Chris Ward continues his report on life with a 2009 Jaguar XF-S, experiencing a few bumps in the road.
Two months in and the Jaguar XF-S has settled into the daily grind. As cruel as it may be to hobble a continent crushing beast with stop-start traffic, the Jag proves adept at leaping over life’s bumps and ruts.
Upon those rare occasions when the traffic thins and the roads open out, the big cat is happy to Continue reading “Big Cat Hunting (Part 2)”
Concluding our retrospective on Spain’s automotive flag-carrier and the rare occasional flowering of its independent design talent.
SEAT enjoyed a period of independence between 1982 and 1986 during which it introduced the MK1 Ibiza in 1984, a Supermini that was sold alongside the outdated 127-based Fura before replacing it in 1986. A four-door saloon version, the Málaga, followed a year later in 1985. The Ibiza and Málaga were the closest SEAT ever came to Continue reading “Espíritu Independiente (Part Two)”
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from him, but despite the current C-19 crisis you certainly cannot accuse Mr. Wagener of sitting on his hands.
What if: Like you, I recognise that the job of design leader or Chief Creative Officer in this instance involves a certain amount of blue sky projection. An implicit understanding that design in its purest, most elemental form ought to Continue reading “Dreams Take Flight”
A review of the automotive week ending 26 June 2020.
Half the year gone already and not a child in the house washed. But as this little pocket of the world gradually and carefully opens back up, the broader European motor industry too is doing its level best to pretend this crisis never happened, catching up on all of those product launches inconveniently delayed by the dreaded virus.
Not that recent global affairs have had much impact upon Haymarket Publishing’s storied automotive weekly, where fairies and unicorns continue to flit merrily, social distancing notwithstanding. Monday therefore saw Autocar online report (and not for the first time either) upon the possibility that Jaguar might Continue reading “Newsgrab”
A piscatorial ode to the Passat estate.
The romance of the open road. Being your own boss. A scaled down Knight of the Road, if you will. However much your magenta tinted spectacles may offer such views, in today’s dog eat dog road conditions, it’s mighty tough out there. Especially if you’re a photocopier engineer with a large region to cover and your given steed is a B8 Passat estate – in grey. Cliched, isn’t it? Though Mark definitely does not sell the machines, his remit is simply to Continue reading “Mark, His Mk8 Motor and a Mackerel”
A retrospective on Spain’s automotive flag-carrier and the rare occasional flowering of its independent design talent.
In the late 1940’s Spain was an economic wasteland. The bloody 1936 to 1939 Spanish Civil War, immediately followed by the privations of World War II, had left the country impoverished and largely without an industrial base. The government of General Franco was desperate to improve the welfare of its people and reduce their reliance on subsistence level agriculture and fishing.
One key element of this plan would be the development of an indigenous automobile industry. European manufacturers, still rebuilding their post-war domestic capacity and markets, were largely uninterested in expansion into Spain, but the government realised it had neither the capital nor the technical expertise to build the industry from scratch. Instead, it courted both Fiat and Volkswagen, offering shares in a new auto company and royalty payments in return for permission, not just to assemble but to Continue reading “Espíritu Independiente (Part One)”
As inevitable as death, taxes, and global pandemics. What’s that? Ah yes, Jaguar’s in trouble again. Haven’t we been here before?
An automotive reckoning, long-postponed, now seems imminent. We of course should have had it long ago, and had the surging Chinese economy not mopped up all that excess capacity over the past decade or so, we would be talking about a rather different automotive landscape today.
But not only did the Chinese Crouching Tiger to some extent help prop-up otherwise floundering businesses (and certainly, one could point to Groupe PSA’s remarkable resurgence being in no small part aided by Dongfeng’s largesse), it also made a significant contribution to a lopsided industry model with an over-reliance upon high-end, luxury products.
