Alfa Romeo: View from the Mouth of the Dragon Softbound Edition

Review by Pete Vack

More than ten years ago, S. Scott Callan published his massive, expensive, leather-bound Alfa opus, Alfa Romeo: View from the Mouth of the Dragon, 1900-1940 which in turn was derived from a CD ROM. Now, an expanded and more affordable softback edition (at only $125) is available.

It is both a revolutionary and evolutionary literary adventure which covers the financials, personalities, politics and realities of the era, a combination of Patrick Italiano, Peter Hull and Luigi Fusi!

The CD was initially created in 1996 and was one of the first uses of multimedia technology …certainly the first automobile manuscript to do so. For the computer savvy, it was programmed in 1994 on Windows 3.1 and ran on every WIN OS through XP (2014). When XP went, Scott had a decision to make.

Writes Scott, “When I came up with the concept of digital publishing in 1993 my intention was to combine the film, audio and animation of broadcast with the depth of a book.” The CD ROM provided an entirely new way of producing a motoring book, combining historical videos, moving, artistic technical diagrams, neat navigational tools all with a historical text and hundreds of glorious color photos. But the clock had run out on the CD ROM option, (does anyone have a CD slot anymore?) and in 2014 Scott decided to update and recreate his opus—back into print book format.

“I set Velocity Group up to be a multiple medium production company. I foresaw the possibility of creating a database driven operation from which we could produce digital publications, TV shows and print books.” said Scott. It was a natural then, to drop the CD ROM production and use the copious material to create a book.

It was…and remains despite the conversion back to a print format, a fluent, interesting, multi-input history of Alfa’s history and focuses on the engines, making use of colorful drawings and photos to allow the reader to become fully immersed into the works of Alfa’s two greatest engineers, Giuseppe Merosi and Vittorio Jano. Scott combines historical photos and superb drawings, wedded to a semi-gloss paper for great results.

Art, Engineering, History

In contrast to most, if not all, books on Alfa, Scott has created a visual, artistic, historical, interesting, multi-sourced book about Alfa that one cannot find elsewhere. He goes strong on the personalities, uncovers the financial challenges faced by the company and the politics that both saved and almost destroyed it, discusses the racing victories that put Alfa on the international map, and describes via text and drawings each one of the milestone Alfa engines, and to a lesser degree, the chassis. He does so without drowning the reader in technical specs or engineering techniques, making it both readable and interesting to even the casual Alfa enthusiast. His references and information came with a lot of help from the Alfa Museum in the mid-1990s, where Scott had unusual access. It is a treat for the mind and the eye.

Scott Callan is a former TV producer, photographer, digital programmer, graphic artist, publisher, and author; we might, on a good day with a tailwind, describe him as polymath. He certainly has the ability to learn new and different disciplines, apply and combine them in new ways, and an innate curiosity which leads him to distant paths not yet followed. View displays these qualities throughout.

Outstanding photography

The author came out of art school as a technical illustrator, went on to become an art director, directing innumerable studio photographers, and becoming a location photographer in the process. “As a result the photos here were taken at Pebble, Concorso, The Historics at Laguna Seca, and Road America with a trusty old Nikon. Being an AD and managing pre-press production and commercial print operations for over 50 years, informed the single press publishing setup as basis of all the Velocity Group limited edition art books produced.”

The creation of the engineering drawings.

“To create the engine art, I needed the original engineering drawings. One of the reasons I chose Alfa (pre-war) as my subject (in 1993) was, as a result of my TV projects I was good friends with Cornelis Verweij, communications director and media liaison at Alfa in Arese. I called him one night (day in Italy) and asked if I could get the engineering drawings. I explained what I was doing. I took the original engineering drawings, scanned them, and broke them down into individual parts.” Then his expertise in programming and computer animation took over and literally allowed the engine to breathe. After that, recreating those same drawings for use in the book required making them as interesting as the digital animations, which he certainly has done. In either event, it is a work of art as well as an informative engineering cutaway. Compare these to Jano’s original drawings in Le Alfa Romeo di Vittorio Jano.*

All the drawings are by S.Scott Callan

We found the car drawings particularly well done, reminding us of the Alfa Romeo PR art of the 1970s…side views of various Alfas in pen and ink. But Scott’s are in color, and better rendering of the chosen subjects.

We can’t think of a more enjoyable way to learn about the history of Alfa Romeo. While the organization may be a bit clunky, and we are not sure the treatment of the ancient racing videos worked as well as they did as video on the CD, Scott’s book artistically yet accurately portrays the essence of the cars from Milan. And now at only $125 (a deal in today’s world), you can’t go wrong.

*On our bookshelf, there are three significant books about Alfa Romeo that address the companies most important years – 1910 to 1940*: a History by Hull and Slater, (1964), Alfa Romeo, All cars from 1910, by Luigi Fusi, (1978), and Le Alfa Romeo di Vittorio Jano, by Luigi Fusi, Enzo Ferrari and Griffith Borgeson (1982).

Like his softcover Ferrari book, Alfa Romeo: View from the Mouth of the Dragon is being produced as a limited edition in a press run of 50 books. Available now for pre-order for June delivery. Order here

A few more selections from View from the Mouth of the Dragon

Velocity Group Website Review