VeloceToday.com

The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

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Shared Enthusiasm at Rétromobile

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Lizzie Sexton accompanied her husband John to Rétro this year, but instead of hanging about at the show, she decided to explore the 15th arrondissement. “Not all of us are car fanatics,” she wrote. “But that’s not an excuse to skip the wonderful Rétromobile. Take advantage of the trip to discover a part of Paris with culture, food and fun.” Below, Lizzie shares her experiences with our readers.

Story and Photos by Lizzie Sexton

Rétromobile is housed in the Parc des Expositions at the Porte de Versailles, on the southwest border of Paris and at the base of the 15ième arrondissement. Nine of ten residents of the 15ième will rank the number 12 métro line to downtown as the best thing coming out of their area. But luckily I met Antoine, the one in ten who urged me to “Restez ici chez nous pour un peu!” (Stay here with us for awhile!). [Read more…] about Shared Enthusiasm at Rétromobile

Friends and Family Pay Homage to Hellé Nice

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Hellé Nice died in 1984, impoverished and alone. When she was interred, not even a headstone marked the site. Twenty six years after her death, Sheryl Greene is intent upon making sure the world does not forget this daring French woman who raced Alfas and Bugattis before WWII. Inspired by Miranda Seymour’s book “Bugatti Queen,” Greene, a car enthusiast from Atlanta, established the Hellé Nice Foundation to provide financial aid for young women with a passion to race. The Foundation’s inaugural project is raising money for the purchase of that missing gravestone or marker for Nice, whose real name was Hélène Delangle. After Greene visited the gravesite in France earlier this year, we asked her to update us on her efforts to secure a headstone for Nice.

Story by Sheryl Greene
Art by Larry Crane

From time to time I get messages from the author of “Bugatti Queen” Miranda Seymour; she passes along some bit of information or a contact I may find helpful for the Hellé Nice Foundation. In January, she sent an email that was a treasure. It began, “The last living relative of Hellé Nice, just surfaced …” [Read more…] about Friends and Family Pay Homage to Hellé Nice

Amelia Etceterini Class a Smashing Success

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Jim Jenne's Stanguellini heads up an impressive line up of entrants.

By Cliff Reuter

The 2010 etceterini meet has come and gone and I must say that it far exceeded my expectations!

Three years ago when I first thought of such an event, the goal was to gather the best etceterini cars in America for a show but most importantly I wanted to get the etceterini ‘isti’ together. [Read more…] about Amelia Etceterini Class a Smashing Success

Abarth Guy

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An Abarth High in the Low Countries

Fiat Abarth 124 Rally cars in the Abarth Works Museum.

No one in the low countries quite compares to Guy Moerenhout, a enthusiast and garage owner with a distinct taste for things Abarth. In fact, there is probably no one in Europe with an Abarth inventory of parts, knowledge and cars under one roof, with 3500 square meters of space located in Belgium.

The official address is Guy Moerenhout Racing, Industriestraat 1-2500, Lier Belgium, between Antwerp and Brussels. We might add that there is a threefold purpose to Guy’s place–to sell cars, parts, as a garage and now, Guy is the proud owner of the “Abarth Works Museum” under the same huge roof in Lier. And if you are anywhere in the area, be sure to drop by–you will be amazed! [Read more…] about Abarth Guy

Gentlemen’s Historic Challenge at Le Belle Macchine

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(Hershey, PA, March 8, 2010) Italian CARS together with Brickhouse Communications are pleased to announce a new historic racing series to be called the “Gentlemen’s Historic Challenge.” The first races will be held as part of the 24th Annual Le Belle Macchine d’Italia at Pocono International Raceway, June 25th to the 28th of 2010. The races will be managed by David Seibert, the Project Manager for the Ferrari North America Shell Historic Challenge Series from its inception.
[Read more…] about Gentlemen’s Historic Challenge at Le Belle Macchine

Now, Vote for Your Favorite Etceterini

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The Moretti Barchetta 750 cc of Michael Schwartz is one of the ten final entrants eligible for the most popular Etceterini prize. Vote from the below entrants.

Here are the final entries for the Amelia class of Etceterinis. All have been featured in the past few weeks in VeloceToday.

The entries are numbered 1-10 and the photos are below. Please send us your choice by number or exact description.

