autoevolution
 

Vlad Radu

1,179  ARTICLES

Personal motto:

“From success, you learn absolutely nothing. From failure and setbacks conclusions can be drawn. That goes for your private life as well as your career.” - Nikki Lauda

Contributor
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At age five Vlad built a car cockpit out of wood, carboard and an old Trabant steering wheel under his desk and dreamed about driving the world’s most exotic cars. He grew up watching Michael Schumacher become a legendary driver, falling in love with speed and all things Ferrari in the process.

In high school, he crashed a communist-era Dacia 1310 with no brakes into a military base’s fence and almost got arrested on terrorism charges but bribed the base’s sentinel with three packs of cigarettes and only got in trouble for ruining the car.

He then decided to put his passion for cars on hold and concentrate on playing professional basketball. Due to a lack of talent, size, and a serious injury, he was forced to abandon professional sports and take a job as a video game tester. It was during this period that he discovered a passion for reading and writing after finding Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels on a park bench.

The author’s writing style was fascinating to young Vlad and he continued to read all his books while creating a blog where he wrote about controversial social issues, inspired by his favorite author.

Years later, he got back to his first passion, taking a job at a local car parts dealership. He worked his way up from the sales department to a successful regional manager position, but something was still missing.

His biggest dream was to write so, when Autoevolution approached him to become a member of the team, he quit his old job instantly, and has been passionately writing ever since.

When he’s not busy creating articles or playing with his two-year-old son, he can be found working on his old BMW 3 Series Wagon or shredding trails on a mountain bike he assembled himself.
1978 Ford Falcon Cobra: The Aussie Icon That Kept the Muscle Car Flame Burning
1978 Ford Falcon Cobra: The Aussie Icon That Kept the Muscle Car Flame Burning

29 May 2024, 14:08 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / While the Malaise era wreaked havoc on the American automotive industry's high-performance sector, Ford kept the flame burning in Australia with one of the most iconic muscle cars ever built. Some purists have a deep-rooted conviction that ...

 
5 Greatest Classic Australian Muscle Cars
5 Greatest Classic Australian Muscle Cars

28 May 2024, 15:28 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Though some purists insist that a vehicle that wasn't built in the US can't be an authentic muscle car, these five classics from Down Under will prove them wrong. Since the mid-1950s, America's biggest carmakers were engaged in a...

 
1970 Dodge Diamante: Mopar's Forgotten 426 HEMI-Powered Two-Seat Challenger
1970 Dodge Diamante: Mopar's Forgotten 426 HEMI-Powered Two-Seat Challenger

28 May 2024, 12:37 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / A one-off show car, the 1970 Diamante started out as a design exercise for an Elephant-powered Corvette rival and is currently dubbed the most valuable car to feature Mopar's legendary V8 engine. Inspired by an experimental aircraft engine,...

 
5 Most Impressive Cars Powered by the VW Group's W12 Engine
5 Most Impressive Cars Powered by the VW Group's W12 Engine

28 May 2024, 08:19 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Introduced more than two decades ago, the VW Group's W12 story is now over, so let's remember the five most impressive cars powered by the iconic engine. After decades of development, the Volkswagen Group introduced the W12 engine in 2...

 
1971 Sprint SP454: Remembering GMC's Long-Forgotten Muscle Car Icon
1971 Sprint SP454: Remembering GMC's Long-Forgotten Muscle Car Icon

27 May 2024, 13:34 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / In 1971, GMC decided to enter the coupe utility market where the Chevy El Camino and Ford Ranchero reigned supreme. It did so by borrowing its siblings' popular model, and with the rebadged El Camino came the high-performance SS version, rebra...

 
5 Most Outrageous Callaway Corvettes
5 Most Outrageous Callaway Corvettes

25 May 2024, 20:31 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Since the 1980s, America's multiple versions of America's favorite sports car were transformed into veritable supercars by the legendary Reeves Callaway and his crew. Founded in 1977 by Reeves, the son of Callaway Golf Car founder Ely ...

 
5 Legendary European Race Tracks That You Can Drive On With Your Own Car
5 Legendary European Race Tracks That You Can Drive On With Your Own Car

25 May 2024, 20:15 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / If you're a motorsport fan who's planning a road trip through Europe, you can channel your inner race car driver inside your own car on these five iconic tracks. For motorsport fanatics, driving on a race track is a bucket list item, w...

 
Used Car Bargain Buy: The Supercharged V8-Powered Jaguar S-Type R
Used Car Bargain Buy: The Supercharged V8-Powered Jaguar S-Type R

23 May 2024, 11:56 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / If you're a fan of early-2000s European performance sedans, the S-Type R is a rarer, more exotic BMW M5 or Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG alternative that's surprisingly cheap on the current used car market. Introduced in late 1998 as a 1990 mo...