It isn’t wildly hyperbolic to suggest that Jaguar Land Rover’s post-2010 successes were to a very large extent a product of Chinese market forces, and if anyone doubted that, one only had to Continue reading “Number Nine Life”
How an ultimately doomed American car manufacturer unwittingly laid the financial foundation of one of today’s most successful sports car makers.
Ferdinand Anton Ernst (better known as Ferry) Porsche visited the USA for the first time in his life in December 1951. The 42-year old general manager of Porsche AG; his father Ferdinand Senior having passed away earlier that year, was there to carry out consulting work on a military vehicle project for the US Army as well as to discuss sales and distribution with Max Hoffman, Porsche’s importer and distributor for North America.
During that meeting Hoffman suggested to Porsche that providing consultancy services for American carmakers might be a lucrative idea for the enterprising young firm. Shortly before, Hoffman had met with longtime Studebaker executive Richard A. Hutchinson to discuss the future of the American car market and he suggested that Studebaker should offer a true economy car, a kind of American Volkswagen, instead of trying to Continue reading “Deviating Fortunes”
We welcome a fellow sufferer to the DTW branch of Kitty-Fanciers Anonymous.
My parents have always been baffled by my fascination with cars. The curse is not familial; neither parent has a fluid ounce of petrol in their veins. Dad preferred football to fast metal and never learned to drive. Mam passed her driving test in her thirties out of gritty necessity, her car ownership journey characterised by a series of grudgingly bought and traded-in Fiestas.
I on the other hand absorbed everything automotive like an oversized Halfords sponge. A yearly highlight was a trip to the Daily Mail British Motorshow. The week long event coincided with my birthday, making a trip to the NEC a great present for a car mad youth. One of my most vivid memories is from the 1988 show; I was ten when Jaguar launched the XJ220 to a seemingly hysterical response. Continue reading “Big Cat Hunting (Part 1)”
The new Lexus IS is upon us. You can’t have one.
Even before the C-19 pandemic swept away all previously held norms and nostrums, the motor industry had been undergoing something of a shakedown on a number of levels. Old orders were either tumbling or at the very least teetering on less than solid foundations, as customers voted, as they are prone to do, with their credit scores. Amid those sectors experiencing that unmistakable sensation of cold steel upon the nape of their necks was the upmarket-brand, rear-wheel-drive close-coupled sportive saloon.
In some respects, it’s something of a surprise that this market sector has managed to Continue reading “Not For the Likes of You”
The Daewoo Espero was launched thirty years ago and was the company’s first unique model. We look back at a car not without merit, but out of time.
Here at DTW we have an irrational fondness for plucky underdogs that some might say borders on the perverse. Just as with famous celebrities, their appeal to us is only heightened by an untimely and premature demise. Daewoo is one such marque, but has not yet secured its own place in the DTW archives and is mentioned as an aside in only ten out of more than three thousand contributions. Today it’s time to Continue reading “Hope vs Experience”
Musing on purity – Porsche style.
By humble, allow me to draw your attention towards the base model – if indeed one can deign to call anything from the house of Porsche bog standard? Motor journalists of this world along with, it would seem, most people with blood racing fervently require the cream: the Turbos, the GTs, the ones immortalised in computer game-land.
£82,795 is the price of a basic Carerra typ 992 in the United Kingdom. For your hard earned, you get 385PS, and 182mph v-max. 0-62 mph takes a mere 4.2 seconds. Petrol consumption is mid twenties. Probably the most important figure however being the one perched behind the wheel of such a vehicle for just over £1200 per month. Don’t ask for the end-game value. And no, they don’t Continue reading “The Humble 911”
Citroen introduces its first “Non-Conformist Mobility Object“. Well, its first in decades. Is this a glimpse into the future?
Despite being embroiled in perhaps the largest and most complicated merger/acquisition in automotive history, Groupe PSA, under the current leadership of Carlos Tavares, appear to be one of the few European automakers who are taking what at least appear to be the decisions that matter. And as the worst of the current C-19 wave recedes for much of Europe at least, it’s becoming increasingly apparent what those are likely to be.
