This article is a description of one of the few Swiss car makers: Monteverdi. The marque was formally founded by Peter Monteverdi in 1967 after he turned the family business, a car dealership, into a specialist manufacturer. Prior to founding the manufacturing company, Monteverdi had been building specials for road and racing which included MBM (Monteverdi Binnigen Motors) … [Read more...]
Lea-Francis
This history article is about Lea-Francis, another bicycle maker who moved into motorised transportation - namely cars and motorcycles. The company was founded in 1895 as a bicycle manufacturer and as the new car industry was being kick started, the owners, Richard Lea and Graham Francis decided to cash in. During 1903, they developed a car with a four litre, 3 cylinder … [Read more...]
Dunlop Maxaret
There are many names in the automotive industry that have very long histories and are respected brands - Dunlop is one of them thanks to being a major player in the tyre industry. However, Dunlop were also key inventors of other safety equipment and one such invention was Maxaret - the first Anti-lock Braking System to be commercialised. In the late 1940s, Dunlop developed … [Read more...]
Summit Roadster
The early years of the Australian motoring industry appears to be very similar to the conditions we seen over the past few decades with manufacturers attempting to beat the imports on price and the Governments of the day desperate to tax the imports yet giving them very big loopholes to avoid paying them! Today however, Free Trade Agreements have reduced the import tax and the … [Read more...]
Harley Tarrant
I can probably be certain that very few readers will have heard of Harley Tarrant - yet he was at the forefront of the industry and was at the heart of Australian motoring. Tarrant was born in 1860 in the small town of Clunes, in Victoria, Australia and was the son of a couple who had emigrated from Oxford in England. His father started out as a miner before becoming a … [Read more...]