Innholdsfortegnelse for US Launch i RETROMOTIVE

Finding a unique perspective on automotive photography is hard: it’s nearly all been done before. Techniques that break the mould are generally popularised and are quickly embraced by amateurs and professionals alike. However, to the best of my knowledge – and that of Google – Nick Veasey is the one and only photographer out there producing X-ray imagery of classic cars, and these are spectacular! ‘X-ray found me. I didn’t go all the way through school, and I had a bunch of dead-end jobs. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I really found what interested me, and since then I’ve become obsessive – maybe a little nerdy – about it.’ The origins of how a car came into being is key for Nick. Design and aesthetics drive…

It is likely that the years from 1964 to 1969 were the most optimistic ever experienced by Holden’s senior executives. The new Technical Centre at Fishermans Bend had been opened on 10 June 1964 with great fanfare: GMH believes no idea to be eternal. It has always been the objective of General Motors to build more and better things and constantly search for technological improvement. The EH Holden Premier set a new standard of luxury and performance for Australian-manufactured cars. It was proving to be the most popular Holden to date. But, naturally, the suits at GMH were confident that the forthcoming HD model with its curved side glass and latest Detroit styling would fare even better. The EJ’s design had been revised in Detroit after Bill Mitchell’s design team…

It doesn't matter which car manufacturer you romanticise, most enthusiasts will agree that the 1990s was an absurd era for supercars. Honda had delivered us an attainable gem with the NSX, Jaguar released an instant icon with the XJ220, Ferrari produced the mouth-watering F50, and McLaren gave us one of the greatest cars ever made, the wondrous F1. While each of these beauties often found their ways to the racetrack (with varied success), they were still predominantly road cars at heart. The homologation specials, however, flipped the script on traditional processes by building cars with racing victories as a priority and pragmatic road use as somewhat of an afterthought. Porsche created an instant cult hit with the GT2, Lamborghini unleashed a monster in the Diablo GT, but one of the…

The Ford Bronco is the product of legendary talent, but there’s one legend in the story of the Bronco who not only helped create the first Ford 4x4 sports-utility vehicle design, he made history, becoming one of the first African American designers in the industry. McKinley Thompson Jr., a Ford designer who helped pen the first-generation Bronco, was hired at Ford Motor Company after graduating from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California with a degree in transportation design in 1956. His first assignment was at Ford’s advanced design studio in Dearborn, working under George Walker, vice president of Ford design. Among his projects was a light-duty cab-forward truck, several concept sketches for the soon-to-be Ford Mustang and the legendary Ford GT40. Thompson also worked on the futuristic space-age Ford…

For the automotive aesthete, 1965’s 24 Hours of Le Mans was a near-unrivalled visual, acoustic and sensory feast. True, sports car enduro events from any year of the ’60s were hardly short on eye candy, but ’65 with its grid of striking primary colours over sleek, exotic bodywork was something extraordinary. Lining up at a hot and sunny La Sarthe that year were six Ford GT40s (not one of which finished), five Ferrari 250 LMs, five AC Cobra Daytona Coupes and seven Porsche 904s with a mix of flat four-, six- or eight-cylinder powerplants. Ferrari’s armada was strengthened by racing 275s, 330s and 365s, while smaller-capacity classes were flush with curvaceousness including Alpine A110s, Austin-Healey Sebring Sprites and Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2s. Even the drivers looked good: minimal sponsorship on…

Mario Andretti, suave and sophisticated American, is the motorsport legend who loves dark chocolate gelato. Italian-born, the man also loves fine wine, opera and fast driving in all manner of machines – it’s said he could make a bad car competitive and a competitive car a winner. His motto, ‘if everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.’ Mario was born in 1940 in a northern region of Italy that became part of Communist Yugoslavia (later Croatia). So, the Andretti family moved south, living in a Tuscan refugee camp from 1948 to 1955, before immigrating to New York with little money and little English. But 15-year-old Mario and twin brother Aldo were already captive to motorsport. ‘We became enamoured with it. That’s where my dreams began, 14 years…

A credo that drove the man to legendary showroom wins – and some losses – at General Motors, BMW, Ford and Chrysler across five decades. His get-it-done résumé is littered with intriguing American cars from Chrysler’s Viper to Pontiac’s Solstice to the Ford Sierra and Chevrolet Volt – Bob Lutz knows how to turn heads with style and substance. He's turned heads too with straight-shooting, and critically lauded, books on the North American auto industry – its flaws and follies and fall guys. There’s Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, with insights into how he helped GM overcome its inert navel-gazing of the early 2000s. There’s Guts: The Seven Laws of Business That Made Chrysler The World's Hottest Car Company, published back in…

Green-blue water tearing at jagged breaths of ice. Impassive clouds in a ceaseless sky. Cracked earth shouldering up, its whites and blacks broken only be question marks of vegetation and a single track that reaches off into the distance. Iceland is an elemental place, a part of the globe where travellers are forever mindful of their environment. The desolate landscape bewitches French photographer Patrick Curtet. After 10 business trips to the Scandinavian island, he pledged to make his eleventh a love letter to the landscape. The shots on our pages don’t fulfil a contract; they aren’t shot to any greater plan. Two clear weeks, a Land Rover Defender and a local guide gave Patrick the freedom to create images to his own satisfaction. There was no audience and even thoughts…

What makes a car iconic? There are many cars one could consider great, but how many are truly iconic? Two qualities come to mind, form and function. No car can reach such a lofty status without these two qualities; when they are united in a single design, one could argue that cultural impact becomes inevitable. To mid-century Americans, the automobile was a physical manifestation of their hopes, dreams and aspirations and through the 1960s they aspired to going ever faster. The muscle car era began in 1964 and kicked off an arms race between the major American auto manufacturers. Throughout the decade each manufacturer would try to outdo the next with ever-increasing engine capacities and horsepower figures. When it came to horsepower, Chrysler was the first to start setting benchmarks,…

Le Mans, a small town in Northern France where, annually since 1923, the brave and the bold have gathered to do battle in the 24 Hour Grand Prix d’Endurance. There are many tales of great rivalry, of heroes and underdogs, and of great loss and peril. Nineteen sixty-six will forever be remembered as the year that Ford crossed the line 1-2-3 to fill the podium, beating the great Ferrari. But behind all the hype there was another manufacturer who also scored a significant 1-2-3, a team that was well on its way to becoming the most dominant force in the history of sports car racing. Thanks to a recent Hollywood effort, even my mum knows that Ford GT40s crossed the line in 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Following in fourth, fifth…

As a motorsport enthusiast, Thomas has always been fascinated by racetracks; ‘the aura that emanates from them is simply unique.’ With the Grand Prix Noire series, Thomas set out to create a unique perspective of some of the world’s most famous racetracks. ‘I wanted to create an experience you wouldn’t normally have as a spectator.’ ‘When you’re smelling petrol and hear that scream of the engine echo through the track – goose bumps – you know that you’re deeply in love. My first experience of this was a Ferrari 412 T1 at the Grand Prix of Spa Francorchamps in 1994. As a little nine-year-old boy that thing scared the hell out of me, but marked the start of a true and unbroken passion.’ Conversely, shooting images for this series has…