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A torrent of water passed under the bridge between the in AC Cars Cobra A torrent of water passed under the bridge bet Acura EL een the introduction of the Jaguar XK 120 show car Acura SLX at the Earls Court Motor Show in 1946 and the Geneva Acura TL Auto Show in 1961. For one thing, armed with the potent XK Acura RL six-cylinder engine, Jaguar had gone sports car racing in a most Alfa Romeo 33 uccessful way. With the aerodynamic D-Type, the marque ha Alfa Romeo 164 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world's most prestigious ro Alfa Romeo 155 d race, three years in a row. Jaguar had transitioned from off Alfa Romeo 146 ring the public a competent sp

orts car for the street based on se Alfa Romeo 166 an mechanicals to building very specialized sports rac Alfa Romeo Spider ng machinery, and then, finding the cost of world-cl Alfa Romeo GTV ss competition rising ever-higher, it had pulled bac Alfa Romeo 147 from its racing commitments to concentrate again of Alfa Romeo GT Coupe cars the public could buy. With its emphasis movin Alfa Romeo x kamal back toward cars for the street, William Lyons, who wou Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione d eventually be knighted for his efforts at Jaguar, lo Alfa Romeo Brera ked to infuse his production cars with the flavor of his s

Aston Martin DB7 orts racing winners. One of the first attempts at this w Aston Martin V12 s the XK-SS, a thinly disguised D-Type fitted with just enoug Aston Martin DB9 equipment to make it street legal. Equipped Aston Martin AMV8 ith a 3.4-liter version of the XK engine essentially in ra Audi 100 e tune, it offered 250 horsepower at 5750 rpm, a staggerin Audi 80 figure, particularly in a car so light. Top speed was just Audi A6 hort of 145 miles per hour. But on the other side o Audi 90 the coin, the XK-SS set one back $7,000 1957 dollars, whi Audi 200 e a fuel-injected Corvette of the same year cost little

Audi V8 ore than half as much. Further, the Corvette wa Audi A4 far more civilized an automobile. By 1957 it had roll-up windo Audi C-4 s and a decent convertible top, while the XK-S Audi A3 was in most ways rudimentary. And because its engin Audi S4 was essentially ready for the track, it proved to be a hand Audi A8 ul to drive well on public roads. Just getting it Audi TT oving from a standing start was often a frustrating expe Audi A2 ience due to its lack of low-end torque, hair-trigg Audi S6 r accelerator and recalcitrant clutch. Fewer than 20 of these li Audi RS6 tle devils had been produced in the early part

Audi allroad of 1957 when a fire raced through the Browns Lane factory where t Audi a8l ey were built. Most of the tooling for the XK-S Audi rs2 was destroyed, and Lyons, sensing that this car Audi rs4 wasn't what he really wanted anyway, decided not to r Audi q7 sume its production. Those few that remain in exi Audi nuvolari tence are rare and wonderfully quirky cars indeed. Instead of Audi pikes peak aking the XK-SS path, Lyons set his engineering team abuilding Audi le mans on two experimental cars that bore the "E" designation. The E1 Audi avantissimo was powered by Jaguar's 2.4-liter six-cylinder engine, basical

Audi rsq y a de-stroked 3.4 liter. For its chassis structure it u Audi shooting brake ed a monocoque tub with a space frame carryin BMW 5 the engine and front suspension components. The front suspension BMW 3 was, of course, an independent design, but the E1A departe BMW 7 from the D-Type's model by using an independent rear suspensio BMW 6 as well. (For all its racing success, the D-Type had use BMW M5 a fairly mundane live rear axle.) While the E1A BMW x3 as piling up clandestine test miles, Jaguar engineers were BMW x5 hard a work on the E2A, which many in their number BMW z3 hoped would put Jaguar back in the motor racing spotlight.

Wit BMW z4 racing rather than volume production in mind, the E2A was BMW z8 n exotic machine for its day. Its powerplant was an alloy BMW z9 block version of the XK engine equipped with a racing BMW h2r type dry sump system and mechanical fuel injection BMW xcoupe With a displacement of just a hair under 3-liters, BMW xactivity t offered 293 horsepower at a motorcycle-like 6750 rpm. Bentley Arnage Its aluminum envelope body enclosing a monocoque tub and spa Bentley Continental e frame, the E2A would have a somewhat belated and largely Bentley Hunaudieres nsuccessful career on the racetrack.

