Archive

Aston-Martin and Maybach are discussing building a concept car together, possibly for the Frankfurt show in September — and the move could signal an impending partnership between Aston 
and Mercedes-Benz. Little is known about the concept, except that it is likely to be a luxury car, with a high-quality interior finished to the hand-crafted standards of a British luxury saloon. Aston is understood to have approached Mercedes with an idea for at least one concept, although a source suggests that two projects are the subject of discussions. Neither Aston Martin nor Mercedes would comment. But Mercedes is understood to be close to selecting a partner to co-develop future Maybach models. In an interview in Germany, Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche recently put a date of “the end of June” for a decision, which is pressing because Maybach needs to finalise replacements for […]

MG Motors UK, which is majority-owned by the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), has started selling two of its models – the MG550 and the MG6 – in Brazil, the Brazilian press reported. The MG motors models, which are represented in Brazil by Sao Paulo based company Forest Trade, will be sold for between 94,000 and 100,000 reals (between US$59,000 and US$63,000), with a number of items as standard including DVD player, satellite navigation, ABS brakes, light and rain sensors and 17-inch tyres. The MG Car Company was founded in the 1920s and produced cars continuously until the autumn of 1980. After two attempts to re-launch production, the second of which was commercially successfully, the MG brand and the Rover brand, merged to become the MG Rover group in May, 2000, and production came to a stop in April, 2005 […]

The speed and elegance of one of motoring’s iconic cars of all time — the sleek Jaguar E-Type — reveals itself as the inspiration for the official poster art of the 2011 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Jaguar is this year’s featured marque and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the E-Type at the annual gathering of historic race and sports cars to be held August 19-21 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca during the Monterey Classic Car Week. Renowned artist Bill Patterson, who is the official artist of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, says the E-Type is true art on wheels. “Having fallen in love with racing and fast cars in the ’60s, the E-Type represented the perfect blend of design, technology, performance and sex appeal. It still looks fantastic today, 50 years after it was first produced. And to have been […]

RM Auctions, the world’s largest collector car auction house for quality automobiles, is now on the countdown to its inaugural sale at London’s Salon Privé luxury car show and Concours d’Elegance on 23rd June, 2011. The sale, which is only open to British-built automobiles, has attracted fifty-seven stunning examples of ‘Quintessentially English’ cars including some significant collections of Aston Martin, Jaguar and Rolls Royce automobiles. Max Girardo, Managing Director, RM Europe says, “What is nice about this sale is that we have selected some genuinely rare and interesting cars and motorcycles while also offering a very comprehensive selection of British marques that represent a wide cross-section of some of the best loved and most keenly collected models.” The star Rolls Royce lot is unquestionably the unique and historic 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Experimental Sports Tourer, ‘10 EX’, the first prototype […]

A beleaguered British motor industry delivered its second boost to the economy in as many days yesterday as BMW announced plans to build its next generation Mini in country. The German car giant said it will make a fresh investment of £500 million to build the new Mini coupe and Mini Roadster models in the UK. The news followed an announcement on Wednesday by Nissan that it was investing £192m to build the next version of its Qashqai model in Britain. Both announcements safeguard thousands of jobs. Business leaders, unions and the government welcomed the development, which the Prime Minister said was a “tremendous vote of confidence” in BMW’s UK workforce. The Mini coupe will be launched later this year and the Mini Roadster in 2012, both produced in Oxford, where more than two million Minis have been built since […]

I have to admit it, I am a die-hard fan for the BMC 1100 family of cars. Say what you want about the British Motor Corporation, BMC, and its later incarnation BLMC, British Leyland Motor Corporation, these were innovative cars. This includes the MG1100 Sports Sedan, MG 1300, Austin America, Morris 1100, Vanden Plas Princess and even Wolseleys! To that end I want to call your attention to the fantastic site by my friend Todd Miller at AustinAmericaUSA.com. Not only does he have repair information, historical details, and an Austin America registry, but he also has reproduced some hard to find parts such as rubber vent window inserts. Oh, and want something really wild? He has been in personal contact with Dr. Alex Moulton, the inventor of the revolutionary hydrolastic suspension system used in these cars. Some of the emails […]