One can of course argue the toss over the value or logic in PSA merging with Fiat-Chrysler (and yes, we all know the basic rationale), there is little doubt that such a move will in the fullness of time, prove either to have been a masterstroke of suitably epic proportions, or the petard upon which Mr. Tavares will eventually Continue reading “Paradigm Shift”
“Ford builds a Passat!” was a typical reaction when the Mondeo Mk3 was unveiled in October 2000. Beneath its conservative Germanic skin was a well-engineered, competent and capable car.
The 1993 Ford Mondeo Mk1 was a transformational car for its maker. Its predecessor, the Sierra, for all its futuristic aero looks, was resolutely conventional and exemplified Ford’s tradition of producing (no more than) adequately engineered and carefully costed cars that sold on showroom appeal, value for money and low running costs. If one wanted to Continue reading “Ford Builds A Passat”
Seeing the ‘all-new, all-digital’ (it is neither) Golf VIII being advertised led me to dig out Car’s launch and first drive article covering the Golf II. Both the modern-day car and Car suffer from the comparison.
When I wrote my last effort for DTW, Computer World, I had no idea that VW would go ‘all-digital’ in its portrayal of what is perhaps its most revered existing icon. VW’s version of ‘digital’ isn’t all that different from that of the 1983 Austin/ MG Maestro, and it seems to have paid for the extra gimmickry by de-contenting the new Golf in subtle and yet significant ways. Instantly, it seems they have thrown away that constant sense of superiority and quality which, in my mind, the Golf has always possessed.
I have never owned a Golf, and only relatively recently driven one (it was a courtesy car whilst my Octavia was in for a service). It’s a car I have often revered – starting with the MkII (I was too young to Continue reading “A Tale of Two Cars”
Ah yes, Facel: we’ve been expecting you.
The resurrection of defunct, once revered automotive brands seems to be a frequent and favourite pastime of enthusiasts displaying varying degrees of naivety and business acumen. The more persistent of these who manage to attract enough investors manage to produce an actual life size (but not always functional) concept of their planned new vehicle; and likewise these show varying levels of workmanship, realism and taste.
Subsequently they secure a space at a major Motor Show – Geneva being especially popular- which is in most cases their first and last foray into the real world. Isotta-Fraschini, Duesenberg, Diatto, Russo-Baltique, Lea-Francis, Veritas, Hispano-Suiza: the list is long and the end result virtually always the same.
This should not come as a shock to anyone, as off the record even a major manufacturer like Mercedes-Benz would not Continue reading “Is That You, John Wayne?”
Renault 82, it says on the cover.
The image you see here is taken from a 1982 brochure prepared by Publicis Conseil (Renault’s long-standing communications and advertising agency) for Ireland’s then distributor, Smiths Distributors LTD, who also assembled Renault 4s in Co Wexford for the Irish market. More a pamphlet than a brochure, it nevertheless provided a well-produced and reasonably comprehensive overview of what the nationalised French carmaker had to Continue reading “Photo For Sunday : La Gamme Complète”
Mention hybrid vehicles and one immediately thinks of Toyota and the 1997 Prius, the first commercially successful passenger car of this type. There are, however, earlier examples and today we look at an unlikely pioneer, Briggs & Stratton.
Outside the US, the name Briggs & Stratton is most often associated with lawnmower engines of modest capacities and power outputs. This understates considerably the size and global reach of the company. Founded in 1908, Briggs & Stratton is the world’s largest manufacturer of small-capacity internal combustion engines for agricultural, industrial, marine and recreational applications.
Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the company manufactures around ten million engines annually in plants located in North and South America, Europe and Australia, and sells in over 100 countries worldwide.
