By Alan Franklin / 14 June 2013
3 Comments

Close your eyes and picture a 1970s Lincoln/Mercury dealer. There’s a large, blacktop lot covered with flapping vinyl flags in alternating red, white, and blue. Below, parked chrome-plated mirror to chrome-plated mirror are dozens of massive, landau-roofed, pinstriped, big-block’d sedans and coupes roughly the size, weight, and shape of boxcars, their faux wire wheels, faux wood, faux convertible tops, and faux continental kits secreting a perverted, baroque, faux kind of elegance.

By Alan Franklin / 09 May 2013
3 Comments

In 1957 Bayerische Motoren Werke were on the brink of insolvency. They nearly didn’t make it. One millimetric skip away in the time/space groove there exists a place where you are you, I am me, and nearly everything is the same, but BMW doesn’t exist—there’s no such thing as a sports sedan, no M3, no M5, no driver’s limo Seven Series. Fortunately for us on this side of the groove, they’re still around, 10 generations deep into making the best driving mass-market cars on the planet.

By Alan Franklin / 20 May 2013
2 Comments

The 328 is the car that embarked BMW on a path to greatness, and the Mille Miglia is where it earned its stripes. The 2002 and the driver’s sedan revolution it sparked, the 3 series, M division, decades of international racing glory, all of it begins with the original 328 of the 1930s—it is the genesis of the “Ultimate Driving Machine”. The 328 wasn’t particularly radical in its engineering, but was more than the sum of its somewhat conventional parts.

By Alan Franklin / 10 June 2013
1 Comment

Before every sixth grader in the world lusted for a 1,000 HP, $1,000,000+ Volkswagen, decades prior to a brilliant and ambitious yet ultimately doomed AWD, V12, Gandini-penned coupe-led nineties resurrection, Bugatti stood for one thing: Le Pur Sang des Automobiles, simply “pure blood automobiles”.

By Alan Franklin / 25 May 2013
6 Comments

The E30 M3 is a car with more attributes than miles on the average ’91 Tercel, a similar level of practicality to that gormless pod, but with a desirability factor perhaps four trillion times higher… apples to waffle irons, I know, but it illustrates a point. What made a now-near-three-decade-old car, based on an everyday sedan, brilliant though the standard was, into one of the best handling cars ever built for use outside of the confines of a racetrack? In a word, homologation.

By Alan Franklin / 10 June 2013
3 Comments

Trails blazed by former pioneers become guidelines for those who follow in their footsteps. With time, the benevolent, guiding light cast by past great ideas turns to a thick, dogmatic fog, obscuring the view to fresh solutions made possible by these previous innovations. It takes an individual of great independence of mind and bravery to cut through these clouds of codex, to forge their own path towards new and better ways. Colin Chapman was just such an individual.

By Alan Franklin / 03 June 2013
1 Comment

With war’s end in 1945, the world collectively relaxed its shoulders and let out a massive sigh of relief. In the US, spared the physical damage of battle within our borders, the stress of years of sacrifice and loss dissipated nearly overnight to reveal a massive, vigorous economy fueled by wartime scientific and manufacturing breakthroughs. Jobs were plentiful, goods were cheap, and homes were both. Fun was on everyone’s mind, and for many that meant the motorized kind.

By Alan Franklin / 14 May 2013
2 Comments

We all love a good alphabet soup—seemingly random collections of letters and numbers comprise a hidden, coded language for manufacturers to name their various chassis, engines, and model derivatives. It’s a secret dialect studied by hardcore gearheads, a cryptic slang used to describe our favorite cars with a purity fitting of the machine, a nod to the engineering beneath the slick veneer of marketing, of which the BMW E9 3.0CSL is one of the tastiest bowls ever served.

By Alan Franklin / 30 May 2013
2 Comments

Though generally remembered for their contributions to automotive design, each famous Italian coachbuilder is also responsible for a fair share of more polarizing work as well. None, however, come close to matching Carrozzeria Zagato’s record for controversy. Perhaps Italy’s most adventurous, and therefore most vulnerable to fail auto design studio, Zagato’s bold, envelope-pushing approach has resulted in stunning, breakthrough concepts and shockingly grotesque failures in equal measure.

