It’s amazing what some people regard as classics. Bearing in mind that some of my choices are pretty weird too, I would never throw stones at someone else’s dream car but sometimes I do wonder…

Take this old warrior, for instance - a Volkswagen Microbus “altered” with all the latest gear. I know that owners often fell in love with these things - some of them almost lived in them. Two of my friends from the seventies swore by theirs and I have to admit that they were practical, reliable and had a certain charm merely through familiarity. But that “gudda-gudda-gudda” engine noise that reverberated through the tin can that served as a body and the upright truck driver stance behind the wheel always put me off somehow.

It surprises me that they are still regarded as classics but, apparently, this is the case. That one up there has been done up by Volkswagen of America as some sort of publicity stunt and contains all sorts of modern technology. You can read about it here.

But the one that takes the biscuit has to be the guy in Budapest who is trying to sell his Lada 1200 estate car as a classic. In the early 70s FIAT was trying to be the biggest European car manufacturer and, as part of the plan, they set up factories to produce their model 124 in several countries of the old communist bloc. The Lada was the Russian version.

It was outdated in Western Europe even before they started rolling off the production lines but I suppose it must have been a pleasant change to Easterners after their usual diet of Volgas and Zils. They managed to sell a few in the West but it was an uphill struggle against the latest that other manufacturers were offering.

In the photographs the car looks to be in very good condition and has a very low mileage. If you’re interested, it could be yours for only $13,000. Just wander over to Serious Wheels and have a look. All Russian parts, too…

I am sure that we all know that Mazda are the great exponents of the rotary or “Wankel” engine (named after the guy who invented it). Mazda have spent years and huge amounts of money in solving the inherent sealing problems that come with such an engine, so it is only right that they should experience a payback in the form of success for their sportscars powered by the most amazing of combustion engines.

But they were not the first to back the idea. That honor belongs to a German company called NSU that took on the engine, became over-ambitious, and went broke as a result. Before they expired and were re-absorbed into Auto Union, they did produce a rotary-engined car that has become a classic - the Ro80.

The car was way ahead of its time and not all the difficulties of the Wankel engine had been solved when production began in 1967. Inevitably it suffered from reliability problems and soon gained an evil reputation therefore. Before that could happen it won the Car of the Year award for 1968 and awards for its design.

It is a pretty thing from certain angles but, in my opinion, looks a bit unbalanced from the side. And its similarity to the earlier Lancia Fulvia Zagato makes it underserving of too much praise.

But it was the engine that both made and broke the Ro80. Rotaries produce about three times as much power as an equivalent-sized piston engine and new uses for it are still being found today (click on the link and run the video). A wonderful car when running but needing engine rebuilds far too often, the Ro80 suffered the consequences of being first. By 1970 the problems had been cured but too late to counteract its reputation. It died with the company.

So the next time you leap into your Mazda RX-7 or 8 to have a bit of fun, spare a thought for the car that made it all possible - the NSU Ro80.

As a European, I am bound to assess American cars from an outsider’s viewpoint. As can be seen in our different approaches to car racing, priorities differ according to which side of the Atlantic you hail from. Americans, with their huge distances and straight freeways, want something with plenty of power; Europeans, with tight little twisting roads, want a car that will hang on around the corners.

And so a tiny car like the Mini can become a favorite in Europe purely because it’s such fun to drive, whereas the American hungers for Mustangs, Corvettes, Chargers and Vipers. Muscle cars, in fact. Things with so much power they’ll accelerate like nobody’s business but are on only nodding acquaintance with corners.

Don’t get me wrong - Europeans love muscle cars too. We love those huge V8s, the glorious sound they make and the kick in the back when they accelerate. It’s just that our twisty little roads demand that cars can corner too. That’s the reason for all those funny little British and Italian sportscars, after all - they give the illusion of power and still go around corners as if on rails.

For this post, however, I thought I’d celebrate the tradition of American muscle cars. They are wondrous beasts and look great too.

Time to look at my favorite dream car - the Ferrari 250 GTO. I may do several posts on this one as it is, to my eyes, the most beautiful car ever made. And I am not alone in this assessment - for decades this car has been the most desirable of all classic cars, as reflected in its current going price of around $6 million. In 1991, one was sold for $15 million.

A development of the earlier 250 GT SWB, the 250 GTO was designed from the outset for racing and used a 3.0 liter V12 engine. Only 39 were made, considerably short of the required homologation requirement of 100, but it was allowed to race anyway. It won the World GT Championship in 1962, 1963 and 1964, which certainly argues for its effectiveness as a racer.

But it was its looks that made it so desirable. Perfect in proportion, partly thanks to its being one of the last competitive front-engined GT racers, nothing about it is overdone or out of place. The design was largely the work of Bizzarini and Scaglietti but others worked on it too after Bizzarini fell out with Enzo Ferrari and was fired. In a way, it is fitting that no one designer can lay claim to it, it being such a perfect expression of the supremacy of Italian design at the time.

But enough of my prattle - just feast your eyes on the most gorgeous of all dream cars and we can talk about details in some other post.