Send your vote to me at pete@velocetoday.com before March 8th 2010. The most popular Etceterini will be announced in the March 10th edition of VeloceToday and the owner of the winning Etceterini will be awarded a copy of “Nardi, A fast life”, by Dino Brunori. The book will be presented by Cliff Reuter of etceterini.com, who was the driving force behind the creation of this new class at Amelia.
[Read more…] about Now, Vote for Your Favorite Etceterini

Classic French Car Museum to Open in Oxnard California

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1939 Delahaye 165 is part of the permanent display a the Mullin Museum.

Photos by Michael Furman Photography

Oxnard, Calif. (February 22, 2010) The Mullin Automotive Museum, a facility that will pay homage to the art deco and machine age design eras (1918-1941) that produced exquisite art and magnificent automobiles, will officially open its doors for the first time in the beach community of Oxnard, Calif., Spring 2010. [Read more…] about Classic French Car Museum to Open in Oxnard California

Carnevale Adelaide 2010

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1978 Ferrari 512BB owned by Peter Tyson.

Story and photos by Vince Johnson

February means Carnevale to Italians the world over and in South Australia it’s no different. Held indoors once again at the Adelaide Showgrounds, the summer sun couldn’t daunt the annual festival of Italian culture held February 6th-7th. Style on wheels never fails to attract attention and Italian machinery is always a popular drawcard. The local Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Ferrari and Maserati importer, Prestige Formula, had current models on show to contrast with the impressively turned out classics. [Read more…] about Carnevale Adelaide 2010

This Week, of Interest

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Larry Crane
Larry Crane gave me a call the other day. He is well and doing good work and keeping busy. We talked a lot of many things, and the next day I received a package full of copies of his old magazine, “Vintage Racer”. We’ll be using some of the material from that vintage magazine in the near future. In the meantime, all of Larry’s columns entitled “A Car Life” can be found on the pages of VeloceToday…click here.
Thanks Larry, and stay well and busy.

Subscriptions
Among the many things needed doing when we overhauled VeloceToday recently was to clean up a 10 year old subscription list. We may have deleted one or two that bounced but were still active. Send an email to pete@velocetoday.com if you aren’t receiving your normal weekly dose of VeloceToday. Or, if you just want to subscribe or have a friend who wants to subscribe, send an email.

Visit the Archives
We have now completed the archive access capabilities. For the old VT articles, click the “Search Archives” button in the top bar. For archives from the past two years, use the find, monthly, or by catagory functions at the top of the right column.

Below, we help find information about those elusive Etceterinins, listing both books and Internet sources, two more entries for Amelia, and Lynch on the Desert Classic Concours.

Etceterini Books

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Books
What is surprising is that there are so many books about Etceterinis. While most books on the subject are in Italian, but today, with Google Translator, just type in the text you wish to read and it will translate, instantly and accurately enough for general purposes. Increasingly, more are being printed in both English and Italian, or one can find English text copies about.

We list here only the books we-being Cliff Reuter, Stu Schaller and myself– have on our shelves. There are many others to be found and we hope you will let us know what they are and a bit about them. We have limited the choices to those books which directly address the subject; books on coachbuilders or special bodied Fiats will be covered at another time.

“La Sport e I suoi artigiani 1937-1965” is the one absolutely essential book for anyone who is interested in Etceterinis. Published in 2002, it is the bible, an encyclopedia of virtually every single small displacement Italian car built for the Italian national classes in the post war era. It is complete, fascinating, full of photos, in alphabetical order, well indexed, but all in Italian. You can read a review of the book from 2002, here.
[Read more…] about Etceterini Books

Etceterini Internet Sources

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Websites and Links

There is a growing amount of information on the Net, and we are just scratching the surface here. Say or type the favored word into Google or Bing and they will appear.

Below are some of our favorites along with some good things found in our very own pages, compiled from our archives. But no where is there more information in one spot than at Etecterini.com. Almost singlehandedly Cliff Reuter has turned his site into a veritable Wikipedia for Ecteterinis. You’ll spend hours just cruising through the vast amounts of material Cliff has accumulated and organized and don’t miss the SCCA results and programs: Etceterini.com.
[Read more…] about Etceterini Internet Sources

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