Category: Model Histories

Overviews of specific models, including the story behind their development, how they performed, and whether they were success or failures (and why!).

Raising the Roof: The Ford Skyliner ‘Retrac’

As enjoyable as convertibles can be on beautiful, sunny summer days, they can be a terrible burden any other time, when they are too often drafty, noisy, and vulnerable. We suspect that anyone who’s ever owned a convertible has occasionally wished they could magically transform it into a regular coupe on days when the sun is too hot or the wind too cold. Fifty years ago, the Ford Motor Company offered a car that could do exactly that, creating a piece of mechanical showmanship that has only recently been surpassed: the 1957-1959 Ford Skyliner retractable hardtop.

1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner badge
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Porsche Before Its Time: The Porsche 928

Since its debut in 1964, the Porsche 911 has come to define the Porsche brand. The company’s periodic efforts to expand their market with new models, however worthy, have inevitably prompted grumbling from purists, who stubbornly refused to accept the arrivistes as real Porsches. That was the fate that befell the 1978-1995 Porsche 928, the company’s first V8-engine production car. Conceived as a successor for the 911, it never quite found its niche, dismissed by the faithful as a pricey German Corvette. Nonetheless, the 928 is a milestone car in its own right — a formidable GT that foreshadowed the shape of the modern sports car. This is its story.

1986 Porsche 928 lettering

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Grace in Motion: The Jaguar XK120

Some cars are recognized as milestones only after the fact, dismissed and overlooked in their own times. Others, like this one, are standouts from the moment they first appear. This car stunned the world when it debuted at Earls Court Motor Show in October 1948 — one of the fastest and loveliest cars offered by any manufacturer at any price a dramatic statement of what the British auto industry was capable of achieving. This is the history of the Jaguar XK120, XK140, and XK150.

1953 Jaguar XK120-FHC badge
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All Fall Down: The Cadillac Allante, The Buick Reatta, and How GM Lost Its Styling Mojo

The short-lived Buick Reatta two-seater may seem like the most innocuous of cars (indeed, that was part of its problem). Behind the Reatta’s placid exterior, however, lay a ferocious internal battle that also gave birth to the Cadillac Allanté, ended the four-decade dominance of the once-mighty GM Design Staff — and set the stage for the decline of GM itself.

1990 Buick Reatta badge
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Cafe Society Racer: The BMW E30 M3

Even drivers who don’t consider themselves car nuts (or enthusiasts, if you will) often love the idea of owning a car that feels like a real race car, whether for the bragging rights or just to pretend that the freeway ramp is really a turn at the Nürburgring. Of course, real race cars are usually rough, noisy, temperamental, and fussy in a way few would care to tolerate on a day-to-day basis, but many buyers happily lay out serious money to indulge their Walter Mitty fantasies.

By those standards, there are few cars more desirable than the E30 version of the BMW M3. Not only does it look like a track car, it’s a hardcore “homologation special” whose track-bound brothers dominated touring car racing throughout the late eighties and early nineties. It’s not the fastest of its kind, but there are still those who will swear to you that it is the best. This is its story.

1989 BMW E30 M3 tail badge
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Supermini: The Autobianchi A112 Abarth

Many of our articles are inspired by the cars we spot in and around Los Angeles. Your author has encountered cars as diverse as a Bugatti Veyron, a Jaguar XJ12C, and a Fiat Multipla — not at car shows or museums, but parked on the street or driving in traffic. Every so often, we run across something exotic enough that even we can’t immediately identify it — something like this Autobianchi A112 Abarth.
1972 Autobianchi A112 Abarth badge
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Fork-Tailed Devil: The P-38 Lightning and the Birth of Cadillac’s Famous Fins

Conceived in a farmhouse and inspired by a World War Two fighter plane, Cadillac’s famous tailfins are still virtually synonymous with the brand. This week, we look at the 1948-1949 Cadillac and the birth of the tailfin.

1949 Cadillac Series 62 tailfin
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In the Continental Style: The 1961-1963 Lincoln Continental

Although Lincoln’s earliest cars were dismissed as homely, in the decades to come, it would spawn some of the most respected and memorable designs in the automotive industry. This week, we take a look at one of Lincoln’s finest stylistic achievements, the elegant and understated 1961–1963 Lincoln Continental.
1963 Lincoln Continental hood ornament
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Beetle in a Cocktail Dress: The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia

The Karmann Ghia, the most glamorous of Volkswagens, is an automotive drag queen: a rugged and humble economy-car chassis dressed up in the finest haute couture. It is also a car of many nations: engineered and built in Germany, designed in Italy … and styled in Detroit? Read on…

1973 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia badge
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Mr. Average: The 1967 Chevrolet Impala

If any car deserves to be called the archetypal sixties American automobile, it’s the Chevrolet Impala. In 1965, the peak of its popularity, one in every nine new cars sold in the United States was an Impala. If we add the sales of the mechanically identical Biscayne and Bel Air models, full-size Chevrolets accounted for more than 15% of the U.S. market. By comparison, the best-selling car in the U.S. in 2008, the Toyota Camry, accounted for only about 3%. In today’s fragmentary market, the sheer ubiquity the big Chevys once enjoyed is difficult to grasp. Let’s take a closer look at the 1965-1970 Chevrolet Impala, the most average of average American cars.

1967 Chevrolet Impala rear fender badge © 2009 Aaron Severson

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From Small Things: The Nash Metropolitan and the Birth of American Motors

Diminutive size, clown-car looks, and Fifties-style two-tone paint — it could only be the Nash Metropolitan. Designed in Wisconsin and built in England, the “Met” was one of America’s first subcompact cars. More than that, it helped to make the career of a former Mormon missionary named George Romney and to transform Nash Motors into the American Motors Corporation (AMC).

1957 Nash Metropolitan side
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Rock-Solid Snob Appeal: The Mercedes-Benz W111 and W112

For all Mercedes’ reputation for engineering perfectionism and its storied racing heritage, the real appeal of the three-pointed star — immortalized in song by Janis Joplin and many others — has always been snob appeal, a cachet to match all but the most elite luxury cars. Not all Benzs are created equal, however, and few are quite as exclusive or as snobby as the big coupes and cabriolets. This week, we look at the 1963-1971 Mercedes W111 and W112 S-Class coupes and cabriolet.
1966 Mercedes 250SE coupe hood ornament
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