Bandini racers

Count Johnny Lurani envisioned a class of Italian cars that would both train new drivers and allow the Italian artisans to show their stuff. And for a few wonderful years that was true. Italian open wheeled Etceterinis, most powered by Fiat engines located in front, as had been the prevailing custom for the previous fifty years, won every Formula Junior race around the world. It was Formula Junior the way we liked it. Italian historian Alessandro Silva addresses these years in a new and very welcome book published by Fondazione Negri. Aldo Zana, no stranger to VeloceToday, reviews it below.

Review by Aldo Zana

Alessandro Silva: “Formula Junior Made in Italy”. Fondazione Negri, Brescia (Italy) 2021. 256 pages, 9.5”x11.7”, hardbound w/dust cover.
ISBN: 978-88-89108-43-7. Price: euro 48.00

Order here

No other racing car category is as Italian as the Formula Junior, established early 1958 by Johnny Lurani Cernuschi, a Count with a long and remarkable experience as racing driver, journalist, speed record-holder. [Read more…] about Formula Junior, Italian Style

From the VeloceToday Archives, April, 2015

Story by John Wright

Lead photo: January 1952 Motorsport cover. The Bandini powered by a 1100cc Fiat engine finished 10th at Elkhart Lake, owned by Tony Pompeo, New York. With car is Perry Fina. Photo by Bill Finn.

The neat little cycle-fendered sports car pictured here is one of a few Bandinis which were exported to the U.S.A. in the immediate post war era. Their creator, Ilario Bandini was born in Forli, Italy, and because he was mechanically inclined, set himself up as a creator of sports cars using Fiat parts only as the basis of his pretty and slinky designs in coupes, roadsters and race cars.

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