Classic Cars

  • Goodwood Festival of Speed

    If you're not familiar with the Goodwood Festival of Speed, you should be. It's a pilgrimage of motorsports and car enthusiasts from around the world to the grounds of Goodwood to see and hear some of the most exciting, unique, and historic cars of the past and present. Next year will be its 20th anniversary. Accordingly, the theme for the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed will be to celebrate the best of the past 20 years. Since 1993, countless classic and modern cars have driven the grounds at Goodwood, climbed the famous hillclimb, and been reunited with their former drivers. The 2013 event...

  • Brian Smith with his 1966 Mini Cooper in 1970. Image via Daily Mail.
    1966 Mini Cooper Found In Storage After 36 Years

    True "barn finds" are getting rarer and rarer, but this one is about as close as they come: a 1966 Mini Cooper found in storage 36 years after it was parked. While the car itself isn't exactly the stuff of gloss-book legend, the Cooper holds a definite place in the history of motorsports--and the...

  • 1972 Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R coupe, Nissan Heritage garage, Zama, Japan
    1972 Nissan GT-R: Ride In The First Generation (Video)

    Last week was Nissan's Advanced Technology Briefing, held in and near its headquarters town of Yokohama, Japan. And one of the unexpected delights of the program was rides in two different cars from the Nissan Heritage garage in Zama, a stunning collection of 330 Datsun, Nissan, and related...

  • The ICON FJ-44 visits Jay Leno's Garage
    Icon FJ-44 hits up Jay Leno's Garage

    Here at Motor Authority we tend to spend most of our time on the paved bits, in low-slung, fun-to-drive cars. Barring that, we gravitate toward full-size highway bombardment hardware: cruising in style. But sometimes we get the urge to go where the roads don't. And when we do, the Toyota FJ is at...

  • State Farm's one-of-a-kind 1968 Camaro
    Jay Leno And The World's Strangest 1968 Camaro: Video

    When it comes to restored or modified cars, an insurance agent can either be your best friend or your biggest nightmare. Few things are worse that finding out your cherished ride wasn’t insured for replacement value, adding insult to the injury of theft or accident damage. State Farm...

  • 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Pilot Car. Photo via Vicari.
    1963 Chevy Corvette Pilot Car Up For Auction

    Before production of the 1963 Corvette, a test run of "pilot cars" was made to validate the design--this was the introduction of the second-generation, or C2, Corvette--the Sting Ray. Now, one example of this bit of automotive history could be yours. Equipped with the original four-speed manual...

  • 1903 Ford Model A Rear Entry Tonneau - Image: RM Auctions

    Last month, we told you that a rare 1903 Ford Model A Rear Entry Tonneau would be crossing the block in mid-October, at the RM Auctions sale in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Built in the first batch of cars to come from Ford’s Mack Avenue plant, this Model A is believed to be the oldest surviving production Ford automobile. Since leaving the factory, the car had seen just five owners. Purchased at the height of the collector car frenzy in 2007 for the impressive sum of $693,000, the car serves as a reminder that there’s no such thing as a sure investment in the world of collector cars...

  • Magnus Walker, artist, designer and Porsche collector
    Magnus Walker, 'Urban Outlaw' And Porsche Collector: Video

    Magnus Walker doesn’t look at all like what you’d expect a Porsche collector to look like. He wears oil-stained jeans, not designer slacks, and it’s a safe bet that none of his shirts come with a tiny alligator logo on them. He wears his long hair in dreadlocks, and you can tell...

  • A vintage Mercedes-Benz 280 SL, like the one being given away by Radeberger Pilsner beer
    Radeberger Pilsner Wants To Give You A Vintage Mercedes

    We always believed ourselves to be well-schooled in German beer available to U.S. consumers. From Stuttgart’s Dinkelacker CD Pils to our perennial favorite, Munich’s Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest, we thought we’d tried about every Reiheitsgebot-governed beer available on this side of...

  • A 1967 Corvette, once owned by Neil Armstrong
    Neil Armstrong's Corvette To Be Preserved, Not Restored

    Last May we brought you the news that a 1967 Corvette Coupe once owned by astronaut Neil Armstrong had surfaced on eBay, in worn but restorable condition. Essentially intact, the only bit of bad news was that the second owner had added flared fenders to the car during his four-plus decades of...

  • Le grandi Ferrari di Sergio Pininfarina exhibition
    Ferrari To Honor Sergio Pininfarina With Late Designer’s Greatest Works

    In July of this year, one of the greatest designers of all time, the legendary Sergio Pininfarina, son of Pininfarina founder Battista Farina, passed away at age 85. During his lifetime, he penned some of most famed cars ever to see the light of the day, many of which were designed for Ferrari. In...

  • Porsche's 935 at Silverstone
    Lapping a Porsche 935 at Silverstone

    While we’re generally game to drive anything we get the keys to, certain cars give us reason to think twice before pulling out of the driveway. One of these is the original Porsche 911 Turbo, dubbed the Porsche 930 in production trim. While the 930’s 330 horsepower may seem modest by...