By Alan Franklin / 23 May 2013

As Gearheads we all aspire to drive well, and to hone our skills on track in the heat of competition. It’s a need born of a universal, primal drive, to dedicate yourself to something and do it better than others, to best your peers on an equal field of play and prove yourself the fittest specimen. Your car is the work of evolution, and the ultimate four-wheeled form of this universal force is undoubtedly the open-wheeled, single-seat racecar.

By Alan Franklin / 24 May 2013
5 Comments

In moments of extreme stress and discomfort, I close my eyes and think hard back to that incredible ride in my formative years, and a calm washes over me. I remember blasting down the northbound 95th street Dan Ryan expressway onramp, squealing my little 10-year-old lungs out as my uncle’s rich friend selected second and mashed the throttle to the floor, the slightly-scared-sounding laugh he let out as he dabbed on a degree or two of oppo.

By Alan Franklin / 17 May 2013
8 Comments

Mass appeal. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and not necessarily a good thing, either. Porsche of the 1970s had a vehemently loyal fan base devoted to their highly unorthodox way of building sports cars. And just like when Daylit Lobster Network turned it down a notch in hopes of gaining a broader audience for their sophomore record “Excessive Sandwich”, Porsche caught a lot of flak for the 924.

By Alan Franklin / 21 May 2013
8 Comments

One of the best/worst cars I ever let go of was a ’74 Fiat 124 Spider. I found it for free one day on Craigslist, and one of the coolest things about that car (besides a laundry list of more meta qualities like how it drove and what it had under the hood), was where it was built—mine came from Lingotto, Turin. Constructed over the course of seven years, the first-ever car built at Fabbrica Lingotto turned its wheels on the factory roof in 1923—yep, the roof.

By Clayton Seams / 21 May 2013
2 Comments

Try as she might, Taylor Swift is not America's sweetheart. This honor belongs to a fiberglass-bodied two-seater first incarnated in 1953. America's love affair has weathered plenty of doldrums over the decades but has also seen some incredible cars created. At the very top of the heap, one special Corvette stands above them all.

By Alan Franklin / 16 May 2013
8 Comments

Imagine if the wind blew in a slightly different direction one day in the late 19th century Austro-Hungarian Empire, or anywhere in the world in all preceding history prior to the moment of Hans Ledwinka’s conception—Porsche as we know it would never have existed. Volkswagen, the 356, fifty glorious years of the 911, 240 MPH Mulsanne assaults in candy-liveried 917s, the Beetle, the Golf GTI—all of it just a narrowly-missed opportunity.

By Alan Franklin / 09 May 2013
9 Comments

The eighties were indisputably the decade of high-tech. Our iron-age, post-industrial revolution, analog ways were rapidly disappearing, replaced by the emergence of newly-affordable integrated circuitry—the microchip. It was a massive leap forward. Cars weren’t immune to the change—nothing was—but few cars embody the times like the Porsche 959. The 959 had a total of seven computers at a time when many cars still had none, or typically one at most.

By Alan Franklin / 13 May 2013
5 Comments

Two syllables and four little letters carry the saga of a Muscle icon, and represent the peak of America’s home-grown, big-cube performance war of the 60s and 70s—a task all out of proportion for such a cute and friendly word. Perhaps a more fitting title would have been “Acrimonious Violator” or “Destructive Thunderfist”—yep, the 426 Hemi was a mean bastard with a friendly name, like if Carlos the Jackal had instead called himself “the Corgi”.

By Alan Franklin / 08 May 2013
4 Comments

Inline fours, straight and V-shaped sixes, bent eights, tens, and twelves are the popular kids of engine design, their many strengths and accepted weaknesses allow them first-round draft status to the automotive-engineering-and-design dodgeball team nearly every time. Ferrari 512BB and Testarossa are quite well-versed in animal husbandry and think the world is flat, but are too well-bred and wealthy for anyone to dare not invite them to the party.

By Alan Franklin / 06 May 2013
6 Comments

The S600 was Honda’s first mass-marketed car, and was heavily based on the previous S500, of which only just under 1,400 were made. Offered as a roadster or a less-common coupe, both were tiny, with dimensions similar to those defined by Kei car regulations, but were not actually of that class. Brimming with imaginative engineering wrought on a miniature scale, the S600 was heavily inspired by Honda’s contemporary work with motorcycles and Formula 1 racecars.

