VeloceToday.com

The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

Sportscar Craze, Canadian Style

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Sports Car Craze in Canada

A 1971 Alfa Romeo 1750 Berlina in the snow and ice and salt. Note Original Equipment rubber inserts in the grill for the Ontario winter.

Story and photos by Dave Willis

In these pestilential times, I am watching YouTube, with music and fast cars of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s at Goodwood where I can see cars of my era still competing. And of course, writing my memoirs —

I was and remain an only child, fortunate in my choice of parents. My father, Wallie Willis was a 1930s techie: photography, radios, motorcycles, airplanes, and cars made his day. We lived happily in a suburb of Toronto, East York, Canada.

I was car mad during my formative years in the 1950s. There were two Corvettes amongst my friends, a hot rodded Studebaker Lark fettled by an older brother. Famed comedy writer Bruce McCall, growing up about a mile southeast of us, remarks on this car mania in his memoir How Did I Get Here?*

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Gordini Transporters

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By Roy Smith, historical images copyright Bob Dance

From the VeloceToday Archives, April, 2012

Our lead photo is of the Gordini Transporter Recreation, based on a Laffly chassis and it is actually a race car transporter, not a support truck. Sadly, the original vehicle, based on a Lancia 3RO 6.8 liter, no longer exists as we are given to understand, though many stories abound.

We thought it might be interesting to recall some of the highlights or maybe lowlights of one of the most recognisable racing car support vehicles to grace the paddocks of Europe’s racing circuits in the 1950s.

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The 77 Year Old Drone

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The Drone after the fatal accident. (Wilkins Archive)

Story by Graham Gauld

Drones are popular these days, my eldest daughter just recently qualified as a drone pilot and the newspapers tell us that every time we step on a commercial airplane there is a possibility we may crash because we have hit one of those things, so I prefer to talk about another drone, The Healey Drone.

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Gentleman at Speed: Fred Wacker Jr.

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The below article is the second in a series.

A photo that says volumes about Grand Prix racing in the 1950s. Fred Wacker on the grid at Monza in 1954, where he will place sixth overall with a truly outclassed Gordini. Photo by Bernard Cahier

By S. Scott Callan
Photos by Bernard Cahier published with permissions

What could be more appropriate for VeloceToday than an American racing French Gordinis in Europe? Author S.Scott Callan allowed us to publish part of his full length interview with the late Fred Wacker, below. Stay tuned as next week we’ll review the new biography of Fred Wacker authored by his son and Bob Birmingham.

Fred was a friend of my Dad’s. He and Fred and Jim Kimberly spent a lot of time together in the early days of Midwestern racing.

After my Dad passed away Fred and I got into the habit of talking in the spring, when he was heading back to Chicago after wintering at the Palm Springs house, and in the autumn when he had just arrived. Fred would regale me his stories of getting started in racing with his black Cad-Allard, the eight ball. Racing at Sebring, around the roads of Elkhart Lake before they built Road America, at Watkins Glen, and down Argentine way.

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Paul Wilson’s Top Ten

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Story and photos by Paul Wilson

After seeing what fun Brandes Elitch and Sean Smith have had with their Top Ten stories, I can’t resist giving my own version. I had the good luck to live when most of the ‘50s and ‘60s sports cars were affordable, and so I’ve owned all of the cars on my list. Yes, those fuzzy, amateur pictures you’ll see are my cars. And some of my opinions have an antique flavor, too. When I had them, these were just cars, not Sacred Classics, so if they had flaws, it wasn’t blasphemy to point them out.

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A Little Lancia at Hampton Court

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Creating a half size Lancia D24 can be challenging but a rewarding, learning experience.

Story and photos by Adrian Donovan

Seeing someone else drive your car can be a tricky experience – but when that someone is a seven-year-old grandson driving a small car you have just completed, that experience becomes positively nerve-wracking.

Max had driven my little Lancia only once before, in a deserted pub car park, but now he was in front of quite a large crowd, driving around an ornamental lake, which just happened to be in the Hampton Court Palace gardens.

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Fiat 1100 Part 6

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Meico Koudstaal owned this OSCA Formula Junior car several years and participated it in many races on European circuits. Photos courtesy Coys Classic Auto Auctions

Story by Gijsbert-Paul Berk

The Formula Junior was the brain child of Giovanni “Johnny’ Lurani, an Italian nobleman, engineer, racing driver, speed record holder, author, publisher and the Italian representative in the CSI (International Sporting Commission) of the FIA, the governing body for automobile sports. Like Piero Dusio before him, he saw the need for a new formula for affordable single-seater racing cars, allowing a new generation of drivers to gain experience. True or not, at the time some thought and even wrote that Lurani promoted his Formula Junior idea to compensate for the lack of success of Italian cars and drivers in the British dominated 500 cc. Formula 3. However, in October 1958 the FIA officially recognized the International Formula Junior.

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Déjà vu, Italian Style

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By Peter Darnall

Déjà vu: a feeling that one has seen or heard something before . . .

I came across an old friend at Thunderhill recently. I had not seen her in more than fifty years—and she had not changed a bit. She was drawing quite a bit of attention in the paddock, which was just the way I remembered our last meeting in the Del Monte Forest in the spring of 1956. [Read more…] about Déjà vu, Italian Style

Sean Smith’s Top Ten Prewar Sports Cars

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Story and photos by Sean Smith

This time Sean Smith didn’t wait to see Brandes Elitch’s top ten prewar sports car list before he eagerly jumped into the fray with his idea of the greatest prewar sports cars. Will it ever end? Well, guess what. It ain’t over yet!

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Fiat 1100 Part 5

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By Gijsbert-Paul Berk and friends
With over 30 color photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

Previously in a series of four installments, Gijsbert-Paul Berk covered the prewar beginnings of the Fiat 1100 in 1937 up to the introduction of the Nuovo 103 and the final Italian version, the 1100R which ceased production in 1969. A long and glorious history, to be sure.

But there is always more to this interesting story of one of Italy’s greatest cars. Initially, for this episode, we planned to show just a few of the special-bodied 1100s that graced the auto shows in the 1950s, such as the gorgeous Allemano, below. Then Hugues Vanhoolandt sent along a huge selection of Fiat 1100-based cars that also included many of the sports-racers which used 1100 components. The result is below. And bear with us, the story of a Touch of Dante’s Genius is not done yet!

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