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The Sports 800 was Toyota’s first sports car, paving the way for the 2000GT, AE86/Levin, and the recent Scion FR-S/Toyota GT86. Based on the Publica sedan, the Sports 800 uses an air-cooled, horizontally-opposed, two-cylinder engine. The Sports 800 is tuned more for performance than the sensible Publica, with increased displacement and two carburetors. The car’s […]

Vespa is known around the world for its scooters, but few people may know it produced one economy car. The company’s president felt that FIAT’s prominence in Italy should not be challenged, so the Vespa 400 was produced in France. The four passenger coupe had a rolltop roof, all-independent coil spring suspension, and hydraulic brakes.

The Urba Centurion was a kit car designed by Quincy-Lynn Enterprises in 1982. A full set of plans, available through Mechanix Illustrated, cost a mere $17.00! The basis for the car is a 1970 Triumph Spitfire chassis with the British engine replaced by a three-cylinder 18 hp Kubota diesel engine. The body is handcrafted fiberglass

Gabriel Voisin was a major manufacturer of airplanes during World War I. The end of the war saw him with a large fortune and an equally large factory, but a very small market for airplanes. In 1919, he decided to become a car manufacturer and acquired a ready-made engine design–a 3969cc sleeve-valve four which had

The Volkswagen Beetle is a car we are all familiar with. More than 20 million were sold. While the name “Porsche” is associated with expensive cars, Ferdinand Porsche had a life-long interest in a small car that an average working person could afford. Porsche’s prototypes came to the attention of the newly elected chancellor of

DAF began in 1928 as a small garage. By 1949, they started manufacturing trucks and trailers. Their success led to the production of cars. The idea was to builda small affordable “luxury” car with an automatic transmission similar to that in a Buick Dynaflow. The problem was that such a transmission was too big, too

Here is an unassuming-looking Volvo 142 that has been modified for racing, and is raced by Jeff Lane.  SCCA created the “Improved Touring (IT) class” race cars in the late 1980s.   This class is meant to be an entry-level racing class – the cars have to be at least five years old, and only

Hans Trippel is known as the man who designed the Amphicar. Before the Amphicar, he designed the Weidner Condor. The Condor was presented to the public at the 1957 Geneva Auto Show. It was built by farm equipment manufacturers Fritz and Reinhold Weidner. The body, provided by the Binz factory, is made of the most

Zündapp is one of the best-known makes of German motorcycles. The company’s first car was in 1931 and it was Ferdinand Porche’s design for a “people’s car.” They concentrated on motorcycles until 1956 when production began on an unusual microcar designed by aircraft-builder Claudius Dornier. As you can see, this car has two doors and