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A bond born from an adolescent passion. For Ermanno Cozza, Maserati means more than just a job. For sixty years, it has represented the driver of creativity, the pleasure of relations and a technological adventure that today has become a commitment to passing on facts and traditions. A demonstration of absolute loyalty to a brand that represents the excellent style, performance and sporting flair of Italian car manufacturing Words Alessandro Giudice Photography Alessandro Barteletti Video Andrea Ruggeri Archive Courtesy of Maserati Archive Ermanno Cozza was born in 1933, and has spent 60 years of his life in a magical bubble of creativity, quality, genius and above all people. Some of the episodes in his story may seem simple, yet in fact they reveal all the thrills and tensions behind a four-wheel legend that, with the same aplomb, has won many a victory on the track and captured the hearts of enthusiasts on the road. A long and sometimes winding road, which began with three resourceful brothers from Bologna and continued with the enterprise of a man from Modena. All driven by the desire to offer an excellent product with innovative solutions, based on the dedication, passion and sacrifice of the people who lived the adventure on the front line. People like Ermanno Cozza, who has kept every moment he spent at Maserati like a precious gem, a memory that comes across as emotional even more than historical, from where the value of the individuals who created the “Trident” magic clearly emerges. [click to watch the video]   Ermanno Cozza fell in love with Maserati because of Alfa Romeos, a Guzzi motorbike and a football, precisely in that order. The Alfas were the ones that Enzo Ferrari raced with his team, close to where Ermanno, aged 9, would pass by when going from his home in Collegarola, a small hamlet on the outskirts of town, to visit his aunts who ran a grocers shop near Vignola, outside the city, and to his uncle Achille’s restaurant, in Via Usiglio on the corner of Via Ciro Menotti. When he went home in the afternoon, he would fiddle about with the Moto Guzzi that belonged to Vito, a boy who lived in the same building: “I wanted to take it apart and hide it from the Nazis, who at the time were requisitioning anything that had an engine, and he was very fond of that motorbike,” Cozza recalls. It was then that, unscrewing a bolt, removing a part, handling connecting rods and pistons and discovering the secrets of the engine, that the young Ermanno developed a passion for all things mechanical that was to stay with him throughout his life. And the Alfa Romeos? Well, here a friend of his comes into the picture: older and skilled with engines, he had Ermanno's full attention, even when he dismissed the red cars he saw every day along Via Trento e Trieste in just a few words: “He said: ‘Nah, those are made in Milan, not here. If you want to see a real racing car you have to go down to Via Ciro Menotti, just before the level crossing. That’s where the “Fratelli Maserati” are, they’re from Bologna, they do everything themselves. They don’t have any engineers, they do the drawings, the designs and then they build the racing cars themselves, from the engine to the bodywork, with a few of the mechanical parts coming from a factory in Porretta Terme. They won a really important race in the United States [ed.: the 1939 Indianapolis 500]’. That was when the name Maserati got into my head and never left.” A name that wasn't new to Ermanno, because it was written on the triporteurs and electric vans that he saw around the province, delivering materials and machine tools: “They had huge batteries, not like the ones we have today, they could run for 50-60 km but solved the problem of petrol and diesel shortages.” Then one day, while he was playing football on a field near home, he saw a group of people chatting together, and one of his friends said that the guy with the hat was ‘Commendatore” (“Commander”) Orsi, the boss of Maserati, that he had moved from Bologna to Modena. Ermanno was impressed, and when the ball rolled in their direction he (a rather timid introvert) picked up the courage to introduce himself to the gentleman: “I told him that one day I would like to work at Maserati and he asked me who I was and what I did: ‘When you finish school, come and see me and we’ll see what we can do’. And that’s what I did,” Cozza remembers with a smile half-way between satisfaction and nostalgia. Because in the meantime Ermanno continued to cultivate his passion for mechanics at the Corni Technical Institute, a veritable institution in Modena that trained the best mechanics in the area that went on to be known as Motor Valley: “It was a kind of university, set up by an industrial magnate from Modena who needed workers for his company, but was surrounded by a community of