Snaking through the Alps—on loose gravel and slick tarmac—in a four-door saloon car that weighs 3000 pounds and rides on skinny 16-inch tires is surely a supreme test of skill and resolve. But rally ...

I want to tell you a story. It’s not a particularly happy one, given that we’re heading back to the late Seventies and talking about the British motor industry, but you can’t tell the fabulously ...

If you though that the original Volkswagen Golf GTI is the first hot hatchback ever, think again. That model only popularized the genre, but it didn't invent it. As a prime example of what I'm trying ...

The Chrysler Sunbeam was a middling shitbox of a compact hatchback built by Chrysler Europe. It was based on the larger Hillman Avenger, which had been in production since 1970. In order to boost ...

When it comes to the Talbot Sunbeam, that rather unlikely hot hatch that transformed into a rallying world-beater via Lotus and the Coventry-based Talbot competitions department, it’ll always be the ...

These days the Ford MK2 Escort has been making the news, what with Ken Block ripping around in one lately. That's great! And it reminded me of another old, little rear-drive rally car that sounded ...

Jeremy Clarkson is to blame for this one. Since his 2001 Christmas DVD Top 100 Cars named the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus his 55th best car ever, the car has totally beguiled me. A RWD hot hatch? Where do we ...

The Talbot Sunbeam Lotus was a mongrel. For starters, it was based upon a stopgap hatchback built on a cut-down Hillman Avenger chassis, hastily confected in just 19 months to give the ill-fated ...

“Tear-arsing”. Many inner-city council estate scallies have claimed the phrase as their own, but it only really works with a nasal Liam Gallagher-style Manc accent. “'E woz tear-arsin' aroun' in a ...

IN summer 1977 a gallon of five star petrol cost 79p – but not for long with inflation running at 15.8 per cent and interest rates of seven per cent. In America, the first Apple II computer went on ...