 
Tipo 233 ATR 18S: The 1,000-HP Inline Four Packing Both a Turbo and a Supercharger
Tipo 233 ATR 18S: The 1,000-HP Inline Four Packing Both a Turbo and a Supercharger

22 May 2024, 11:09 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / In an era when forced induction was mandatory to be successful in motorsport, Lancia and Abarth created a monstrous 1,000-hp inline-four that eliminated the drawbacks of the turbocharger and the supercharger by combining the two. Ever since the...

 
1965 Comet Cyclone: A Look Back at Mercury's Most Underrated Muscle Car
1965 Comet Cyclone: A Look Back at Mercury's Most Underrated Muscle Car

21 May 2024, 12:24 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Back when Mercury models were much more than just rebadged Fords, the Cyclone added some serious muscle to the upscale division's already popular lineup. Defunct since 2011, Ford's Mercury division enjoyed a period of great success dur...

 
Remembering the 1992 Dodge Daytona IROC R/T, an Unsung Mopar Hero
Remembering the 1992 Dodge Daytona IROC R/T, an Unsung Mopar Hero

20 May 2024, 09:42 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / The introduction of the Viper had Mopar fanatics buzzing with excitement in the early nineties, and to keep the momentum going, Dodge introduced another interesting sports car in 1992. No, it was by no means as exciting as the Viper, but conside...

 
5 Awesome Replica Kit Cars That Make the Dream of Owning a Legendary Classic Possible
5 Awesome Replica Kit Cars That Make the Dream of Owning a Legendary Classic Possible

19 May 2024, 08:30 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / If you're a DIY enthusiast whose biggest dream is to own an iconic classic car, these five replicas can turn your dream into reality for far less money than an original example. Kit cars have been around for decades, with the iconic Lotus S...

 
5 of the Largest Internal Combustion Engines Ever Created
5 of the Largest Internal Combustion Engines Ever Created

19 May 2024, 08:12 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / "No replacement for displacement" was the motto that produced some large powerplants during the exciting muscle car era. Nevertheless, this motto was taken to another dimension in the case of these five insanely humongous internal combust...

 
Siata 208S: The Breathtaking Italian Sports Car You Probably Never New Existed
Siata 208S: The Breathtaking Italian Sports Car You Probably Never New Existed

18 May 2024, 23:42 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Nicknamed "Little Ferrari" by the one-and-only Steve McQueen, the 208S was a gorgeous two-seat roadster developed by a Fiat tuning house turned low-volume carmaker. In the wake of the Second World War, the automotive industry rose from...

 
5 Quickest Muscle Cars Over the Quarter Mile During the 1966 Model Year
5 Quickest Muscle Cars Over the Quarter Mile During the 1966 Model Year

18 May 2024, 23:23 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / In 1966, the American automotive industry was expanding its factory-built performance menu. While horsepower was often a deciding factor in terms of sales, quarter-mile times separated the winners from the losers in the hearts and minds of muscle c...

 
1965 Buick Riviera Gran Sport: When Near-Flawless Personal Luxury Met Muscle
1965 Buick Riviera Gran Sport: When Near-Flawless Personal Luxury Met Muscle

17 May 2024, 11:34 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Known as one of the most beautiful American cars of its era, the first-gen Riviera received an infusion of muscle in 1965 thanks to the addition of the Gran Sport performance package. By the late 1950s, GM was racing to come up with an answer fo...

 
Olds 4-4-2 W30: The Forgotten GTO Slayer That Became Quarter-Mile King in 1966
Olds 4-4-2 W30: The Forgotten GTO Slayer That Became Quarter-Mile King in 1966

16 May 2024, 19:33 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / While the iconic GTO remained the most popular high-performance intermediate, its A-body cousin, now with its own Tri-Power V8, became the quickest factory-built muscle car of the 1966 model year. During its history as a General Motors division,...

 
The Captivating Story of the First-Gen Mustang Wagon That Never Was
The Captivating Story of the First-Gen Mustang Wagon That Never Was

8 May 2024, 10:03 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Also known as the Intermeccanica Mustang, this 1966 design proposal never made it into production but has inspired enthusiasts ever since. In the spring of 1964, at the famous World's Fair held in Flushing Meadows, New York, Ford unveiled a...

 
5 Quickest Muscle Cars Over the Quarter Mile During the 1965 Model Year
5 Quickest Muscle Cars Over the Quarter Mile During the 1965 Model Year

30 Apr 2024, 14:12 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / A year after Pontiac unleashed the GTO, a horsepower war commenced in Detroit, and the victors were crowned by their performance over the quarter mile. Though drag strip-oriented, high-performance versions of mass-produced American cars existed ...

 
1970 GS Stage 1: Buick's Ultimate Fast With Class Blast From the Past
1970 GS Stage 1: Buick's Ultimate Fast With Class Blast From the Past

30 Apr 2024, 11:41 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / During the pinnacle of the muscle car golden age, the GS Stage 1 was the fourth quickest factory-built performance ride over a quarter mile, the undisputable torque king, and the best-handling high-powered intermediate that roamed on American roads...

 

Stories by Vlad Radu