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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

Italian Car Passion Show Part 2

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Frank Ramecker’s outstanding Alfa 1900 Super Bicolore adds to the show its owner helped organize. Super car, super event.

Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt Click on images to enlarge

Italian Car Passion, Autoworld Museum, Brussels

This week we catch up on rest rest of the cars at the Brussels Autoworld Museum Italian Car Passion show. This show will open until January 31st, so if you are in Europe, it is an impressive display, a special exhibition to “la bella macchina italiana”, featuring some 60 cars ranging from the 50s to this day, representing the most emblematic machines produced by mass manufacturers, renowned coachbuilders or talented craftsmen.

The other day we received an email from one of the organizers, Frank Rameckers, who wrote, “It is always great that visitors appreciated the hard work. For some cars it took me two years to convince the collectors of the cars to lend their car(s) for two months to the museum.”

We told him that the variety and selection was superb, and that he should take the show to New York and LA.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Don’t hold your breath.

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Italian UFOs and the Stratos Zero

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Story and photos by Roberto Motta

The Bertone Stratos Zero, introduced at Turin in 1970, is very different from the car that won three World Rally championships, and is totally different in respect to all its mechanics parts. However, this car provided the inspiration for the later Lancia Stratos Rally.

In the report below, VeloceToday Correspondent Roberto Motta describes the car in detail.

“Stratos”, from “stratosphere” is a name normally associated with an object alien to our environment, with strange links to time and space which surpass the confines and realities of daily life. In other words, something so fantastic it probably could not be real.

In reality, the new Stratos Zero prototype was a high performance car characterized by extreme lines but, as a project of Nuccio Bertone, was a fully functional, driveable car, unlike most of the extreme “concept” cars built for car shows.

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Farewell, Maria Teresa de Filippis

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Maria-Teresa de Filippis and her fellow Maserati driver Luigi Villoresi at a GPDC event.

Maria-Teresa de Filippis and her fellow Maserati driver Luigi Villoresi enjoy themselves at a GPDC event.

By Graham Gauld

*Photographs provided by the collection of Maria-Teresa de Filippis

Farewell Maria-Teresa
After being involved with automobile racing for over sixty years one often feels inured to the passing of older drivers who you saw in action many years ago. However, Saturday last week was particularly difficult day as I was told the sad news that Maria-Teresa de Filippis had died. Theo Huschek, Maria-Teresa’s husband of fifty years, gave me the news.

The actual announcement came not as a surprise. Maria-Teresa had been suffering from a debilitating illness for a few years, but up until about a year ago you would never have known it. Just two months ago she celebrated her 89th birthday which was an achievement in itself, but her health went downhill sharply in the past weeks.

Maria-Teresa de Filippis started racing in Italy in 1948 after her brothers joked with her about becoming a racing driver. She entered her Fiat 500 Topolino in a hill climb and immediately won her class. She felt this would happen. She told me that a year before she had visited a fortune teller who told her that she would win a motor race and so it came to pass.

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Italian Car Passion, Autoworld Museum, Brussels Part 1

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The Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA with its “assistenza” car.

Taking a page from the Simeone Foundation, this year’s Autoworld Museum in Brussels created life-like dioramas to for a stunning Italian backdrop to 60 great Italian cars. Here we see an Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA with its “assistenza” car.

Story and Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt Click on images to enlarge

Italian Car Passion, Autoworld Museum, Brussels

The Autoworld Museum in Brussels devoted its last 2015 special exhibition to “la bella macchina italiana”, featuring some 60 cars ranging from the 50s to this day, representing the most emblematic machines produced by mass manufacturers, renowned coachbuilders or talented craftsmen.

In order to provide the visitor with the proper ambiance, a small “piazza” was been recreated as well as the typical narrow streets of an Italian city, with its traditional architecture.

In this exhibit, this Lamborghini Miura, a 1972 P400 SV version, is the link between the prolific 50’s and 60’s and the supercars of today.

In this exhibit, this Lamborghini Miura, a 1972 P400 SV version, is the link between the prolific 50’s and 60’s and the supercars of today.

[Read more…] about Italian Car Passion, Autoworld Museum, Brussels Part 1

Ferrari Debuts on the Milano Stock Exchange

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Impressive display a the Milan Stock Exchange. However, neither the F15 nor the stocks have been winners.

