#Heritage

Let’s get something perfectly clear: if you’re spending good money to bring back a legendary Italian sports car brand like DeTomaso without aiming to capture the essence of the photograph above, you’re doing it wrong. Period. If, on the other hand, you’re bringing back the DeTomaso name in order to sell

a premium large crossover, dubbed SLC (sport luxury car) that would be a rival to cars such as the BMW 5-series GT and Lexus RX-450h,

you need to go rethink your entire perspective on life. Or at least find a new business. Tragically, this is exactly what former Fiat marketing executive Gian Mario Rossignolo is doing. DeTomaso. Crossover. DeTomaso. RX450h. DeTomaso. Luxury CUV. Haven’t lost your mind yet? Hit the jump for more claw-your-eyes-out details.

Rather than bringing back the long-running Z28 label for its new top-of-the-line Camaro, GM has reached back even further into the history books for an even more prestigious heritage label: ZL1. GM’s presser (more here) for the 6.2 liter supercharged, 550+ HP, Brembo- and Magnetic Ride Control-equipped ZL1 explains:

When the muscle car war was at its peak in the ’60s, enterprising and racing-minded dealers did everything they could to get more powerful cars from the factory. Some Chevrolet dealers discovered that the company’s special order system known as COPO – the acronym for Central Office Production Order – could be used for higher-performance powertrains. It was intended for dealers to place custom orders for things like special paint packages for fleet vehicles, not building factory hot rods. Nevertheless, Camaro-hungry dealers used the system to request larger, 427-cubic-inch engines and other equipment that wasn’t available in regular-production models.

125 years ago yesterday, Carl Benz was granted the first patent for his Motorwagen, marking the birth of the automotive industry, as well as the company that would become Mercedes-Benz. Both have come a long way in the last century and a quarter, and the mind boggles at what might be in store for the next 125 years. Especially if they keep building the kinds of cars that outshine everything else on the road for decades after they’re built.

IGA Automobile, a new closed-end partnership fund, is planning on investing $150m into “a collection of 20 to 40 trophy marque vehicles with distinguis…

With the recent arrival of the latest Evo Magazine at “TTAC Towers,” it seems that all hope for productivity today has gone out the window. Evo,…

Hyundai’s Azera has long flown under the radar in this country, offering a near-luxury option that’s (at least) as stolid as it is solid. But bec…

The tuning house Gull Wing America have a huge thing for vintage Mercedes models, resulting in such bizarre creations as a re-interpreted W-121 and a retro-f…

Forget how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, the original automotive spiritual exercise has always been “how many people can fit into a Volkswa…

GM’s famed Willow Run plant closed for good at the close of business yesterday, reports Automotive News , and will revert to a Motors Liquidation trus…

Unfortunately, the question isn’t “what car belongs in the Smithsonian?” We could probably spend most of the holiday season discussing that one. No, the National Museum of American History has only 73 of the finest cars to choose from, and has nominated only eight to be displayed. You see, this isn’t one of those hypothetical deals… the NMAH actually wants you to vote on which car you think is most deserving of the honor, and the top-two vote-getters will be displayed from January 22- February 21. And your nominees are…

It’s probably a bit of a stretch to call the 1947 Tama a “Nissan.” This lead-acid battery-powered two-door was developed in response to pos…

Lots of car enthusiasts have heard of the AAR ‘Cuda, a homologation special that Chrysler made in 1970 to go racing in the SCCA. What’s not widely known is that there was a CUDA designed ten years earlier, and it came out of the styling studio of American Motors, not Mopar.

Bill Mitchell, only the second man to head General Motors styling when he took over from the monumental Harley Earl, was not a man about whom people were impartial. GM’s official history reveres him. Harley Earl’s family reviles him. His coworkers and subordinates at GM either loved him or despised the man. Even landmark designs that were signatures of his reign at GM Styling, the split-window 1963 Corvette Sting Ray and the boat tail Rivieras, are polarizing designs that had detractors, including some on the GM Styling staff. He admittedly ran that department like a dictator, though he rarely fired anyone. Mercurial in temper, he’d have screaming fits at his design staff, laced with the most vulgar epithets, then defuse the tension with an offhand joke as he left the room. Shamelessly ambitious and self-promoting, often taking personal credit for his staffs’ designs, had the term “larger than life” not existed, Mitchell would have coined it to describe himself.By today’s standards of workplace political correctness, diversity and racial and sexual harassment law, Bill Mitchell was an atavistic throwback to an age when ethnic jokes by supervisors were uncomfortably endured by the brunt of that ‘humor’. An executive then could tell his secretary to order him up some hookers after a multiple martini lunch, knowing that she’d hold all calls and cover for him if his wife (or another executive) got jealous. As a result, in addition to whatever praise and criticism his aesthetic direction and management skills have garnered, Bill Mitchell’s legacy has been somewhat tarred with the brush of bigotry.The question is are we being fair to the man? Are we applying contemporary standards to an era that was simultaneously more innocent and more evil in terms of racial, ethnic and other prejudice?

Although it did what it needed to do, it looks awfulPeter Birtwhistle, designer of the legendary short-wheelbase Audi Sport Quattro (above), tells Autocar wh…

According to Auto Motor und Sport, the next-generation Porsche 911 (991) will have its wheelbase extended by ten centimeters compared to the current model, a…