Articles

Again, from the Pinehurst Concours this past weekend via Leigh Gill. This 1960 Triumph Italia 2000 GT is certainly something you won’t see at your average car show, and you definitely won’t come across one on the street. Alan Anspaugh Yardley, PA 1960 Triumph Italia 2000 GT The Italia 2000 GT marries Italian design with a Triumph TR3A drivetrain. Designer by Michelotti and coachbuilt by Vignale, the Italia was commissioned by distributor Salvatore Ruffino, who aimed to sell 1,500 worldwide. When a 1961 takeover of Standard-Triumph killed plans, Ruffino lost a fortune. This coupe, number 122 of 329 built, was restored to exacting original specifications and appears as it would have when it left Turin. Only about 100 Italias are known to exist.  

This splendid 1936 MG PB is just one of the many gorgeous cars at the Pinehurst Concours this past weekend. Our trust photographer Leigh Gill attended and sent in these pictures. There will be more photos of other entries coming soon. Quoting from the display, Reed Tarwater Greenfield, IN 1936 MG PB This 1936 MG PB, a matching numbers car, has undergone a frame-up restoration using original factory build records. I has a duo-tone paint-scheme of Cambridge and Oxford blue. Of of approximately 400 2-seater PBs produced, it features a 939 cc engine with 42 bhp and 12 inch brakes. Many original components were restored and reused, including front fenders, chrome radiator shell, and engine and transmission. According to the owners, Reed and Jan Tarwater, who purchased the car in January 2011, work on the restoration of the car was […]

Our video this week is titled “Magnificent Machines – The Golden Age of the British Sports Car”. I thought it was time to get a little less marque specific and a little more all-inclusive this week. You know, broaden our horizons a bit, just like going to shows does. When I got to car shows, I often find myself marveling at some creation that either I didn’t know existed or would not have believed myself to be at all interested in. This documentary was broadcast by the BBC in 2012 as part of the “Timeshift” series. It takes a look back at the golden age of British Sports Cars using both in period and modern footage to emphasize the craze around the Jaguars, Austin-Healys, MGs and Triumph’s of the early days. This was the golden age of the British sports […]

Our Video of the Week (VotW) is a history of Rolls-Royce. In many ways, the Rolls-Royce is one of the more hidden British cars. It isn’t that they are that rare or invisible, but they have such a personality all their own that sometimes we forget about them in the midst of the MGs, Triumphs, Austin Healeys, and even Jaguars. However, if you were to ask the random man-on-the-street who is not an English car buff to name a British car, chances are that Rolls-Royce would be the first name off the lips. The history of the marque, its names, and its branding with Bentley, can be more than a bit confusing. But Rolls-Royce as most of us know it, formally named Rolls-Royce Limited in 1973, began in 1906 with the business partnership of Charles Stewart Rolls and Sir Frederick Henry […]

The name Tom Cotter may not be tip-of-the-tongue familiar to a lot of you, but it should be. Tom Cotter wrote the book on barn finds. Literally. He is the author of The Cobra in the Barn, The Hemi in the Barn, 50 Shades of Rust, and many other of similarly amusing titles and drool worthy contents. And don’t let those titles fool you, there are plenty of non-American cars in these books – yup, good old British barn find.  To that end, our Video of the Week (VotW) is the first in a new series of videos titled “Barn Find Hunter”. This series starts Tom Cotter and is produced by Hagerty, the insurance guys. There are a good number of things that appeal with this video, not the least of which is that it was filmed around Savannah, Georgia. […]

Earl’s Court Motor Show of 1962, that is the subject of our Video of the Week this time. 1962 was a good year. Not only was it the introduction of the Triumph Spitfire and Mk I Ford Cortina, but it is the year before I was born. (Figure that one out on your own.) Looking at this video there are some great machines. Not only will you see the aforementioned Spitfire and Cortina, but you will also catch glimpses of the BMC Mini, Austin Cambridge, Morris Oxford, Morris 1100, MG 1100, Mini Cooper, Riley Elf, Hillman Super Minx, Jenson, Rover 3.0L, Ford Zephyr, Jaguar E-Type, Lotus Elan, and Bentley Continental.  Can you imagine a British car show with such a varied lineup these days? Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Oh, and have some have mentioned, please try to ignore the sexist […]

Strange how time gets away from us. I thought we had featured Jaguar Cars recently in our Video of the Week (VotW) series, but on looking back that proved not to be the case. I had to go way back into 2015 to find such a video. How could this be? So let us reconcile that now with a video with is a short history of Jaguar Cars. Of course nothing less that a full television series could possibly do the span of years of Jaguar justice, but this video does present a good overview of the highlights. As most good British car buffs know, Jaguar as we know it was originally founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922. They originally made motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. Under the ownership of Swallow Sidecar (S.S.) gave way […]

Our video this week takes you back, way back. Back to the 1930s when MGs were fierce competitors in racing around Europe and the world, and the Midget, the original Midget, was the car to beat. This film, titled “The Magic Midget” was produced by British Leyland to celebrate the racing pedigree of the MG and possibly transfer some of that aura of speed and success to the more modern incarnation of the MG Midget. From its earliest days MGs have been used in competition and from the early 1930s a series of dedicated racing cars such as the 1931 C-Type and 1934 Q-type were made and sold to enthusiasts who received considerable company assistance. This stopped in 1935 when MG was formally merged with Morris Motors and the Competition Department closed down. A series of experimental cars had also […]