farmers.” But the year of his diploma did not end well, and Ermanno was forced to resit the exam in September (“In Italian too, because we only spoke dialect and so it was hard to speak proper Italian and impossible to write it”). Fortunately though, he passed the exam in September and, diploma in his pocket, Ermanno headed straight for Maserati, in Via Ciro Menotti 322, on his way home. He demanded to speak to the “Commendatore”, but the porter said he wasn’t in, and they got into a heated discussion when, by pure chance, right at that moment Adolfo Orsi came through the gatehouse and asked what was going on. When Ermanno explained who he was, Orsi told him to make an application through the correct channels and then he would look into it. And so it was. 28 October 1951, his first day at work, marked the start of one of the longest, varied and in some respects legendary careers in the history of Maserati. A career that began in the Control Centre, where he had to check the quality of the parts produced, and then moved on to the tooling room, from where he was picked by the engineer Bellentani to work in the “esperienze” department. “There were two of Maserati's most skilled engineers, Leoni and Reggiani, who everyone called “the doctor” because he had a habit of resting a screwdriver on the running engine and putting his ear to the handle, listening as if it was a stethoscope. He was really good, and after a few years working for Ferrari in Maranello, and in America for the importer Chinetti, he came back home after an accident that kept him in bed for two months, when he discovered that he wasn’t insured by the company. So he sent them to hell and went to work for Maserati.” And it is precisely Antonio Reggiani, AKA Tonino, born in 1913, who Cozza was most fond of and who he misses the most: “He treated me like a son, he taught me everything. And if I came up with something he would always give me the merit, even though he was my superior.” The relations between Ferrari and Maserati were quite chilly, although they had a tacit agreement not to steal each other’s top men. Just think that the back of the house where the Orsi family lived in Via Sabatini looked over the courtyard of the Ferrari factory, and both Adolfo Orsi and Enzo Ferrari often took their drivers to eat at the Cantoni restaurant nearby: “There was never more than a nod of the head when they met. When Ferrari wanted to know what was new at Maserati, he didn’t even say its name: ‘What are they up to down there?’ he would ask. There was respect, but also a kind of love/hate relationship.” One thing that became part of Cozza’s DNA is that he too has trouble calling Enzo Ferrari by name, instead using the more distant and generic “the one from Maranello”.   Even though he spent most of his time working on competition cars, he hardly ever went to the races. In 1953: “That year I even worked on Christmas Day. The cars had been shipped to Argentina in late October for the Temporada. They were the old F2s, the new ones were being completed. But we had a technical innovation that needed to be designed and tested.” This was the De Dion suspension, which had the differential joined to the gearbox. Valerio Colotti, a designer who had come to Maserati after working for Ferrari, had begun to design it in September after the head of the Maserati esperienze department, Vittorio Bellentani, had sent him to Monza to “watch” the Mercedes track tests, and see how the rear of the German car was made. Cozza recalls: “The Autodromo director, Giuseppe Bacciagaluppi, got him some Pirelli overalls so that he would blend in and not be noticed.” Right after the Mercedes went off the road, replacing a rear wheel one of the mechanics covered the tail of the car, but not quickly enough to prevent Colotti from taking a mental photo of what he had seen, the De Dion suspension, which he then did even better, turning it into a masterpiece. And so on 25 December 1953 they decided on the engine to be used by Fangio, and the following day, Boxing Day, in the winter fog and a temperature of just 2 or 3 °C, the test driver Guerino Bertocchi tested the 250 F with a new engine and the De Dion suspension at the “Aeroautodromo” in Modena. “After a few laps of the track, he stopped, took off his gloves, pulled off his goggles and said to us, all hanging on his words: ‘Now that’s what I call a real car!’