Day: Dec 8, 2016

Chasing Premium: 2017 Opel Insignia Grand Sport

We examine Opel’s new upmarket offering.

2017 Opel Insignia Grand Sport: Opel.de
2017 Opel Insignia Grand Sport: Opel.de

“It would appear that emissions, efficiency and cost are driving the V6 over a cliff. I would not wager a whole lot of money that Opel will still offer a V6 when the Insignia is replaced.” We got that one right. Opel revealed the 2017 Insignia-replacement the other day and we find that “the engine range is made up exclusively of turbocharged four-cylinder units and is crowned by a 247bhp 2.0-litre engine”. (Autocar)

This is somewhat odd Continue reading “Chasing Premium: 2017 Opel Insignia Grand Sport”

Mystery Car

Our correspondent in Sweden, NMJ, has had the good fortune to see one of these. What is it?

What is this?
What is this?

This kind of thing is what you can see if you keep your eyes peeled when roaming around Sweden. It was behind glass, hence the reflections that are apparent in the image. There was an old-favourite of DTW parked nearby which I will show a little later on in the week.

1970 Ford Cortina Revisited: Form

Some time back I promised that I would return to the topic of the form language exemplified by the 1970 Ford Cortina. Well, here we are.

1970 Ford Cortina: source
1970 Ford Cortina: autoevolution.co.uk

Prompting this much-delayed exegesis is the coincidence of an academic paper (Carbon, 2010) which I came across (check out Google Scholar) and the fact that someone parked a new Mazda3 outside my front door.

To start with the easy part, we can talk about the concepts of angular and curved. Two prototypical examples might be the VW Beetle (rated as very curved in Carbon’s paper) and angular as embodied by the 1968 Carabo Concept (Carbon showed a 1986 Alfa Romeo 75, please note). So, where does the 1970 Ford Cortina fit in? What is it like? Continue reading “1970 Ford Cortina Revisited: Form”