Best of Show went to the 1961 250 TR/61 entry of Scuderia N.E. as did the People’s Choice Award. Yes, car # 10 is well known to the Tifosi. It is the very same Ferrari factory prototype car which Phil Hill drove to a 1st place in the 1961 24 Hours of Le Mans race in the same year that Hill also became the first USA racer to win the Formula 1 World Driving Championship! Unlike today, in those days, racing drivers were well rounded and raced anything on two and four wheels.
Text and Photos by Werner Pfister unless otherwise noted
Raging bulls, rampant horses, man eating snakes, poisonous scorpions and three pronged spears were very well represented at the 2nd annual Westchester Concorso d’Eleganza held on October 2nd. In keeping with the mission of the organizing committee of the Westchester Italian Cultural Center, attendees were educated and entertained with a comprehensive cross section of Italian cars, their exotic badges and other automobilia on display at this great event.
In a bit of irony, parked next to the Ferrari at this show was the 1962 Maserati Tipo 151 which was campaigned at Le Mans in 1962 by Briggs Cunningham along with two other Tipo 151s. It was painted in the traditional USA livery of White with Blue stripes just like it was originally raced. This one is the only survivor of the original trio.
Although it did not directly compete against Phil Hill, what is ironic is that 50 years after the Phil won Le Mans in the Ferrari, his son, Derek Hill raced this Maserati at the recent Goodwood Revival. Incidentally, that occurred only about a week ago! Luckily for us, current owner, Larry Auriana had the car air freighted back to the states in time for this concorso. Photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt.
Tazio Nuvolari was also honored with two award-winning cars. First was the 1933 Alfa Romeo Monza race car of Peter Greenfield which took “Best Pre-War Award”. Alfa Monzas were driven by Nuvolari when he was teamed up with Enzo Ferrari’s Scuderia Ferrari, well before Enzo even thought about building cars under his own name. The hand painted Cavallino Rampante of the Scuderia still looks great on the hood of this car!
The second car with Nuvolari connections was the 1948 Cisitalia Nuvolari Spyder which won the “Bella Italia” award for Herb Wolfe. Nuvolari placed 2nd in the 1947 Mille Miglia with a Cisitalia Spyder. The model was thenofficially named the “Nuvolari Spyder”.
Another racer was also well appreciated at the show by the Judges. It was the runner up to the Best of Show, the “Award of Excellence”. It was given to a recent Colorado 1000 participant, a 1956 Maserati 350S owned by Scott Rosen.
We were also treated to a well-rounded display of Italian Design as virtually every major designer was represented here. With the many Ferraris present, of course, Pininfarina was dominant. In fact, their tougher than stock stance of the very fast 599 GTO owned by Eduardo Menasce won the “Exceptional GT Car/Modern” award.
Despite our knowledge of Pininfarina design, we were impressed with the other Italian car collaborations with this design firm. In fact, the Mayor’s Choice Award winner of Cesare DeFeo’s 1961 Lancia Flaminia Berlina from Pininfarina reflected both Italian and American design tastes of the 50s and 60s.
On the other hand, the Chairman of the Westchester Italian Cultural Center went with Herb Wolfe’s spectacular 1967 Lancia Flaminia Supersport designed by Zagato.
The Bertone Design Studio was also represented with their famous design of the Lamborghini Miura P400. The deal was made between Mr. Lamborghini and Nuccio Bertone when they looked at the bare chassis on display on the last day of the Torino Auto Show in 1965. Less than a year later the fully clothed prototype was unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show where it was the star of the show.
As I looked around I saw cars badged by Ghia, Touring of Milano and also by Vignale. The award entitled ‘Timeless Classic’ went to a very special Vignale designed 1950 Abarth 205. This 205 is very nice looking and featured a 1100 cc Fiat engine which was modified right down to a dry sump oiling system. We learned that this Abarth owned by Elad Shraga, finished the grueling Colorado 1000 just a few weeks ago and was none the worse for wear and ready for this show.
One design firm we did not recognize right away was represented by a 1946 Lancia Aprilia Barchetta Corsa. This very unusual looking racer was entered by VT contributor, Charles Schoendorf. Again as part of this day long Italian culture learning experience, we were educated that Milano based Lancia Dealer, Pagani tuned this pre-war Lancia with some high performance engine parts and asked the coach builder, Riva di Merate to design and install this very cool body.
In the early 50s, Chrysler started what was to eventually be a 15 year collaboration with the Italian design house of Ghia. Michael Schudroff brought a beautiful 1952 Chrysler Ghia to this show which won the Best Hybrid Award. This car was actually the prototype of what would be a small production run of Italian bodies set on Chrysler New Yorker chassis and powered by the famous Hemi engine. It was also the 1953 Paris Auto Show car.
Schudroff also brought a one-off, Pininfarina designed and built Special on a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette chassis. This car is named the Rondine with an accent on the last syllable. The owner told us that its name is Italian for the bird we call the Swallow and was quick to point out the bird like wing styling elements of the rear fenders. We liked this car which was unlike any Vette we’ve ever seen. That is until we looked inside and under the hood where everything looked stock Corvette right down to the Rochester Fuel Injection. By the way, this is the only Corvette ever to have a steel body!
terrific recap and great images of truly great automobiles. it was a privilege to see them all ‘in the flesh’ and it is not less great that the owners of these works of automotive art graciously bring them out for all to see.
Westchester Concorso d’Eleganza and “the quaint village of Tuckahoe, NY” has arrived.
Great review. Makes me feel like I was there! Now that Werner has retired I look fiorward to more of these. Many thanks.