Photos by Alessandro Gerelli

January 4th was a very important day for Ferrari; for the first time Ferrari stocks were debuted on the Milan Stock Exchange. Formerly Ferrari stocks have only been quoted on Wall Street. Appropriately the ticker is RACE.

Hearing that all the the Ferrari brass such as Marchionne, Felisa, Elkann and Piero Ferrari would be attending, our intrepid Milanese reporter Alessandro Gerelli decided to go downtown and take a look to see what is happening.

“The building is adorned with Ferrari colors and badges and a show of today’s production is in front of the entrance in the square called Piazza degli Affari (Business square),” wrote Gerelli. Most amazing. Like Corvettes holding court and being displayed on Wall Street. But then this is Italy, not New York.

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A Designer’s Mangusta

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The Bordinat Mangusta had a rubber tipped nose, probably a hint at a bumper that would keep the body lines and still absorb energy, since laws about energy absorbing bumpers were coming up. Ironically Pininfarina's GTC/4 used the same idea in the production car, introduced in 1971.

The Bordinat Mangusta had a rubber tipped nose, probably a hint at a bumper that would keep the body lines and still absorb energy, since laws about energy absorbing bumpers were coming up. Ironically Pininfarina’s GTC/4 used the same idea in the production car, introduced in 1971.

By Wallace Wyss

Detroit auto executives are sometimes enthusiasts, though usually they are quite happy to merely be given a new car, or leased one on a super deal, every few months. They like to spend their big bonuses on hunting lodges, cruisers and the like. The ones who own their own special cars are fondly remembered by car enthusiasts as being real car guys. That would include William L. Mitchell, former VP of Design at GM, who went so far as to have cars custom built for him by Design. A less well known enthusiast who was active in creating special cars for himself at the same time is the late Eugene Bordinat of Ford, who was born in 1920, worked for GM before moving to Ford in 1947. He was styling director during the go-go Sixties when Ford turned on the cash funnel to fund racing in every type of motorsport, from Indy racing to drag racing and ended up spending $10 million to win Le Mans, which they did for four years running in 1966 through 1969. [Read more…] about A Designer’s Mangusta

De Tomaso Book Review

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DETOMASO_front300DE TOMASO From Buenos Aires to Modena: The History of a Visionary in the Automobile Industry
By Dr. Daniele Pozzi
Translation from the Italian text by Andrea Cittadini and Alessandro Saettta Vinci
280mm x 310mm
240 pages
Over 200 images (drawings, historical photos, photos of car models)
Now Available!
Dalton Watson Fine Books 2015

Our Price: $79.00


Shipping Costs: FREE SHIPPING TO USA AND UK. Shipping to all other countries will be charged one flat rate for first item, additional books in the same order are shipped for no additional s/h charge.

Review by Pete Vack
All photos from the book and used with permission

This is a review of the latest book published about the De Tomaso legacy. There are only a few good books about De Tomaso and this is one of them; nicely packaged, well done and priced right at only $79.00 including shipping to U.S. and the U.K. And we can recommend it; there are a few mistakes, a couple of clumsy translated sentences but not anything to complain about aside from perhaps the unwieldy size of 11 by 12 inches and lack of notes, bibliography and index (all too common today). Anyone who owns any of the myriad of De Tomaso cars will want to add this book to their meager collection. So, there is no need to read the below review, just click here and get it while they last.

However, if you want to know why, despite this promising new book, we still know next to nothing about the successes and failures of one of the most enigmatic, dynamic, romantic motoring alliances in history, then continue. [Read more…] about De Tomaso Book Review

As Found Classic Number Nineteen

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Of course there was the Gold Plated Cadillac (and Jaguar) but imagine finding this gold plated Alfa 6C2300 Pescara!

As Found Classic Number Nineteen

Dear Pete,

One of my favorite photos to share…my 1934 Alfa Romeo 6C2300 Pescara, S/N 700.610. It was your copy of “High Performance Italian Cars” that I had the good fortune to buy from you, which in turn led me to become a premium subscriber to VeloceToday!

Sincerely,
Robert Piltch

Robert Piltch with his fantastic Rometsch-bodied Alfa Pescara.

Robert Piltch with his fantastic Rometsch-bodied Alfa Pescara.

[Read more…] about As Found Classic Number Nineteen

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