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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

BMW’s Italian Designers, Part 8

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By Jackie Jouret
Photos courtesy The BMW Archive

The success of the Giovanni Michelotti-designed 700 microcar ensured BMW’s survival, and with it his continued collaboration with the Munich automaker. The Turin-based designer already been under contract with BMW for two years by the time the 700 premiered at the Frankfurt auto show in September 1959, and he’d created a pair of forward-looking prototypes—the 505 limousine and the 3200 CS roadster—while sketching a number of design proposals for future automobiles.

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Balduzzi, Alfa’s Fast Family P3

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Autolodi-sponsored Balduzzi cars.
From the Balduzzi Archive (photo by Dario Gaggiani).

By James Lanoway

Santino Balduzzi possessed several personality characteristics that ultimately led to his success as a tuner. He was innately curious about all things, and he loved to experiment in his search for solutions to a mechanical problem, often trying out many iterations in the search for an answer. Documenting his failures and solutions was a routine part of his experiments, and he truly practiced the maxim “Living is learning, and learning is living.”

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Alfa Romeo 2600 Zagato

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A Zagato for the Autobahn. Stefanie Schmidt photo

Story by Ralph Mantel
Photos by Stefanie Schmidt
From the Archives, October 2019

Zagato cars always had and still have the potential to provoke strong opinions amongst car enthusiasts. Feelings vary between ugly to extremely beautiful. There is no such thing as common opinion or mainstream point of view on Zagato cars. You hate it, you love it, you might find them interesting or unusual, exciting or disturbing; there are many adjectives you could use. Some people just don’t know what to think when they see a Zagato. The mixture of lightweight and streamline, born from the race track, combines with a strong and striking design philosophy. The link between technical and aerodynamic needs and individual aesthetic character gave birth to cars with Zagato bodies.

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BMW’s Italian Designers Part 7

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By Jackie Jouret
Photos courtesy The BMW Archive

As mentioned in our previous installment, the independent Turin-based Giovanni Michelotti began working for BMW in 1953, albeit indirectly. That year, working for coachbuilder Ghia-Aigle, he drafted the prototype for the 505 Diplomat sedan. In May of 1957, the BMW board offered him a contract for design consultation, and he began working directly for BMW that June, sketching the front of the 600 microcar.

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Balduzzi, Alfa’s Fast Family, Part 2

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GT Am at Balocco October 1970. Photo courtesy Centro Documentazione Alfa Romeo-Arese.

By James Lanoway

Balduzzi S.N.C. was involved heavily in motorsport from 1971 to 1975, and yet there is paradoxically very little organized information about Balduzzi cars and drivers either in print or on the internet. To help fill in some of the many voids about Balduzzi and his cars, it would be best to first look at the Alfa Romeo GTA to better understand Balduzzi’s GTA Juniors and GT Ams.

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Brooklands New Years Day Classic Car Show

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1933 Duesenberg Single Seater

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

I have just bought a new camera! Not that there was anything wrong with my old one, it’s just that technology has moved on in the 10 plus years I have been using it, and when shooting indoors, unless the room is well lit, is was, to put in mildly, a bit of a pain in the butt. So a new camera, but it is early January, and I have nothing to point it at! But wait, how about The Brooklands Museum New Years Day Classic car gathering? Ideal!

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Fiats, Panhards, Pegaso, now Simca: The Stinkwheel Story

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By Pete Vack and David Beare

From the Archives: It is fitting that exactly five years ago we published this interesting bio about David Beare just as his latest book, The Simca Story, 51 years of cars 1933-1984, is now in print and available. This great little history of Simca will be reviewed shortly.-Ed.

First the name; we have to explain the name for those of us unfamiliar with British jargon. “The name Stinkwheel derives from 1930’s slang amongst motorcyclists for small-capacity, feeble two-stoke powered cyclemotors and autocycles which buzzed noisily but slowly around in a cloud of blue oily smoke- a stinkwheel,” writes Beare. His first two books were histories of such cyclemotors- “The Stinkwheel Sagas.” Thus came the name of the publishing company, which is at the very least, unforgettable. How Stinkwheel went from cyclemotors to Hispano Suiza is another good question. [Read more…] about Fiats, Panhards, Pegaso, now Simca: The Stinkwheel Story

Balduzzi, Alfa’s Fast Family P1

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Santino and Balduzzi workshop sign.
From the Balduzzi Archive (photographer unknown).

By James Lanoway

Two men with different last names, both sharing March 6th as a birthday, one unknowingly looking for a son, the other not looking for another father, came together in Lodi, in the Lombardy region of Italy, in 1958, some say by fate and many say by good fortune. Before the next two decades were out, the older would adopt the younger and give him his last name. With hard work, long hours, and a touch of genius, the younger would make that name one of the most revered in the mystic, esoteric world of Alfa Romeo tuners: Balduzzi.

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Sports Car Confidential

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A young Pedro Rodriguez sits nervously in the Kjell Qvale #166 Genie MK VIII wondering what the chica joven voluptuosa de pelo grande quiere.*?

Story and photos by Allen R. Kuhn

October 13, 1963, Riverside Races. When I first met Lori Campbell I thought, now here is someone I would like to photograph. With the upcoming Riverside races that would be a great place to showcase Lori, who was a budding actress and model with a small uncredited, role in the John Wayne classic, McClintock. I would have her pose as, “Miss California Sports Car Magazines,” with some of our American and a few European drivers. It made a great story then, as it does now. And there was a kicker which occurred when a few of these photos were shown at Goodwood some 43 years later. Do read on.

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Maserati’s 110 Years Exhibition at Autoworld Museum, Brussels

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Story and photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

Established since 1986 in one of the palaces of the Cinquantenaire complex in Brussels, where the first motor shows were held at the beginning of the 20th century, the Autoworld museum is the most important automobile museum in Belgium. Each year, the end and beginning of the year period hosts a major temporary exhibition.

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And How! VeloceToday’s Most Valuable Assets

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In addition to our comments section below each article, VeloceToday often gets very nice compliments, sent via email or included in a note with a subscription check. These comments rarely get published, but are meant as recognition of the work done by our contributors, who create the content that makes VeloceToday what it is. Magazines are nothing without good content, and therefore contributors are our greatest and most valuable assets.

They are historians, authors, editors, photographers, columnists, journalists, judges, drivers, restorers, artisans, collectors and constructors. They hail from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy. Here are the names of thirty-three whose contributions made the year 2024 one to remember.

Jeff Allison, Gary Axon, Giles Chapman, Bob Cullinan, Rodney Diggens, Joseph Duray, Brandes Elitch, Graham Gauld, Greg Glassner, Bob Harrington, Joe Hurwich, Stefan Ivanov, Vince Johnson, Jackie Jouret, Allen R. Kuhn, Dale LaFollette, James Lanoway, Frederic Levaux, Bernard Linck, Roberto Motta, Herb Miska, Chris Nugent, Willem Oosthoek, Paul Sable, Charley Seavey, Jonathan Sharp, Jim Sitz, Roy Smith, Sean Smith, Pete Vack, Hugues Vanhoolandt, Paul Wilson, Robert Young

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