VeloceToday.com

The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

pete

Martini Racing at Museo dell’ Automobile

By

The Beta Montecarlo Turbo, driven by Riccardo Patrese, Markku Alén and Ilkka Kivimaki which won the 1980 Giro Automobilistico d’Italia.

Text and Photos by Jonathan Sharp

Captions by Martini PR and staff

It was always the stripes that caused me problems.

As a child, like most children I would spend hours putting the car kits together, even more hours painting the bodywork, usually using an aerosol paint which made the house stink. Then it came to the Martini stripes. Even though they came as decals there was always one set of stripes that would not sit right on the bodywork no matter how many times you lifted them off and put them back on again. But the picture on the box looked so neat one had to get it right.

I had forgotten how cool they looked until I had made my way through the turnstile entrance of the Museo dell’ Automobile in Turin. Right in front of me was the Martini Racing-striped Lancia Beta Monte Carlo Turbo of 1981- oh those stripes. With the car parked next to a blue lit Christmas tree I wanted to dig out my model making box again and have another go at those stripes.

The reason the Monte Carlo was sitting in the middle of the Museum’s main atrium was because of an exhibition to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Martini & Rossi Brand and 45 years of Martini Racing. (Exhibit closes January 26th). The cars on display covered the entire history of Martini Racing, starting with the Porsche 917, winner of the 1970 Le Mans 24 hour race,to the 1973 Targa Florio-winning 911 RS, right up to the current Porsche 918 Hybrid race car of 2014. [Read more…] about Martini Racing at Museo dell’ Automobile

Pegaso Z 102

By


Francisco Godia in his Pegaso in May 1955 while another Pegaso is on the shoulder.

Book Review Pegaso by Monsalve by Pete Vack
Purschase from: autodromo@autodromo.es. (any questions? contact vack@cox.net)
Direct link to purchase page (in Spanish)
Softback, 90 pages, B&W and color
$55 USD in Europe, $65 USD rest of world

Naturally, VeloceToday includes the Pegaso in our portfolio of strange and wonderful cars that don’t quite fit in the regular scheme of things French or Italian. Pegaso has links to Alfa Romeo, Touring and the Swiss-French-Spanish Hispano Suiza, so it fits well within our borders.

The problem is, or has been, a good lack of information about these cars. They are not only rare, but extremely rare in the U.S., and come to find out, a lot are held dear within the borders of their native country. [Read more…] about Pegaso Z 102

Montier Model A Ford

By

VeloceToday’s Australian Agent

Our latest VeloceToday Select Folio, Montier’s French Racing Fords, was an idea developed by author Chris Martin who became intrigued by this unusual story about a French family who raced their modified Fords at Le Mans and at Spa.

The restored 1923 Montier-Ford at the Le Mans Classic.

Chris contacted VeloceToday with his idea and it was decided that the story deserved to be published in its own right as a booklet or Folio.
Chris lives in Australia, VeloceToday is located on the East Coast U.S.A but the distance did not hinder this union with Chris becoming the contact point in the Asia Pacific region for his new book. In the making of this publication, ideas were collaborated from the very start, proofing the copy, researching the photos and permissions, and working on the design, even sharing the printing costs. From Virginia where it was printed, half of the run was then shipped to Chris.

[Read more…] about Montier Model A Ford

Lancia 037 and S4

By

Lancia 037 at a recent meet.

Story and Photos by Hugh Doran

Ever since Lotus boss Colin Chapman took out a competition license in the name of “Gold Leaf Team Lotus”: motorsport has been a rather colorful sport. Today we are well used to seeing racing cars painted in the colors of all manner of various products. Looking back over the years there have been some bad paint jobs on the cars, but there have also been some good ones. Then there are the ones that really stand out. One such livery is the Martini colors worn by Lancia in the World Rally Championship
[Read more…] about Lancia 037 and S4

Our Features This Week, January 7th, 2014

By

News Briefs and Hot Items

Incredible Barn Finds to first three Premium Subscribers!

Special Offer: A free copy (including shipping) of “Incredible Barn Finds” by Wallace Wyss to the first three NEW Premiums Subscribers to VeloceToday. Just sign up for a year and we’ll contact you if you are among the first three for your mailing address. Click here to get started!.