Our Video of the Week this go-round is on the story of an often forgotten car from a seldom remembered brand in the US – the Rover SD1. Rover and British Leyland were beset by problems in the mid-1970s. Out of this cauldron of mismanagement came the Rover SD1 in 1976. It was called SD for the Specialist Division and 1 for the first car to come from the in-house styling department. Despite a dramatic, innovative design both inside and out, the option of classic V8 grunt, and more or less universally praised dynamics, the SD1’s reputation and its longevity suffered at the hands of a company in meltdown. And it could all have been so different. The car, which was styled by Rover’s design genius David Bache, had some grand ambitions. It had been designed to look like a […]

Our video this week comes by way of the Suncoast British Car Club and featured Gerry Coker. Gerry was born “Gerald Charles Coker” June 24, 1922 in Northamptonshire, England.  He is known in the Healey world for his body design of the Healey Hundred introduced in 1952. He joined the Donald Healey Motor Company as Healey’s body engineer in 1950.  His first job was to look after the Nash Healeys as they came from Panelcraft, the Nash Healey body makers. Early on at the DHMC, Healey challenged Gerry to show him a sports car design, and in late 1950, he created the body design for what would become the Austin-Healey 100.  This timelessly beautiful sports car stole the show in October, 1952 when it debuted as the Healey Hundred at the London Motor Show at Earls Court. Gerry also styled the Austin-Healey […]

I swear I am not neglecting Triumph. I love Triumphs! I have had quite a few and even own a 1978 Spitfire at the moment. So, for our Video of the Week (VotW) let’s turn our attention to the Triumph TRs. The Triumph Story is a bit soft in the sound department, but this history of the maker of is definitely worth the watch.

Our Video of the Week this week is not just a single video but an entire channel. The MG Cars Channel was created by of David Shelburne of Shelburn Films. In David’s words, “there are lots of individual MG videos out there, on YouTube and others. But it’s not easy to find the specific videos you are interested in. What I am trying to do is create one place where people can go and find a large variety of MG videos to choose from.” This is the place to find videos about all things MG.  You can become familiar with the history of MG by learning about the various models produced through the years; start with “The First MG,” to learn that it was not the car we call “Old Number One.”  Follow the link at the end of each video to find […]

The British Motor Corporation. BMC. Loved and hated at the same time by British car fans around the world. Loved for the cars produced during the company’s existence – the MGB, the Austin Healey 3000, the ‘Spridget’, and many more. Loved, or at least liked, because they were better than British Leyland that came after them. Hated for the corporate think, homogenization of the cars, and start of the slide that soon would swallow Jaguar as well. Our Video of the Week this time is “British Motor Corporation Story”, a look back at the company that for many epitomizes the British car industry of the 1960s. BMC was the largest British car company of its day, with (in 1952) 39 percent of British output, producing a wide range of cars under brand names including Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey and Wolseley as […]

Our video this week is humbly titled “MGB Movie” and traces the development of the MGB from its replacement of the venerable MGA in 1962 all the way through MGs decline and the resurgence with the MG RV8 in 1993. It is easy to forget today how important the MGB was during its time. If you go to a British car show this weekend, who can blame you for getting a bit tired of the rows on rows of Bs? Hey, don’t blame the messenger.  I have a 1977 B roadster now, have had numerous models and vintages of convertibles and GTs, and absolutely love them. But, even I can get a bit tired of the umpteenth over “restored” B with a Weber carb, headers, electronic fuel pump, alloy valve cover, stone-guard headlight covers, and modern digital radio. We are justified […]

I can’t resist stories of the way cars used to be made – back when automobiles weren’t so much produced as crafted. You know, back when every other car that slides off an automated assembly line resembles nothing so much as an over-ripe jellybean. Honestly, it wasn’t that long ago. Our VotW this week goes back to an old Top Gear episode with a much younger Jeremy Clarkson visiting the TVR factory in Blackpool, Lancashire. The video, from 1995, shows a factory that is worlds away from the automotive assembly plants we picture today. TVR was started by Trevor Wilkinson in 1947 in Blackpool. For nearly 60 years the company produced fabulous if ofter quirky sports cars in fits and starts and under various ownership. In 2006, the factory at Blackpool was closed by then-owner and Russian businessman Nikolai Smolensky. […]

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of ‘automotive snake oil’ ”??? It seems in today’s “buy it now” world of eBay and Paypal, we can now have useless junk sent directly to our front door without so much as picking it up and saying, “$50 for that?!”

We are very happy for our Video of the Week to feature a snapshot of a fantastic video for fans of Triumphs and racing alike. John Clancy at Triumph DVD has put out a new DVD that brings you the full story of the Group 44 Inc. race team featuring Bob Tullius, his crew and other important people who were there at the time. From their humble TR3 origins to taking Jaguar back to Le Mans in 1984 with the XJR-5 GTP cars, this is the complete, amazing history. This is the complete history of the Group 44 Inc. race team which was so dominant in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) racing in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. From the origins of the team when Bob Tullius first joined up with fellow racer […]

Editor’s Note: Our “expert of the auctions”, Bob Seidler, recently visited the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles and sent in this report. This was only after texting me far more photos than I can run and making me extremely jealous in the process. For all of us car buffs out there, be sure to add the Petersen Automotive Museum to your must-see list.  Over the years, I had heard it was a pretty cool place, and I can now confirm…it is the best automotive viewing experience I‘ve ever had.  While many of us have visited museums where the cars are lined up and little ID plates tell the basic facts, The Petersen takes visitor engagement to a new level.  Lots of detail and the cars are displayed in a manner that you can walk around them.  Most are on […]