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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

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Year in Review: BAT Building

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Story by Paul Wilson
From the Archives, April, 2023

I’ve decided to build an Alfa BAT. Yes, I know it’s a crazy idea. The Men in White Coats, always worried about my sanity, will come for me if they find out. I hope they don’t read VeloceToday.

We’re all familiar with BAT 5, BAT 7, and BAT 9, experimental cars built on Alfa 1900 chassis in the ‘50s. Of course they were presented as studies in aerodynamics; the air flow theme dominates the designs. But this was just an excuse for making the wildest, most extravagant sculpture ever put on four wheels. It’s their function as expressive forms, not their drag reduction features, that gives them their status today.

Everybody agrees that they’re exciting, original, and eye-catching. But are they beautiful?

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The Curse of Fon’s Ferrari Part 2

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Fiction by Greg Glassner
Read Part 1

After Chub Olsen determined that the notorious Fon Portago 335 S Ferrari had found its way to a storage garage owned by his employer, Carlo Ludovico, he decided try to restore it.

One Friday night in May, Chub went all out and brought a jug of Jack Daniels Black and a bucket of KFC to the body shop. After they wolfed down fried chicken and biscuits and made a big dent in the bourbon, Chub brought out his research and told Carlo he knew the car under the tarp was the one involved in the Mille Miglia crash. “Is that why you say it’s cursed?” he asked. [Read more…] about The Curse of Fon’s Ferrari Part 2

The Curse of Fon’s Ferrari

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A fictional short story by Greg Glassner

Rodney “Chub” Olsen managed to get through four years at Slippery Rock State College with a BA in marketing followed by two years in the Army. He returned home to Milledgeton, Pennsylvania in 1975 to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Lacking direction and prospects, he latched onto a temporary position as a car salesman and “go-fer” at Carlo’s Used Cars, Towing and Body Shop, a modest multi-purpose enterprise loosely run along the lines of a fiefdom by Carlo Ludovico the hardworking, albeit mercurial proprietor.. Chub and his old high school buddies had hung around Carlo’s and Olson continued to do so through college.

Chub rented a room by the month at the rundown Lakeside Motel, which was at least a mile from the lake. His job as a car salesman included use of a “demonstrator” for transportation. This translated into whatever car no wary customer would touch with a ten-foot pole. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” Chub reasoned.

Carlo always had a few interesting imports and sports cars on his lot, which had originally attracted Chub and his pals to adopt the business as their hangout, but the bread and butter was quick turnover of cheap rides and “E-Z Financing.” These cars started out as wrecks that insurance companies had totaled. They were then resurrected by the boys in the body shop between customer jobs.

One day, in the deepest recesses of the out-building, he discovered a mangled wreck under a brown tarp with assorted fenders and bumpers piled on top.”

[Read more…] about The Curse of Fon’s Ferrari

Meet the Author

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By the Editor

One of the many joys that VT brings to its editor is experienced when a long-lost acquaintance sends an email, which is nice enough, but often it is accompanied by a photo or story idea. Some of these singular but digital reunions harken from long ago. For example, Jim Cohn and I were only 19 when we organized rallies for the local sports car club back in 1966. Because of VeloceToday, Jim emailed me from Hawaii in 2006, 40 years later, with rare OSCA photos. We are still in touch. Last year, Jackie Jouret, my old editor at Forza made contact with me after 20 years, which resulted in the Merritt Interview story we ran earlier this year.

Recently, we received an email (and a story idea) from one Greg Glassner. Now that was a name I recalled but couldn’t quite nail it. He wrote, “You may remember me from my days in Norfolk. I was editor of the newsletter for the short-lived Tidewater Drivers Club and I believe you contributed several stories before going on to bigger and better things. We shared an interest in Italian cars. I am retired after 40-some years in newspapers.” [Read more…] about Meet the Author

Year in Review: Car and Racing Movies

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Sorry, The Racers didn’t make the grade!