By Alan Franklin / 06 May 2013
10 Comments

Lancia was once among the greatest of all Engineering-first automobile manufacturers. Though perhaps most famous for the legendary Dino-engined Stratos and WRC-dominating Delta Integrale, both of those cars are in fact products of a post-1969 Fiat-owned Lancia, and though undoubtedly deserving of their high status, they’re not representative of a pure and undiluted Lancia bloodline. For me, the greatest true Lancia is the lovely, advanced, and utterly unique Fulvia.

By Alan Franklin / 02 May 2013
5 Comments

On May 7^th this year, in the small commune of Sant’Agata Bolognese, Lamborghini celebrates its fiftieth year as an automobile manufacturer. Half a century of turmoil, success, failure, beautiful cars, bankruptcies, rebirths, scissor doors, V12s, V10s, and a handful of V8s later, the home of the charging bull is now stronger than ever. It’s been a long and tumultuous road to stability, though—one that, as hinted, has seen the company on the verge of death several times over the years.

By Alan Franklin / 02 May 2013
4 Comments

America may have invented the term “hot rodding”, but as a concept its appeal is universal, with no one nation rightfully able to claim itself the inventor—as long as there’s been motorized vehicles there’ve been power-hungry madmen looking to extract more oomph from their engines. An all-time classic hot-rodding example comes from Germany, as many of them do, this particular time in the form of Mercedes Benz’s legendary 300SEL 6.3...

By Christer Lundem / 01 May 2013
8 Comments

For thirteen years I have visited and driven on the infamous Nordschleife at the heart of Germany. Driving on the old northern loop provides an automotive experience that cannot be found elsewhere. Danger lurks behind every turn, making the experience both exciting and addictive. During the years I've been here I have heard the legend about a forgotten part of the course—the Südschleife—built at the same time as the Nordschleife but forgotten by most.

By Alan Franklin / 01 May 2013
5 Comments

Few would argue that 1960s Italian design wasn’t among the best the world has ever seen. This incredibly fertile age gave rise to countless beautiful consumer goods and near-perfect cars. Conceived at the height of this era in 1966, the Ghibli was among the best of the best during a time when beautiful lines were a given for new high-end Italian machinery. Maserati was facing imminent failure in the mid 1960s, and the Ghibli can largely be credited with avoiding that sad fate.

By Clayton Seams / 29 April 2013
4 Comments

Conceived only ten years apart from each other, the car and the telephone (1885 and 1875, respectively) have grown together from technical curiosities to facets of modern life. Like many technological firsts, the first "car phone" was large, clunky and highly impractical. In 1901, Swedish engineer Lars Magnus Ericsson installed a telephone in the back of his car. It worked quite well as long as the car was stopped and plugged directly into phone lines via two long wires.

By Alan Franklin / 23 April 2013
11 Comments

The greatest thing about French cars is the sheer madness involved in their conception. They burst with charming idiosyncrasies and delightfully bizarre engineering solutions. Whether on a small scale, as with the Renault R16’s asymmetrical wheelbases, or the full boulangerie GS Birotor, which featured Citroen’s trademark oleopneumatic suspension, inboard brakes, single-spoked steering wheel, and the pièce de résistance, a rotary engine—French engineers come from a different galaxy.

By Alan Franklin / 22 April 2013
3 Comments

The history of Bugatti cars is well-documented elsewhere; the focus of this article is more about Ettore Bugatti the man and his many, hilarious, frequently genius, often self-defeating quirks and personality faults. "Bugatti was pure artist; his only scientific knowledge resulted from experience which increased with the years, and a natural mechanical ability aided by a gift of observation. He did not believe in calculations, formulae or principles..."

By Alan Franklin / 18 April 2013
14 Comments

What other word besides “stunning” could fittingly describe this car? “Audacious” seems the only word to explain a purebred racecar with license plates, whose short list of accommodations for street use were so impractical as to exclude the fitting of locking doors or even side-view mirrors. “Innovative”, “timeless”, and “mind-numbingly gorgeous” round off this list of grossly inadequate descriptives—like with all great pieces of art the emotions elicited are simply beyond the limitations of human language.

