It was the vehicle that experts said was impossible to replace, and critics casted doubt as to whether it would sell, questioning who would actually buy it.
No, our art director hasn’t got lazy and slotted in pictures of last year’s Range Rover by mistake, here we present to you the 2023 model year car freshly out of the design studio.
Life Cycle The high-speed musical life of the Lynx Eventer prototype, featuring Tina Turner, Sir Bob Geldof, Cy Curnin, Howard Jones and a bootful of synthesisers. What began life as a substandard outcast soon became a showpiece, and mobile rehearsal studio to.
This car was one of the first Jaguar E-types Britain saw, be it in action at Shelsley Walsh, or as Browns Lane’s local demonstrator. Today we drive it.
Upon reading the term sports saloon, we’d wager a fair few of you conjured up a BMW roundel. After all, the Munich maker has tried to corner this market segment for more than 40 years, earning fame by making fast, class-leading saloons.
Our final contender is both significant and poignant. Not only is it our only Japanese offering in this test, but it’s also the model that reflects a change in buying habits that might well spell the death knell of the sports saloon altogether. The third and current generation of the Lexus IS300 will be its final iteration, because around 80 per cent of new drivers prefer the elevated driving position of the company’s SUVs.
By the Seventies the sports saloon had really come of age. Ford showed that, because of motor sport success, it could sell ship-loads of Escorts. Other makers wanted a slice of the action – Triumph chief among them, with the Dolomite deemed an ideal base for something fruity. Led by Rover’s Spen King, the Triumph Dolomite Sprint engineers won a Design Council award for the new model’s innovative single-cam, 16-valve cylinder head – and British Leyland advertising literature of the time incorporated one of the best puns of the era, ‘The award has gone to our head’.
No sports saloon selection would be complete without a Ford – and jumping forward a decade from the MG into the Sixties, we’re spoiled for choice. The original Cortina or Escort in GT guise would have done, though as Ford’s period ad pointed out, ‘New Cortina is more Cortina’. It might have only been 21/2 inches ‘more’, but Ford’s new-for-1966 follow-up boosted its social aspirations as well as its dimensions.
Ask most traditionalists what constitutes a great driving machine and they’ll tell you it has two doors, no roof and a big engine. That’s been the standardised formula for driving nirvana for nearly as long as the car itself. As owner’s priorities change, fun behind the wheel can often evaporate – but it doesn’t have to. A sports saloon not only keeps your pulse racing, but negates the need for a beady eye on the weather forecast or to leave family or friends behind.
Chronic car-swapper Kev Ponsford is always looking for the next best thing. Will a day driving his dream Ferrari 456GT convince him it’s time to settle down?
This Buick had lived in South Africa and Holland before it was acquired by Mark Hatton, who has driven it all around Britain and to France. And it’s the perfect car for long-distance touring, as he tells Zack Stiling…
This Buick concept hinted at a future SUV/station wagon offering from GM’s Flint-based division; sadly what was rolled out a few years later had none of the bold vision of the concept…
