The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
Giulio Alfieri at his desk in Modena. (Photo Grand Prix Library/Gauld)
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
The great Maserati engineer Giulio Alfieri was a studious and interesting man born in Parma, trained in Milan, and his first job was with Innocenti working on the original Lambretta scooters. As was often the case he was able to work on a variety of projects but one of them is rarely talked about these days, the Maserati Birdcage.
St Mawes Harbor (Gauld photo)
Story by Graham Gauld
Very few motoring events take place near my new homestead in Cornwall, but on Thursday, May 7, there was a Concours d’Elegance taking place as part of the St Mawes motoring festival.
The renamed Jim Clark Grandstand beside the BRDC clubhouse and the Lotus 32B raced by Clark. (Photo Gauld)
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
At Silverstone on Saturday April 25, the British Racing Drivers Club invited Sir Jackie Stewart to announce the renaming the club’s private grandstand in the name of Jim Clark.
The luxury Microcar, the Aston Martin Cygnet. ( Photo Gauld)
Story by Graham Gauld
It was fifteen years ago, 2011, when for some strange reason, the Aston Martin board decided it would be a good idea for Aston Martin to change the habit of a lifetime by building a super-mini road car: the Aston Martin Cygnet.
One interpretation for this decision was that as Aston Martin were producing the Supercars of that period. As some of their customers might have large yachts on which they could perch a small car built to the luxury standards of the full-size Aston Martins, the marketing concept had a feasible interpretation.
The Series II Ferrari 330GT. American design, Italian coachwork. Hugues Vanhoolandt photo.
Story by Graham Gauld
At the risk of a rebuttal, I would say that the terminology “Estate Car” or “Shooting-brake” came from the good old United Kingdom. One can trace this class-conscious terminology applied to a motor car to the early days of horse-drawn travel in the 1880’s when rich landowners needed a bulkier carriage to carry the guns and shooting impedimenta for blasting partridge and grouse out of the sky.
You can’t read one without the other.
An inquisition into one of the funniest and most original racing books ever written
All hell is about to break loose at the Gerard residence. Young Julian is attempting to make up a model grid of the British Grand Prix, circa 1952, with his collection of Dinky Toys. Not having enough red F1 cars to fill the grid, Julian paints a spare Cooper-Bristol in the Italian racing color and pretends it’s a Maserati.
But Uncle Bob, who always refused to drive or race anything other than British cars, seriously objects to Julian’s new color scheme. “Explain to me why it is in red. And not British Racing Green as God intended.” [Read more…] about The Legends of Bob Gerard
The mystery BMW Special. Note the two hoods, the front holding the engine and the top one holding the spare wheel.
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
From the VeloceToday Archives, March, 2016
Last week I talked about the car that truly stopped the show at Retromobile, the Ferrari 335S, so now I will go from the sublime to the ridiculous.
A tale of two? Nardis
I happened by the stand of Christophe Pund who runs La Galerie Des Damiers and has a habit of digging up remarkable cars that no one has ever heard of. This year he went better and put on show a car he told me he had found as a wreck – and by the time of Retromobile it was little more than that – but did not know exactly what it was. I mention it because some reader in Italy may remember something about it and be able to help out.
Fundamentally it is a two-seater sports car with a lightweight body and powered by a 750cc BMW motorcycle engine mounted in its own compartment at the front of the car. There is a second hood under which is the spare wheel so the driver sits in one of two sketchy seats holding what appears to be a Nardi steering wheel.
The Auburn Douze, a stylish race car for 1940. ( RRM Sothebys )
Story by Graham Gauld
Not a day goes by without some mention in the newspapers about alternatives to using petrol to drive our cars such as electricity or even hydrogen. So how about one of the older alternatives, LPG, liquid petroleum gas, such as propane. Not only that but let’s take an extreme example of this powering a racing car, around 80 years ago; the Auburn Douze.
Story by Graham Gauld
Six years ago Francisco Giordano published a little soft cover booklet on Maserati that opened my eyes to many interesting elements in the history of one of Italy’s most famous companies. Most of the general history of Maserati is well known and it is to his credit that Giordano has dug deeper into the brothers Maserati, who founded the company in the 1920s.
The redoubtable Major Mallock with one of his first Ford engined Austin Seven specials from the 1940s.
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
The Silverstone Classic, run by the British Racing Drivers Club, is an event for car guys and gals with a huge entry of cars of every shape and style racing on the full Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit.
For me it is a time to meet up with old friends and poke around the various paddocks to see what interesting cars and people I can find.
Brian Naylor, centre, and friends in the pit lane for the 1954 RAC TT Race at Dundrod. (Photo Gauld)
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
OK, let’s start with a question. Who was the first British driver to come over and race in the Daytona 500?
Do I hear you say Innes Ireland? Nope, it was not him but a much lesser known but equally characterful driver from Salford, near Manchester, named Brian Naylor. I first met Brian back in 1954 at the RAC Tourist Trophy Race at Dundrod in Ireland. I had managed to get two days leave from the Royal Air Force so took the bus from my base at Dundonald to Dundrod up in the hills behind Belfast. In the pit lane I found this cheerful character chatting up three of the local Belfast girls and so a friendship began; and ended with a telephone call some twenty-seven years later in Bill France’s office at Daytona.