. The following day we all went to Malpensa to load the cars on the plane for Buenos Aires.” This was just the first stage of a mission that was heading for perfection, and not only in sporting terms. Indeed, while the team and the drivers Fangio and Marimón were showing the cars to General Perón, who knew Italy well having attended the Military Academy in Modena, Commendator Orsi signed an agreement with some manufacturers to supply 50 machine tools made by one of the factories owned by his family. On the day of the Grand Prix, Sunday 17 January, with the Ferraris in pole position on the starting line and for much of the race, the weather was what actually helped the Maserati 250 F, “considered by the sports press to be an evergreen car.” Its engine, developed in the close-to-zero temperatures of the Po Valley and running at over 40 degrees in South America, in the pouring rain that cooled the air an hour into the race, began to work at full power, and Juan Manuel Fangio shot off into the lead, with the single-seater winning its début race. The result was repeated during the first European race of the season, on the Belgian circuit at Spa-Francochamps, before the Argentine driver moved to Mercedes-Benz. Talking about the Argentine champion, Cozza states: “Fangio was a mechanic, a guy who knew his cars. He was also a saver, and never pushed the engine to the max. When we offered him an injection engine for the 250 F, he said he preferred to carburettor version, even though it developed around twenty HP less: ‘I’ll get them out of her, don't you worry’. He was a lovely person, really pleasant but terribly suspicious: when he tested a car, he always wanted someone to be there to make sure that nobody could get close. Those were the days when the driver counted for 51-52% of the success, but gradually cars have taken over in percentage terms. Who were the best drivers at that time? Nuvolari, Fangio, Surtees, Jim Clark.” The trip to South America would have been perfect, had it not been for the fact that after the dozens of machine tools under Orsi’s agreement were delivered, a military coup overthrew President Peron and the supply was never paid for by the industrial companies but only through wheat supplies sent by the Argentine government to the Italian government, which then gave the equivalent in cash to Maserati only five years later, in 1959. The matter put the company into receivership: “I remember that when we began to make the 3500, we bought ZF gearboxes from Germany, and the orders were signed and the payments authorised by an official at the bank. This was a humiliation for Commendator Orsi, who sold off his personal property to close the procedure in six months,” Cozza explains. But it was also the time when they had to disband the Racing Department: “Called in by Orsi, all the staff confirmed their willingness to work without pay until the matter had been resolved: ‘You will pay us when you can,’ said Brancolini, an engineer who spoke on behalf of everyone. With tears in his eyes, Orsi replied that he had found other positions for all of them: ‘Two to Ferrari, one to Centro Sud, one set up his own business and another went to Weber’.”   1963 saw the birth of one of the Trident's most extraordinary and iconic cars, the Quattroporte, which was an obsession for Orsi who couldn’t believe that his business colleagues bought Mercedes, Jaguars or even Rolls-Royces. “It was the car for Italian and European businessmen, and I had to solve a big problem,” Cozza continues. It all came about when the engineer Alfieri received a phone call from the Swiss dealer Sonvico: one of his clients in Lausanne had complained that on the kilometre of cobbles leading up to his house, sitting the rear seats of the Quattroporte - the third one to be delivered - you couldn’t talk or hear anything because of the noise made by the suspensions. “The engineer called me and said ‘get a sound meter and tell me where I can find a dirt track near the factory’, and I took him to one near Vignola that seemed like a dump site. The values recorded were really high, too high for a luxury sedan.” It was a technical problem, the shock absorbers sent the wheel vibrations to the bodywork which was in steel sheet and not tubular. “One evening Orsi came by and saw me working on a Quattroporte, and asked, ‘Well?’ and I replied ‘We can't solve this one, commendatore. And just think, two thousand years ago the Romans had chariots with leaf springs’. It was a moment of enlightenment, and the next day we mounted these on the rest of the production.” On his many business trips, in 1968 Orsi also met the chairman of Citroën, who asked him for an aluminium six-cylinder engine for a future four-seater gran turismo coupé because, he said, ‘our engines are too heavy and cumbersome’: “When the commendator told us, Alfieri and I had the same idea. We made the engine from an eight-cylinder, cutting two of them off to make a special 6-cylinder with a 90-degree V cut. A compact engine designed for front-wheel drive, to be assembled with the gearbox.” Meanwhile, the Michelin family, who owned Citroën at the time, was interested in buying out Maserati: “Commendator Orsi was already getting on, his son Omer was becoming ill and his sons, the engineer Roberto and the doctor Adolfo, were still just kids.” Citroën bought all the shares in 1970, but there was no