So just what the heck is a “crossover”? Not only is it among the hottest vehicle types in a decidedly not-so-hot market this year, but it is also essentially a cross between an SUV and a car. More accurately, it is a high-profile vehicle that looks and behaves much like a sport-utility vehicle but is based on a car platform rather than a truck platform. Though nobody in the industry talks about the crossover craze the way they did about the SUV craze of the ’90s, the new vehicle type has proven to be among the most popular of the decade. Read more . . .
During his early years in the English midlands, William Lyons gave little inclination that he would eventually attain legendary status for the creation of sports cars. 
The son of an Irish musician-turned-piano-repairman, Lyons was a motorcycle fanatic who was fond of racing his Harley-Davidson in local events during the gloomy years of the First World War. He wasn’t particularly enamored of working the piano shop, so his father helped him acquire an apprenticeship with Crossley Motors, a Manchester-based car builder. But at just 17, Lyons was not ready to settle into the drudgery of the machinists business. Read more . . .
A torrent of water passed under the bridge between the launch of the Jaguar XK 120 show car at the Earls Court Motor Show in 1946 and the 
Geneva Auto Show in 1961. For one thing, equipped with the potent XK six-cylinder engine, Jaguar had gone sports car racing in a most successful way. With the aerodynamic D-Type, the marque had prevailed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s most prestigious road race, three years in a row. Jaguar had transitioned from offering the public a reliable sports car for the street based on sedan mechanicals to building very specialized sports racing machinery, and then, finding the cost of world-class competition rising ever-higher, it had pulled back from its racing commitments to concentrate again of cars the market could buy. Read more . . .