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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

Hugues Vanhoolandt at the Louwman Museum

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Hugues Vanhoolandt takes us on tour of the Louwman Museum, also known as the Dutch National Motor Museum.

The Dutch National Motor Museum is also called the Louwman Museum, due to the name of its founder, P.W. Louwman, who began to show his collection of cars in a museum in 1934. Mr. Louwman was Dodge and Chrysler importer in the Netherlands and his son, Evert, is now the Toyota and Lexus importer.

The Louwman collection is the oldest private collection of motor cars in the world.
At the time of our visit, the museum housed a special exhibition of pre-war Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows, on loan from the Stuttgart Museum, but Italian and French cars are always well represented in the collection.

Louwman’s will send the famous Roland Garros Black Bess Bugatti to the Paris Retromobile show in February. Read about Garros and the Black Bess Bugatti in VeloceToday this month.

This 1933 Maserati 8CM saw three of the greatest drivers of the time behind the wheel; Raymond Sommer, Tazio Nuvolari and Piero Taruffi.

1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Le Mans Touring was driven at Le Mans by Louis Chiron and Franco Cortese.

1941 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Spider Corsa ‘Balena’ was an experimental car in which the engine and the body were developed by Gioacchino Colombo, who later designed the 125 Ferrari V12.

[Read more…] about Hugues Vanhoolandt at the Louwman Museum

Stanford/REVS Receives Road & Track Archives

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John Morton sits in the Collier Collection’s Porsche 356B Abarth Carrera GTL with his head and torso wired. Various parts of the car are electronically monitored as well, all in the name of research by the Revs Program at Stanford. The sending unit for the telemetry can be seen above the rear window. The event is the 2011 Porsche Rennsport Reunion at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Impressive Progress at the Revs Program at Stanford University

By Michael T. Lynch

Last week we spoke of the issue of disposing of one’s automotive ephemera, or at least the portion that has been unused for some time. The solution offered was Steve Fields Automobilia, which provides a service to do so through eBay.

This week we will discuss the question of donations of serious collections. I get at least two calls a week on this subject. The horror stories I have heard include going back to the donee later and finding that most of the donation has vanished or seeing the donated material ten years later in the same boxes in which it was delivered. While there are repositories that properly sort and index what they get, budgets, volunteer help and other issues do not usually provide a process that takes the gift from the box to a medium that can be distance accessed by researchers, let along the public. There is now such an institution. [Read more…] about Stanford/REVS Receives Road & Track Archives

Roland Garros/Black Bess Bugatti Part 2: Bugatti T 18

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By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

Part 2 describes the development of the Garros Type Bugatti and the car when owned by French hero Roland Garros.

Read Part 1

The Development of the Bugatti “Roland Garros”
Before he set up his own company, Ettore Bugatti designed engines and chassis for various manufacturers, among them De Dietrich, Hermes, Mathis, Deutz and Peugeot. Bugatti’s own factory in Molsheim was operational in 1910 but he continued to work for others. One of these projects for Peugeot was to design racing car for the 1912 Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France and the Coupe de l’Auto.

The engine Bugatti developed for Peugeot was a large (around 5 liters) four-cylinder with a single overhead camshaft. One can quite well understand that Ettore drew on his experience with an earlier design he had done for Deutz, and also incorporated design features of the small engine he produced under his own label. Apart from the size of bore and stroke, the main difference was that the larger engine had three valves per cylinder (two inlet valves and one exhaust valve).

1910 Bugatti-designed Deutz had a SOHC, Bugatti's first. Note chain drive.

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Autosport Racing Car Show, Birmingham

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Lancia-Sports Prototypes

Superb Lancia Sports Prototype display.

Autosport International………otherwise known as the Racing Car show.

Story and photos by Roy Smith

And what a show it was! On January 10-13, the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in the UK hosted the annual show for the business of Motor Sport. [Read more…] about Autosport Racing Car Show, Birmingham

Automobilia, Enthusiasm and Electronic Commerce

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Steve Fields in his study.

Downsizing

Michael T. Lynch

People often ask me what to do with the automotive memorabilia they have that they no longer want, but has historic value. It’s a tough question, because most museums do not have the staff to sort, index, scan and post or perform all the other tasks necessary to preserve material in a way that can be useful to researchers. My usual response is to sell it through eBay because if someone is willing to pay for it, they obviously want it, although some eBay lurkers are purchasing for resale. We will have recent news on the museum contribution conundrum in another article coming shortly. [Read more…] about Automobilia, Enthusiasm and Electronic Commerce

Roland Garros/Black Bess Bugatti Part 1: Roland Garros

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By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

In collaboration with the French Tennis Federation and the Louwman Museum at The Hague, the organizers of the 38th edition of the Rétromobile show in Paris – from 6 to 10 February 2013 – will pay tribute to the French World War I hero Roland Garros.

Among the many fascinating exhibits the visitors to Rétromobile 2013 will be able to admire are the Morane-Saunier type H plane – part of the Amicale Jean-Baptiste Salis collection – which was the first plane ever to cross the Mediterranean 100 years ago. In addition, the famous 5-litre ‘Roland Garros’ Bugatti or ‘Black Bess’, now in the Louwman Museum Collection will be part of the show. (See color photos of ‘Black Bess’.)

This particular Bugatti has a wonderful history that spanned the English Channel and created legends in both France and England. We begin with Roland Garros, its first owner.

The Roland Garros Bugatti
The Rolland Garros Bugatti was first delivered on September 18,1913 as chassis number 474, to the French aviator Roland Garros who was a personal friend of Ettore Bugatti. It was the fourth of a series of seven chassis that Bugatti produced of this four-cylinder five-liter model (encoded by Bugatti historians as the Type 18). However, after the aviator purchased the car, the name “Roland Garros” would thereafter always associated with the model.

Roland Garros was already famous when he was introduced to Ettore Bugatti. Not, as many today think, because he was a French tennis champion; while he did play tennis in school, his fame came as a record-setting aviator. Rolland Garros, as we shall see, was quite an extraordinary person.

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Roland Garros/Black Bess Bugatti In Color

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[Many years ago, I was made aware of the existence of a rare Bugatti given the name ‘Black Bess’. Over the years I found a few more snippets about the car and its owners, but it wasn’t until Gijsbert-Paul Berk investigated the subject for VeloceToday that I learned the full story of this fantastic Bugatti. Gijsbert-Paul begins a three part story this week, concentrating on the life of Roland Garros. To give our readers an idea of what this legend looks like, we present these color images of ‘Black Bess’, by both Bonhams Auctions and Hugues Vanhoolandt. Ed.]
[Read more…] about Roland Garros/Black Bess Bugatti In Color

MDINA GRAND PRIX, MALTA

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It was November 2007 that VeloceToday last published articles about motoring activities on the island of Malta. Check the below stories for a fuller understanding of this article and information about the island of Malta. In this article, David Arrigo writes about the latest series of events and the coming 2013 Vintage Race in this jewel of the Mediterranean.

About Malta
2007 Malta GP

By David Arrigo

The 2007 Grand Prix de Malte, held on the weekend of October 22, was an unprecedented and phenomenal success, whetting the appetites of the island’s population for more of this kind of historic motorsport. The Maltese islanders had never seen Bugattis in action or many of the other competing exotic cars. The backdrop of bastions, palaces, palm trees and five-star hotels was perfect as pre-war Bugattis battled with Amilcars and Astons. [Read more…] about MDINA GRAND PRIX, MALTA

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