Volvo 262C
Jan Wilsgaard · 1977
The Volvo 262C is a luxury coupé made by Volvo from 1977 (as a 1978 model) until 1981. Designed in-house by Jan Wilsgaard. Built by Bertone in Turin, Italy. Based on the 264 six-cylinder saloon.
All briefs
419 briefs · 4149 min · 385–419 on page 5 of 5
Volvo P1800
Pelle Petterson · 1961
The Volvo P1800 is a 2+2, front-engine, rear-drive touring car introduced in 1961. Styled by Pelle Petterson under Pietro Frua, it was marketed as a touring car—not a sports car—despite later being called one. It sold 47,492 units between 1961 and 1973, offered first as a coupé and later as a shooting brake. Its mechanicals came from the Amazon/122 series. Volvo denied Petterson’s authorship until 2009. An 1800S owned by Irv Gordon reached 3.25 million miles. The project began in 1957 to replace the failed P1900 and target US and European markets.
Alfa Romeo Alfetta
Alfa Romeo Centro Stile · 1972
The Alfetta is a front-engine saloon and fastback coupé produced from 1972 to 1987. It used a rear transaxle and De Dion tube rear suspension to improve weight distribution and handling. Coupé models featured a central tachometer. All models left the factory with Pirelli Cinturato 165HR14 tyres.
Alfa Romeo BAT
Franco Scaglione · 1953
The BAT series is a focused, documented exercise in aerodynamic research—not styling, not engineering for power, not market readiness. It is a rare case where form follows one measurable physical constraint, iterated across three years, with no deviation from that brief.
Alfa Romeo Giulia
Giuseppe Scarnati · 1965
The Alfa Romeo Giulia Type 105 redefined what a four-door saloon could do—without electronics, without weight, without apology.
Audi Quattro
Martin Smith · 1980
The Audi Quattro (1980) is a front-engine, four-wheel-drive coupé developed by Jörg Bensinger. First shown at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show. It was both a road car and the first rally car to use four-wheel drive under newly permitted competition rules. Its name comes from the Italian word for 'four'. Production ran until 1991. The original model is known as the Ur-Quattro.
Bizzarrini Strada
Giorgetto Giugiaro · 1965
The Bizzarrini Strada is a mechanically focused, front mid-engine sports car from 1964–1968. It uses a rearward-placed Chevrolet V8 to optimise weight distribution and handling. Its aluminium body was styled by Bertone, under Giorgetto Giugiaro’s influence. It exists in coupé, roadster, and Corsa forms. Its performance figures are verified: sub-7-second 0–100 km/h, 280 km/h top speed.
Bugatti EB 110
Giampaolo Benedini · 1992
The Bugatti EB 110 is a mid-engine, all-wheel-drive supercar with a carbon fibre monocoque and active aerodynamics. It was produced from 1991 to 1995. Its name commemorates Ettore Bugatti’s 110th birthday. 139 units were built. It uses a 3.5 L quad-turbocharged V12 engine.
Cadillac Eldorado
Harley Earl · 1953
The 1953 Cadillac Eldorado is a foundational expression of postwar American automotive hierarchy: a limited-run, top-priced convertible defined by bespoke bodywork and Harley Earl’s tailfin language. It establishes no new powertrain or chassis architecture — but it does cement styling as a primary tool of luxury positioning.
Chevrolet Corvette (C2)
Bill Mitchell · 1963
The Chevrolet Corvette (C2) redefined what a mass-market American sports car could be—not through engineering leaps, but through disciplined, wind-tunnel-informed packaging and a bold, structural fastback form.
Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona
Leonardo Fioravanti · 1968
The Ferrari 365 GTB/4, commonly called Daytona, is a two-seat grand tourer introduced at the 1968 Paris Motor Show. Its front-mounted V12 drove the rear wheels.
Ferrari 512 BB
Leonardo Fioravanti · 1976
The Ferrari 512 BB replaced the 365 GT4 BB in 1976. It belongs to the Berlinetta Boxer family, but this carburetted model should be distinguished from the later fuel-injected 512 BBi.
Ford GT
Camilo Pardo · 2005
The Ford GT (2005) is a mid-engine two-seater designed by Camilo Pardo as a modern homage to the GT40, launched for Ford’s centenary. It recalls the GT40’s Le Mans legacy but shares no structural lineage. It is bigger, wider, and 4 in (100 mm) taller than the original — a deliberate recalibration, not a replication.
Ford Model A (1927–1932)
Edsel Ford · 1927
The Ford Model A (1927–1932) was Ford’s deliberate departure from the Model T. Edsel Ford led its body design with József Galamb. It introduced four-wheel mechanical brakes, a sliding-gear transmission, laminated windshields, and a water-cooled L-head inline-four. It sold 4,858,644 units between October 1927 and March 1932. It marked the end of the Model T’s dominance and the beginning of Ford’s driver-oriented era.
