1985.(50th Anniversary countdown)

One of the cars tested by AutoWeek this year is the Porsche 944 Turbo (shown here catching up to its 911 Carrera kin).

The British government approves a five-year plan for the continuation of British-Leyland, in cooperation with Honda. Step one: Revive MG.

Ford and Fiat flirt with merger but can't agree whether management mojo belongs to people named Ford or people named Agnelli.

Carl Haas, with a reported $80 million backing from package-food conglomerate Beatrice, Paul Newman as a partner and Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander to run things, mounts an assault on both CART and Formula One with drivers Mario Andretti and Alan Jones. Jones is coming out of retirement, but the FORCE/Lola-Hart Turbo isn't ready until the last three races of the season. Beatrice is swallowed up by a bigger conglomerate before year's end, and continued funding is in question.

At his home GP in Austria, 1984 F1 champ Niki Lauda announces that he will retire-this time for good-at the end of the season. Except for winning the next GP (the Dutch), he has an off year, 10th in points, as McLaren-TAG teammate Alain Prost racks up a record points total. France, always eager to brag about inventing Grand Prix racing, finally has its champion.

After five winless years, Williams driver Nigel Mansell wins the European GP at Brands Hatch, passing Ayrton Senna. Mansell backs it up at the next GP, in South Africa, a race boycotted by some because of "civil unrest'' as apartheid rule begins to dissolve.

Manfred Winkelhock dies when his Porsche 956 crashes at Mosport. Weeks later, fellow German and F1 rising star Stefan Bellof dies, also in a 956 crash, at Spa.