Ashtrays: 2014 Toyota Avensis 1.8

Among the better features of Toyota’s large family car (now replaced) is the driver’s ashtray.

2014 Toyota Avensis ashtray, closed.
2014 Toyota Avensis ashtray, closed.

It’s well placed and a proper size. The illumination is from the side. The mechanism has a nice smoothly damped action and is a lower, horizontally hinged device.  Continue reading “Ashtrays: 2014 Toyota Avensis 1.8”

Gamma Bytes: Fated Symbol

In this final Gamma instalment, we examine alternate realities and the model’s shifting media perceptions.

Image: .zonderpump
Image: .zonderpump

It’s forty years since the Gamma was presented to the World’s press at Geneva and a lot has been heaped upon its shoulders in the interim. While undeniably a sales and reputational disaster, to view the Lancia flagship as simply a bad car is narrow and simplistic. To close this series, we ask whether Fiat could have chosen a different path. Continue reading “Gamma Bytes: Fated Symbol”