2025 Greenwood Car Show: British Sports Cars (With Mostly American Engines)

After World War II the automotive world noticed that England was building nimble sports cars that were nevertheless under-powered and that tended to overheat or see their electrical systems fail pretty quickly. Meanwhile in the United States we were building powerful, reliable V-8 engines, but no sports cars. That's why some of the most famous cars sports are British-built but American powered.

 

Behold, an authentic copy of the car every enthusiast dreams about: A 1964 Ford AC Cobra by Carroll Shelby. At auction, this 289 V-8 powered Cobra would go for about $900,000. If it were the later 427-powered car, it would command at least $1.5 million.

 

You can be forgiven if you've never heard of the British sports car company TVR. They've never made a lot of cars. This TVR Griffith was also powered by the 289 Ford. The first two series of cars had fiberglass bodies, and only 251 cars were sold between 1964 and 1966. This is third-series car from 1966, and it has a hand-made steel body. Only ten were made.

 

I didn't think I'd ever see an Allard J2. And actually I still haven't seen one - this is a replica. The Allard was a British make originally powered by a flathead V-8 made in England by British Ford. Only 90 were made between 1950 and 1952.

 

And finally, a car that's all-British: a 1947 Jaguar Mark IV. If this car is really in good working order, then the owner is a genius.

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1950 Dodge Wayfarer

Believe it or not, there used to be a market for full-size cars with only one row of seats. Traveling salesman bought them. This was probably the cheapest car you could buy from the Big 3 automakers. You might call it The Willy Loman Special, except that Death of a Salesman specifically mentions Willy driving a Studebaker.

This car had Chrysler's Fluid Drive. This was a hydraulic fluid coupling placed between the engine and an otherwise totally conventional manual clutch and transmission. From a practical standpoint, this meant that if you were stuck in traffic, you could just put it in second gear and drive it like an automatic.

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1950 Willys CJ3A Jeep

In Jeep's early years, the civilian CJ was identical to the military model.

* A little history. Willys-Overland was one of America's oldest car makers, dating to 1903. It survived the Depression (barely) making compact cars. Although it did not invent the Jeep and did not actually own the design, it was the largest builder of Jeeps during World War II and managed to secure the design rights after the war. After that, nearly all of its products were Jeeps and other four-wheel-drive vehicles. Willys was purchased by the Kaiser Corporation in 1953, Kaiser-Jeep joined American Motors in 1970, that company was purchased by Chrysler in 1987, and Chrysler was purchased by Fiat in 2009. Jeeps are still made on the same Toledo, Ohio factory grounds as Willys cars were a century ago.

* To the right of the driver, the first lever is the gear shift. The second takes the front axle in and out of four-wheel drive. The third shifts the transfer case between high-range gears (good for driving on pavement) and low-range gears (good for driving off-road).

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1950 Dodge Coronet

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1950 Ford F-1 pickup truck

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1950 Chevrolet 3100 five-window pickup truck

Made between June, 1947 and March, 1955 there are few American vehicles more iconic than the Chevrolet Advance-Design Series pickup truck. Chevy sold about half a million of these per year. GMC sold a virtually identical model. Base price new was $1,243.

An incomplete new paint job notwithstanding, this example appears to be about as close to 100% original as you can get. Note: this might be a '49 rather than a '50. I'd have to take a lot closer look than the owner would probably like to tell for sure.

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