Italians at Paris, 2004


Pictures copyright Alessandro Gerelli

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And again our intrepid European traveler, Alessandro Gerelli, took in another major auto show, this time in Paris, held from September 25th to October 10th. While many of the cars were also displayed earlier this year at Geneva, the Paris show featured the new Ferrari 430, a natural development of the successful 360. Again, Alfa Romeo presented a prototype in-house designed Alfa Competizione model, beautiful beyond words. The Maserati stand(left),featured a variety of Quattros, Spyders and Coupes. Fiat displayed a rally version of the Punto, but we have no idea if it will compete with Peugeot, Ford, Citroen and Subaru for the WRC. They are sadly missed in that series, which gets a lot of attention in the U.S. via SpeedChannel's coverage of the events.

Alfa Romeo 156GTA in racing livery. Very successful in the FIA Touring Car Championship, which we in the U.S. hear little about.

The Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione was designed and built by the "Centro Stile Alfa".

Bugatti's new Veyron, a 16 cylinder masterpiece. Wonder how many have been sold?

Creative dash of the new Ferrari 430.

A revised Ferrari 360 equals the new Ferrari 430.

Fiat Panda, a new 4x4 effort from the still-struggling automaker.

Not on Speed Channel yet, but perhaps once again Fiat will be a major contender in the WRC with the Fiat-Abarth Punto Rally 1.6.

Again displayed in yellow, the Lamborghini Murcielago. Yellow, it seems, is to Lamborghini what red is to Ferrari.

The small car from Lancia, the Musa, also seen at Geneva.

Maserati's MC12.

A stunning shot of the Maserati powerplant. They still know how to cast beautiful engines.

And the Quattro, for better or worse.

The Spyder does not appear to have been changed, and still very stylish if not spectacular.

Pininfarina's design study for a new city car, called the Nido (Italian for 'nest'.)

Enough said.