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The first self-service junkyard I ever experienced was an Oakland outfit called U-Pull-It. Its logo featured a Q*bert-esque alien raygunning parts and the whole outfit was housed in a roofless abandoned factory building. This U-Pull-it in Scotland isn't like that. More »
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British Leyland, the envy of the global automotive industry in 1971, knew it had something special with its new Marina. Two body styles! More »
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When INGSOC takes over Britain, how will the Outer Party officials be brought to their jobs at the Ministry Of Truth? In chauffeur-driven Austin Allegros, of course! More »
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The Austin Mini had the fourth-longest production run of any car in history, behind only the Volkswagen Type I, the Morgan 4/4, and the Morris Oxford/Hindustan Motors Ambassador. By 1989, it still had 11 more years to go! More »
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Most of us will look at these admittedly godawful numbers for the Triumphs, Jaguars, and MGs we've seen in LeMons races and back away in horror… but your true British car aficionado will see those numbers as a challenge! More Spitfires! More Rover 3500s! More Humber Sceptres! More »
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We knew it on these shores as the 200SX Turbo, while the Japanese and Europeans called it the Silvia ZX Turbo. Either way, it served as an excellent herpes vector! More »
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. All-British DOTSBE vehicles so far today, but an Italian car in Britain should fit in. More »
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We've already honored the Ford "Pinto" OHC engine here, but what about the pushrod four that served as the early Pinto's base engine? More »
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We got quite a few entries for the Prince Of Darkness Advertisement Photoshop Contest last week, and now you get to decide who wins the fabulous prize. Jump away to see the finalists! More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Fresh off the boat from England, a RHD Minor Traveller! More »
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We like to tell British car jokes, but the best ones tend to focus on the maker of notoriously unreliable electrical components for those cars: Lucas Electrics aka The Prince Of Darkness! More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Where else would you find a 56-year-old MG at a downtown parking meter? More »
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The last round of print ads from old issues of Autocar was a lot of fun, so I've scanned another batch from 1951. We've got everything from the Rover 75 to the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn. More »
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The BMC B engine was built for nearly 30 years, but its little brother remained in front-line service for close to 50 years. That's up there with the legendary Toyota R! More »
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We've already honored our favorite Mustang commercials, but what about all those other FoMoCo vehicles? We've got 48 of them for you! More »
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Not long ago, one of the 24 Hours Of LeMons perpetrators gave me a big box of Autocar magazines from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Talk about your great British print car ads! More »
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As we continue to celebrate 450 cars photographed down on the Alameda, California street, we're going to follow up the Germans with the rest of the Europeans: Italy, France, Sweden, and the UK! More »
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Some of you observant types might notice that British Leyland and the Rootes Group were totally separate corporations, but we like to fill up tables think their ads go together quite well! More »
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We had the predictable uproar about all the great VW ads we overlooked in our 20 Classic Volkswagen Commercials post last week, because VW has always done great advertising and you can't possibly cover everything. More »
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Much like the US transition to digital TV, the UK is transitioning to digital radio in 2015. However, unlike in the US, consumers are still being sold products that'll be obsolete when that transition is made. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Here's the fourth 1930s car I've found down on the Alameda street.
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Last month, James May bought his Significant Other a brown 1971 Triumph 2000 Saloon, because he appreciates "a proper girl in a terrible old car" and felt that she'd "see the cultural relevance of brown."
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One of the many ways British males compensate for lack of sexual prowess is by purchasing extraordinarily overpriced license plates. This "1 0" plate's expected to set a record, with an auction reserve of £10,000. More »
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The Queen is going green, converting her two custom $15 million Bentley Limos to run on bio-ethanol, preempting an effort by Bentley to do the same for its entire fleet. More »
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Well, Hoon by name if not by nature. Geoff Hoon, former Secretary of State for Defense, was appointed the United Kingdom’s Secretary Of State For Transport back in October. Could this be a good thing? Surely anyone named Hoon can’t be all evil, right? More »
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You know what feels just like being a hot-rodder American tooling around New Mexico in your chopped pickup truck and then stopping at a redneck diner for a burger? Driving a Peugeot to some crypto-50s-American diner in Newcastle. Bonus points for the rhinestone Peugeot 205 leather jacket! More »
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Car-shopping mid-80s Brits who wanted to show the world that they weren't going to let The Man grind them down- just like Number Six showed The Man!- could head right down to their local Renault dealership after watching this ad, because the Renault 21 (sold here in the States as the much-less-than-successful Renault Medallion) gets away! More »
