Crashing the first Lamborghini Diablo allowed out of captivity should have ended my attempt to work in Europe. Long before the career move from Australia really began to pay dividends […]
Mazda-MX-5
Thirty years ago in Wheels magazine’s January 1990, which named the original Mazda MX-5 Car of the Year, I wrote: “I’ll admit I’m biased. You see, I love the MX-5. […]
Ronnie Peterson
Ronnie Petersen, almost certainly the fastest Grand Prix driver of the 1970s, died after an horrific multicar pileup at the start of the 1978 Italian Grand Prix. Tragically, Ronnie – […]
Olivier Gendebien
One July day in the late 1960s, 12-year old school-boy Robert Gendebien returned home from his Belgium boarding school for the summer holidays. Over dinner with his father and two […]
Franco Scaglione
Automotive historians, like historians in any field, occasionally commit unforgiveable errors. I’m hugely embarrassed to admit that in a 1991 Autocar magazine story, I killed off designer Franco Scaglione. Only […]
Phil Irving
In 1966 a new set of regulations was adopted for Formula One racing. The 1.5-litre engine capacity ceiling for both normally aspirated and supercharged engines gave way to a 3-litre […]
Anatole “Tony” Lapine
Few travelling companions were as stimulating as Anatole ‘Tony’ Lapine, the Latvian-born American who ran Porsche design from 1969-1988 and died in late April, 2012, just weeks after the death […]
Rudolf Hruska: Mister Alfasud
Rudolf Hruska belonged to the old aristocratic school of automotive design. His was a simple philosophy – much ignored, he believes, in the creation of modern cars. “In my opinion,” […]
Russell Brockbank
Every motoring enthusiast has a favourite Brockbank cartoon. Usually, only after long and careful consideration: how do you choose between the dozens of his wonderfully simple yet astute sketches that […]
