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Sunshine for Enzo’s Birthday

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By Wallace Wyss
Photos by Rick Bartholomew

A good time was had by all for Enzo’s birthday at the Petersen on February 17th, especially with a break in the rain.

Somebody must have switched Los Angeles’ weather for Seattle because the normally sunny city had a few weeks of intermittent rains. The Ferrari Club of America Southwest Region were worried they would get rained out in their annual birthday celebration for Enzo Ferrari at the famed Petersen museum. [Read more…] about Sunshine for Enzo’s Birthday

Los Angeles Auto Show

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Story by Wallace Wyss
Photos by Richard Bartholomew

This is one of those eras where The Big Change is coming and I am dragging my heels, like when digital cameras came in, I stuck with film at least another 10 years. Now the Detroit auto industry is bailing out on sedans, so the big show of the year was mostly SUVs and crossovers and pickup trucks. I was hoping to find a car I could fall in love with. To no avail.

All the while I was thinking: Is this worth the $25 parking fee? [Read more…] about Los Angeles Auto Show

Bizzarrini

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This article originally appeared in VeloceToday on December 17, 2008

By Wallace A. Wyss

Bizzarrini Strada and America photos courtesy Funktionauto
Lead photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt

If ever I had a defining moment it was when I was a young lad. Not a defining moment of the caliber of those little girls in Mexico who saw the Virgin Mary, but it was defining enough that it changed my focus in life.

I was college-age, and in a library looking for books on poetry when I opened a magazine called Autosport and lo and behold there was a story on an odd Italian car called an Iso Grifo A3C. That car later became the basis for what was the Bizzarrini Strada. [Read more…] about Bizzarrini

Ferrari 458 Italia: Comments on Design

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By Wallace Wyss

This article originally appeared in VeloceToday August 6, 2009

The King is dead…long live the King. Wasn’t that what they always said in the old movies? Anyhow, the sneak shots of the Ferrari 458 Italia are out a couple of months before its official roll-out, at least enough photos to enable this design critic to form an opinion and submit it ever so humbly to the cognoscenti, i.e., you.

The Ferrari 458 Italia is a robust-looking car; to sum it up in one sentence: “it takes the bizarre out of the Enzo” yet saves enough of the old car to make an all-new shape that is reminiscent of the late Enzo but still its own design. Although it may replace the 430, the 458 might be considered an “Enzo light”.

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Ferraris of Pasadena

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By Wallace Wyss
Photos by Richard Bartholomew

For those who haven’t been to “Old Town” Pasadena, it is your ideal shop-’til-you-drop then stop at Starbucks kind of area, with lots of half century or older buildings, palm trees, oozing ambiance form every pore.

So it makes a perfect place to have a Ferrari show, produced by the Southwest region of the Ferrari Club of America. Over 100 cars were accepted, and they ran the gamut from this very early 166 Mille Miglia Berlinetta (below) to the very latest offerings from Maranello. [Read more…] about Ferraris of Pasadena

Automotive Art: Terms, Explanations, Glossary

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FOR THE BEGINNING AUTOMOTIVE ART COLLECTOR

Reading this won’t qualify you for a BFA, but you’ll know more than you knew before… and it will be very helpful to those looking to buy automotive art but don’t know a Giclee from a Gouache. Before embarking upon a trip to Monterey, save this article on your hand held! Wallace Wyss leads us through the maze.

By Wallace Wyss

Most people think “automotive art” and think of posters, the type they hand out at car shows with pretty girls sitting on the fender of a low rider ’55 Chevy. But automotive art is part of the art world in general, so I have volunteered this little glossary for a quick up-date on what you will see at the next concours selling fine art.

ABSTRACT Also called non-figurative painting, generally relies on colors, lines, and shapes instead of recognizable images or symbols for its compositional elements, hence not too popular in automotive art where we want to see something that looks like our favorite car. [Read more…] about Automotive Art: Terms, Explanations, Glossary

EBay Michelotti Corvette

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Not the Rondine but we bet a Michelotti Corvette is still worth a lot of money. Credit McLaren Philadelphia

By Wallace Wyss

On eBay, you gotta figure that everything comes up one time or another. Even Corvettes bodied in Italy by famous carrozzeria. We found it on eBay, but the car is still available at McLaren of Philadelphia, who kindly allowed us to use these photos.