particular interference: Maserati continued with its production, in addition to twenty or so C114 engines for the SM, launched in the same year. The oil crisis of 1973 put Michelin in trouble, and among the sale of many of its collateral businesses was also Maserati, which was taken over by the Italian government via GEPI, the public financial corporation set up to help companies in difficulty. And that was when Alejandro De Tomaso, Argentine driver and businessman who had at the time of Citroën’s entry into the company tried to take Maserati into Chrysler, came back into the picture. He bought out the first 30% of the company and took over its management, thanks to the experience gained in his own company Automobili De Tomaso: “Every year he bought another 5-10% of the GEPI stake and ended up with the full ownership of Maserati. He did the same thing with Innocenti, abandoned by British Leyland with 3000 employees, which GEPI forced him to purchase.” De Tomaso thought that he could solve the world crisis with a small car (to avoid the VAT rate of 38%) but powerful and prestigious like a luxury car: “And that’s how the Biturbo was born. In 1981 the engineer Bertocchi, son of the historical Maserati test driver, who had left to work for De Tomaso after Citroën had put a French technician in charge, returned to Maserati. One day he called me into the test room to watch the tests of the 2-litre V6 with twin-turbo. It went like a dream, a great 180 HP engine, but in the end, I asked De Tomaso, who was also there: ‘This is all fine now in October, but what will it do in the spring when the temperatures rise?’. I should have kept my mouth shut: ‘What do you mean? What do you know about engines?’ I didn't answer, but the whole production suffered from overheating, along with a number of other problems due to the rush to get it on the road.” These problems did not change De Tomaso's plans, and the production continued until 1997, even after Maserati was bought out by FIAT (1989) with many different names and versions (the last was called Ghibli), all coupés and spyders. Alejandro De Tomaso was not an easy man to get along with: he was an authoritarian with a short temper, and he often spoke harshly even to his closest staff: “He tried with me too,” Cozza recalls, “but I went right up to him, my face just inches from his nose, and said: ‘Mr De Tomaso, my name is Cozza. If you need me, call me Cozza and do not dare to use those adjectives that you use with the others.” One day Ermanno was called by De Tomaso who asked him about a detachable crankshaft, a design dating back to 1939 that he had found in a warehouse where Cozza had stored all the Maserati material that Citroën wasn't interested in. He was with the Swiss importer, and was boasting about the finesse of the Maserati technology. “Mr De Tomaso, we have so much of that stuff in the warehouse, it’s a shame to leave it there. He replied: ‘Well you deal with it; I’ll give you a budget to restore and catalogue it all’. The first year he gave me five million lire, the second year twice that.” And this is where the story of the Maserati collection begins, because De Tomaso had set up a company to which he charged all the costs of restoring the cars and cataloguing the documents, so when the company was sold to FIAT, the period cars belonged to the Argentine businessman, who at one point decided to sell them at auction. Word got round in Modena, and to prevent this Italian heritage from being sold off abroad, Omer Orsi’s son, Adolfo, along with Maria Teresa de Filippis, a historical Trident driver, went to Rome to see Veltroni, who was Minister of Cultural Heritage at the time. However, his hands were tied because the whole collection was in England, as sensing the problem, De Tomaso had had it all transferred in a hurry. And this is when one of the Panini brothers, Umberto, came into play. He had been a mechanic and test driver of Maserati motorbikes, which Adolfo Orsi’s sister had begun to build after taking over a bankrupt company from Bologna called Italmoto. After the mother, a widow with five children, had opened a newsagent in Modena, the brother Giuseppe, AKA Peppino, had the idea of the football cards. This winning idea became a huge business, and indeed Peppino was forced to call Umberto back from Venezuela, where he had emigrated and enjoyed his own professional success. “Come home, America is here!”