The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
By Pete Vack
From the VeloceToday Archives, July, 2010
For the 1923 French GP, French car builder Gabriel Voisin and his ‘spiritual son’ André Lefebvre, entered four highly advanced race cars equipped with a 2 liter six cylinder Knight sleeve valve engine, which was a mainstay of his fabulous line of luxury cars. But what is a sleeve valve engine, who was Knight and why did Voisin choose such a layout, straight from the American heartland?
A Koenig Special, based on the Ferrari 348 complete with a twin turbo V8.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
For the past few years, the Villa d’Este Concorso has not been the only show in town as it now shares the limelight with Guglielmo Miani’s Fuori Concorso, which is held across three lakeside villas about a kilometer outside Como, all on the same weekend as Villa d’Este, (this year, May 16-17).
John Mull, DB Panhard
Text by Robert Birmingham
Photos by Glen Glendenning
Read Road America 1958, Production classes
In 1958 crowds for both June and September proved to be highly profitable for both SCCA and Road America and the future looked bright. With four years of racing at Road America in the books, profits soared for the corporation led by Tufte and for area merchants as well whose revenues surpassed their wildest dreams.
Joe never tells a lie…but here is a very good story!
Photo courtesy terredicanossa
By Joe Hurwich
Photos by Joe Hurwich, Bob Golberg and Canossa staff
There are rallies that test you, rallies that impress you, and rallies that charm you. Then there is Terre di Canossa—the one that keeps pulling me back. This May, 7-10, marked my fourth time running in the event, and somewhere between the Ligurian coastline and the Apennine passes, I realized it has quietly become my favorite Italian motoring experience.
Betty Skelton, much more than a pretty face. Photo by Glen Glendenning
We received many correct answers on this one…And we thank all who responded. Seems that a lot of people remember Betty Skelton, and the first two readers to respond were John Dinkel and Bill Warner. Warner also recalled that her married name was Don Frankman.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
May 21-23 2026. It was the light that first struck me, My wife and I had arrived in Como the day before and it was hissing down but Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny and not too hot. Hotel Villa d’Este lies slap-bang on the shores of Lake Como about 2km from Cernobbio, and at the time I arrived all was quiet and serene with the sun glinting off the lake and the concours entrants parked mainly in the dappled shade of the trees. The Riva boats were bobbing gently in the hotel’s small marina, and parking an Alfa Romeo 2500 SS ‘Villa d’Este’ outside of the hotel’s gift shop…very classy. It was going to be a very good day.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
So if you are think “I would like to do that trip” here is a run down of how my wife and I did it. The nearest airport for Lake Como is either of the two Milan airports, Malpensa or Linate, however the airline we prefer to travel with only flies to the Milan airports via Heathrow, or in the case of Linate, London City.
The undisputed star of this field, this Porsche 917 finished second in the 1970 24 Hours of Daytona and won the 1970 Spa 1000 km.
Story and photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt
Since 2011, Spa Classic has been the unmissable spring event (May 22-24) for historic racing enthusiasts at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The other historic event on the Spa calendar is the well-established 6 Hours of Spa Historic, held at the end of September each year. Spa Classic is now part of the new Le Mans Classic Series, culminating in the next edition of Le Mans Classic this July.
Mustang and Maserati pedal cars
Story and photos by Gary Axon
Due to an imminent Maltese Governmental general election, the traditional St. George’s Square location for the annual Valletta Concours (VC) — usually staged next to the Maltese Parliament building in the center of Valletta; Malta’s breath-taking UNESCO World Heritage capital — had to relocate to Triton Square for this year’s VC on 24 May.
Historic Valletta is the citadel city of the Knights of St John, constructed after the Great Siege of 1565 with its striking honeyed facades largely unchanged since then. One of the more recent additions though are revisions made to the 16th Century fortifications built by the Knights around Triton Square, notably renovated by globally renowned architect Renzo Piano who changed the city’s main entrance gateway where the 2026 VC was held from one to keep people out to one now welcoming them in.
Ferrari Dino 246 F1 (Chassis 0004), United States Grand Prix, Sebring, Florida, December 12, 1959, jeff-allison
Story and photos by Jeff Allison
VeloceToday continues the series inviting readers to send in their photos to share with the readers. Jeff Allison continues his photographic journey – this time with part 2 of a two-part look at Ferraris photographed in 1959.
USAC/FIA 1000KM race at Daytona International Speedway on April 4-5, 1959
A free year’s subscription to the first who can correctly identify this lovely lady.
Text by Robert Birmingham
Photos by Glen Glendenning
The 1957 NASCAR race weekend attracted a less than hoped for crowd and rightfully so. To put it bluntly, the two-race program was too short, and the large American cars were not interesting. Therefore in 1958 Road America returned to what by now had become known as the June Sprints and three months later, the Road America 500.
Giulio Alfieri at his desk in Modena. (Photo Grand Prix Library/Gauld)
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
The great Maserati engineer Giulio Alfieri was a studious and interesting man born in Parma, trained in Milan, and his first job was with Innocenti working on the original Lambretta scooters. As was often the case he was able to work on a variety of projects but one of them is rarely talked about these days, the Maserati Birdcage.