Revert to Type 55
Is a Type 57 Bugatti more beautiful than a Mclaren F1? They are fundamentally different but in
their own ways quite lovely. I still have your 2002 list of the 100 Most Beautiful Cars and note that many of this year’s exclusions from then were in the lower half.
My guess is that in 14 and a half years’ time there will be a similar editing, and my tick is already against the ones I think will be axed.
In 2002 I was horrified that you put the stunning Type 55 Bugatti as low as 83rd, only to find it has now dropped three places. It’s one of the few cars to have stopped me in my tracks. To place it lower than an Evoque, a new Fiat 500 or even a Bugatti Chiron is unthinkable.
It’s a pity that the 1929 Chrysler included in 2002 has been axed. The late 1920s and early 1930s Cadillac V16, Lincolns and Chryslers, especially with special bodies, were just fabulous cars, both aesthetically and mechanically.
I’m lucky enough to have owned one of the cars you have listed and it was number one on both occasions. Its track is, by today’s standards, arguably a trifle narrow, but in Series 1 form the wonderful tilted twin exhausts are a fundamental part of the E-type’s presence and certainly not “too visible”. If only the same could be said of the smoke deposits left if the mixture isn’t set quite right.