Ford Model T
Childe Harold Wills · 1908
The Ford Model T is the foundational mass-market automobile—engineered for repairability, built for scale, and priced for the middle class. Its innovations were procedural (assembly line) and mechanical (planetary transmission, detachable cylinder head), not aesthetic or performance-led.
Honda S800
Honda · 1966
The Honda S800 is a 1965 sports car built to prove Honda could engineer a high-revving, lightweight, chain-driven automobile capable of 100 mph. It replaced the S600 as Honda’s image car. It was available as a roadster or coupe. Early units used chain drive and independent rear suspension. Just 994 chain-drive examples were built. Its 791 cc straight-4 produced 70 hp at 8,000 rpm and revved to 10,000 rpm.
Jaguar XK (X100)
Geoff Lawson · 1996
The XK (X100) is a disciplined, unflashy grand tourer that delivers cohesion over innovation. It shares architecture, not ambition, with the DB7. Its strength is execution—not invention.
VAZ-2101
Fiat · 1970
The VAZ-2101 is a compact 4-door saloon or wagon, introduced in 1970 as AvtoVAZ's first product. It is a licence-built version of the Fiat 124, heavily modified for Soviet and Eastern Bloc conditions. Among many changes, aluminium brake drums were added to the rear, and the original Fiat engine was dropped in favour of a newer design made by NAMI. This new engine had a modern overhead camshaft design but was never used in Fiat cars. The suspension was raised to clear rough Russian roads and the bodyshell was made from thicker, heavier steel with reinforcement in key chassis areas after cracking was discovered during durability testing. The first Lada models were equipped with a starting handle in case the battery went flat in Siberian conditions, though this was later dropped. Another feature specifically intended to help out in cold conditions was a manual auxiliary fuel pump. The station wagon version (correspondingly based on the Fiat 124 Familiare) was known as the VAZ-2102. Subsequently, it was widely, and successfully exported to the West under the Lada brand, for over two decades.
Lamborghini Estoque
Filippo Perini · 2005
The Estoque is a speculative, non-production sedan that tested whether Lamborghini could stretch its brand into four-door territory without abandoning its core engine layout or visual aggression.
Lexus LS400
Kunihiro Uchida · 1989
The LS 400 was the first model Lexus ever made. It grew out of the F1 project, started in 1983 with no set budget and no existing Toyota parts, and it cost over US$1 billion to develop. It debuted in January 1989 with a new V8, a quiet cabin and a low drag figure, and it was largely responsible for the successful launch of the Lexus marque.
Maserati Boomerang
Giorgetto Giugiaro · 1950
The Maserati Boomerang is a 1972 concept car designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and produced by Italdesign. It debuted at the 1971 Turin Motor Show as a non-functional Epowood model, then reappeared at the 1972 Geneva Auto Show on a Maserati Bora chassis. It uses a 4.7L V8 engine producing 310 hp and 460 N⋅m, driving the rear wheels through a 5-speed manual. Its interior features a rotating steering wheel around stationary gauges. Though registered as a road car, it was intended solely as a one-off show car.
Mazda RX-7
Akio Uchiyama · 1985
The Mazda RX-7 is a Japanese sports car made by Mazda from 1978 to 2002. It uses a front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout and a compact, lightweight Wankel rotary engine. The first generation is a two-seater coupé with a rear hatchback. Later generations added 2+2 and convertible options, but the core two-seater coupé remained. More than 800,000 were built, including 471,018 first-generation units.
Morgan +4
Morgan · 1950
The Morgan +4 is a sports car built across three discontinuous series (1950–1969, 1985–2000, 2005–2020), each using different 2-litre four-cylinder engines — Standard Vanguard, Triumph, Fiat Twin Cam, and Ford (Mazda) Duratec — on variations of the same ash-frame, front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. It is longer and more powerful than the 4/4, but shares its mechanical honesty and lack of structural modernity. It establishes Morgan’s ability to persist without standardisation. It falls short as a coherent technical proposition — no shared chassis, no unified development path, no safety or thermal upgrades across eras.
Nissan GT-R
Shiro Nakamura · 2007
The Nissan GT-R (R35) is a Japanese sports car and grand tourer produced from 2007 to 2025. It features a front-mid mounted 3.8 L V6 engine and all-wheel drive, built on the PM platform — a derivative of the FM platform — and was developed over seven years as part of the Nissan Revival Plan to deliver world-beating performance.
Peugeot 205
Gérard Welter · 1983
The Peugeot 205 is a supermini developed from Projet M24 and launched on 25 February 1983. It replaced the Peugeot 104 and Talbot Samba. Its styling is an in-house design by Gérard Welter — not Pininfarina, who only styled the Cabriolet. It used MacPherson struts at the front and trailing arms with torsion bars at the rear. The rear suspension was designed to minimise intrusion into the boot, giving a wide flat loadspace while providing excellent ride and handling. It won What Car?'s Car of the Year for 1984 and was declared 'car of the decade' by CAR Magazine in 1990. It is often credited as the car that turned Peugeot's fortunes around.
