The Toyota Century sedan offers wool upholstery as a premium interior finish, with leather available as an alternative. Its fabric seats are a deliberate part of the car’s comfort-focused cabin,
The BMW E1 was a purpose-built electric prototype unveiled at the 1991 Frankfurt Motor Show. Designed for urban driving, it combined four-seat accommodation with lightweight construction. It remained
What was the Saab Toppola camper? It was a removable living module fitted into a compatible hatchback after its rear hatch was taken off. Developed in Sweden in the early 1980s, it gave a passenger ca
A Porsche with oars sounds like something its owner bought after an unfortunate encounter with a flooded road. In the 1950s, however, Porsche was developing a vehicle for which getting into the water
Open the door of an early Mini and one of its best ideas is easy to miss. Beneath the window sits a surprisingly generous storage pocket, especially for a car that looks as though it barely has room f
Before tanks had tracks, someone had to imagine that an engine, armor and heavy weapons might belong on the same vehicle. Frederick Richard Simms did more than imagine it. At the end of the 19th ce
In 1974, a shipment of 1,000 boxy Swedish sedans arrived in North Korea. The cars were Volvo 144 GLs, sensible four-door machines known for sturdy construction, generous interior space and all the
Inside a modern automotive design studio, there are enormous screens, virtual-reality headsets, laser scanners, 3D printers and computers capable of rendering a car so convincingly that its paint appe
The woodgrain paneling on an old station wagon rarely fools anyone. Even when new, the printed vinyl was not likely to be mistaken for hand-finished mahogany. It was wood in the same way a kitchen
Automotive fashion has produced few ideas quite as curious as taking a finished steel roof, covering it in textured plastic and charging the customer extra. For several decades, buyers did exactly tha