Here we are again, with Part Two of turbine power in cars in our weekly Petrolhead Corner. Our first instalment was dedicated to the early years of the technology and the first endeavours in racing. This second and final episode picks up where the last one left off and includes some more recent cars reinventing […]
A while ago I featured the Howmet TX in an episode of The Petrolhead Corner. The Howmet TX is a turbine-powered Le Mans prototype from the 1970s, which featured a gas turbine engine taken from a helicopter. A relatively simple-looking machine with quite a bit of strange technology underneath its swooping body, I knew this wasn’t […]
Urban exploring, it sounds like somewhat of a contradiction but with ever more abandoned rural areas or buildings as people migrate to different areas for various reasons, it sounds like a fascinating undertaking. A friend of mine once went to a Belgian ghost town called Doel, located near Antwerp, and the images were quite unsettling. […]
The trend of restomodding a classic car has resulted in some fairly amazing cars. It is a delicate process not to butcher the original car too much but improve on every little bit you can. Bigger and better engine, retouched bodywork, high-performance suspension and brakes, that kind of stuff. The latest in a long line […]
We often talk about the similarities between the watch industry and the automotive world. The parallels between the two are pretty obvious; precision engineering, technical development, craftsmanship, and in some cases preservation of heritage. There is one development that is quite cool in cars, but I wish never makes the jump to watches; converting classic […]
The inspiration for many great road cars often lies in racing, and at the same time, the greatest racing cars ever can be based upon rather mundane road cars. For decades, rules in racing have sometimes stipulated that a minimum number of road-legal variants had to be built in order to be eligible to compete […]
Years in the making, with little bits of information dropping every now and then, finally the covers are off. Gordon Murray, legendary designer of the McLaren F1 and celebrated engineer in Formula 1 during the seventies and eighties, has revealed his Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 supercar. The philosophy of the GMA T.50 seems quite similar […]
One of the lesser-known types of racing, hill climbs, are still quite popular in Europe, especially amongst amateur racers. It is a distinct discipline within the vast array of different types of racing, often resulting in unique cars. The goal is to get as fast as possible from the bottom of the course to the […]
Here it is, the bonus chapter in this diptych-turned-tryptic Petrolhead Corner episode covering cheaters and frauds in racing. So far we’ve seen cheating with fuel capacity, illegal ballast in water-tanks, turbocharging, bribery and even espionage. For this final chapter, we once again uncover the facts of one the most infamous F1 scandals, and a story […]
As we’ve seen last week, cheating is a part of life, part of racing. Human nature taking over and not resisting the urge to get an unfair advantage over other competitors. When stakes are high, things like greed or pride creep up on us. I’m sure we’ve all had the sensation of doing something that […]