By Alan Franklin / 15 April 2013
8 Comments

The recipe for a good sports car is no secret, it doesn’t involve black magic or any weird rituals; it’s actually quite easy—make it small, keep it light, send drive to the rear wheels, and the rest should follow. Like Mr. Chapman famously said, “Add lightness, then simplify”. While the first generation Mazda RX-7 was only moderately lightweight for its size, it was definitely bone-simple.

By Alan Franklin / 15 April 2013
25 Comments

We should all be thankful that Porsche never had their way—they never killed the 911, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The 911 was difficult and expensive to build, its basic architecture already over a decade old by the mid-seventies. Furthermore it was cramped, quirky, and rapidly losing sales. Intended to address all of the aforementioned shortcomings of the 911, the 928 was designed from the offset to be easier to manufacture, maintain, drive, and live with on a day-to-day basis.

By Alan Franklin / 15 April 2013
9 Comments

Before Quattro was a household name, before it was fitted as standard to slews of crossovers and staid, automatic sedans, before the mighty R8 reinvented the entry-level supercar, and long before the current era of AWD, turbo dominance in WRC, there was the “Ur”. Ur translates roughly from German as “the first”, or “the origin”. Though officially called simply “Quattro”, fans of the car have given it this nickname in order to distinguish it from its lesser, younger siblings.

By Adam Kaslikowski / 08 April 2013

Running a vintage motorcycle takes a lot of heart, commitment, and sacrifice. They can be temperamental, sluggish by today’s standards, and difficult to maintain. Dealing with near-persistent oil leaks or spending weekend afternoons tracking down the right parts are chores that are not for everyone. If you’re going to go through all the trouble of owning a classic bike, you'd better make sure that the one you choose is worth it. If you want the real crème de la crop, you’ve got to go with a Moto Guzzi.

By Alan Franklin / 09 April 2013
4 Comments

Growing up, my dad had a lot of Mustangs and has never forgotten his Detroit Muscle roots. We all love a nuanced handling/ride balance, but sometimes there’s nothing like turning the rears into block-long sticky black lines, fire, and acrid smoke. The Mustang I remember most vividly was dad’s Grabber Blue ’70 Boss 302 four-speed with the optional flat-black hood and rear-window strakes. My first memories took place on the torn, duct-taped black vinyl passenger bucket.

By Alan Franklin / 06 April 2013
4 Comments

It’s been speculated that CSX2000, the very first AC Cobra ever built, could be the most valuable car on Earth, reckoned to be worth above $25,000,000. It currently resides at the Shelby Museum in Las Vegas, which has no plans of ever selling it, keeping its true value purely in the realm of conjecture. What makes an old pile of chassis tubes, aluminum panels, suspension bits, and engine components worth as much as a Rembrandt or a slightly used fighter jet? History.

By Alan Franklin / 05 April 2013
9 Comments

Perfection, one hundred percent, ten out of ten—that’s what utter domination looks like, and it's also Honda’s 1966 250cc motorcycle World Championship Series record. The RC166 would still be a legend today if its only accolades were for competition success and sheer physical beauty, but there’s more to it than that—beneath its delicately shaped fairing and iconic livery there’s a hidden universe of miniature mechanical magic.

By Alan Franklin / 05 April 2013
7 Comments

The Datsun 510 is one of those rare cars that hits all the right buttons for every type of enthusiast, regardless of whatever particular niche of cardom they’ve settled in. Known as the fourth-generation Nissan Bluebird in its home market, the 510 was sophisticated for a Japanese car of the day and was as powerful as many contemporary sports cars. Weighing no more than a ton for most versions, it’s no surprise how quickly it became known as a “poor man’s BMW”.

By Alan Franklin / 01 April 2013
5 Comments

Alpine’s humble beginnings date back to the early 1950s, when French garage owner Jean Rédélé started tuning Renault’s humble 4CV, a goofy little hunchback of a sedan with performance on par with a carriage drawn by a sick horse. Soon, Rédélé was fitting 4CV’s with custom five-speed gearboxes and aluminum body panels, in which he astonishingly saw some success behind the wheel at Le Mans and Sebring.

