduring icons of automotive design, in fact it’s a shame that it’s often overshadowed by its more famous sibling – the 300SL Gullwing. The Roadster you see here is due to be auctioned on Saturday the 16th of August 2014 at Monterey, it has an estimated value…
This 1960 Porsche 356 Roadster has just undergone a 3 year concurs-level mechanical and cosmetic restoration, it’s now being offered in better-than-new condition with a period correct Super 90 engine fitted. The 356 has been largely overshadowed by the 911 that replaced it – that said, over 76,000 were produced and it’s thought that approximately…
Porsche 911: 50 Years is a hardcover volume that I suppose would be officially classified as a coffee table book, although this description does it a significant disservice – This is a book that contains a huge array of early prototype photographs, stories from the pre-911 years at Porsche and the story of how the…
The BMW 2002 Turbo is a wonderful example of what can occur when serendipity happens to a couple of Germans who happen to work at BMW. You see, the BMW 2002 owes its existence to an afternoon in 1967 when Helmut Werner Bönsch (BMW’s director of product planning) and Alex von Falkenhausen (designer of the…
The BMW R100GS was first produced in 1987, along with the other GS (Gelände/Straße) BMWs it was one of the original dual-sport motorcycles and was largely responsible for establishing the market niche that now makes up a significant portion of motorcycles sales worldwide. Fitted with a 980cc twin-valve horizontally opposed twin, the R100GS could produce 60hp…
The Mercedes-Benz 500K was first shown to the public at the 1934 Berlin Motor Show, the car caused a stir not just in Germany but around the world – this was an opulent automobile capable of speeds in excess of 100mph, an astonishing feat for the era. Weighing in at 2,700 kilograms (~6,000lbs), the 500K wasn’t…
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL is one of those hugely significant cars that’ll forever be remembered as one of the top 10 greatest vehicle designs of all time – no matter what extraordinary vehicles may be released in the future. The Coupe is perhaps the more famous sibling in the 300SL family, largely due to its eye-catching gullwing doors, but the Roadster…
The Mercedes-Benz Unimog is the German equivalent of the British Land Rover, the American Jeep and the Japanese Land Cruiser – It’s a function-first 4×4 with military, agricultural and leisure uses that’s spawned its own rabidly loyal, global fan club. Much like the Land Rover, the Unimog was developed in the years just after WWII…
I sometimes wonder what car designers would turn out if they were given carte blanche to create whatever they wanted – with no thought given to affordability, ease of production or CO2 emissions. Every now and then a car comes along that gives us a glimpse behind the curtain into what a car designer’s mind might…
August and Fred Duesenberg were two of the leading lights of the American automobile revolution, the men were self-taught engineers who started out building motorised bicycles, within a couple of decades they had become the first Americans to win the French Grand Prix at Le Mans and the first to ever win 3 times at…
