VeloceToday.com

The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

Testing the Fiat 500 Cabriolet

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How it almost charmed a curmudgeon

In the road-testing world there’s a little bit of Stephen Stills “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”. You have to forget about the car you drove last week and like the one you’re driving now.

When it first arrived here, I was at first very skeptical of the new Fiat and didn’t ask for one to test drive. I remember when Fiats were big back in the Sixties and how there was precious little parts and service and the dealerships seemed like back alley operations. So I wondered, “When Fiat comes back, will they do a better job in parts and service this time around?”
[Read more…] about Testing the Fiat 500 Cabriolet

Our Features This Week, August 8th 2012

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Photographer Jonathan Sharp exhibits select photos from Prescott. Click on the Bugatti in the rain above to see a preview of what we have coming up in Prescott, the Climb, the Cars.
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We have not been publishing all the comments about the Ferrari mystery car. Suffice to say, Ferrari historians Lynch, Seielstad, Seibert, Goosens, Massini et al figure this is the 335S Ferrari s/n 0674 when owned by Chinetti sometime in 1958. But no one has been able to definitely nail down the exact date and place…either the Ford Museum in Dearborn or the Franklin Hotel in NYC yet. Back to you.
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All Star issue: This week we are proud to welcome Denise McCluggage to VeloceToday. She joins Michael T. Lynch, Graham Gauld and Gijsbert-Paul Berk for our features this week. In additon, Roberto Motta’s Finish Rally report and Jonathan Sharp’s Prescott gallery help create a very special edition. Don’t forget, we need your dollars to continue to bring you articles such as these.If you enjoy VeloceToday, Donate or become a premium subscriber; only your support will keep these articles coming to your inbox every week

Lynch: The Dénouement of the Third Bugatti Type 64

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By Michael T. Lynch

Two weeks ago, Veloce Today brought you the story of David Smith’s Alfa S 11 Corto Spyder Speciale. It will debut on the lawn at The Quail – A Motorsports Gathering, held at the Quail Lodge in Carmel on Friday the 17th of August during the Monterey Peninsula Holy Week. Joining it there will be the imposing Bugatti Type 64 coupé from the Mullin Automotive Museum. The Bugatti has a recently completed body and this is the first time it will be seen. This is how it all came about.

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Denise McCluggage: Ferrari Makes a Point

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copyright protected copyright Denise McCluggage By Denise McCluggage

I don’t know when Enzo Ferrari decided not to go to races in which his cars ran but to attend practice days instead, but such was his habit when I was covering the Grand Prix circuit. More often than not he was at Monza, sort of the home ball park, for the late summer Formula 1 races. And so as you see in this photograph shot at practice for the 1958 Grand Prix of Italy is “il Commendatore”, as he was usually referred to then, performing for my camera.
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Gauld: Martinengo Memories and Gentlemen Drivers

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Regular readers may remember my May 2012 article about the Monaco Historics in which I mentioned meeting Cesare Martinengo, whose father Franco was a typical Italian “Gentleman Driver” throughout the 1940s and ’50s. This sounded interesting and I had to find out more. Cesare then brought his scrapbooks to me in the South of France and I spent a fascinating day going back in time when people raced for the fun of it and enjoyed racing with their friends.

Cesare Martinengo, however, did some racing himself, mainly with small Italian sports cars. It was no surprise that thanks to his father’s long-time friendship with Elio Zagato, Cesare raced a double bubble Fiat 750 Zagato. (In the lead photo, Elio, left, with Franco Martinengo stand next to their Fiat 1100 Zagatos.)

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1923 French Grand Prix Part 3: Bugatti and Delage

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By Gijsbert-Paul Berk

In 1913 Ettore Bugatti (1881 -1947) began working on the design of an eight-cylinder engine at the suggestion of his friend, the pilot Roland Garros. Early in 1914 he sent his collaborator Ernest Friderich to the US with a four-cylinder car of 5.655 liters capacity to participate in the Indianapolis 500. When later that year WWI started, Ettore had to leave his factory in Molsheim, situated in the German occupied Alsace.

Ettore Bugatti

Ettore Bugatti at the drawing board.

First he moved to Milan and later to Paris, where he began designing aircraft engines. In 1919 Bugatti returned to Molsheim and resumed the development of his cars. At the first postwar motor shows in Paris and London, he presented his new three-liter eight-in-line engine. The Type 29/30 engine had three valves per cylinder, operated by one single overhead camshaft.

