The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
Story by Willem Oosthoek
Maserati 250F, chassis 2529
Chuck’s next event was also USAC sanctioned, a 3-heat Formula Libre race at Lime Rock in July 1959. Lucky Casner’s CAMORADI team had entered a 1957 Maserati 250F, acquired by Casner from Joakim Bonnier that summer. It was the very car in which Juan Manuel Fangio had won the 1957 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, while Bonnier had captured the 1958 Watkins Glen Formula Libre race with it.
1750 Alfa: An early find was this 1750 Alfa that had been brutalized with a hack saw to create cabriolet from a coupe. Powers searched for and finally found the severed top, only to come up a week short as the top had been scrapped before he was able to purchase it.
By Eric Davison
Photos courtesy Dale Powers
From the Archives, December 2016
Those of us who claim age to be an asset will remember a time when a two-year-old Ferrari was just a used up race car that had been superseded by something newer and faster and turned out to pasture. While there were not too many of them (there were not too many Ferraris of any kind in the 50s and early 60s) there were purchasing opportunities for those who had an eye for automotive excitement and were in a position to do something about those opportunities.
Chuck Daigh, voted ‘Fastest U.S. race driver of 1960” by Road & Track, always considered himself a mechanic first and foremost, but invitations to race were welcome. (Bob D’Olivo)
Story by Willem Oosthoek
In Part 1, Daigh had gone from racing for Ford, then to GM, then back to Ford in those days before the major manufacturers pulled out of racing. Then along came Lance…
The second Ford spell did not last long. By September 1957 Daigh was hired away by Lance Reventlow’s organization for the Scarab project. Chuck was a perfect choice; he understood the blueprinting process needed for mechanical work and had experience with the new 327 ci Chevy engines in Atlanta.
By Wallace Wyss
One of the greatest car paintings ever made is not, as one would expect, a single portrait of a single car. No, it’s a mural. And it isn’t just one mural on one wall, it goes on and on in room after room. And as you will see, it is powerful, evocative and controversial.
Commissioned in 1932 by Museum Director William Valentiner, the murals, collectively known as Detroit Industry, cover all four walls of the Garden Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, and number 27 in all. Bankrolling it was Henry Ford’s son, Edsel B. Ford, then president of the Ford Motor Company, who was trying in every way to escape the grinding pressure imposed by being the son of the most famous industrial leader in the world. [Read more…] about Automobile Art and the Detroit Industry Murals
Sean Smith, 1 1/2 years old, with his father’s Porsche 356.
Story and photos by J. Frederick Smith and Sean Smith
The Editor and I were going over ideas for stories to do; at the moment it’s not all that easy, with this COVID craziness going on. Pete floated the idea of digging into my archives and talk about a favorite car or event.
That gave me the idea of doing my automotive ancestry and what brought me to this point in my life.
I will start out with a disclaimer: there are no French or Italian cars in my past. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any in my future. So accept my apologies from the beginning and grant me your patience while I climb through the branches of my vehicular tree.
From the Archives, September 2013
By Wallace Wyss
This is a story of unrequited love all the way around. It occurred in the early ‘50s. Think film noir, mood lighting, moonlight on the Riviera, that sort of thing.
First, (and good casting for this story I might add) as the female lead was Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Carmen Cansino, to a Spanish Flamenco dancer father and Ziegfeld girl mother. She was reportedly an under-age dancer at a Tijuana club when she was discovered by Fox Studios.
She became one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood. Her one-glove strip tease in the movie Gilda put her on the map. Rita was a top movie star and a popular pinup girl during the forties. Her second husband was famed director Orson Wells, who she married in 1943. Her career bloomed during that time, but she lived on the edge, by having a fling around 1948. Not with some ordinary Joe, mind you, but with an Ismaili prince, Aly Kahn.
Chuck Daigh, voted ‘Fastest U.S. race driver of 1960” by Road & Track, always considered himself a mechanic first and foremost, but invitations to race were welcome. (Bob D’Olivo)
Story by Willem Oosthoek
In the annals of motor racing history, the name Chuck Daigh will always be linked to that of the Scarab, the first U.S. built sportsracer to beat the best that Europe had to offer. Multi-talented, Daigh excelled as a race driver, an engine builder and all-round chief mechanic. In fact, he saw himself more as a race mechanic than a driver. In a 2000 interview Chuck mentioned: “I always got a lot more thrill out of working on a car, putting it together and seeing it work. I used to get bored sometimes during a race. I’d much rather chase somebody, but I would get in front and just fiddle around.”
Bandini 750 Sport Internazionale, Mille Miglia 2017. Photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt. For more, see below!
In this Etceterini Corner, part 1 of 6, Hugues Vanhoolandt shows you eight images of the small ones, taken over a period of many years. In addition, in each of the six Etceterini Corners, we will focus on one marque in a bit of detail after the Gallery. Scroll down to see today’s feature about Bandini.
The Guidobaldi in 2015. Photo by Graham Gauld.
Story by Graham Gauld
Some years ago, in the Mougins Automobile Museum which, until its closure, was close to where I live in the South of France, I saw the chassis and engine of a racing car that I could not believe.
The owner of the museum and the car was Adrien Maeght*, a member of the Maeght family, who were prosperous frame makers catering to the art world in Paris. Adrien is also a keen car collector and he opened his museum right beside the main autoroute leading to Cannes and Nice.
1907 Berliet D Course of Patrice Coutant at the Elegance evening.
From the Archives, September, 2010
Story and Photos by Ian Wilson
The first motor race around the streets of Angouleme, les Circuits des Remparts, with racers like Jean-Pierre Wimille, Maurice Trintignant and Raymond Sommer taking part, was held in 1939 in this charming piece of French countryside. [Read more…] about Angouleme Celebrates Alfa Romeo
My first win in an Alfa Romeo, co-driving the resurrected “totaled” ’74 Alfa Spider a Midwestern Council Enduro with my friend Mike, who also worked at Mellow Motors.
By Burt Levy
Craig Morningstar was a big, Viking-looking guy with a great sense of humor, a huge love for Italian cars and motorcycles and a massive taste for fun. And he needed that sense of humor because it was his job to visit Alfa dealerships, make nice with the dealership principals and staff and smooth the ruffled feathers of sometimes—no, make that more than sometimes—indignant recent Alfa purchasers who had encountered difficulties, real or imagined, that the dealership couldn’t seem to satisfy. [Read more…] about Burt Levy on Selling and Racing Alfa Romeos