  • Nissan design chief Shiro Nakamura and Jay Leno

    Jay Leno has flown to Japan to film the latest installment of his online series Jay Leno’s Garage. In the new episode he visits Nissan’s headquarters where he gets to sample one of his most beloved cars, the original Datsun 240Z, or Fairlady as it’s known in its domestic market. The real highlight of the episode is a quick visit to Nissan’s design center, where Jay meets up with Nissan design chief Shiro Nakamura. After some requests for a modern 240Z, Leno finds out that Nissan is in fact planning something special for its 80th anniversary next year. Leno is then...

  • Goodwood Revival via 2013 Subaru BRZ
    2013 Subaru BRZ: The Road To Goodwood

    The problem with driving a left-hand-drive car on the left side of the road--not the right--is that it becomes second nature too quickly, too easily. Five miles out of the Manchester airport, only a couple of U-turns and traffic circles missed, the 2013 Subaru BRZ I'm about to flog up and down the...

  • Silver Arrows line up at the Goodwood Revival
    The Silver Arrows Run At The Goodwood Revival: Video

    This year’s Goodwood Revival featured a remarkable showing of pre-Second World War German Formula One cars, known as “Silver Arrows” for their distinctive bare-aluminum bodies. While seeing Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows run is impressive, seeing them run against cars from Auto Union...

  • Goodwood Revival via 2013 Subaru BRZ
    Goodwood Revival 2012 Photo Gallery And Video

    When RAF bombers screech overhead in pairs while an Elvis Presley cover band rocks out a serviceable "Suspicious Minds" and five-year-olds spin around stage in pedal cars, it dawns on you that you're not at the fusty old Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. You're at the Goodwood Revival, the...

  • Clark Gable's 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL - Image: Wikipedia
    Clark Gable's 1955 Mercedes 300SL Coupe Heads To Auction

    In August, a 1935 Duesenberg Model JN Convertible Coupe once owned by legendary Hollywood star Clark Gable crossed the block at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach auction. Despite bids that reached $6.4 million, the price failed to meet the current owner’s reserve, and the car was not...

  • #1 and #3 Briggs Cunningham 1960 Chevrolet Corvette
    The Battle For The 'Lost' Cunningham Corvette Heads To Court

    After falling off the radar for some three decades, the reveal of the ‘lost’ 1960 Corvette raced by Briggs Cunningham at Le Mans made big news prior to this year’s Corvettes at Carlisle show. One of three campaigned by the team in 1960, it was the only one unaccounted for until...

  • The C3 Corvette, sold from 1968 - 1982

    In 1968, Chevrolet replaced the shortest-lived Corvette (the C2, produced for model years 1963-1967) with what would turn out to be the longest-lived variant, the C3. Still iconic in its shape, the C3 Corvette remained in production from model years 1968 through 1982. In performance terms, those weren’t the best years for automakers. Tightening emission controls strangled horsepower, and a series of fuel crises made buyers more concerned about miles per gallon than miles per hour. While competitive for their time, C3 Corvettes (with few exceptions) are better known for their styling...

  • Goodwood Revival via 2013 Subaru BRZ
    2012 Goodwood Revival Sets Attendance Record

    This year’s Goodwood Revival set a new attendance record, with some 146,000 racing, vintage car and vintage aircraft fans (most dressed in period costume) entering the gates for the three-day celebration of all things motorized or mechanical. We brought you coverage of this year’s...

  • Jonathan Ward's daily-driver Icon Derelict
    Jay Leno drives Jonathan Ward's Icon Derelict

    Jonathan Ward’s company, Icon, is best known for producing stunning rebuilds of the Toyota FJ Land Cruiser, the Jeep CJ and, most recently, the original Ford Bronco. Icon vehicles are built without compromise, and priced accordingly. That raises the question of how many buyers will actually...

  • Goodwood Revival via 2013 Subaru BRZ
    Goodwood Revival 2012: Subaru BRZ Tackles The Harewood Hillclimb

    What's the most fun you can have in a 2013 Subaru BRZ in Great Britain's Yorkshire Dales? Once you tap the stability control into sport mode, and wait for the always imminent rain to back off its threats, the answer's easy: the Harewood Hillclimb. A hill climb's just what it sounds like, only with...

  • Le Mans-winning Aston Martin DBR1/2. Photo via Talacrest.
    Le Mans-Winning Aston Martin DBR1/2 For Sale

    Talacrest is a name best known in the classic Ferrari world, but this time around, it's peddling the 1959 Le Mans-winning Aston Martin DBR1/2 driven by Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby. To call this car priceless is to ignore the whole point of a sale--but it's certainly a piece of motorsport...

  • Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows from the 1930s
    Mercedes-Benz Bringing Silver Arrows To 2012 Goodwood Revival

    The legend of the Silver Arrow grand prix race cars built by Mercedes-Benz and the Auto Union (now Audi) during the 1930s is well documented here at Motor Authority, so regular readers will be keen to know that some of the surviving cars will be on show, and taking to the track, this weekend at the...

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