Peugeot Onyx
Gilles Vidal · 2012
The Peugeot Onyx is a 2012 concept car designed by Gilles Vidal. It uses a 3.7 L V8 diesel hybrid powertrain. Its body combines hand-beaten untreated copper and carbon fiber. Copper panels oxidise from mirror to blue-green. It features a double bubble roof, three-claw taillights, Cd 0.30, recycled interior materials—including felt, compressed newspaper-resin 'wood', blown crystal, and aluminum controls—and a 100 kg carbon fiber chassis in 12 parts.
Pontiac Firebird
Jack Humbert · 1967
The 1967 Pontiac Firebird is a study in corporate constraint made visible. Its design solves for brand continuity—not performance. Its existence answers a veto, not a demand.
Porsche 911
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche · 1964
The Porsche 911 is a rear-engine sports car introduced in September 1964. Ferdinand Alexander Porsche designed its exterior. Reutter built the body from his drawings. It debuted as the 901 at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show. Peugeot forced the name change to 911. All 911s have a rear-mounted flat-six and usually 2+2 seating. Original models used air-cooled engines and torsion bar suspension. The 911 won the Targa Florio, Daytona, Le Mans, and four World Championships for Makes — all with 911-derived models.
Porsche 918 Spyder
Michael Mauer · 2013
The Porsche 918 Spyder is a limited-production, mid-engine, plug-in-hybrid sports car manufactured by Porsche. It is powered by a mid-mounted naturally aspirated 4.6 L V8 engine and two electric motors. It has a 6.8 kWh lithium-ion battery pack providing 12 mi (19 km) all-electric range per EPA testing. Production began on 18 September 2013 and ended in June 2015. It was first shown as a concept at the 80th Geneva Motor Show in March 2010. The production version was unveiled at the September 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show. It was the second plug-in hybrid car manufactured by Porsche. It has been subject to half a dozen recalls for issues including front and rear control arms breaking and seat belts.
Renault 5 Turbo
Marc Deschamps · 1980
The Renault 5 Turbo is a homologation special that reimagines the Renault 5 supermini as a mid-engined rally car. Built from 1980 to 1984, it features a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, a 1,397 cc turbocharged Cléon-Fonte inline-four, and 4,987 total units produced. Though badged as a Renault 5, its mechanicals are radically different. It was launched at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1980 and sold in street-legal form to meet homologation requirements.
Sauber C9
Leo Ress · 1987
The Sauber C9 is a 1987 Group C prototype. It replaced the C8. It was a development of the C8, retaining its aluminium monocoque but making it stiffer. Six chassis were built. Early engines were prepared by Heini Mader as a cover for Mercedes’ involvement. Later engines came from Untertürkheim under Hermann Hiereth. The engine was semi-stressed and ran a dry sump. Weight reduction came from a new crankshaft, KKK turbochargers, and a liner-less block.
Toyota AE86 Corolla Levin
Toyota · 1986
The AE86 is a small, front-engine/rear-wheel-drive compact car derived from the fifth-generation Corolla (E80) range. It was the final Corolla model produced with rear-wheel drive. Its light weight, affordability, modifiability, and balanced front-engine/rear-drive layout made it distinctive amid an industry shift away from RWD. It featured a high-revving (7800 rpm) twin-cam engine in some markets, optionally elsewhere. It achieved early and enduring international prominence in drifting due to its inherent qualities. It was central to the manga and anime series Initial D (1995–2013) as the protagonist's drift and tofu delivery car. In 2015, Road & Track described it as 'a cult icon, inextricably interwoven with the earliest days of drifting.' It inspired the Toyota 86 (2012–present), a 2+2 sports car co-developed with Subaru.
Toyota Supra
Toyota Design · 1978
The 1978 Toyota Supra is a purpose-built response to dealer demand: a longer, six-cylinder Celica liftback engineered to match the Datsun 280Z. It is neither radical nor revolutionary—just a calibrated evolution of existing parts, packaging, and powertrain. Its value lies in continuity, not disruption.
Toyota 86
Tetsuya Tada · 2012
The Toyota 86 is a driver’s car defined by restraint: low weight, natural aspiration, precise weight distribution, and mechanical transparency. It trades speed for fidelity — and in doing so, redefined what an entry-level sports car could be.
Volkswagen Golf Mk1
Giorgetto Giugiaro · 1974
The Volkswagen Golf Mk1 is the first generation of Volkswagen’s small family car. It succeeded the Beetle. It was styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign and debuted in Europe in May 1974.