By Alan Franklin / 01 April 2013
2 Comments

The Ford GT40 is perhaps the greatest icon of the 1960s glory days of international sports car racing, its impossibly low and wind-hewn shape, distinct and hammering Detroit V8 sound, legendary roster of drivers, and storied list of battles against Europe’s finest sports car manufacturers have all attained near-mythical status in the decades past since its domination on tracks scattered across the globe.

By Alan Franklin / 01 April 2013
4 Comments

What could elevate an otherwise unassuming box of a car to a level of lust amongst gearheads normally reserved for ancient, red, V12-powered things from Italy? Box flares help, as do turbos, and hazy memories of perfectly-executed Scandinavian Flicks. Above all, the element is the attraction of unparalleled success and glory of the Lancia Delta Integrale during one of the most dramatic eras of rally racing.

By Alan Franklin / 27 March 2013
11 Comments

The 308 was introduced in 1975 to replace the aging Dino-badged 246, and was sold alongside the 308 GT4, which was also marketed under the Dino name until the sub-brand’s 1976 demise. Significant as Ferrari’s first non-twelve-cylinder road car, the V8-powered 308 opened the brand to an entirely new segment of individuals—they were certainly wealthy but perhaps not wealthy enough to have previously afforded one of Maranello’s finest.

By Adam Kaslikowski / 25 March 2013
5 Comments

The Porsche 934.5 is an odd duck. With its strange name and even stranger looks it doesn’t exactly elicit the same kind of emotional lust or name recognition as its late 1970’s contemporaries. But then, it wasn’t built to. The singular purpose for which the 934.5 was crafted was to dominate the race tracks of the day. It was here that this odd duck turned into a track-ruling, competitor-crushing, legend-creating swan.

By Alan Franklin / 20 March 2013
2 Comments

Development began in the summer of 1968, with the then-head of Motorsports Development (and grandson to Dr. Porsche), Ferdinand Piëch, at the helm. The Porsche 917 was designed to compete in FIA's Group 4 class, and Piëch presented the necessary minimum production run of 25 cars to FIA officials on April 20th, 1969—thus beginning the remarkable career of one of the most significant racing cars to ever turn a wheel in anger.

By Jonathon Glazebrook / 15 March 2013
7 Comments

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Volkswagen Golf GTI in the United States. While the first generation GTI was in the U.S. for only two years, the Golf itself has been around in one iteration or another for nearly 40 years. While the GTI may not have been the first “hot hatch”, it certainly popularized the term as well as the genre in general. To most accurately discuss the Golf GTI, it is essential to start back at its beginning: 1974.

By Alan Franklin / 14 March 2013
4 Comments

The Saab 96 was essentially the 2nd revision of their first production car, the 92. Built from 1960 to 1980, the 96 was Saab's first car exported in significant numbers, and it served to cement Saab's reputation as a maker of safe, economic, fun-to-drive cars. School teachers, engineers and architects loved the 96 and found its practical, quirky nature very appealing.

By Alan Franklin / 07 March 2013
2 Comments

Throughout Alfa's glory years of the '20s and '30s, there was little else for the company to focus on but building the fastest cars they could. These were the glory days of the carrozzeria, who penned beautiful, exotic and bespoke coachbuilt bodies for 6Cs and 8Cs of all variations, body configurations varying from stripped-back GP and Mille Miglia racers to luxurious, fully-enclosed coupes and sedans. But Alfa of the 1950s was a different company than pre-war Alfa.

By Adam Kaslikowski / 20 February 2013
7 Comments

Not many sports car makers would name their prized product after a mongoose, but then Alejandro de Tomaso did a lot of things other car makers wouldn’t. For instance, having a steel backbone chassis for instance, or dialing in a 32/68 rearward-biased weight distribution. That’s not to say that all these risks paid off—oh, heavens no. But de Tomaso went for it, and I have to respect that.

By Adam Kaslikowski / 06 February 2013
1 Comment

It's been 40 years since Stuttgart blessed the world with what is to many people the greatest Porsche of all time: the 1973 911 Carrera RS 2.7. With subtle rear fender flares, thinner gauge body panels and glass, unique fiberglass front and rear fascias, a spartan interior, and a one of a kind ducktail spoiler it is certainly all business—and pure function that dictates beautiful form. With just 1580 of these track terrors floating around the world, they are truly rare beasts.

