Here on Motoring Weekly we have written about all three parts of this entity and this grouping of marques didn’t last that long in an industry that was hit by the Great Depression of the late 1920s and was constantly evolving with smaller companies either going bust or being gobbled up by larger conglomerates. The three companies had an interesting evolution of their own … [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...]
Darracq
Motoring Weekly's marque articles have covered some of the earlier car companies that have been swallowed up by other manufacturers that are still producing vehicles. This week I am going to talk about Darracq, another pioneer in the European market. Alexandre Darracq founded his car company in 1896. He was a Frenchman of Spanish origins and was an entrepreneur and astute … [Read more...]
Ford Windsor V8 Engine
Ford’s Windsor series of V8 motors were fitted to cars from 1962 right through to about 2001. They were built in Cleveland, Ohio and Windsor, Ontario where they got their name from. The engines were 90° small block V8’s with overhead valves – 2 per cylinder. The term small block refers to engines less than 6 litres. The Windsor replaced the Ford Y-Block V8 that was developed … [Read more...]
Open Top Cars
What is fascinating about the car industry is the number of names used for the same item - and often it comes down to history with Europe and the US adopting different names at different times. The convertible is such a beast - it has so many different names, some driven by marketing and others by other long forgotten reasons. The simplest of the names, a convertible … [Read more...]