Though de Jaguar xkr igned and built in 1957 and 1958, it didn't find its way to Le Ma Jaguar R-D6 s until 1960 and then as part of Briggs Cunningham's multi-car ef Jaguar ALC ort that also involved Corvettes, not with a rejuvenated Jaguar Jaguar Daimler "factory team." Initially fast, it quit short of Jaguar XK the halfway mark in the race, and that was pretty much th Land Rover Freelander t as far as international racing was concerned for t Land Rover Discovery e car. While it didn't enjoy the stunning succ Land Rover Range Rover ss of its D-Type predecessor, the E2A did set the

stag Land Rover Defender for the production E-Type. In fact, Jaguar's breathtakin Land Rover Range Stormer new sports car would take most of its architect Lotus Elise re from the E2A. Of course, with volume product Lotus Exige on in mind, Lyons wisely chose steel as the p Lotus Expirit imary body material. The basic tub was a monocoque of Lotus M250 sheet steel to which were attached steel space f MG Rover TF ames for front suspension and engine and rear suspension MG Rover ZR The front suspension borrowed from Jaguar racing pra MG Rover ZS tice with torsion bars as the springing medium,

t MG Rover ZT bular shocks controlling rebound and forged con MG Rover Streetwise rol arms handling wheel location. The rear suspension was MG Rover X80 an all-independent unit so elegantly designed that it beca MG Rover Mini e a model for a wide variety of other suspensions that would MG Rover TCV follow it and even found its way under some of America's m Rolls-Royce Phantom st beloved hot rods. In the scheme (a version Rolls-Royce Silver imilar to which found its way into the 1963 Corvette Sti Rolls-Royce 100ex gray) the differential was mounted to the cha Mercedes A sis sub-frame with in-board disc br

akes on each side and Mercedes B then, through universal joints, halfshafts sent p Mercedes C wer to the rear wheels. Ingeniously, the halfshafts themselves Mercedes E represented the upper control link while another, low Mercedes S r arm and a link that controlled braking and acceleration f Mercedes ML rces completed the simple but effective system. S Mercedes G rings and damping was not nearly so simple with dual c Mercedes CLK il-spring/tubular shock absorber units on each side, but Mercedes CL they were at least compact and effective. Instead of a Mercedes SL exotic alloy racing engine, Lyons decided to stick with the 3.8

Mercedes Vaneo liter XK in-line six that was a direct descendent of Mercedes Viano he original XK engine in the XK 120. With fuel d Mercedes slr livered by twin Weber carburetors, the iron block engin Mercedes slk delivered 265 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 260 po Mercedes r nds/feet of torque at 4000 rpm. Despite all this mechanical fa Mercedes f 500 dural the most striking part of the production E-Type was it Mercedes f 600 absolutely lascivious body. Try as designers might Mercedes Sprinter o top it, the E-Type has the most sensuous lines of any car ever Mercedes Viano roduced, and it is many critics' pick as the

most beautif Opel omega l car ever made. Further description is unnecess Opel agila ry because the look of the E-Type has become such a Opel corsa automotive icon that at the mere mention of its name, Opel meriva the luscious picture comes to mind. The hit of the 1961 Gene Opel astra a show, the E-Type was offered as both a convertible Opel speedster with an available hardtop) and a coupe, and aut Opel vectra journalists immediately fell all over themselves pra Opel combo sing the car. And for good reason. The independent rear suspens Opel zafira on provided a huge advance in handling, particularly

on Opel frontera ad roads, and in street form the car had true 150 mile-per-ho Opel signum r potential. It was also quick enough as a drag racer Opel tigra o find itself included in a Jan and Dean hit tune of the era, "D Opel insignia adman's Curve." In fact, the E-Type was, argu Opel trixx bly, the car of the decade. With looks, style, pe Opel eco speedster formance and handling, the Jaguar E-Type was everything Opel antara a car should be. A lot of water passed through the mi Opel Record l from the time the Dodge brothers built engine Opel Kadett for Henry Ford until the Dodge Viper peeked Opel Senator ut

from under its wraps at the 1989 Detroit auto show. Porsche boxter ver the course of that time the Dodge brothers split wit Porsche 911 Ford to start building cars of their own under Porsche carrera gt the imaginative Dodge Brothers name; Dodge Brothe Porsche cayenne s was acquired by Walter P. Chrysler as he built Porsche cayman Chrysler Corporation in the image of his former Porsche 924 employer, General Motors; and Dodge (sans Brothers) went Volkswagen lupo from an icon of performance during the halcyon years o Volkswagen polo the Sixties to becoming largely irrelevant by the late

E Volkswagen new beetle ghties. K-cars and Omnis will do that, no matter h Volkswagen golf w proud one's history. A rapidly fading brand with a drea Volkswagen bora y image were what faced Chrysler Corporation planners as the Volkswagen touran considered what they should do for the '89 Detroi Volkswagen passat show, and their response -- a big, brutal two-seat sports car Volkswagen phaeton -- stood show attendees, including your author, on their collect Volkswagen sharan ve ear. Who could have expected such a thing from a nameplate th Volkswagen touareg t seemed to be barely producing a pulse, lot less a vibe?

Volkswagen golf plus ut the Dodge Viper did emerge from the corporate cau Volkswagen multivan dron -- somehow -- and it proved there was stil Volkswagen jetta some life in the old Dodge brand yet. The goal of Volkswagen fox what was referred to as "Team Viper" was a purpose-built pe Volkswagen magellan formance vehicle. Everything else took a backseat to performance Volkswagen concept c nd, because of that, the Viper had no backseat at a Volkswagen concept t l. Like the Shelby Cobra that inspired it, the veh Volkswagen concept r cle was rough, crude and unsophisticated but, at the same.