1975 was the nadir. The base motor was down to 165 hp-the lowest since Chevy abandoned the Blue Flame Six in 1955 The 1970s included some great years for the Corvette-Corvette fans still get slightly dizzy at the mention of the L88 and L71 engine options. Unfortunately, those were the […]
Author: Rob Sass
Rob was pre-ordained to accumulate strange collector cars after early exposure to his dad’s 1959 Hillman Minx. Sass served as Assistant Attorney General for the state of Missouri and then as a partner in a St. Louis law firm before deciding his billable hours requirement terminally interfered with his old car affliction. His stable of affordable classics has included a TVR 280i, a Triumph TR 250, an early Porsche 911S, and a Daimler SP250. He currently owns a 1965 E-type coupe and a 1981 Porsche 911SC.
1973 BMW 3.0 CSL “Batmobile”
The BMW 3.0 CSL “Batmobile” was one of the most outrageously brutal road-going homologation specials ever conceived, designed to exploit several loopholes and bring to BMW a German Saloon Car Championship. In order to homologate a more competitive racing car, the monocoque was formed from thinner-gauge steel, and aluminum was […]
1976-81 Triumph TR7
It had the misfortune of being built in British Leyland’s Liverpool plant, better known for producing continuous labor strife than automobiles The Triumph TR7 was perhaps the ultimate product of the 1970s, a period referred to as “the decade that quality control forgot.” Abysmal production quality, labor strife, bad management […]
1962-67 Triumph Spitfire MK I & MK II
When pushed, the back wheels on early cars go through wild camber changes and tuck under, resulting in an unscheduled trip into the weeds Triumph’s diminutive Spitfire sports car was named for the Battle of Britain-winning fighter plane the Supermarine Spitfire and showed up in the nick of time for […]
1967-75 Lotus Europa
Europas seem to come two ways-completely done or completely done-in. There’s little point in messing with the latter Colin Chapman and Lotus led the giant-slaying revolution of rear- and mid-engine race cars, so it’s not surprising that Lotus was among the first to bring a mid-engine production sports car to […]
1966-70 Datsun 1600/2000 Sports
While the Brits were still making do with finicky overdrive units, the Datsun 2000 had a five-speed gearbox designed by Porsche For a long time after WWII, Japanese products were viewed by American consumers merely as cheap copies of Western goods. Conventional wisdom held that a Nikon was a […]
1967-69 MGC
The MGC was the first in a string of half-baked ideas that turned the British motor industry into a historic-preservation trust Few cars have taken more of a beating right out of the box than the MGC. Already incensed by BMC’s premeditated murder of the Austin-Healey 3000 in favor of […]
1966 Jaguar E-Type Series I 2+2 Coupe
The rear seats won’t accommodate anyone bigger than munchkins from “The Wizard of Oz” What was an E-type owner to do when little Nigel and Fiona came along? Grace, pace, and space was how the marketing blokes in Coventry described the new “family” E-type 2+2 coupe that bowed as […]
1969-73 Opel GT
Over 70,000 GTs were peddled in the U.S. from 1968 to 1973. The history of captive imports is a tale of ill-starred orphans. If you recall the Plymouth Cricket (née Hillman Avenger), Plymouth Fire Arrow, (aka Mitsubishi Lancer Celeste), or the Ford Sierra sold here as the Merkur XR4ti (complete […]
1966-67 Oldsmobile Toronado
How can muscle car collectors overlook anything this big? The 1966 Toronado was America’s first front-wheel drive car since the Cord 810, 30 years earlier. It was certainly Oldsmobile’s (and possibly GM’s) last stylistic tour de force. The post-1967 years became increasingly unfriendly to this type of individuality as committees, […]