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Sharp’s Retro Part 6: Art and Neat Stuff

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The BMW art display featured the Jeff Koons 2010 BWM M3 GT2 and six more.

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

One of the main themes at the show this year was a celebration of 50 years of the BMW Art car project which brought together the seven Art Cars that had raced at Le Mans. In the centre of the display was the 1975 3.0 CSL of Alexander Calder, to the left of which was the M1 of Andy Warhol, the 1977 320i of Roy Lichtenstein, and the Frank Stella 1976 750 BHP 3.0 CSL ((my favorite). To the right of the Calder car, the 1999 V12 LMR of Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons’ 2010 M3 GT2, and the 2024 M Hybrid V8 of Julie Mehretu.

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Sharp’s Retro Part 1: Ferrari

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From Kidston, This beautiful 1950 Ferrari 166 MM Le Mans Berlinetta. Chassis 0048 M was first registered in July 1950 to Angelo Biemmi of Iseo, Brescia who, in March 1951, sold it to Luciano Masseroni of Milan, the son of Carlo Rinaldo Masseroni, a large scale footwear manufacturer and owner/president of ‘Football Club Internazionale Milano’ better known as Inter Milan. Six weeks after purchase Luciano and his co driver Riccardo Vignolo took part in the Millie Miglia where they finished 3rd in the 2.0-Litre sports car class, 21st overall.

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

For a French show in the French capital, Retromobile, on its 50th Anniversary, contained a great number of Italian cars, as you will shortly see. The themed displays put on by the event organizers were particularly impressive this year.

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Sharp’s Retro Part 3: Fiat and Others

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Surprisingly unsold at the onsite auction, 1953 Fiat 1100 Coupe Speciale by Allemano, styled by Giovanni Michelotti. One of only two examples built, and probably the sole survivor.

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

Jonathan Sharp shows us the Fiats and oddballs at Retro.

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Amore mio Ardea

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Fancy an Ardea?

Story and photos by Luc van Dobben

From the VeloceToday archives, May 2021

Luc van Dobben is no stranger to Lancias or VeloceToday. To read more about his adventures with Lancias, click here.

In 2019, after selling my last race car project, there was room for something else. But what? Due to my age, I didn’t want another project. So it had to be good restored car, and the only brand for me was Lancia, so the search began.

I preferred a model with the old Lancia grille shape and in a reasonable price range. I began searching for an Ardea, a lovely model, and several were offered for sale in Italy, from projects to fully restored examples. After a lot of Internet visits, I found one to my liking near Pisa. I was contacted by the daughter of the seller, who was helping facilitate the sale. She was familiar with our country, as she had studied in nearby Leiden’s University. She sent extra information, pictures and promised a chrome Ardea sign on the grille as well. All technical questions were correctly answered, and I made arrangements to collect the car ourselves.

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Bill Warner finds the Don Vitale Nardi

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A photo of the Nardi in the driveway of the owner’s house in St. John’s (Jacksonville), FL. Credit Bill Warner

Story by Bill Warner

When you are into old cars, particularly old race cars, over the years they tend to find you rather than you finding them. I’ve had a lot of luck over the years, starting in 1976 when I found the Denny Hulme Tourist Trophy winning Brabham BT8 in a South Carolina junkyard followed by the Lang Cooper, an Elva Mk 4, the Group 44 TR6 and TR8, a 1928 Chevrolet powered beach racer, the 1934 Ford Model 40 Special Speedster (Edsel Ford’s sportscar) and more recently a 1977 IROC Camaro driven by Al Unser and Niki Lauda, to name a few. Last year I received a call from a friend who is an officer on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office who was trying to help a lady who had inherited a strange sports car from her recently departed brother and would I come to her house to tell her what it was. No problem in that the car was about 4 miles from my Garage Mahal in south Jacksonville.

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Thornley Kelham, the home of the Lancia Bandit

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Construction of a Bandit

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

As a previous Lancia owner (Fulvia, Gamma Coupe, HPE VX, and Thema Turbo) the chance to tour the restoration facilities of renowned Lancia specialist Thornley Kelham was a chance I was not going to miss, even though it meant an early start and a long drive from Brighton to South Cerney in Gloucestershire. [Read more…] about Thornley Kelham, the home of the Lancia Bandit

The Legends of Bob Gerard

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You can’t read one without the other.

An inquisition into one of the funniest and most original racing books ever written

All hell is about to break loose at the Gerard residence. Young Julian is attempting to make up a model grid of the British Grand Prix, circa 1952, with his collection of Dinky Toys. Not having enough red F1 cars to fill the grid, Julian paints a spare Cooper-Bristol in the Italian racing color and pretends it’s a Maserati.

But Uncle Bob, who always refused to drive or race anything other than British cars, seriously objects to Julian’s new color scheme. “Explain to me why it is in red. And not British Racing Green as God intended.” [Read more…] about The Legends of Bob Gerard

Retromobile 2026, First Report

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Welcome car lovers….

Story and photos by Daniel D.

Daniel De Gallo just sent us this interesting preview of what was at Retro this past weekend. Thank you, Daniel. Jonathan Sharp will be along shortly with complete coverage.-Ed.

Paris Rétromobile 2026, 50th anniversary

Cutting through the crowds (quasi with a machette!) was way worth my time and first visit at Rétromobile this year. As one of the many visitors in this crowd (one could qualify as a monsieur tout-le-monde in French, translate: an average Joe), I had the immense privilege to see again some cars I had photographed in my youth, growing up in the South of France back in the 1970s. [Read more…] about Retromobile 2026, First Report

Graham Gauld on Nardi

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The mystery BMW Special. Note the two hoods, the front holding the engine and the top one holding the spare wheel.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

From the VeloceToday Archives, March, 2016

Last week I talked about the car that truly stopped the show at Retromobile, the Ferrari 335S, so now I will go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

A tale of two? Nardis

I happened by the stand of Christophe Pund who runs La Galerie Des Damiers and has a habit of digging up remarkable cars that no one has ever heard of. This year he went better and put on show a car he told me he had found as a wreck – and by the time of Retromobile it was little more than that – but did not know exactly what it was. I mention it because some reader in Italy may remember something about it and be able to help out.
Fundamentally it is a two-seater sports car with a lightweight body and powered by a 750cc BMW motorcycle engine mounted in its own compartment at the front of the car. There is a second hood under which is the spare wheel so the driver sits in one of two sketchy seats holding what appears to be a Nardi steering wheel.

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Gauld and the Auburn Douze

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The Auburn Douze, a stylish race car for 1940. ( RRM Sothebys )

Story by Graham Gauld

Not a day goes by without some mention in the newspapers about alternatives to using petrol to drive our cars such as electricity or even hydrogen. So how about one of the older alternatives, LPG, liquid petroleum gas, such as propane. Not only that but let’s take an extreme example of this powering a racing car, around 80 years ago; the Auburn Douze.

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The Races of Life, a Review

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Review by Pete Vack

Order Here

Aldo Zana’s latest book has a fitting title, “The Races of Life”, and uses photographs to examines the period from 1965 to 1970 – a time of change, turmoil and above all danger in both sports prototypes and F1 racing. “Races have not been simply competitions, ” writes Alberto Scuro, President Automotoclub Storico Italiano. “They have always been, and forever remain, the races of life.”

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