From the Archives, March, 2023

At the tender age of 19, Harry Hurst was track photographer for the Sebring 12-Hour race in Florida. Hurst also photographed races at Daytona and Road Atlanta during, what many think, were the “glory days of racing.” Hurst has published two books on the Sebring 12-Hour endurance race. In 2007, he helped Dr. Fred Simeone launch the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, twice selected as the best automotive museum in the world, and still assists the museum with communications and special events. Most recently, Hurst created the Glory Days of Racing Facebook group, and asked his audience to select the top racing movies of all time. We are pleased to republish the results in VeloceToday with permission from Harry Hurst. The direct link to Harry’s Group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/527146584145263
Ed.

Philadelphia, February 28, 2023 — The members of the Facebook Group, Glory Days of Racing, have selected the top racing and car movies in a poll that included 100 overall nominees. The group, with 75,000 members from all over the world, chose their top five favorite movies from 25 nominees in each of four categories: Racing Theatrical, Racing Documentary, Car Centric, and Car Chase.

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The Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show

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Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

Yes, we’ll get to covering all the Italians etc, at the Birmingham show below, but I really have to relate this tale first. I think I first saw a photograph of ‘The Beast” as it is called back in the 1970s in my weekly comic/magazine Speed and Power but I had not seen it in the flesh until I visited this year’s Classic Car show at Birmingham’s NEC, (10-12 November)now called the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show. If you are reading this in the UK then you may remember the court case concerning the car back in the 1980s but first a bit of history. The info below was mostly taken from an article from

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Year in Review: Jouret recalls Dick Merritt

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Merritt with Ferrari 250 LM Stradale, sn 5995.

Story by Jackie Jouret
Photos courtesy Kendall Merritt and Chris Cooper

From the Archives, January 2023

For a newcomer to the world of Ferrari, spending a day with Dick Merritt was like sitting at the feet of the master. I’d been named editor of Forza magazine not long before, and I was thrilled to learn about Ferrari history from the man who’d not only started the Ferrari Club of America in 1962 but had imported some of the marque’s most significant cars to the US.

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Gauld and the 1965 Monte Carlo Rally

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Story and photos by Graham Gauld

During the 1960s there was an increased interest in International rallying to boost production car sales. Consequently, we saw a number of interesting race cars appearing from time to time in the bigger events. I was reminded of this recently when someone raised the question of Ferraris taking part in International Rallies but for me one of the most spectacular and successful performances came in the 1965 Monte Carlo Rally when Porsche entered one of their successful Porsche 904 Carrera GTS cars that had been raced for the first time a year earlier at the Sebring 12 Hour race.

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Frank Lance, Lonestar Master Mechanic, Part 6

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Sebring, March 1965. Clad in his Carroll Shelby jacket, Frank Lance signals second place Bruce McLaren during a wet night. Donn Allen seems to be better prepared for the elements. [Photo: Frank Lance Collection]

Story by Willem Oosthoek
All photos from the Willem Oosthoek Collection, unless stated otherwise.

Enticed away from the Mecom Racing Team by Donn Allen, with the promise of a higher pay, and especially overtime pay, Frank Lance joined Shelby American in California. He left Houston in July 1964.

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St. James Concours and the RM Auction

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B20s for sale.

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

I only popped into the RM/Sotheby’s London auction just to have a quick look around and perhaps grab a coffee. It was never in my remit to take any photographs of the auction; my visit to London was just to cover the St James’s concours adjacent to the auction but you know what us photographers are like!

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Musk, Madison Avenue and the Moon

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Chowder Society Breaks Bread with Tesla: Tradition and Revolution Had a Great First Date

© Philippe H. Defechereux 2018

All photos by P. H. Defechereux except where otherwise noted

From the Archives, February 2018

On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 13, 2018, there took place a ‘”first date” in Manhattan, NY. between two seemingly improbable parties: the venerable but still vigorous and lively Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society (M.A.S.C.D.C.S.), turning 61 in March; and Tesla Motors Inc., still wet-behind-the-ears at only 15. Intriguingly, nothing was inappropriate about that pre-Valentine first meet luncheon. [Read more…] about Musk, Madison Avenue and the Moon

Vanhoolandt at the Abarth Works Museum

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Guy Moerenhout with the 1958 Abarth 750 Record Monza which was part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.’s team and which took part in the Florida International Grand Prix of Endurance at Sebring in 1962.

Story and photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

It’s been a long time since I promised myself a visit to

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