The late designer, Tom Tjaarda designed an SUV called the Laforza or the Rayton Fissore Magnum V8. The background of the vehicles is quite interesting and is another European design with a US sourced drivetrain. Carrozzeria Fissore was a coach-builder based in Turin, northern Italy and were founded in 1919 to make horse drawn carts and it was in the 1930s that they started … [Read more...]
Sunbeam
Over the past few years, Motoring Weekly has described the brands that became part of the Rootes Group and for this article we add to the list with the Sunbeam company. Sunbeam were famous not only for road cars but also aero engines, which ended up in Land Speed Record winning cars. The Sunbeam company was originally founded as a bicycle maker in 1877. John Marston was a … [Read more...]
Lagonda
Several weeks ago I wrote about Sir David Brown who owned two marques, one of which was Lagonda – a classic British sports car, although created by an American abroad. Wilbur Gunn founded the company to make motorcycles and completed his first car in 1907 – the Torpedo with a six cylinder 20hp motor. Like other budding manufacturers he entered early races and managed to win … [Read more...]
Continuation Cars
Over the past couple of years, various storied manufacturers have announced that they will be creating “continuation” cars. This is an interesting idea, but what are they? There are a couple of schools of thought about what constitutes a continuation car. One school suggests that the car uses an allocated chassis number and is built using the same components albeit many … [Read more...]
Sir David Brown
There are a number of people who had a major influence in the automotive industry that also had a connection to agriculture: Ferruccio Lamborghini, Henry Ford, Harry Ferguson and Sir David Brown. All four manufactured tractors as well as cars or other automotive equipment and like Lamborghini, Sir David Brown is well known for luxury sports cars - his with the DB … [Read more...]