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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

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Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti 2014

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The sole Bugatti in the wonderful environment of Corvara in Alta Badia.

Story and photos by Alessandro Gerelli

The Coppa d’Oro for historic cars has usually been held at the end of August, but for organizational reasons, it has been moved to mid-July.

The result was gorgeous from the weather point of view, and all the participants enjoyed the wonderful sights of the Dolomites, going from Cortina to Merano and then back to Cortina going up and down through many “Passi Dolomitici”.

Unfortunately the number of participants was also very low (about 50 cars at the start and 40 at the arrival) and also the “quality” if compared with the editions of few years ago. This year there was only one Bugatti, one Ferrari, no Maseratis, a few interesting Alfas and Lancias. There were many English cars on hand.

Of course this is a trend which is common to all the “oldtimer” races, but we enthusiasts feel we are missing the sight of those lovely old cars idled in garages.

[Read more…] about Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti 2014

Mystery Car Unraveled

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Side view of our Mystery Car...the photographer couldn't recall the name of the car or what year, but he did remember his girlfriend, who is standing behind it.


Sometimes, it’s still fun….

Today we have almost dozens of books about rare Italian cars; multiple Internet sources which leave no digit unmolested, no photo left unseen; dozens of seasoned veterans with years of experience identifying, finding, buying, and selling rare Italian cars, and then wonderful resources for information such as the REVS and IMRRC.
All of this means that there are few true mystery cars left out there – the wealth of resources has taken much of the fun away from finding a photo of a car one can’t identify.

Still, once in a while one comes up that we find it hard to figure. When this happens, we put the image up on VeloceToday and we are sure to find the right answer. Or so we hope.

[Read more…] about Mystery Car Unraveled

Fiat 1100 Geburth

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By Pete Vack and Alex Vazeos
Geburth Fiat Photos courtesy of Alex Vazeos

What about sending an Italian chassis out of Italy to have coachwork built? The normal direction would be to send your chassis to Italy where it would be given a fine set of new clothes by one of the famous carrozzerias that dotted the landscape in the 50s and 60s. It would be unique, well done, inexpensive and probably beautiful. A criss-cross, then, would involve having a chassis made in Italy bodied in some country not particularly known for automobiles and automobile design like Austria.

Italian chassis have been sent outward of their native land to be bodied and re-bodied for years, for example many pre-war Alfa Romeos were sent to the UK and bodied by James Young, Ranalah, or even more obscure firms such as Thornton. There was even a Ferrari 166 bodied by Abbot which did not last too long before being re-bodied again; another example was the couple of early Ferraris bodied by the Swiss firm of Ghia Aigle.

But still, such attempts go against the tide and in many cases were not very successful. Recently another such effort was uncovered in Austria, and therein lies our story…and as our resident car collector, Alex Vazeos, was quick to point out, “There couldn’t have been so many Austrian bodied Fiat 1100’s around so it might be worth a story”. We agreed.

The Fiat 508C
Fiat-508C

The Fiat in question was a 1938 model, a simple 1089cc 508C four-door sedan, officially still called a “Balilla”, but the name was fading by then. The 508C was one of the most popular and successful Fiats to date, and over 250,000 were built between 1937 and 1939.

This 508C found its way to Austria, but the first ten years of its life are unknown, probably due to the war. It re-surfaced in November of 1948, when a Carl Rainer Harbach duly registered the car in the town of Pörtschach, famous for Johannes Brahms, who worked on his second symphony while staying in the tiny town, about 125Km from Venice. The next year it made its way to a new owner and location in Wein, a suburb of Vienna. After changing hands a few more times, on April 23 1955, it became the property of Dr. Oskar Göhring, the owner of a Heating-A/C firm by the name of Geburth-Kühlanlagen. Little did it know that it would be transformed, given a new life, and unlike most of the other 250,000 examples of 508Cs, be saved for posterity.

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This Week, of Interest

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Mystery car no more.


Last week reader Bill Spear emailed a photo taken from Life magazine back in the 1950s. We don’t know when or where the photo was taken, but while Spear has always thought it neat, he had no idea what the car is, who built it, nada.

So of course he sent it to us. After doing a bit of searching, we could find nothing definite. It was time to call in the real experts. We turned to Dino Brunori, author of “Enrico Nardi, a Fast Life”, who replied:

The car is a Fiat 1100 body by Carrozzeria Ala d’Oro from Reggio Emilia, built in 1948. Carrozzeria Ala d’Oro was founded in 1946 by Franco Bertani, a gentleman driver italian champion in 1938 1100cc class, and Officine Reggiane in Reggio Emilia.

Officine Reggiane was a small factory that grow up during the war, manufacturing parts for airplanes, mainly wings and cockpits, and therefor had nothing to do at the end of the war.

The workforce was rescued by Bertani with the set up of Carrozzeria Ala d’Oro. The Ala d’Oro bodied most part of the first Stanguellini production cars and several sports models, plus artisans cars and trucks. This 1100 was originally fitted with an hard top very similar to an airplane cockpit (see picture). The design was an in-house work. The car still exist in the hands of an italian collector.

Our thanks to Bill Spear for the question and Dino Brunori for the answer!

Photo courtesy Dino Brunori.

The Paul Farago Story

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Watkins Glen, 1949. Paul Farago parades his Farago Fiat in streets. Color photo by Eric Davison.

By Eric Davison

The entry list of racing cars for the 1948-1950 events at Watkins Glen was a mixed lot and most were cars produced before WW2. One of the few new cars and arguably one of the most attractive was the Farago Fiat.

Paul Farago was an Italian from Calabria, Italy who immigrated to Detroit with his family in 1930.  Paul’s father operated a bus line and Paul was a skilled mechanic by the time the family arrived in Detroit. He quickly established himself as an expert on foreign car repairs as well as a race car driver on local Michigan dirt tracks.

When WW2 broke out Farago served in the Army Air Corps.  When the war ended he established Farago Auto Service at 18725 John R. Street between Detroit’s Six and Seven Mile Roads.  His business flourished as the private garages of Detroit and its suburbs spilled out all the wonderful cars that had been put on blocks for ‘the duration.’

Farago was also a charter member of the Detroit Region of the Sports Car Club of America.  The Region had been formed when Bill Woods and his brother Jack placed a classified ad in a Detroit newspaper.  The Woods brothers were sports car enthusiasts and were the owners of Woods’ Motors on Detroit’s east side.  They sold MGs, Hillmans and other miscellaneous imports. [Read more…] about The Paul Farago Story

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