If you though that the original Volkswagen Golf GTI is the first hot hatchback ever, think again. That model only popularized the genre, but it didn't invent it. As a prime example of what I'm trying ...

I want to tell you a story. It’s not a particularly happy one, given that we’re heading back to the late Seventies and talking about the British motor industry, but you can’t tell the fabulously ...

The Chrysler Sunbeam was a middling shitbox of a compact hatchback built by Chrysler Europe. It was based on the larger Hillman Avenger, which had been in production since 1970. In order to boost ...

When it comes to the Talbot Sunbeam, that rather unlikely hot hatch that transformed into a rallying world-beater via Lotus and the Coventry-based Talbot competitions department, it’ll always be the ...

Even four decades since the last one was registered, the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus seems a wonderfully daft idea. Time has done nothing to dull the cult appeal. Lotus has done plenty of consultancy and ...

The Talbot Sunbeam Lotus was a mongrel. For starters, it was based upon a stopgap hatchback built on a cut-down Hillman Avenger chassis, hastily confected in just 19 months to give the ill-fated ...

“Tear-arsing”. Many inner-city council estate scallies have claimed the phrase as their own, but it only really works with a nasal Liam Gallagher-style Manc accent. “'E woz tear-arsin' aroun' in a ...

FORdecades in the United Kingdom, the Rootes Group consolidated other automobile manufacturers. In 1935, a pair of independent automakers, Sunbeam and Talbot, was purchased and became part of the ...

Jeremy Clarkson is to blame for this one. Since his 2001 Christmas DVD Top 100 Cars named the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus his 55th best car ever, the car has totally beguiled me. A RWD hot hatch? Where do we ...