Retro
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If you're creating a mass-market electric car, it makes a degree of sense to use a mass-market platform. That's why you'll find some Versa sitting under the Leaf and rather a lot of Focus in Ford's Focus Electric. Dig hard enough, and even the Chevy Volt has similarities with other GM products--it's built around GM's Delta II platform, also used under Chevy Cruzes and Buick Veranos. Under this 1979 GE and Chrysler Electric Test Vehicle-1 (ETV-1) you'll find Chrysler's ubiquitous "K-car" platform, on which Plymouth Reliants and Dodge 400s were based, among others. Hardly auspicious beginnings...
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1983 Volvo Concept Car Previewed Today's Green Tech
Traditionally, concept cars are superficial beasts, showing off an automaker's latest style, eventually watered down and rationalized before they hits the road. More recently, they've also previewed new drivetrain technologies and materials, as products are now expected to minimize their impact on...
Antony Ingram -
Nissan Leaf's Great-Grandfather: The Tama EV
You might think high gasoline prices are a problem now, but at least it's relatively easy to get hold of. The same couldn't be said in Japan after the end of World War II, when the country's gasoline supplies were limited under Allied occupation. Transport was still vital, which led Nissan and...
Antony Ingram -
Aerodynamics Matter: The 88 MPG, 1981 Alpina BMW
The Detroit Auto Show last month marked the debut of the a car with the lowest coefficient of drag of any production car--just 0.23. That car was the Mercedes-Benz CLA, a small sport sedan powered by a gasoline engine. Efficiency figures haven't yet been released, but we can imagine it being quite...
Antony Ingram -
Classic BMW Coupe Becomes 800-Horsepower Electric Car
BMW's ActiveE coupe is a great little electric car. Even more so when it's working. It looks pretty good, there's decent performance on offer, and drivers enjoy BMW handling and BMW quality without having to feed a drop of gas into it. An electrified 1-Series coupe will never be quite as cool as...
Antony Ingram -
Honda Gear Concept: The Original Civic, Reincarnated?
With the North American International Auto Show diverting much of the motoring press to Detroit, Honda has surprised us all by launching a new concept car at the Montreal International Auto Show instead. The Gear Concept Study Model is a subcompact hatchback, with more than a hint of some of...
Antony Ingram -
There's a line of thinking that recommends that you never meet your heroes, as they'll only disappoint you. GET YOUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER. SIGN UP! You could argue that the same applies to cars, and the DeLorean DMC-12, stainless star of the silver screen, is often described as one of those cars--slow, crude, not great fun to drive. But Matt Farah from the DRIVE channel on Youtube has been hunting for his ideal DeLorean, and that search has brought him to the electric-powered version you can see in the video above. It's actually the creation of the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC), the...
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eBay Watch: 1997 Solectria Force, Geo-Based Electric Car
Electric car conversions aren't for everyone, but for electric car fans who can't stretch to one of the latest models, they're a much cheaper option to get behind the wheel of an EV. One such clean and cheap option, the 1997 Solectria Force, is currently sitting on eBay, with a few days remaining...
Antony Ingram -
Urgent: Save This Old, Ground-Breaking Hybrid Car!
It's another Monday morning, and there's nothing like a positive start to the week. Unfortunately, this is nothing like a positive start to the week. In fact, when we started reading a thread on U.K. car enthusiast forum Retro Rides, it made us rather angry. If you read our piece last year on a...
Antony Ingram -
Chevy Volt? Old News! CleanAir Electric Car Did It 20 Years Ago
What car can be charged up via a plug, then offers an all-electric range of around 40 miles, before a range-extending generator kicks in to supply power and top up the batteries? If you answered "Chevrolet Volt", then you'd be correct--but the Volt certainly isn't the first car to tout these...
Antony Ingram -
2012 Retro Rides: Fiat 500 Beats Beetle, Mini On Gas Mileage
There was a time when small European cars like the original Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle and Mini represented the very epitome of cheap, stylish, practical motoring. So much so that all three original cars have inspired contemporary retro-styled rides meant to evoke the memories of days gone by. But...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Five Forgotten Electric Cars: Do YOU Remember Them?
Amidst a throng of new launches over the past few years and a host of new models to come, some electric cars from days gone by have disappeared into obscurity. Some are surprisingly recent, others have been dead for years, but all are easily forgotten. Unless you own one, of course... Ford Ranger...
Antony Ingram -
It's not all that fuel efficient, but it's more fun to drive than we expected. That's our reaction to a quick drive last month in a blue 2012 Volkswagen Beetle. It's the entirely redesigned follow-on to the former New Beetle model that was perhaps best known for its dash-mounted flower vase--which quickly gave it the reputation of a "chick car," for better or worse. The new 2012 Beetle has butched up, with tauter, less rounded lines and a profile that reminds some of an old Porsche. We don't quite see it, but for a car whose defining shape is almost a blob, VW's stylists have done an...
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1981 Jet 007: Retro Chrysler-Based Electric Car On eBay
A common misconception about electric cars is that they're a fairly recent phenomenon. Anyone who ever lusted over GM's EV1 will tell you that isn't the case, and Jay Leno might inform you otherwise too, no doubt parading a line of early 20th Century electric cars past you as he does so. But even...
Antony Ingram -
Electric Cars Are Not Coming; They're Here (In 1974...)
We've all heard the stories about how electric cars were set to take over at the turn of the last century (before ironically being killed by the electric starter motor), and at least once over the last four decades too. Now they're really here, and the fact that many major manufacturers are now...
Antony Ingram -
Jay Leno Shows Stunning Hand-Built Natural-Gas Retro Racer
We may be having a natural-gas moment. Next week, we'll test-drive a 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas, the only factory-built passenger car sold to retail buyers that runs on compressed natural gas. We drove its predecessor, the Honda Civic GX, last year. Now noted auto collector and fan Jay Leno (he...
John Voelcker -
Retro Electric Car Cool On eBay: 1980 Dodge Electrica
Haven't you heard? Retro is in fashion right now, so if you have a few thousand burning a hole in your pocket, there's just the vehicle waiting for you on eBay right now. Okay, so the Dodge Omni, on which this 1980 Dodge Electrica is based, was never the coolest of vehicles, but thirty years on it...
Antony Ingram -
2011 Nissan Leaf? Far Too Boring In Japan...
If it ever really needed to be said, Japanese car tastes can be... "alternative", to put it in polite terms. As well as their Kei-Jidosha class of city cars that are absolutely miniscule compared to U.S. monsters, the country has produced some fairly crazy production cars over the years. That trend...
Antony Ingram