Aston Martin is planning to move production of the Rapide sports saloon to the UK in 2012. The production will be moved to the British automaker’s Gaydon headquarters in Warwickshire in the second half of 2012. After the conclusion of a six month feasibility study, the automaker had decided that the production of the Rapide is not feasible in Gaydon due to some constraints. Therefore, in 2008, the company joined hands with Magna Steyr to manufacture this car and the latter established a dedicated facility in their Graz facilities in Austria. The pre-production of this car began in late 2009 and full production began in 2010. Explaining the decision to move the production of this car, Aston Martin’s chief executive, Ulrich Bez, said that the facility restrictions in Gaydon would have created problems in production of other cars if the […]

Lotus is doing a bit of rearranging in their kitchen now that plans for the Elan sports car have been placed on the backburner. Apparently, the British manufacturer is using the money that had been set aside for the Elan to develop their very own lineup of V6 and V8 engines. During an interview, Project Boss Dany Bahar said: “This is a big [financial] hit because it’s expensive to do 
an engine,” says Bahar. “But 
because the Elan is not happening now we have got capital expenditure headroom 
for engine development.” The first engine cooking is a V8 that will set up the competition for Ferrari’s V8 engine as seen in the 458 Italia. The new Lotus V8 will deliver between 550 – 570 HP and will undergo testing in July 2011. It will be dropped in the new Esprit […]

A Mini mad student has photographed one of the original cars back at the plant where it was built 50 years ago – alongside an engineer who worked on the first prototype. For the last project for his University of Derby BA (Hons) Commercial Photography degree course Simon Thompson took his own 1960 model Mini – one of the first sold – back to the Longbridge Plant in Birmingham where it was built. Simon photographed his car at the plant alongside Doug Adams, 91, who worked on the Mini prototype alongside its creator Sir Alec Issigonis, when the two men became friends. Doug still lives on the Longbridge Estate in Birmingham, established by the Austin motor company at the end of the First World War. The photos by Simon will be on public display at the University’s Markeaton Street site […]

More than half (56 per cent) of British motorists have at some point forgotten where they parked, according to a poll. And three per cent of these forgetful motorists have called their breakdown service to help them find their car, the survey by Confused.com found. Women appear to have more memory lapses than men, with 63 per cent of female drivers forgetting where they parked compared with 43 per cent of males. The survey did not report on whether or not the women misplaced their cars, and perhaps the associated male drivers, on purpose. One has to wonder!

Longbridge’s first all-new MG for 16 years has drummed up over £3 million of business in just two weeks – with 180 cars sold. The MG6 has got off to a flying start since the official VIP launch in April, with buyers facing a waiting list of up to six weeks as dealers cope with a flood of orders for new MG model. Sales of the new MG6 follow the relaunch of volume car-making at the Birmingham car factory six years on from the collapse of MG Rover in April 2005, when 6,500 jobs were lost. MG Motor UK PR and Events Manager Doug Wallace said the Chinese-backed company was delighted with the response to the MG6, which sells for between £15,495 and £18,995. “The value of MG6 GT fastbacks sold or ordered is just over £3 million – we […]

The electric version of a Rolls Royce Phantom presented by the British luxury car maker at this year’s 2011 Geneva Auto Show will not spawn any production version, at least not yet, according to the company’s CEO, Torsten Mueller-Oetvoe. In March, when the model was presented, Rolls said it was trying to probe the public’s reaction to an electric luxury car, and only after having enough data would decide whether to build it or not. Now, some three months later, the model has been given the temporary axe, not because people showed little interest, but because the model, at least for now, would make no sense. According to the CEO, since most of the people buying Rolls Royce cars live some great miles away from cities, the limited range current batteries can provide will not help them very much. Meaning […]

