A Short History of the Brough Superior SS100 The Brough Superior SS100 is a motorcycle that needs no introduction to anyone with even a passing interest in motorcycle history, although the term “superbike” wouldn’t be coined for many more decades the SS100 was the first real superbike. George Brough introduced the SS100 in 1924, the name…
A Short History of the Lamborghini Countach LP400 When the bright yellow prototype of the Lamborghini Countach LP400 was first shown to the public at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show many wondered if designer Marcello Gandini had lost his mind. How could this angular, trapezoid-based design have come from the same hand as the almost obscenely…
A Short History of the Porsche 934 The Porsche 934 was a development of the Turbo 911 (the 930) for Group 4 racing – hence the name 934. Porsche built approximately 400 examples of the 934 for two years between 1976 and 1977, with some variation in specifications over the two years of production. The…
A Short History of the Austin-Healey 100/4 The story of Austin-Healey is the stuff of motoring legend. The original version of the car was called the Healey Hundred, and it was designed to use mass-produced Austin A90 road-car engines, gearboxes, axles, and suspension – with a beautiful svelte body designed by Gerry Coker. The Healey Hundred…
Brough Superior (pronounced “bruff superior”) was famously dubbed the “Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles” – a moniker that was unofficially endorsed by the British carmaker after a senior executive visited the factory and came away deeply impressed. The two major model iterations built by Brough Superior were the SS80 and the SS100, the “SS” standing for “Super Sport”…
A Short History of the Porsche 356 Speedster The Porsche 356 Speedster is a car that Porsche was reticent to build. The regular 356 was selling well in the USA, but hugely influential importer Max Hoffman had been on the phone explaining to the chaps in Stuttgart that there would be a strong market for a…
A Short History of Board Track Racing Board track racing was one of the first mass-spectator forms of motor sport, it rapidly rose to popularity in the 1910s and peaked in the 1920s, before quickly disappearing forever during the difficult years of the Great Depression. The first board track was the Los Angeles Motordrome (pictured below) built…
The Lancia Delta S4 is a car designed to race in the most compelling, and dangerous, form of rallying ever devised – Group B. Both supercharging and turbocharging were used on the Delta S4, a system commonly referred to as twincharging, and in full race trim the 890 kilogram car was capable of over 500…
A Short History of the Norton Domiracer Norton Motorcycles was returned to England in 2008, after having spent 15 years in American hands. Norton is one of the most iconic of all the British motorcycle marques, so its return to British hands was warmly welcomed, even though the timing coincided with the Great Recession – leaving many…
A Brief History of George Barris The Team Knight Rider High Speed Pursuit Vehicle was designed by the legendary George Barris of Barris Kustom – the same man who created the 1966 Batmobile, the Munster Coach, the truck from The Beverly Hillbillies, and some of the later versions of KITT from the original Knight Rider series….
A Brief History of the Egli-Vincent The Egli-Vincent was originally built to fix a design flaw in the Vincent Black Shadow – its frame. Although highly innovating for the time, the frame wasn’t really strong enough for the speeds and suspension loads endured by the bike – and a Swiss motorcycle racer named Fritz Egli had…
The Mercury Cougar Boss 302 is exceptionally rare even amongst other low volume American muscle cars, just 169 were built, and it’s not known exactly how many have survived to the modern day. The Mercury Cougar Mercury introduced the Boss 302 in 1969 as a special version of the Cougar Eliminator, it was marketed as…
