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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

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2008: The Alfa Romeo 8C is Really Here!

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This Alfa 8C is painted in the optional color of Rosso Competizione.

In November of 2008, the late Werner Pfister was on hand to record this very unusual delivery of the first 8C Alfas in the U.S. So, 14 years later, how has the 8C faired?

An exclusive report by Werner Pfister
Photos by Werner Pfister

In July, 1951 Enzo Ferrari’s racing team won its first Grand Prix after only 4 years in existence. It was then that he was heard to say, “I have killed my mother!” referring to the fact that he had just beaten the dominant Alfa Romeo that had nurtured him both as a driver and manager of the Scuderia Ferrari Alfa team in the pre-war era. Today, Alfa, now under the same corporate ownership of FIAT as Ferrari, has come back to the USA in a very big way.

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Brooklands Italian Car Day: Fiats

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Welcome to Brooklands.

Story and Photos by Jonathan Sharp

When visiting the annual Italian Car day at Brooklands (April 30) you really do need to keep circulating the site, as cars come and go throughout the day. Some stay all day, some for just a few hours, owner’s club groups meet up and picnics get laid out. During lunchtime a group of vehicles selected by the event sponsor Auto Italia Magazine, ranging from Abarth Grand Prix to a Ferrari SF90, took to the adjacent Mercedes Benz World Test track for some demo laps in front of a large crowd that had crossed the river Wey to join them.

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And How!

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A few years ago we established a mini-feature entitled “And How” as a page to drop in short items, newsbits, addendums, etcetera. It worked fairly well. But after a while, I forgot to make further use of it. Then last week Graham Gauld, Rich Minor and Kendall Merritt had a few things they would like to impart, but shorts, y’know, things that would fit into a mini-feature. How do we do that within the VT format? Oh ya, I remember now. And How. Ed.

Mike Anthony gives Tony Brooks a push at the 1956 British GP. (Photo Gauld)

Graham Gauld and Tony Brooks

I am afraid I was unable to add anything to the comments about Tony Brooks as I had just left France after 27 years and getting adjusted to being back in the UK. [Read more…] about And How!

The Fred Puhn Story: A Tribute

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Fred Puhn and the Santee SS.

By Fred Puhn
All photos courtesy Fred Puhn

From the VeloceToday Archives, August 2020. Fred Puhn passed away on May 13th 2022; we republish the articles he wrote in 2020 for VeloceToday.

I was born in 1939; my childhood was spent in a country environment near Lakeside California. We lived on a dirt road and played outdoors most of the year. A big activity was the design, construction, and driving of “coasters” (gravity powered race cars). Not having much money, we scrounged materials such as old shopping cart or wagon wheels, scrap lumber, and old bolts and nails. Our coasters ranged from very nice to very crude, and we spent many weekends and summers riding down hills, crashing, and rebuilding. I learned how to throw a coaster sideways in the dirt to stop it because they never had any brakes. It was during these early years I learned to control a vehicle and to design and build one.

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Tony Brooks Obituary

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Goodwood 2008. Hugues Vanhoolandt photo

Tony Brooks passed away on May 3, 2022 at the age of 90. Our condolences to his family and many friends who knew him as a generous, loving family man and true gentleman, as well as a great race driver and successful businessman.

Tony Brooks, born Charles Anthony Standish Brooks in 1932, was a natural driver. He never went to driver’s school, never had a mentor. He was self-taught, self-motivated, extremely intelligent and knew what he wanted to do after the first time behind the wheel of his mother’s MGTC.

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Brooklands Italian Car Day 2022

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Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

The following articles contain no production numbers, with one or two exceptions, no chassis numbers, no race histories and no illustrious drivers, bar one. Just photographs of the sort of Italian cars you rarely see this days. Where might one see such an event? Brooklands, for the Italian Car day held on Saturday the 30th April. The right crowd, well they like Italian cars, but there was some crowding.

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Charles Jarrott and the Isle of Man Trials

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Charles Jarrott, along with S.F. Edge and C.S. Rolls were important figures in the early development of British racing cars. This is Jarrott in the Wolseley “Beetle” on or about May 10, 1904.

