David Finlay

Writer at Freelance

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Articles

The greatest German engines ever made

1 month ago | autocar.co.uk | David Finlay

Germany has been producing engines from the dawn of motoring until the present day. In nearly 140 years, the country's portfolio of engines has developed into something quite remarkable. It includes simple but effective motors for everyday transport, as well as gigantic units of awesome power, and almost everything in between.
Famously disastrous cars that were in fact successful

1 month ago | autocar.co.uk | David Finlay

Motoring history is littered with tales of cars which were problematic in one way or another. They might have been poorly designed, badly built, inadequately marketed, or simply wrong for their time. There’s no shortage of possibilities. Most of them sold very badly, but several – often reviled nowadays – actually performed remarkably well on the market. Since we think the latter are rather interesting, here’s a representative dozen of them, presented in alphabetical order.
The world’s largest engines

1 month ago | msn.com | David Finlay

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
The world’s largest engines

1 month ago | autocar.co.uk | David Finlay

Saying that engines come in different sizes is like saying it’s a long walk from Canada to Chile. Depending on your definition of the word ‘engine’, the smallest consists of something the size of a speck of dust, while others are so enormous a healthy adult could easily fit in one cylinder. In this feature we’ll be concentrating on the chunkier ones.
the longest-living car engines

1 month ago | msn.com | David Finlay

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Ranked: the longest-living car engines

1 month ago | autocar.co.uk | David Finlay

The engine world as we know it is changing. The advent of electrification means that the days of us being able to worship legendary engines in the future may well just not happen. The industry is yet to make legends of any of the raft of new electric motors now being installed in the wave of electric vehicles, and we can’t see that changing anytime soon. Time, then, to salute the units of the past and present that have character, class – and lived a long time.
The cars that did a million miles

1 month ago | msn.com | David Finlay
The European cars that were a dud in America

1 month ago | autocar.co.uk | David Finlay

The requirements and expectations of car buyers on either side of the Atlantic have historically been very different. This makes it less likely that models built in North America will do well in Europe, or vice versa, but that hasn’t stopped manufacturers from trying. Sometimes this works out okay, but sometimes it very much doesn’t.
The most important cars ever made by Ford

2 months ago | autocar.co.uk | David Finlay

The Ford Motor Company was founded in Detroit over 120 years ago, on 16 June 1903. Within five years, it had hit the jackpot, creating the most important, and for a long time the best-selling, car in history. Today, it remains one of the largest manufacturers in the world, and one that has ingrained itself into the culture of countries other than America like few other foreign firms. This would not have been possible if it hadn’t produced a long series of great models.
Just Like You

Jan 21, 2025 | storiesofmanykinds.substack.com | David Finlay

The water in the lake was warmer and calmer than the water in the sea, and did not make you feel ill if you accidentally swallowed it. You loved swimming here so much that you did it every day, and soon became a great deal better at it than you had been before. You could swim very quickly for a short time or slowly for a very long time. All the adults said they were amazed by this, and were sure you would be able to swim at least as well as they could before you grew much older.