Type 30
When the European auto sport authority CSI announced that for the 1922 to 1924 seasons, the cubic capacity of Grand Prix engines would be limited to just two liters, Bugatti constructed a smaller engine to comply with these regulations. A team of four cars was entered in the 1922 French Grand Prix de Vitesse at Strasbourg. With its long and tapered aerodynamic body, the new Bugatti was nicknamed ‘Le Cigare’ in the French Motoring journals. But it had a successful debut with the three cars finishing second, third and fourth behind the winning Fiat.

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Neste Oil Rally Finland 2012 in English and Italian

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By Roberto Motta

Photos courtesy of Citroën Communication, Ford World Rally Team, Media Neste Oil Rally Photos Filland and AKK Sports Ltd.

Sebastien Loeb won the Rally Finland, strengthening his lead in the championship while increasing his lead over his teammate Mikko Hirvonen. For Loeb, the Rally Finland was an exceptional race. Although not one of his favorite venues, he won the event twice in the past and this made it three. Doing the “hat trick” in Finland has been achieved previously only by Finnish drivers.
[Read more…] about Neste Oil Rally Finland 2012 in English and Italian

Our Features This Week, August 1st 2012

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From the collection of Robert F. Pauley: A Ferrari on display somewhere, sometime, by someone. Can you help solve the mystery? The sign reads 'Franklin Hotel Stables'. That's all we know.

This week we feature Brandes Elitch and his Constant Search Part 3; Stephen Mitchell tells all about the Ettinger Shell collection; Gijsbert-Paul Berk continues the Tours saga. Our F1 report finds Ferraris are too slow on Sundays, and read a brief interview with a starving artist. Also, our thanks to those who either donated money or became premium subscribers!

Please Donate or subscribe to VeloceToday; only your support will keep these articles coming to your inbox every week!

The Constant Search Part 3

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By Brandes Elitch

After reading the first two installments of The Constant Search, my friend Phil Goldberg sent me a seminal article on this subject. The author is Larry Givens, and it is a ten page article called Five Essays on Collecting. Mr. Givens collected mechanical musical instruments. His specialty was the Ampico reproducing piano. While he wrote about that, his focus, clarity, insights, and guidance are so incisive, relevant, and important, that I want to share them with you. We’ll begin with the four phases of collecting.

Phase One
“The early birds in any collecting field catch the fattest worms.”

This Alfa Romeo 2600 Zagato was purchased for the princely sum of $1800 with very low mileage and in excellent condition. But that was in 1971.

That’s because the item being collected (actually, “accumulated” is more accurate at this stage) has been replaced by something newer, and has thus been rendered nearly valueless. This has been the case with almost every car ever made. In many cases, even today, there is a 25 or 30 year cycle before the car is considered “collectible.” Many cars we consider desirable today went through a period when they were scrapped or selling for nominal amounts. Charles Chayne found a Bugatti Royale in a wrecking yard. [Read more…] about The Constant Search Part 3

Shell Game

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By Stephen Mitchell
Photos by Jeanetta Dumouchel

Matthew Ettinger’s long time game of cat-and-mouse with Shell Oil memorabilia

I’ve known Matthew Ettinger since I was in my late teens. When I first met him, he was a nightclub owner and, like me, a Ferrari owner. As our friendship developed and we really got to know each other, we had both moved on to Ferraris that were even more exotic, choosing racing cars as our daily transportation. I had moved on to a GTO while Matthew had acquired the famous Ferrari Breadvan. Matthew was also a serious collector. He loved going through antique shops and knew many of the dealers in Los Angeles personally. His home was filled with original art and rare objects of one sort or another and it would take several visits to get a sense of all that he had.

Matthew Ettinger today.

By Shell obsessed
One of the more obvious pieces one saw upon entering Matthew’s house was an Art Deco Shell Oil gas pump. It was imposing, topped by its white globe with red letters (referred to as the lollipop) proclaiming Shell. This was not Matthew’s first gas pump. He previously had a 1947 Union 76 pump that he had put on display in his Sunshine Meat & Liquor Company, a restaurant/nightclub that he owned. However, Matthew fell in love with the Shell pump when he visited the home of the infamous Gas Pump Ronnie who, according to Matthew, could spray on paint that looked like porcelain. He wanted that Shell pump and traded his Union 76 pump to get it.

More fun than eBay
The Shell pump was significant because it set Matthew on a quest for Shell products, signs, promotional toys and memorabilia. No other brand interested him from that point forth. In those days, there was no Internet to facilitate networking or scavenging. One had to look in the back of magazines and attend flea markets–or jumbles as they are called in the UK.

Ferrari and Shell memorabilia together are a natural.

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