On a recent Saturday, Blaine Benson sifted through a folder of documents, the remains of a road trip taken 40 years ago. Among the ephemera were Pan Am airline tickets, ferry receipts, invoices for car repairs and a mileage log, handwritten on white notepad pages. “It’s the family story,” Mr. Benson, a computer systems engineer, said of the archive. It is the chronicle of a continent-crossing journey, stretching nearly equator to pole, that his parents once made in a 1962 MGB roadster. “My dad had a thing for sports cars,” Mr. Benson, 41, said. “He had a Triumph TR3. He was a bit of a car freak.” Mr. Benson’s father, Skip, bought the MGB in 1967 for about $1,000 in Puerto Rico, where he and his wife, Barbara, were training Peace Corps volunteers. When their work contract expired later that […]

Ok, so this is blatant begging, but I will do it anyway. Google has introduced their new +1 system of website appreciation. This is very much like Facebook’s “Like” button and helps the search engine and other folks to how much you like or appreciate a site. I would take it very kindly while you are visiting the JustBritish.com website if you would click the Google +1 button that is up there in the right top header of the page, just below the date and the subscription links. Clicking it won’t cost you a thing but a moment of your time, or any of your Google juice, but it will me the world to us. Thanks, and of course, please let me know if there is anything we can do for you!

You may think of the French as producing the most strikingly streamlined cars of the 1930s, in lyric teardrop bodies hammered out with doses of Italian style and German science. But in his book “Art Deco and British Car Design: The Airline Cars of the 1930s“, Barrie Down reminds us that streamline design was the rage among car buffs everywhere in the ’30s, even in upright, country-house, Evelyn Waugh Britain. Mr. Down reminds us that at the same time streamline cars were going on the market, ocean liners and trains were being streamlined, the better to compete with the nascent airline industry. His book also reminds us that the automobile industry of the time in Britain had yet to embrace mass production. Cars were sold to the few, and the sellers were coachbuilders as much as chassis or engine makers. […]

The 59th Coppa InterEurope Storica Event, round four of the FIA Historic Formula One Championship Series at Autodromo Nazionale Monza, will add another piece of history to its racing weekend June 3-5, while honoring a special moment in American motor racing history. Scuderia del Portello, together with Lawrence Auriana, will hold a race for 1.5-liter Grand Prix cars, titled “The Phil Hill Trophy,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of Phil’s victory at Monza and subsequent World Championship Title. Alma Hill, Phil’s widow, and son Derek, will present the trophy and honor America’s first Formula 1 Champion who succumbed to Parkinson’s disease in 2008, at the age of 81. At Monza in September 1961, Phil Hill clinched the 1961 Formula 1 World Championship at the wheel of a Ferrari 156. The quiet, unassuming, Santa Monica-resident, led the way to Europe for a […]

Hagerty, those fine purveyors of classic car insurance, have put together their list of the top ten British cars that you should buy now – before their values go up even higher. While they are all fantastic, of course, I am not sure I totally agree with the ones they include, nor especially the ones Hagerty left off. Much like the earlier mentioned contest for the “Best British Sport Car”, this is a fun list to fight over more than anything. I don’t know of anyone who would actually use this as their shopping list. And if there were someone with that kind of money, they probably already have that list in their head anyway. So, what do you think of the list? What would you put on that isn’t listed, or take off that is here? 1968-2006 Morgan Plus […]

SAIC Motor Corporation, the owner of MG Motors, plans to develop several new models for the British brand in order to boost sales outside its home market in China. The Chinese owner of MG Motors has already spent £1 billion ($1.64 billion) to re-launch the MG and Roewe brands (former Rover) and intends to invest another £2.2 billion ($3.6 billion) to achieve annual sales of 700,000 by 2015. In 2010, the two brands sold 160,397 cars, most of which were delivered in China, with only 2,000 units exported to other markets. This past April, MG launched its new mid-size MG6 in the UK, the first new car to be assembled at the British firm’s Longbridge plant in 16 years. The company said that when it completes the development of a diesel version, it will offer the car to rest of […]