In the late 1970’s, following the fuel crisis earlier in that decade, Briggs & Stratton began thinking about the viability of hybrid power. It recognised that most road vehicles of that era were highly inefficient: their large capacity internal combustion engines were required to produce enough power and torque to accelerate them up to the speed limit on highways but, thereafter, only a fraction of the power output was required to Continue reading “American Pioneer”
The new electric 500 is now available to order. Sorry, how much?
While its FCA parent continues to negotiate the necessary regulatory hurdles around its forthcoming nuptials with Carlos Tavares’ Groupe PSA, life, while somewhat interrupted these past couple of months, rolls inexorably onwards; this week with Fiat announcing, a month ahead of schedule, the fixed roof version of its new fully electric 500e.
Built on, it’s said an all-new dedicated EV platform, the new generation of Fiat’s evergreen sub-compact was first shown in early March in convertible form, with a forthcoming 4-door model (Autocar says) still a remote possibility. Intended to have made its physical debut at the Geneva motor show, the advent of the viral pandemic and the ensuing shutdowns ensured that it, like so much of Geneva’s fare was lost amid more pressing health-related concerns.
But with most of Europe seemingly past the worst of C-19’s deadly swathe, Fiat has seen fit to Continue reading “Small Change”
Our Sheffield-based scribe hasn’t tyred of his rubber fixation. Not by some stretch…
The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company was inaugurated on 3rd August 1900 in similar fashion to arch rival, Goodyear. Harvey Samuel Firestone had previous business experience prior to moving from Chicago to the rubber town of Akron, Ohio, a minuscule, hard working and honest workforce (all employees names known), followed by an explosion of fortune and growth. Fierce amidst board and courtroom alike, Harvey S Firestone was a philanthropist at heart – employees were paramount.
Appalled at the shoddy condition of America’s roads in 1919, Firestone invited an army-led Transcontinental Motor Convoy, shod in his firm’s rubber over to his Columbiano based farm to Continue reading “Londinium Trio 3 : Latex in London”
The French Capri?
The Spanish word for fire, the Renault Fuego was somewhat unusual in 1980 in that it was in receipt of a name rather than a numeral. The nationalised French carmaker’s numerical system, which had been in place since the ’60s was already showing signs of unravelling, but would take almost another decade before being abandoned with debut of the Clio in 1990. This made the Fuego something of an outlier in the range, a status the car maintains to this day.
To those who Continue reading “Fire Without the Spark”
We conclude our retrospective on the US Big Two’s somewhat compromised 1970 subcompact offerings, focusing today on the Ford Pinto and examining the controversy that engulfed it.
The Chevrolet Vega was an ambitious clean-sheet design, but Ford took a rather more pragmatic approach to the Pinto. In 1968, Ford President Lee Iacocca set targets of a sub-2,000 lbs weight, a sub-$2,000 entry price and an accelerated development time of just 25 months for the new subcompact.
To meet this challenge, the development team looked to Continue reading “Subcompact and Substandard (Part Two)”
A retrospective glance at Cadillac’s glory days.
Long-standing Driven to Write readers will undoubtedly be aware that the site once hosted a monthly theme. Amongst them, the DTW Brochures section has lain dormant for quite some time, so in an attempt to Continue reading “If the Hue Fits”
How does one define Italy’s relationship to the motor car? One might start by attempting to define the country itself.
[Editor’s note: This piece is a re-run of an article originally published in May 2016, as part of DTW’s Values theme.]
As anyone has read a few books on Italian history will know, it’s a great bunch of countries. Only foreigners lump it all together as one nation. That gives us a bit of a head start in understanding how Italy’s values translate into the broad array of markedly different car companies being stifled under one management.
As recently as the 1950s you could still find people in the deep south of Italy who didn’t know what Italy was. While outsiders consider Italy to have been unified, many Italians still Continue reading “Values – Italy”
A second automotive stopover in that London, courtesy of our North Western-correspondent.
