A Brief History of the Harley-Davidson FL Panhead The Harley-Davidson FL series was introduced in 1941, originally fitted with the Knucklehead V-twin and leading-link front suspension, with a hard tail rear. The first major update was in 1948 when the improved Panhead V-twin made its first appearance in the FL, and a year later in 1949…
The Chevrolet Camaro thundered onto American roads in late 1966, as 1967-badged models sitting on the new GM F-body platform. The Camaro was a direct response to the Ford Mustang, and like the Mustang it was offered with both mild-mannered inline-6s and thundering V8s. The most budget-friendly of the new Camaros was the 230 cubic inch…
The 1948 Lincoln Continental holds the distinction of being the last American made production car to be fitted with a V12, in the post WWII period the V8 was embraced by the nation and they never looked back. The story of how the Continental came to be is a bit of a Ford legend. It…
The AC Aceca-Bristol was built from 1956 as a more powerful variant of the AC Aceca, the addition of the Bristol suffix denoted the fitment of the 2 litre inline-6 engine from Bristol Cars – the eccentric English automobile manufacturer with close ties to BMW. Whereas the in-house developed AC engine produced 90 hp from its…
Clockwork tinplate toy cars were about as close as boys and girls could get to the real thing in the early 20th century, they contain a coil spring that winds up when the car is reversed – and then rapidly unwinds once it’s released. The same basic mechanism is still used on countless toy cars…
The Plymouth PT105 Pickup was developed in 1936 as an alternative to the trucks being built by Chrysler – purely because every Plymouth dealer in the United States and Canada paired each model from Plymouth with another product from Chrysler. In order to save time and developments costs, Plymouth built their new truck on a…
The Egli-Vincent has become a brand unto itself, it was all started by Fritz Egli in Switzerland in the 1960s – he was a motorcycle racer with a Vincent who he felt could handle better given the 10+ years of engineering development that had taken place since his bike was originally built. Fritz stripped the…
The MV Agusta 750 America is a motorcycle that was designed by Italians to meet a very specific American specification. By 1975 MV Agusta was in dire financial difficulties, so Chris Garville and Jim Cotherman of the sole US MV Augusta importer Commerce Overseas Corporation, sent a specification sheet to Italy outlining a bike they…
The Ferrari 275 GTB/4 was the first Ferrari to be offered for sale with a transaxle, and it would also be the first offered without wires wheels due to concerns about it shredding the spokes – although they were available as an optional extra. Externally, the design clearly took no small amount of inspiration from…
The Story Of Gasoline is a ’50s era educational film about gasoline, it covers the process of refining and includes a surprisingly useful explanation of the difference between gasoline, lubricating oil, kerosene and other oil derivates by way of a series of cartoon characters. The film runs a total of 23 minutes and unless you’re…
This is a small selection from the expansive collection of early American maps from the new York Public Library.
The Volkswagen Microbus is known by a range of different names in different countries – some call them the Kombi, some know them as the Transporter, some as the Camper or the Bus and perhaps most accurately, as the Type 2. It was originally labelled the Type 2 by Volkswagen as it was based on…
