Classic Cars

Built for the 1968 Indy 500, the Lotus Type 56 isn't your average vintage race car, if there is such a thing. It's a Pratt and Whitney turbine-powered, all-wheel drive racer once piloted by Graham Hill, and owned by Richard Petty--yep, The King. During qualifying for the race, the Type 56 set a new...

If you own a late-model Porsche, having work done is usually as easy as driving down to your dealership. Own a classic Porsche, especially something as exotic as a Porsche 959, and the “where to go for service or restoration” question gets a bit more difficult. Enter Porsche Classics, a...

In 1969, Nissan introduced a car that would go on to become the stuff of legend and (eventually) lead to the development of the modern Nissan GT-R. Called the Skyline GT-R (for Gran Turismo Racer), it was launched in sedan form but later offered as a two-door coupe beginning in 1971. First...

At a closely guarded location in England’s south is an ordinary looking warehouse that only a handful of people outside of the McLaren staff have ever been allowed inside. The warehouse, known simply as Unit 2, is home to the biggest collection of McLaren cars, including production models and...

Over the weekend one of the most amazing collection of Ferraris, classic and modern, hit the auction block in Monaco. The lineup included everything from classic race cars to ultimate luxury, and some of the vehicles we’re unlikely to see go under the hammer for possibly years to come. We now...

Jerry Seinfeld's love of cars is no secret, especially when it comes to Porsches. He and Jay Leno even fought out a ridiculous bribery session for rights to buy the first Acura NSX during the Super Bowl. But now Seinfeld is looking to go a bit more public with his car obsession, with a new TV show...

Just last week, BMW announced that it would send a selection of cars from the BMW Classics collection to participate in the 2012 Mille Miglia. The vintage car rally is scheduled from May 16 through May 20, and the route will run from Brescia to Rome and back again. Not to be outdone by BMW, Porsche...

If you’re looking for an all-original 1958 Porsche Speedster with less than 100,000 miles on the clock, where would you even start looking? A high-end auction, like RM Auctions or Gooding and Company? A retailer of collectible cars, like Canepa Design? Chances are good you wouldn’t...

The original Mille Miglia was a point-to-point race on public roads in Italy, held annually from 1927 through 1940, then again from 1947 through 1957. The event was banned following the 1957 running, as two separate crashes claimed the lives of three participants and nine spectators. In 1977, to...

Grungy, gunky, funky, and rusty, this Austin Mini Se7en De Luxe is said to be the oldest surviving unrestored Mini in the world. Built in May 1959, it's the eighth Se7en De Luxe ever made. And now it belongs to one lucky (?) new owner, who ponied up the £40,250 it took to win the Bonham's...

If you ask 100 car enthusiasts to name the most significant cars of the postwar era (after 1945), only one thing is certain: you aren’t likely to get the same list twice. Don’t believe us? Try it yourself and see how difficult it is to include one make and model at the expense of...

In 1960, Aston Martin collaborated with Zagato to build a lightweight, higher performance variant of the Aston Martin DB4 GT, to be called the DB4 GT Zagato. Initial plans called for the production of 25 units, but demand never reached expected levels. In the end, only 20 cars were produced from...

When you start looking at the General Motors family tree, things really start getting weird when you get to the part of the diagram that deals with the T-Body platform. The Chevette is the best-known of the bunch, of course, but what about the variations of the fastback first-gen Isuzu Gemini?...

All of these Guilty Pleasures episodes and not one Toyota? We need to fix that deficit pronto! As the owner of a vintage forward-control Detroit van, I tend to approve of weird mid-engined van designs. When we find a mid-engined van that was rushed to the North American market in order to compete...

We’ll admit it: we’re suckers for car museums, and frequently plan vacations around hitting up collections we haven’t visited, trying to find cars we’ve never seen. Admission is rarely free, and when you factor in the cost of travel, seeing a 1934 Avions Voisin C 25...

Set to grace the auction block at Bonhams’ annual Quail Lodge Sale leading up to August's 2012 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is this ultra-rare Gulf Team Davidoff 1997 McLaren F1 GTR 'Longtail' race car. Long-term readers of this site may remember the car being up for sale previously...

Next month RM Auctions’ eagerly-awaited biennial event in Monaco returns, and will see a number of high-profile Ferraris go under the hammer including a Formula 1 car raced by Michael Schumacher on his way to Formula 1 World Championship victory in 2000. Yes, one of the cars that helped...

Weird examples of badge engineering and license-building always warm my heart. The Iran Khodro Paykan, for example, or perhaps the IKA-Renault Torino. The Big Three Detroit automakers got into some strange mirror-world marques when they crossed the border into Canada, where you could buy Mercury...

As manufacturing becomes ever more automated, it's much easier to appreciate the work of traditional craftsmen, slaving over blocks of wood for hours on end and producing works of art entirely by hand. It certainly makes us appreciate the work that went into this teak, full-scale 1955 Mercedes-Benz...

We can't imagine quite what it's like to have almost $3.8 million of vintage 1937 Mercedes-Benz seized by foreign police, but Dutch car collector Frans van Haren can--because that's exactly what happened to him. After buying the 1937 Mercedes 500 K Roadster at RM Auctions for $3.767 million, Frans...