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Festival of the Unexceptional: the bad cars we love

Ever been to a classic car show and noticed how many old MGBs and sports cars of yesteryear have turned up, driven by their proud owners, but wondered what happened to all the more mainstream stuff? There are twice as many Ferrari 308 GTBs on the roads in the UK than Austin Allegros, because the everyday cars of the past fail MOTs, get chucked away and replaced with shiny new hatchbacks. Fortunately, there is a select group of people in the UK who care for the mundane stuff of yesterday and, because of this, a new event for “unexceptional” cars will be taking place this summer.

BMW 5-Series GT introduces liftback model

BMW will bring the elevated seating and packaging of an SUV to its 5-series line with the addition of a liftback model called the Grand Turismo or, simply, GT. The automaker is now revealing the production look for the vehicle, which will debut at this fall's Frankfurt motor show after having been previewed as a concept car at the Geneva show in March. It will go on sale in the United States in December, priced in the low-$70,000s range.

Concept Car of the Week: Opel CD (1969)

Despite its sophisticated suspension and spacious interior, Opel struggled to sell its big Diplomat luxury sedan. It was 1968 and Opel simply couldn't compete with Mercedes-Benz, the leader in that segment by far. Bob Lutz, then a young executive at GM Europe, thought of using the sedan's chassis to create a large GT Coupe in an attempt to boost both its sales and profile.