Wallace Wyss and others including Porsche expert Randy Leffingwell would like to know if anyone has any idea of what happened to the Bertone Porsche as seen in Randy’s photo. We’ll have a story on the car shortly but it would be nice to see if we could establish its current whereabouts first.

Coming up: Jonathan Sharp takes us on a tour of the Fiat Lingotto facility and the new museum. The Museum is an incredible visual feast and serves as a homage to the greatest cars of the 20th century; from Marlene to Moss and the cars they drove. Don’t miss Jonathan’s latest adventure.

For the New Year, a new banner, buttons and font size. Sharp’s image from Lingotto now graces our banner head; be sure to take note of our new buttons and shop at our store; notice the larger font size now used for our articles. We hope you approve of all!



Our Features This Week

Fiat 508 Balilla Mille Miglia Berlinetta

By

The neatest, prettiest, most Italianate small displacement pre-war coupe ever made.

In one sense, the paltry 998 cc 36 hp Fiat Balilla Mille Miglia Berlinetta Coupe is much ado about very little. In another sense, it is the quintessential example of prewar Italian design in miniature and very nearly takes your breath away. And the name is no auction house hype; Mille Miglia Berlinetta it was from the day it rolled out of the factory in 1935.

If looks aren’t enough, consider that the ultra-rare MM Berlinetta may be one of the first true Grand Touring cars ever conceived, and most certainly one of the first small displacement GT cars ever built.
[Read more…] about Fiat 508 Balilla Mille Miglia Berlinetta

Epoqu’Auto in Lyon, 2013

By

Story and Photos by Thomas Bromehead

Next month everyone will be headed to Paris for Retromobile, France’s largest classic car show. But last November 8-10, 50,000 people attended France’s second largest event, Epoqu’ Auto. No newcomer, the event celebrated its 35th anniversary and now boasts more exhibitors than even the fabled Retro. [Read more…] about Epoqu’Auto in Lyon, 2013

Autodelta at the Quail

By


The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering August 16th 2013. Art by Evan Klein.

By Brandon Adrian as told to the Editor

How could we have missed this…not once, but twice…?

Somewhere along the way during Monterey Car Week, we overlooked an unusual display of Alfa Romeos gathered at the Quail. In November, the organizer of this small but potent affair, Brandon Adrian, reminded us of our oversight. We were going to include a short report in last week’s special Autodelta edition of VeloceToday but in the hustle and bustle of the holidays and deadlines, we forgot…again! By this time poor Brandon was about to run us over with a spare GTA.

We promised to make amends so here it is…Autodelta at the Quail. [Read more…] about Autodelta at the Quail

Our Features This Week, December 31, 2013

By

Happy New Year!

We don’t want to let 2013 go by without acknowledging the birth of Autodelta fifty years ago. Roberto Motta helps us celebrate with a report on the anniversary meeting at Monza, the editor chips in with an appreciation of Carlo Chiti, and we present an Autodelta Gallery courtesy of Alfa Romeo Automobilismo Storico, Centro Documentazione (Arese, Milano). Due to space reasons, this week’s features will appear only once, below.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE SMALL PHOTO TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE ARTICLE.

249 Good Reasons to be a Premium Subscriber

Below, we roll out all the articles we’ve published in 2013, posted from December to January; just keep scrolling down to January. Our thanks to all of our contributors, authors, correspondents, proofreaders and all of you who have become Premium Subscribers, without whom VeloceToday would not exist. Point and click and thank you!

December




November







October








September









August






July








June






May





April




March




February





January





Carlo Chiti: An Appreciation in English and Italian

By

By Pete Vack

All images courtesy and copyright Alfa Romeo Automobilismo Storico, Centro Documentazione (Arese, Milano)

Carlo Chiti was many things: an engineer for Alfa Romeo from 1952 to 1957, Ferrari’s revolutionary chief engineer from 1958-1961, then the ATS chief engineer from 1962-1963. But above all, Carlo Chiti was Autodelta. Wrote his wife Luigia Fumanelli, “Autodelta was his creation. I think that he looked upon it as his second home, and it lasted so long – twenty years – that when it was no longer there he felt his life had been taken from him.”