You take a name like Giovanni Michelotti and you think, whatever chassis he designs coachwork for, it’s gonna be wonderful, right? Especially when the actual coachbuilder is Ghia.

Uh, no.

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Greystone Mansion Concours, May 1 2016

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Best of Show Concours de Sport, Ron Hein, 1961 Alfa Romeo Sprint Zagato Coda Tronca Best of Show Concours d’Elegance , Ron & Sandy Hansen, 1903 Thomas Model 18

Best of Show Concours de Sport, Ron Hein, 1961 Alfa Romeo Sprint Zagato Coda Tronca with Best of Show Concours d’Elegance, Ron & Sandy Hansen, 1903 Thomas Model 18. Photo Greystone.

The Greystone Mansion Concours
Very chi-chi..

Story by Wallace Wyss
Photos by Richard Bartholomew

Wasn’t it F. Scott Fitzgerald who said “The rich are very different from you and me?”

You get a sense of what the rich must have lived like back in 1920’s Los Angeles when you see the sight of this mansion, with stone walls and slate roofs, high on a hill overlooking Beverly Hills.

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Painting with Light: From Digital to Analog

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There are a lot of problems with this shot– crooked background, shadows from booth to right, but it conveys the ambiance of the event with European style outdoor cafes. I did the artwork for this article based on this photo.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Wallace Wyss is both a photojournalist and a fine artist. Here he explains how to use light to create “art” with photographs.]

Story and photos by Wallace Wyss

As longtime VT readers might know, I wear a few different hats. At a car show I am a reporter, i.e. photojournalist, taking the pictures to go with my report for Internet sites, magazines or for my Incredible Barn Finds series of books.

At the same time I see the show through the eyes of a fine artist and, if the light is right, try to attempt to portray the cars in my photos in a certain light and background that is not always identical to the pictures taken while wearing my photojournalist hat and “shooting for the record.”

And I’m here to tell ya that those two roles don’t necessarily mesh–often they fight each other tooth and nail…

For example, when I went to the Ferrari Club of America Southwest Region concours on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena in April, my overall assignment was to select the most interesting cars and shoot them for a straight story. [Read more…] about Painting with Light: From Digital to Analog

Monterey Round Up

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Seems that dirt is in this year at the Auctions.

By Wallace Wyss

Photos by Wallace Wyss and Wayne Martin

McCall’s

One of my first stops was the McCall Motorworks Revival party. This is an evening event thrown at an airplane hangar at the Monterey airport and has a mixture of old planes (one bearing little swastikas for every German plane its pilots shot down—making me wonder, at displays of wartime airplanes in Germany do they have little stars-and-stripes on the fuselage?) modern biz-jets and collector cars and new cars. [Read more…] about Monterey Round Up

Pinin Farina’s Missing Cadillacs

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Elegant for the era, the Jacqueline Cadillac. But did it work?

Four Italian Cadillacs, but only two have re-appeared on the world stage

By Wallace Wyss
Photos courtesy PininFarina

On occasion you find a one-off special named after the person who is buying it, or maybe the wife, like the several Ferraris named after Lilian, Princess of Réthy, the spouse of King Leopold III of Belgium.

But here’s one that was named after a U.S. President’s wife—Jackie Kennedy.

It was created by Italian coachbuilder Pinin Farina the same year that her husband, John F Kennedy, was elected President of the United States. [Read more…] about Pinin Farina’s Missing Cadillacs

Art Center Classic 2013: A Show for Connoisseurs

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Alfa Sprint Veloce Zagato looking refreshingly original. But we have no idea if that is actually the case...

By Rick Bartholomew and Wallace Wyss

Italian cars were a definite draw at the Art Center Classic for 2013, the annual show held at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The college is the premier art school in the world for training car designers. [Read more…] about Art Center Classic 2013: A Show for Connoisseurs

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