This article is about a specialist car company that developed pure racing machines and was a huge success in the States. The company is Cunningham – the creator of the racing stripe at a time when teams used national racing colours. This Cunningham is not related to the luxury Cunningham cars of the 1920s and 1930s. The company was founded by Briggs Cunningham II in the US … [Read more...]
Car Names Go Like The Wind
Car names are fascinating. Historically manufacturers either wanted their family name on the vehicles, for example Ford, Ferrari or Lamborghini, or they wanted a fast animal - Jaguar or Panther spring to mind. In some cases manufacturers were named after notable people: De Soto (after an explorer) or Cadillac (after the founder of Detroit). Dropping down a level to a … [Read more...]
Transaxles
A transaxle is the combination of a differential and gearbox in one unit. What this does is to reduce the packaging of the components into one unit rather than two. So in effect it is a transmission axle or "transaxle". In a traditional rear drive car, the engine is at the front with the gearbox connected at the rear of the block converting the power delivery through a prop … [Read more...]
Lazareth LM-847
Well I’ve found the solution to a problem that I didn’t think I had - and one that combines two loves: motorcycling and V8s! Lazareth, a French builder of very low volumes motorcycles and tricycles has added another wild ride to their list of vehicles and as with many of their products there will only be 10 built and several have already been sold! The LM-847 is a … [Read more...]
Auto Italia 2017
A few weeks ago I headed down to Canberra for Auto Italia 2107. This was my fourth visit over the years having been down for 2013, 2015 and 2016. Each year there are two interesting points about the day. The first is that there is usually a "headline" marque - this year it was Ferrari for their 70th anniversary. The second point is that it brings out some of the rarer machines … [Read more...]
