Episodes
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Ford’s styling department in the 1980s and 1990s could be relied upon to produce hit after hit. We liked the third generation Fiesta, we loved the Mondeo and the Ka, and we positively adored the Ford Focus. But in that period there was one car that stuck out like a sore thumb, the 1994 Ford Scorpio.
Buy the Secret Fords book here! Use promo code BIGCAR30 for a total of 30% off the final copies: https://www.stevesaxty.com/secretfords
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There’s a lot of focus on the rivalry between the German big three – Volkswagen, BMW & Mercedes, but in Sweden of course there was a rivalry between the “big two” – Volvo and Saab. So, as Volvo’s cars got larger and went upmarket in the 1970s, Saab must have surely taken note and decided that they had to respond. The result was the Saab 9000, produced even though Saab didn’t have the money to develop it. Just how did they find the cash, and was it a hit or was it a miss?
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Missing episodes?
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A few months ago I made a video about EVs that touched on robotaxis, and with Tesla’s recent Robotaxi event I thought I’d make a quick follow-up video talking about what was announced.
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Early version of this audio with lots of echo. It needs to be re-recorded, but throwing it out now as it's all that I can do right now.
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Citroën in many ways were like the Tesla of the 1950’s and 60’s. Where other car manufacturers were making normal, everyday cars, Citroën were ripping up the rulebooks and reinventing just what a car could be in their own mad, Gallic way. Their approach to almost every aspect of the car was unique, new, and, well, Citroën-esque. And it’s not like different meant “wrong”. The Citroën SM introduced innovative features such as self-centering steering and rain-sensing wipers years before they became mainstream. So, with a pedigree like this, why aren’t we all driving around in Citroën’s today? Why did the SM only sell 13,000 cars before taking Citroën into bankruptcy?
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Mercedes is the purveyor of high-class limousines, so it might be odd to think of them selling a go-anywhere pickup that’s more used to lugging a few bags of cement back from the DIY shop. But it’s not that strange an idea, after all, they’ve been producing vans, trucks and buses for almost a century. But the Mercedes X-Class wasn’t going to be sold alongside their commercial vehicles, this was for the type of customer who bought their luxury cars. Just why did Mercedes decide to make a pickup, and why did it last less than three years before being axed?
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The Maestro was the car that killed Austin Rover. Poised on a knife-edge in the early 80’s between survival and disaster, this car, and its booted Montego sister, caused its death. Not right away – plenty of Government subsidies and deals with Honda and BMW gave the company another 20 years, but this was the critical moment when it all went wrong. When the company lost its ability to chart its own destiny. So why were these cars such poor-sellers, and why did a company that made the critically successful Metro, get it all wrong with its follow-up?
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You probably know Vauxhall and their German cousin Opel as the makers of reasonably prices cars that maybe aren’t that exciting. But in the 60s and 70s Vauxhall produced several amazing sports car and supercar concepts that rivalled the best Lamborghini had to offer. And Vauxhall didn’t just make concepts, there was the VX220 – a car that was a lot of fun with great handling. But why didn’t these 60s cars or the last concept ever make it to production?
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This is a video charting the history of the Ford Capri. It includes the Mercury Capri (both 1970s, 1980s and 1990s).
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Renault is rebooting the classic 5 and it’s available for pre-order right now if you’re in France with deliveries starting later this year! So, what’s it like, what’s good, what’s bad, and what do I think about it?
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The Rover 200 more than ever encapsulates British Leyland as it went from Government ownership, through its Honda collaboration, to the disastrous BMW marriage, and finally its last gasp for survival as an independent company. And it was one of Rover’s few big successes, having an amazing 29-year lifespan over its many and varied history. The Rover 200 had many guises, from the blue-rinse Triumph Acclaim to the hot hatch MG ZR, and it’s a beloved British car. So why was it such a hit, and why did it all go wrong in the late 90’s?
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Otto von Bismarck, the man who oversaw the unification of Germany in the late 19th century called politics “the art of the possible”. He’s saying that you might have grand lofty dreams, but you have to go with what’s actually possible to achieve. I’d argue that applies to many things in life, including car design. There’s always a compromise with a limited budget and limited time. That was never more true than with the Citroën Visa. Borne out of Citroën’s bankruptcy in the mid-1970s it was a modern car that was still clearly a Citroën, with all its innovative features. But just how did they produce such a competent car in such a short time?
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The Triumph Stag has looks and sophisticated style. Those Italian lines of this easy Grand Tourer looked epic when it was released in 1970, and the lucrative North American market beckoned. With a throaty 3.0L V8 engine, it had the power to take on its 6-cylinder rival, the Mercedes SL. Yet in just seven years production ended and it was all over. So, what happened? Why did this beautiful car falter and die?
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Ford just dropped the news that they have a new Capri in the works. I’ve done a lot of the history of the Capri, I’ve done the original Capri and another video about all the times they’ve tried to reboot it. This is another time they’re trying to reboot it, so I thought you might be interested in what I thought about the new model.
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Steve Saxty has been given unprecedented access to BMW to tell their story through a series of books, and he’s let me pluck this one from “BMW’s Hidden Gems” – the story of how BMW created a reimagining of the 2002. So, with Steve’s help, here’s the story of BMW’s 2002 for the year 2002!
Link to Steve's BMW books: https://www.stevesaxty.com
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If ever the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover” was appropriate, it’s with the Fiat Multipla. With an exterior described as “Designed by a group of people who seemingly never met”, and an instrument cluster resembling “Nightmare on Skull Rock”, this isn’t a car to easily love. But that’s a shame. Under the comical looks lives a truly great car that’s made a quantum leap in automotive design like the Beetle, 2CV or Mini. Top Gear summed it up best when they named it Car of the Year in 2000, and at the same time the Ugliest Car of the Year. Why did the absurd Multipla morph into the king of bland, and why did its designer have the last laugh?
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Let’s discuss if EVs can make the shift to widescale adoption, or are they doomed to become a niche product?
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The mid-70’s were an optimistic time for British transport. We got the Triumph TR7 and Rover SD1, the Intercity 125 took us across the country at 125mph, and the thunderous Concorde took us over Mach 2. Britain was proving it could still do amazing engineering. Then there was the Lotus Esprit, turning heads with its crisp, folded lines and supercar styling. By using a tiny engine, it would go on to have the largest power output per litre of any car. And it would clean up so effectively in American motor racing that it was effectively banned from competition. It’s been a Bond car, twice in its amazing 28-year long production run, and Lotus keeps tantalising us with glimpses of what it will be in the future.
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This video is going to be a little different to my normal ones. I usually need to do lots of research to get the story straight. But not this one – this was basically a brain dump! If you don’t know, I once, many moons ago, worked for Microsoft in the Automotive Business Unit or ABU, in fact this is an ABU t-shirt. I started working on the Auto PC – the car stereo you see behind me there – and although I missed ABU’s crowning glory, the Ford SYNC system, I was back in the team to witness first-hand the chaos of the infamous MyFord Touch project. Not much is out there about some of the background to what happened, and I’ve always wanted to tell the real story, what Ford’s PR department didn’t want you to hear.
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If you wanted to have the latest cutting-edge technology in your car in 2007 you wouldn’t buy a BMW 7 series or a Mercedes S-Class. You’d own a 2008 Ford Focus with SYNC. It was the crowning achievement of Microsoft’s Automotive team; a device that plays music from media players and supports hands-free phone calls. It was revolutionary at the time and was included in over 1 million vehicles. But it almost never happened. It was the last roll of the dice from a team that had spent years in the wilderness trying to break into the car market.
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