Chiti admitted that his fortunes at Autodelta were closely allied to those of Giuseppe Luraghi, the colorful, novel- writing President of Alfa Romeo from 1960 to 1974. It was Luraghi who, via Orazio Satta, was invited to form a competition department of Alfa in 1962, but Chiti was tied up with ATS. By 1964 ATS was on the ropes and he was now able to take up on Luraghi’s offer to create a racing department, originally separate from the factory. Chiti had remarkable independence; although each project had to be passed through both Satta and Giuseppe Busso, according to Piero Casucci, “the freedom he enjoyed, together with his team, was virtually complete.”

This content is for Premium Subscriber members only.
LoginSubscribe

Autodelta Photo Gallery: 1965 to 1981

By

1965: A GTA in front of the new Autodelta shop.

All images courtesy “Alfa Romeo Automobilismo Storico, Centro Documentazione (Arese, Milano)”
Results from http://www.italiancar.net/pilot/ms054.htm

1966: A life too short. The TZ2 would be retired to concentrate on the GTAs.

1967: The GTA's were successful in keeping the Porsches at bay even in Germany.

This content is for Premium Subscriber members only.
LoginSubscribe

Merry Christmas

By

Photo by Greg Vack. Click on pic to read more about a Scalextric Christmas.

Six of the Most Talked-About Articles in 2013

The comments from our readers are not numerous: however, they are indicative the intelligence, knowledge and thoughtfulness of our readership, and pro or con they are all well written and honest. Thankfully most (and we publish all) are positive and helpful. All are worth reading, and a learned comment from just one of our astute readers is worth 1000 of the less serious remarks found on many other websites.

For this Christmas Eve, we decided to list six of this year’s most talked about articles. Read on and add your comments as well.

Comments aren’t always an indicator of how good an article is…some of our best articles elicit few comments simply because they are no errors or don’t raise any controversy. Case in point, the superb work done at Goodwood this year by both Jonathan Sharp and Hugues Vanhoolandt only came home with a total of ten comments over a five article special feature. Both Sharp and Vanhoolandt worked endlessly all year providing VeloceToday with stunning photography and astute and accurate reporting. Well done!

With 15 comments, Wally Wyss’s article about the Faux French Hot Rods of Californian Terry Cook really struck a note with our readers, but were the remarks good or bad? We all knew we’d have controversy, and yet when all was said and done, almost all of the comments took to Terry’s side and congratulated him on his automotive art. We thank Wyss for continuing to provide interesting and provocative articles such as this and we applaud Cook for accomplishing what many of us can only dream of doing.

Paris, 1954, how sweet it was. The Editor’s uncle Gerald Vack, then serving with the U.S. Military in Germany, got a break and went off to Paris to see all the latest fashions at the Grand Palais. The stars of the show were the new 1300 Alfa Giulietta Sprint and the Ferrari 375 bodied by Pinin Farina, which director Roberto Rossellini purchased while at the show. The two-part article featured 20 still-brilliant Kodachrome slide shots of all the best cars at the show and gathered up 17 comments, all nice, of course!

Michael T. Lynch reported on the acquisition of the Road & Track archives by the REVS institute and added one of his favorite Brockbank cartoons to the article. When Road & Track was being moved to its new location in Michigan, said Lynch, the new owners didn’t want to take the tons of archives. Fortunately the REVS Institute saved everything for posterity. Twenty of our readers were happy that the archives were saved, but many sadly noted that the magazine is not what it once was and feared for its future.

Gijsbert-Paul Berk is one of our most senior and experience writers; he has been a journalist in Europe since the mid-1950s. His four-part article on Streamlining and Concept Cars was complete, full of new information, and told a story still relevant in today’s changing world. Beginning in 1888, Berk detailed decades of advanced aerodynamic vehicles and how the manufacturers influenced each other on both sides of the Atlantic. Twenty one readers added their opinions.

Graham Gauld needs no introduction nor does Henry Manney III. But Gauld’s remembrances of Manney immediately brought forth comments from Bill Warner, Toly Arutonoff, Jeff Allison, Mrs. Patrick Manney, Alan Boe, Sue Ellis (Russell Brockbank’s daughter), Chuck Queener, Charles Fox and Dick Irish, to name just a few who also don’t need introductions here. Over thirty comments made this article come in first with the most comments. A great writer on a great writer.

MENU