European Style with American Muscle

By Pete Vack

Mike Gulett has a fascination with American-engined foreign cars. The owner of a nicely restored Bizzarrini, he is also an exponent of just about anything with an American V8 (or straight six or eight) under the hood and a stylish body. Gulett has compiled a handy little volume of his favorite cars which consist of twenty five different makes. He admits that there are more. “There must be many more one of-a-kind cars that maybe only the creator and his friends and family know about”, he states in the intro. We know what he means…recently the Frick Vignale Cadillac came to light at a show in Phoenix. The existence of the Frick Vignales…there were three…was new to this reviewer. Mike missed it too, but certainly can’t be criticized for not having found every single American engined European styled car out there. However, in his book, he has captured the most famous and prolific of the genre.

Mike’s book is purely a self publishing venture, but the pages, cover and color photography are above average for such softbound books. Don’t expect niceties like an index, footnotes, charts, specs or bibliography. It can best be described as a primer on the subject, and in that respect it fits the bill and there is little else out there that has a similar scope. At only 9 by 6 inches it’s small enough to take along to a car show like Concorso where it would indeed come in handy.

Whether or not cars like the De Tomaso, Bizzarrini, or even the Cobra will ever be more than a footnote in the history of the automobile as Gulett believes, is hard to say. Probably not, though I’m sure we’d all like to think otherwise.

Cars covered include the A.C., Allard, Apollo, Bitter, Bristol, Cunningham, Facel, Hudson, Ginetta, Gordon Keeble, Nash, Jensen, Lister, Marcos, and TVR. He includes the rare Monteverdi as well as the more common Intermeccanica, Iso, Bizzarini and De Tomaso. Fourteen are from the U.K, five from Italy, three from the U.S. and one from Germany, Switzerland and France.

He notes that the penchant for power began long before Allard shoehorned the Fords and Cadillacs into his cars. Railton was one of the pre-war cars that qualify as having European Style with American Power. With attractive bodies by Ranalah, the Railton made good use of the Hudson straight eight engine and Terraplane chassis, lowered and with a stiffer suspension. The Railton was the brainchild of Reid Railton, who was famous for designing cars for the Land Speed Record attempts. Made from 1934 to 1949, they could be considered the first of the Anglo American Muscle cars. (Allard did not come on to the scene until 1937.)

At the same time from the U.K. came the Brough, another Hudson based car made by the firm that produced the Brough Superior motorcycle, the bike destined to forever be remembered as the motorcycle “Lawrence of Arabia” was driving when he met his death. The cars were few but well built, one being a two seater called the Alpine Grand Sport. Broughs were made between 1936 and 1939.

The author has a lot of area to cover; the subject matter is difficult, arguable, and full of minefields as we well know from experience at VeloceToday. Take this as a general guide and double-check factoids.

Gulett also has a website devoted to his passion, and the book can be ordered online from his mycarquest site Cost is $39.95 for the 117 page softback and $9.95 as an e book.

VeloceToday generally deals with only those cars which have a definite Italian or French connection while Gulett makes sure that the many cars from the U.K. are given a chapter. To whet your interest, here is a list of articles about the Italian and French hybrids which have recently appeared in VeloceToday:

Allante
Bizzarrini
Cobra Coupe
Corvette Italia
De Tomaso, Part I
De Tomaso, Part II
De Tomaso, Pantera
Facel Vega
Frick Vignales
Ghia 450SS
Iso Rivolta
Plymouth Ghia
Qvale’s Mangusta

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