autoevolution
 

Vlad Radu

1,182  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.
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...

 
5 Outrageous Aircraft-Inspired Concept Cars
5 Outrageous Aircraft-Inspired Concept Cars

29 Apr 2024, 16:41 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / The aircraft industry inspired many automotive designs and technologies over the years, but these five concept cars have taken the aircraft-inspired theme to a different level. Though automotive designers have been inspired by aircraft from the ...

 
1981 Turbo Z: Remembering the Last, Rarest Genuine Yenko Camaro
1981 Turbo Z: Remembering the Last, Rarest Genuine Yenko Camaro

29 Apr 2024, 13:44 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Twelve years after the last Super Camaro left the legendary Don Yenko's dealership, a new one emerged. Though not as outrageous as its predecessor, the Turbo Z was still an awesome high-performance Chevy that befitted the Yenko name. Don Ye...

 
5 Greatest Muscle Cars Ever Produced by Oldsmobile
5 Greatest Muscle Cars Ever Produced by Oldsmobile

28 Apr 2024, 08:29 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Though the GM division didn't prioritize performance, Oldsmobile unleashed some of the most epic muscle cars ever built. Founded in 1897 by Ransom E. Olds, Oldsmobile became the first high-volume gasoline-powered car manufacturer and the to...

 
5 Iconic V8s From the Golden Age of Muscle That Made More Power Than Advertised
5 Iconic V8s From the Golden Age of Muscle That Made More Power Than Advertised

27 Apr 2024, 20:01 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / A well-known fact today is that most muscle car V8s from the 1960s and early 1970s were purposefully underrated, so let's take a look at the most iconic powerhouses of the era and their true horsepower ratings. From the mid-1960s to 1970, w...

 
Nash Palm Beach: Remembering the One-Off Rambler Dressed in a Tailor-Made Italian Suit
Nash Palm Beach: Remembering the One-Off Rambler Dressed in a Tailor-Made Italian Suit

27 Apr 2024, 19:44 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Based on the first successful American mass-produced compact, the elegant Palm Beach could've been a worthy successor to the Nash-Healey and a thorn in the side of the Chevrolet Corvette. Founded in 1916 by former General Motors president C...

 
5 Quickest Muscle Cars of the 1980s
5 Quickest Muscle Cars of the 1980s

27 Apr 2024, 17:44 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Though the golden age of muscle ended abruptly after the early 1970s, giving way to grossly underpowered econocars, a decade earlier, some surprisingly quick muscle cars were roaming the roads. Though several high-performance cars powered by pot...

 
5 Greatest Classic BMWs Developed by Alpina
5 Greatest Classic BMWs Developed by Alpina

27 Apr 2024, 17:28 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / There's a certain allure to classic BMWs, and while the M-badged models are iconic, some BMW enthusiasts prefer the more elegant Alpina models. Established in 1962 by Burkard Bovensiepen, who at the time was a young engineering student wit...

 
5 Cheapest and Easiest Classic Muscle Cars To Restore
5 Cheapest and Easiest Classic Muscle Cars To Restore

27 Apr 2024, 17:02 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Restoring a muscle car from the golden age is not cheap per se. Still, when it comes to the price and availability of the parts you will need and the difficulty of putting everything back together, these five models are the best choice for your res...

 
5 Badass Classic Muscle Cars That Were Not Built or Available in the US
5 Badass Classic Muscle Cars That Were Not Built or Available in the US

26 Apr 2024, 17:30 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / During the 1960s and 1970s, the muscle car craze spilled over into other countries, giving birth to some epic machines that the US couldn't have. Although performance-oriented cars existed prior to 1964, when Pontiac introduced the wildly p...

 
5 Fastest Landspeed-Record-Breaking Vehicles
5 Fastest Landspeed-Record-Breaking Vehicles

26 Apr 2024, 14:00 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / While most people settled for vehicles that took them from point A to point B, a few thrill-seekers built these wingless planes on wheels that reached astonishing speeds. Since the first automobiles emerged at the dawn of the 19th century, peopl...

 
1972 Charger Rallye: The Last Performance Version of Dodge's B-Body Icon
1972 Charger Rallye: The Last Performance Version of Dodge's B-Body Icon

26 Apr 2024, 10:53 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / As the curtain fell on all things muscle, Dodge had to rethink its performance lineup. For the Charger, that meant the Super Bee, 500, and R/T trims were gone, but thankfully, Dodge passed the torch to the new Rallye. Introduced in the middle of...

 
5 Awesome Yet Forgotten Mitsubishi Performance Cars
5 Awesome Yet Forgotten Mitsubishi Performance Cars

25 Apr 2024, 20:29 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / When you put together "Mitsubishi" and "performance" in the same sentence, the word "Evo" usually follows. But while there's no denying that the rally-bred, Lancer-based Evolution is the Japanese carmaker's m...

 
5 Most Fascinating Concept Cars Produced by Cadillac
5 Most Fascinating Concept Cars Produced by Cadillac

25 Apr 2024, 20:16 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / For decades, the ultimate expression of American mass-produced automotive luxury, Cadillac has also developed some of the industry's most fascinating concept cars. Founded in 1902 and acquired by General Motors seven years later, Cadillac i...

 
5 Greatest High-Performance Yenko Chevys
5 Greatest High-Performance Yenko Chevys

25 Apr 2024, 19:52 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Based on popular factory-built Chevys, these five mean machines became muscle car legends thanks to the performance makeover they got at the hands of Don Yenko and his crew. Founded in 1949 in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, Yenko Chevrolet was one of...

 
Cunningham C-3: America's Forgotten HEMI-Powered, Italian-Bodied Homologation Special
Cunningham C-3: America's Forgotten HEMI-Powered, Italian-Bodied Homologation Special

24 Apr 2024, 12:13 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Developed in the early 1950s to finance the B. S. Cunningham Company's motorsport endeavors and homologate an updated race car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the C-3 became one of the finest grand tourers of its era. ...

 
The Story of the Clan Crusader: A Successful, Pocket-Sized Sports Car With Lotus DNA
The Story of the Clan Crusader: A Successful, Pocket-Sized Sports Car With Lotus DNA

23 Apr 2024, 13:08 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / Though it had a pretty strange name and few remember it ever existed, the small, agile, and ultra-lightweight Clan Crusader was a Goliath-slaying automotive David who made waves on public roads and motorsport events during the first part of the 197...

 
Super Novas: A Look Back at Yenko's Insane Mini-Muscle Cars
Super Novas: A Look Back at Yenko's Insane Mini-Muscle Cars

22 Apr 2024, 12:29 UTC · By: Vlad Radu / In 1969 and 1970, Yenko added the compact Nova to his lineup of beefed-up COPO Chevys, creating arguably the wildest high-performance compacts from the golden age of muscle. After the first generation of the rear-engined Corvair failed to stop t...

 

Stories by Vlad Radu