A good Yorkshire name. Strong, instinctive, different; as was the car company company of old. Having the wherewithal to open a showroom in the forever fashionable London West One district was something of a masterstroke. Shame that Jowett failed in giving their ever-enthusiastic salesman, John Baldwin much to sell; the windows showing for far too long nothing but a Bradford van and small scale model of a Javelin.
Never troubling the big makes due to insignificant export sales and therefore restricted access to all-important steel supplies, Jowett cars of Bradford in the former West Riding of Yorkshire shone so very brightly – if for a brief time.
Neither under-championed designer Gerald Marley Palmer nor indeed the company of Jowett themselves seemed to realise the sporting or sales potential of either car until they were quite literally shown the way. Palmer was staggered to see his creations Continue reading “Londinium Trio 2 : The Empty Windows of 48 Albermarle Street”
Fifty years ago, Ford and General Motors introduced their first subcompact models to challenge the rising tide of Japanese and European imports. One was underdeveloped and riddled with faults. The other would become an infamous cause célèbre for US safety campaigners.
In the late 1960’s US auto makers were becoming concerned about the growing popularity of small Japanese and European imports. These tended to be basic and unsophisticated, but were also cheap, economical and reliable, particularly when compared to the alternative of a second-hand domestic model. Ford and GM needed to fight back, so set to work developing what would become known as subcompacts.
The Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Vega were launched within a day of each other in September 1970. Conceptually, they were identical: conventionally engineered front-engined RWD cars that would be available in saloon, hatchback and estate versions. The Vega was slightly larger, with a 3” (75mm) longer wheelbase, although rear seat space in both was occasional at best for adult passengers.
The development of the Vega was highly unusual in that it was controlled, not by Chevrolet, but by an independent team of fifty engineers led by Lloyd Reuss, who reported directly to GM President, Ed Cole. Reuss would himself go on to Continue reading “Subcompact and Substandard (Part One)”
Let’s go to a stoning…
Where Are You Two From, Nose City?
There appears to be a fairly broad consensus (outside the Forschung-und Innovationszentrum at least), that brand-BMW has, from a visual perspective in particular, lost its way. It isn’t today or yesterday that this has occurred and it certainly isn’t as if we haven’t already commented at length upon it, but to suggest that Adrian van Hoydoonk is presiding over a loss of face which brooks no retrieval is these days hardly an exaggeration.
This week we have been able to Continue reading “Ahead By A Nose”
Today Andrew Miles takes us a virtual trip to the UK’s Capital, to celebrate one of its architectural (and automotive-related) gems.
Many moons have waxed and waned since this building’s walls housed typewriters chattering along with the clang of the wheel wrench and the heady aroma of rubber. These days (well at least before the virus that must not be mentioned) you’d more likely Continue reading “Londinium Trio 1 – Maison du Bibendum”
The Mazda Tribute was launched twenty years ago. If you don’t remember it, you’re in the majority who overlooked the car when it was on sale, then quickly forgot about it. Time to remember.
The Tribute was significant in that it was Mazda’s first tentative step into both SUVs and four-wheel drive*. It was co-developed with Ford, which held a 33.4% stake in Mazda at that time. The Ford version was called Escape in the US and Maverick in Europe. It was a mid-sized five-door transverse-engined front or four-wheel-drive SUV. The model was based on the Ford CD2 platform, which was itself a development of the Mazda GF platform that underpinned the 626/Capella saloon.
The Tribute was designed to Continue reading “More Than Just a Tribute Act”
Time for a suspension of disbelief.
Hydropneumatic. Whenever this word is mentioned among those with even a fleeting interest in cars, the word Citroën usually follows. And with good reason; this much praised suspension system was an indispensable factor in cementing the double chevron’s reputation for ride comfort and Avant Garde engineering.
It is a little known fact however that competitor Peugeot (in those days known, in contrast to Citroën, for conventional and proven engineering) would nearly Continue reading “Suspended Animation”
Driven To Write 