By Jonathon Glazebrook / 07 February 2013
17 Comments

For many, the generation of BMW 3-series built from 1982 until 1994—identified by enthusiasts with the car’s chassis code, e30—represent the ultimate “Ultimate Driving Machine.” Crisp handling coupled with driver-oriented ergonomics and timeless looks make even the economy-minded “eta” model a joy to drive. There’s something about the car that is appealing to a broad range of people, even today, something that makes it a modern classic.

By Petrolicious Productions / 24 January 2013
1 Comment

Today the name of Honda is synonymous in the auto industry with innovation and fuel economy. Since the introduction of its first hybrid-power vehicle in the US, the Honda Insight, technology from the Japanese motor giant has been growing in ambition and advancement every year: production of fuel-cell cars on a mass scale is set to commence in 2013. Not bad for a company which started on little more than some recycled electric motors and a distant dream.

By Petrolicious Productions / 07 December 2012

John Rawlings was a Condé Nast Publications fashion photographer from the 1930s through the 1960s. He became one of the most prolific and important fashion photographers of the twentieth century and left a vast body of work, with more than 200 Vogue and Glamour magazine covers to his credit. Today we're sharing many of his photographs of women with cars.

By Petrolicious Productions / 04 December 2012

What the Karmann Ghia lacked in performance, it made up with a genuine sense of humor.  There, the Karmann Ghia excelled.  In an era of muscle cars with outrageous tail fins, larger than life bumpers, and blinding chrome, Manhattan-based ad men Doyle, Dane, and Bernbach had the anti-sports car to sell.

By Eric Gallina / 16 November 2012
2 Comments

Developed before the game-changing Countach and iconic Stratos, the beautifully-clean, elegant Miura was a pivotal car for Bertone, more so than any other before it. It was also the car that forged a relationship between Lamborghini and Bertone that lasted until Chrysler bought the Sant’Agata-based supercar maker in 1987.

By Petrolicious Productions / 16 November 2012
1 Comment

Happy Friday! The holidays are nearing, things are getting busy, and we've still got a lot of video footage to edit, so stay tuned!

In the meantime...since BMW Motorsport was created forty years ago, we've put together a roundup of BMW M Racing for all you fans out there.

By Amir Kakhsaz / 07 November 2012

Whoever was making Countach posters in the early ‘80s must have made millions of dollars. Every time someone brings up the Countach they start by waxing poetically about a poster on a wall. I must be the only car enthusiast in the world who never had such a poster, but then again, I was born in 1984, and by the time my last diaper met the trash, the Countach was relegated to history.

By Alvise-Marco Seno / 01 November 2012
3 Comments

Passion can strike in the unlikeliest of places, the unlikeliest people, in the smallest of towns.  But when it strikes full force, it can make the unthinkable happen. Not long ago, amid the press molds, water jet mills, and lab testing equipment, Federico Bonomelli was consumed by a passion, and that passion had a marque—it was the Iso Rivolta.

By Petrolicious Productions / 25 October 2012

During Italy’s most devastating years of the second World War, there were strategists beyond Mussolini’s commanders and generals.  There were revolutionaries other than resistance fighters.  Plans were being made, in secret, to motorize an entire nation.

By Petrolicious Productions / 21 October 2012
6 Comments

It's hard to believe now, but there existed a simpler time when people smoked in restaurants and weren't immune to knocking back a cocktail in the office before lunch.  People were left to fend for themselves, think outside of the box, to dream big, and to create from those dreams. The coachbuilder was a saint amongst bishops in the automotive industry.

By Petrolicious Productions / 01 October 2012

On February 8, 1931 2:08 AM at the Seven Gables apartment house in Marion, Indiana a legend was born. Twenty-two years later and 4,117 miles across the world, a different kind of legend made its debut at the 1953 Paris Motor Show.

By Petrolicious Productions / 26 September 2012

Fifty years ago, an elite group of Ferrari men decided to depart from the safe road to take a secondary one, uphill all the way. An act of folly in the eyes of many, for others an incredible love story and like all love stories with its ups and downs, marked by burning passion but also crushing goodbyes.