Mike Monk drives a rare, early example of one of Mercedes’ classy S-Class model ranges than, amazingly, was introduced over 50 years old… Launched at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show in what became a Mercedes-Benz trend, the W108 Series Mercedes-Benz raised the bar in terms...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Mike Monk comes to grips with a pillar of society… Idiosyncratic is the only word to describe the Morgan Motor Company of Malvern, a spa town situated at the foot of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, England, “a designated area of natural beauty”. The company was...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]What was originally thought to be a 502, FMM’s stylish post-war BMW saloon turned out to be a bit special… Founded in 1916, BMW is one of the world’s leading – and still independent – motor manufacturers. Its success is remarkable given that in the aftermath...
Good evening Mr Bond. FMM’s ‘double-oh-six-and-a-bit’ drives a special version of the Aston that could have starred in Goldfinger… If ever a brand had a hero then Aston Martin and James Bond epitomised the perfect partnership. It started in 1964 when 007 used a DB5 as...
Last month Packard’s Super 8 was the featured model. Now, 70 years on, Mike Monk tries out Buick’s take on the title… The post-war Buick line-up appeared in 1946 and was effectively a resumption of the pre-war models that were introduced in 1942. This was the...
Porsche celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, and Mike Monk drives a rare version of the breed Porsche has a glittering history of memorable cars but amongst the formidable line-up there is a mid-engined supercar that came about more by accident than planning. In Porsche-speak, the...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In the wake of this year’s Le Mans, which was won, at long last, by Toyota, Mike Monk goes back a half-century to a Ford GT40 with a split personality… In Le Mans history, the 1960s was both a period of sports car innovation and a...
Collection in action Stepping into a car that is as old as he is, the post-war Mercedes-Benz 170D, Mike Monk realises just how far diesel-engined cars have developed over the past 70 years. The looks of pretty much all of the post-war Mercedes’ models are familiar to...
The story behind Lancia’s pre- and post-war sophisticated saloon, the Aprilia, which turned out to be one of motoring life’s little surprises. Lancia was founded on 29 November 1906 by Vincenzo Lancia, an Italian pilot and engineer, and Claudio Fogolin. Vincenzo’s career began as an...
The story behind one of the last models to emerge from Austria’s premier motor manufacturer Since the turn of the last century, Austria has had just three motor car manufacturers – Austro-Daimler, Steyr and, on a much smaller scale, Puch. Not surprisingly, the country’s close...
