The Ducati Corse team had many reasons to look forward to the 2009 Motorcycle Grand Prix (MotoGP) season. Their lead rider for the Ducati Marlboro racing team was Australian Casey Stoner, who obtained Ducati’s first MotoGP World Championship title in 2007. Partnering with Stoner was the 2006 MotoGP World Champion, Nicky Hayden, who was nicknamed “The Kentucky Kid”. The two ...
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Early Wasps: Maisto 1946 Vespa 98 and 1953 Vespa 125 U
When Piaggio Aircraft, the Italian helicopter factory was closed by the Allied Forces after the end of World War II, owner Enrico Piaggio was driven to produce a motor-scooter to provide affordable transportation for the masses. He wasn’t too thrilled with their first product, the 1945 Piaggio MP5, which was nicknamed “Paperino”, so his engineers went back to the drawing ...
Read More »Not a “Little Bastard”: Maisto 1955 Porsche 550A Spyder
The iconic 1953-56 Porsche 550 Spyder is often associated with the late American actor and Hollywood icon James Dean. It seems that glamour, speed and danger are part of the racing sports car’s mystique. For the benefit of those who are not in the know, the Porsche 550 is a mid-engine car with an air-cooled horizontally-opposed 4-cylinder engine. It followed ...
Read More »More Power for the Plastic Fantastic: Bburago and Maisto 1957 Chevrolet Corvette
To continue our story from yesterday’s Miniature Wheels feature about Chevrolet’s Plastic Fantastic, we leave our 6-cylinder 150-horsepower Pennant Blue 1954 Corvette behind and go over to our V8-powered 290 hp Venetian Red 1957 Corvette. As we mentioned yesterday, these “solid-axle” Corvettes are first-generation cars (C1) that debuted as a roadster in 1953 and underwent several upgrades, starting with a ...
Read More »Nissan Unveils 4-Year Transformation Plan, Sees Possibility of Producing SUVs in the Philippines
Using a digital conference platform from their head office in Yokohama, Japan, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (NML) unveiled a four-year “transformation plan” to achieve sustainable growth, financial stability and profitability by the end of fiscal year 2023. The plan was designed to shift Nissan’s strategy from its past focus on inflated expansion to its new focus on cost-rationalization and business ...
Read More »Geely Philippines Introduces the All-New Azkarra via Online Digital Launch
How do you launch a new automotive product when there is a government ban on public gatherings to avoid the contagion of the deadly Corona virus? How do you set the standards for the New Normal? How do you disseminate the much needed information to your media partners and eventually, to your customers? Sojitz G Auto Philippines (SGAP), the Philippine ...
Read More »First-Generation Plastic Fantastic: ERTL 1954 Chevrolet Corvette
In 1951, Harley Earl, the head of General Motors’ Styling Section convinced his bosses at GM to build an all-American two-seat sports car. As avid fan of sporting cars, Earl observed that soldiers returning after serving overseas following World War II were bringing home small European sports cars. Earl’s Special Projects crew began working on the new car under the ...
Read More »How Nissan is supporting the fight against COVID-19
The company is mobilizing its greatest assets: expertise in manufacturing and transportation, and thousands of dedicated employees The COVID-19 pandemic has upended daily life across the globe and challenged everyone to do their part to help save lives. For some of us, it may be things as basic as washing our hands. For others, like health care workers, it means ...
Read More »1969 Buick GS 400: The Gentleman’s Hot Rod
Buick, the “gentleman’s car” division of General Motors, was an unlikely source of some of America’s finest muscle cars. In 1965, they joined the muscle car fray by shoehorning a 400-cubic-inch V8 into their mid-sized Skylark model and called it the “Grand Sport”. In 1968, with the introduction of the new GM A-Body line-up, they shortened the name of their ...
Read More »The Very First Production Porsche: Maisto 1948 Porsche Type 356-001
From 1945 to 1947, Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche had the difficult task of steering the small fledging company founded by his father, Dr. Ing. Ferdinand Porsche, who was imprisoned by the Allied forces on December 15, 1945 for alleged war crimes. At the same time, Ferry, as the younger Porsche was known, was working on a new two-seat sports car ...
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