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The surveillance state of Britain is becoming more and more unbelievable as The Guardian is reporting a number-plate recognition system will now be tied to a massive database allowing the movements of all vehicles to be tracked and stored for up to five years.The system works by using government and privately-owned closed-circuit cameras to read number plates and then send the data into the central database, where it can be used for surveillance purposes. When complete, the system will record over 50 million license plate locations each day. Rumor has it the entire operation will be powered by a high-speed generator attached directly to George Orwell's casket. (Photo credit: Wired) [Guardian UK] More »
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You figure a British publication that set out to do a Top 100 Ugliest Cars Ever list would be heavy on the weird UK machinery, and The Telegraph doesn't disappoint in that department (e.g., the Aston Martin Bulldog, above). But don't think that they've forgotten about Detroit; not only do the Pacer, the Fox Mustang, and the Edsel make the list, but… well, we don't want to spoil it for you, but let's just say that WE'RE NUMBAH ONE! WE'RE NUMBAH ONE! Thanks to Paul for the tip! [Telegraph.co.uk] More »
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Apparently everyone in Britain has seen this ad thousands of times, thanks to the original lyrics by Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Dr. Brian May, but we didn't hear about it until tipsters Stephen and Franzouse pulled our coats. Unlike Jim Morrison, who refused to let The General make a "Come on Buick, Light my fire" ad, Dr. May wasn't such a stick-in-the-mud about repurposing his compositions. You can see how Ford's torture testing and racing hoonage led straight to such world-beating machines as the Orion and Sierra. More »
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The folks over at Motortorque saw our Top Ten Car Ads Of The 80s post and thought we might be interested in their Top 20 list… and the "we've got so much money in oil profits we can spend Hollywood-blockbuster money on our ads" offering from British Petroleum really takes 80s excess to levels we never knew existed. Follow the link to see the other 19; we've seen a few of them here before, but you'll find enough good stuff to avoid work for quite a while: [Motortorque] More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We had a minor upset yesterday, with longshot Germany defeating PCH Superpower Britain in the Jaguar Versus BMW Choose Your Eternity poll. That's not quite the headline news that, say, Detroit beating France would be, but we still need to give Her Majesty's cars a chance to prove they can still dish out pain and pleasure in very large- yet always mixed- helpings. That's the reason we're going with a couple of fine British super coupes suggested by tipster (and PCH T-shirt winner P161911 More »
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Just when everyone figured British Leyland was going to surrender the British Isles to the hordes of low-priced imports pouring across the Channel, here comes the brand new Austin Metro! Good for 62 MPG (at a blistering 50 miles per hour) and bashed together by drunks with hammers built with pride right at home, there was no doubt the Germans, Italians, Japanese, and French trembled with fear at the sight of the Metro. More »
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You know what's always good to cut through the oppressive miasma of a typical Monday in The Man's salt mines? British car jokes! Sure, fish in a barrel, but the jokes wouldn't be funny if we didn't all secretly love the cars. Leylandnügen: The Joy Of Towing! You'll see that and much more when you visit Trevor Boicey's Utterly Obscure British Car Humour site. [Utterly Obscure British Car Humour] More »
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This traffic warder either has brass pendulums or a little beef with a particular cop, as he seems to have ticketed the officer for parking illegally. In most cases, traffic cops are regarded as the lowest form of human being, but in this case the man should be celebrated. More »
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After yet another shuffling of gut-shot British Leyland brands produced the Austin Rover Group, the ARG marketers decided to get serious about moving some iron off the lots. No more Triumph TR7s or MGBs- now they'd have television actor Patrick Mower pitching the Morris Ital, Rover SD1, Mini Mayfair, and other early-80s British Machinery offering Value For Money, otherwise known by the awe-inspiring acronym VFM. More »
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First off, are crossing guards in the U.K really called lollipop ladies and men? If it is true, is it because their signs look like lollipops. Or even more creepily, do they hand out lollipops to kids? Regardless, these men and women are now being equipped with helmet-mounted cameras to catch aggressive motorists. Apparently, drivers aren't as nice to these lollipop-passing-out guardians of the walkways. There have been 1,400 incidents of aggressive lollipop haters was recorded last year with dozens of crossing guards needing hospitalization. More »
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We need more Judas Priest references here, and Denver's EJacops has given us the opportunity to drop a couple by finding and photographing these three British machines in his neighborhood. We've got a shockingly rust-free TR6, a Land Rover that seems ready to claw its way straight up the nearest 14,000-foot mountain, and when was the last time you saw a TR3 parked on the street in a manner that suggests it actually runs regularly? Good work, EJacobs! Make the jump for a second gallery. More »
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When you're caught in flagrante delicto by your special lady's husband and have to flee on foot while dressed in a towel, you might breathe a sigh of relief when you discover he plans to chase you in a Triumph Stag; after all, the timing chains probably won't hold out as long as your legs. But then, in one of those cruel twists of fate that seemed all too common in Malaise Britain, you find yourself in the waking nightmare of being forced to choose another Triumph in which to make your getaway! More »
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Not a whole lot of old British cars remain on the streets of Alameda. We've seen a few Morrises and a couple of Jaguars, but just a single MG up until today. I found this '73 MGB parked just a few doors down from the '68 Pontiac GTO and ran right home to get my camera, in case it was about to drive away any minute. As it turned out, this MG is a new resident, not a onetime visitor. More »
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