The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
Readers were captiviated by this Bandini Saponetta owned by Marc Richelsoph.
1957 Bandini DOHC “Saponetta”
“Saponetta” means little soap bar, for being small and slippery. The unique patented oval tubing, lightweight engine, and aluminum body form one of the lightest race cars built in its day.
[Read more…] about The envelope, please. And the winner is…
Mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti shares a moment with the President of Scuderia Portello, Marco Cajani.
Text and Photos By Roberto Motta (Italian text follows story)
Every year, the Scuderia del Portello Alfa Romeo, rewards its drivers during a meeting at the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo. This year, attending the event, for the first time, was the Mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti, who has pledged to preserve the heritage of the historic Factory.
[Read more…] about Mayor of Milan Recognizes “Extraordinary” Alfa Museum
Pininfarina Duettottanta (Duetto plus 80 years of Pf): a wonderful revised and updated version of the famous Alfa Romeo Duetto.
Captions and Photos by Alessandro Gerelli
[Read more…] about Italians at Geneva, 2010
Peugeot SR1: a concept car with Hybrid4 technology and four wheel drive.
Photos and captions by Alessandro Gerelli
[Read more…] about French at Geneva, 2010
(Hershey, PA, March 8, 2010) Italian CARS together with Brickhouse Communications are pleased to announce a new historic racing series to be called the “Gentlemen’s Historic Challenge.” The first races will be held as part of the 24th Annual Le Belle Macchine d’Italia at Pocono International Raceway, June 25th to the 28th of 2010. The races will be managed by David Seibert, the Project Manager for the Ferrari North America Shell Historic Challenge Series from its inception.
[Read more…] about Gentlemen’s Historic Challenge at Le Belle Macchine
Role Reversal
Pomona or Pisa? American cars drag racing in Italy.
Italian Roberto Motta has been contributing to VeloceToday for over four years, submitting work on the Alfa Tipo 33, the Alfa T33SC12, the Lancia Stratos, and many more. A full time journalist, Motta writes about Italian cars, motorcyles, racing, and most recently, American cars. As Motta is now the staff writer and photographer of the Italian car magazine, “American Drive”, we asked him to speak about American car enthusiasts in Italy.
Getting interested in American cars was easy. I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated all different types of vehicles, particularly those that are different and technically interesting. [Read more…] about Guest Speaker: Roberto Motta on American Cars in Italy
The Moretti Barchetta 750 cc of Michael Schwartz is one of the ten final entrants eligible for the most popular Etceterini prize. Vote from the below entrants.
Here are the final entries for the Amelia class of Etceterinis. All have been featured in the past few weeks in VeloceToday.
The entries are numbered 1-10 and the photos are below. Please send us your choice by number or exact description.
Send your vote to me at pete@velocetoday.com before March 8th 2010. The most popular Etceterini will be announced in the March 10th edition of VeloceToday and the owner of the winning Etceterini will be awarded a copy of “Nardi, A fast life”, by Dino Brunori. The book will be presented by Cliff Reuter of etceterini.com, who was the driving force behind the creation of this new class at Amelia.
[Read more…] about Now, Vote for Your Favorite Etceterini
1939 Delahaye 165 is part of the permanent display a the Mullin Museum.
Photos by Michael Furman Photography
Oxnard, Calif. (February 22, 2010) The Mullin Automotive Museum, a facility that will pay homage to the art deco and machine age design eras (1918-1941) that produced exquisite art and magnificent automobiles, will officially open its doors for the first time in the beach community of Oxnard, Calif., Spring 2010. [Read more…] about Classic French Car Museum to Open in Oxnard California
1978 Ferrari 512BB owned by Peter Tyson.
Story and photos by Vince Johnson
February means Carnevale to Italians the world over and in South Australia it’s no different. Held indoors once again at the Adelaide Showgrounds, the summer sun couldn’t daunt the annual festival of Italian culture held February 6th-7th. Style on wheels never fails to attract attention and Italian machinery is always a popular drawcard. The local Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Ferrari and Maserati importer, Prestige Formula, had current models on show to contrast with the impressively turned out classics. [Read more…] about Carnevale Adelaide 2010
Larry Crane
Larry Crane gave me a call the other day. He is well and doing good work and keeping busy. We talked a lot of many things, and the next day I received a package full of copies of his old magazine, “Vintage Racer”. We’ll be using some of the material from that vintage magazine in the near future. In the meantime, all of Larry’s columns entitled “A Car Life” can be found on the pages of VeloceToday…click here.
Thanks Larry, and stay well and busy.
Subscriptions
Among the many things needed doing when we overhauled VeloceToday recently was to clean up a 10 year old subscription list. We may have deleted one or two that bounced but were still active. Send an email to pete@velocetoday.com if you aren’t receiving your normal weekly dose of VeloceToday. Or, if you just want to subscribe or have a friend who wants to subscribe, send an email.
Visit the Archives
We have now completed the archive access capabilities. For the old VT articles, click the “Search Archives” button in the top bar. For archives from the past two years, use the find, monthly, or by catagory functions at the top of the right column.
Below, we help find information about those elusive Etceterinins, listing both books and Internet sources, two more entries for Amelia, and Lynch on the Desert Classic Concours.
Although this year's theme at the Desert Classic is mid-century American design in the Age of Chrome, there will be plenty of exotics, like Jack Vopal's Pegaso Z-102 Panoramica Coupe.
By Michael T. Lynch
Photo courtesy of the Desert Classic Concours d’ Elegance
The first major concours of the 2010 California season, the Desert Classic Concours d’Elegance will take place on Sunday, February 28. To accommodate its growth, the expanded show will have a new home at the La Quinta Resort and Club. [Read more…] about Desert Classic Concours d’Elegance has a New Home
Books
What is surprising is that there are so many books about Etceterinis. While most books on the subject are in Italian, but today, with Google Translator, just type in the text you wish to read and it will translate, instantly and accurately enough for general purposes. Increasingly, more are being printed in both English and Italian, or one can find English text copies about.
We list here only the books we-being Cliff Reuter, Stu Schaller and myself– have on our shelves. There are many others to be found and we hope you will let us know what they are and a bit about them. We have limited the choices to those books which directly address the subject; books on coachbuilders or special bodied Fiats will be covered at another time.
“La Sport e I suoi artigiani 1937-1965” is the one absolutely essential book for anyone who is interested in Etceterinis. Published in 2002, it is the bible, an encyclopedia of virtually every single small displacement Italian car built for the Italian national classes in the post war era. It is complete, fascinating, full of photos, in alphabetical order, well indexed, but all in Italian. You can read a review of the book from 2002, here.
[Read more…] about Etceterini Books