By Pete Vack, Photos courtesy Dale LaFollette
Research by Dale LaFollette

From 1900 to 1905, six races were held in Europe and the UK, named the Gordon Bennett Cup, the goal of which was to promote international racing. The photos below, attributed to the Dale LaFollette collection, exhibit the Elimination Trials for the Gordon Bennett Cup of 1904. Ed.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr.

Gordon Bennett, or James Gordon Bennett Jr., never attended any of the races named after him, nor did he particularly like the title given to the events and said that he preferred the name “Coupe Internationale.”

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When Citroëns Invade New York

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Festive caravan of vintage French autos going round Columbus Circle. The “Bastille Day” Celebration in NYC!

From the VeloceToday Archives, May 2017

Story by Philippe H. Defechereux © 2017

The One Day Every Year When French Unicorns Run Free in New York City Streets

To certain onlookers, they may briefly evoke unicorns, except that their outer surface is often quite colorful and their one horn is inside the car. To hear most New Yorkers who catch a good glimpse, they look more like UFOs on wheels. But not to the numerous French car aficionados, expats or tourists on a visit from France. For them the strange vehicles are quite familiar and a propitious apparition to behold.

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Jeff Allison Captions Ferraris by Glendenning

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By Jeff Allison

This article first appeared in Prancing Horse, the quarterly magazine of the Ferrari Club of America.

Before his passing in 2014, Glen Glendenning sent David Rex a box full of loose photo scrapbook pages—you know the kind with the black mounts that you’d slip over the corners of a photo, lick the glue on the back of the mount and position the photo on a page. Remember, they tasted terrible! Rex provided the photos to editor Pete Vack for possible use in VeloceToday.com. Luckily, Glendenning had written brief descriptions under some of the photos, and the pages were in chronological order. Taken with a 35MM single-lens reflex camera, Glendenning obviously had access to the pits, the track, and the people. He owned a public relations firm with a film lab, producing twenty-six films for the Schlitz brewery, so photography probably was natural for him. [Read more…] about Jeff Allison Captions Ferraris by Glendenning

Sharp at the Salon Prive, London

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Story and Photos by Jonathan Sharp

The kindly gentleman looked resplendent in his scarlet coat, the uniform of the Chelsea Pensioners. We were all staring at the new Ferrari. He turned to us and began to speak. “Do you know, I was at the Nurburgring in 1960, when Moss and Dan Gurney were driving the Camoradi Maserati Birdcage?” No, we didn’t know that as it was from out of the blue. But he continued. “Gurney had just handed over to Moss whilst at the same time the whole of the Ferrari team were in the pits refueling. The Ferrari team manager, I forget his name, got into a panic and ordered the cars to resume racing ASAP, one car leaving before refueling from the large fuel urn had been completed. In the next second, whoosh flames everywhere!” We asked him “Did you take any photos at the event”?

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Gauld’s Glorious Gaylord Gladiator

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Found while in Florida…Graham Gauld photo.

Story by Graham Gauld

I was reminded of the fact that this is my seventieth year as a motoring journalist – yes I started early! – when a photograph I took of a car in a relatively obscure motor museum in Florida fell on to my desk.

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Rare 1958 Lancia Dealer’s Brochure

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From the VeloceToday Archives, March, 2017

Now we think this is neat; a car brochure with its own history. Note the dealer’s stamp – Falvey Motor Sales Company – which despite, or because of its location near Detroit, was a favorite hangout of the 50s sporty car set and located on the famous drag strip of Woodward Avenue. Eric Davison recounted the story of Falvey for VeloceToday in “Requiem for a Salesman”. This bit of Lanciana came from Robert F. Pauley, an engineer for Chrysler who also hung out at Falvey’s and wrote many great articles for VeloceToday such as “Giovanni Savonuzzi’s Detroit Odyssey” Pauley found this booklet in 1958 at Falvey’s when Lancia was at the top of their game.

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