. He came back to Italy and invented the “Fifimatic”, a card bagging machine that sped up the process. Another great success. When they sold the publishing business to the English, Umberto opened a large agricultural holding called Hombre, where they not only make and sell organic Parmigiano-Reggiano but also have a motorbike and tractor museum, which he is passionate about. And he was also the one to be involved in purchasing the Maserati collection: “He took his Fiat 130 to Stanguellini for a service and told him about the cars from the Maserati Museum being auctioned in England. Panini seemed uninterested, but not too much. “Between a rock and a hard place”, as they say. So Stanguellini called Orsi and together they went to see Panini who asked which cars they were: racing and road cars, Cozza did all the restorations and has all the documentation’. How much do they cost? ‘Five or six billion lire’, while his son Matteo asked his father ‘but do we really have all that money?’. ‘Don’t you worry’. And that's how the cars returned to Modena, and today, even only one of them could easily pay off the initial investment.” While Umberto Panini’s intervention saved the tangible heritage of the Trident tradition, ensuring that it remained in Italy, it is thanks to Ermanno’s painstaking work that all the documentation concerning the cars and company events was catalogued. Today this heritage allows the company’s Maserati Classiche division to certify the originality of the cars and the correctness of their restoration, in addition to providing assistance to collectors, historians and enthusiasts with the many archive documents. Returning to the company history, 1997 saw the union with Ferrari, promoted by FIAT with the relaunch project assigned to Luca di Montezemolo, the Ferrari chairman, at a time which, for Cozza, was a happy and especially technological period for the Trident, above all from 2002, when the new Coupé and Spyder models were fitted with a 4.2 l V8 engine produced in Maranello. “It was a natural and absolutely spontaneous birth. It did us good to work with them, a company that shared similar traditions, history and products. If it was up to me, I would seek more partnerships between the two brands.” But of all the dozens of models that have passed him by, which is Ermanno's favourite? “My favourite Maserati is the “Dama Bianca”. This was the 3500 GT prototype with Touring bodywork that came to Modena for the final adjustments and tuning. It was white with blue leather interiors, very elegant, a magnificent car. It came and went from the workshops, and we gave her this nickname to recognise her. When I think of a Maserati, I think of her.” Ermanno Cozza’s precious testimonial offers a view of how things were done from the inside, with all the nuances, anecdotes and intimate moments that were decisive for the history of the Trident, a history that Maserati has written and continues to write, underlining the brand’s excellence in the racing world, in its technique and in its style. With a witness whose love for the company has never waned. “I spent 38 years working for Maserati, and 22 more as a consultant, and I still go there every Wednesday. You never know when they might need a hand.”

Prof. Massimo Grandi retraces in this article the extraordinary story of Émile Darl’mat, the Parisian coachbuilder who, between the 1930s and 1950s, transformed Peugeot chassis into exclusive aerodynamic creations, from Le Mans racers to elegant postwar coupés. Words and Drawings Massimo Grandi Émile Eugène Henry Darl’mat was born in 1892. After learning the trade of mechanic from his cousin, he worked as a chauffeur for a businessman who first took him to the United States, and later gave him a loan when Émile decided to settle permanently. With that loan, he rented a small workshop near Les Invalides in Paris, where he began repairing cars of the marque La Buire. By 1923, he had become an official Peugeot dealer, quickly distinguishing himself by offering customers not just sales and repairs, but also mechanical and aesthetic upgrades. By 1930, his Paris workshops already employed 160 people. Darl’mat understood that to win customers he needed to offer something exclusive. He began creating bespoke, attractive cars that combined sporting performance with the ability to compete in demanding races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. To set his specials apart from standard Peugeots, he gave them a unique badge: the coat of arms of the city of Paris, supported by a lion’s paw with four claws, a nod to Peugeot’s own roaring lion emblem. The First Peugeot Darl’mat On the chassis of the 1936 Peugeot 302, with styling by Georges Paulin, the first Peugeot Darl’mat was born: the 302 DS. Several Peugeot-Darl’mat 302 “Spécial Sport” models, fitted with the more powerful 402 engine, entered Le Mans in 1937 and 1938 with notable success. Built in very limited numbers, the 302 Darl’mat was offered in three body styles: a roadster, a coupé, and a drophead coupé. The first examples came out of Darl’mat’s Paris workshops. But by the mid-1930s, Peugeot had begun integrating these special-bodied coupés and cabriolets into its official lineup. From 1936 to 1938, production shifted to the Peugeot factory in Sochaux. In total, just 104 examples of the 302/402-based Darl’mats were built and sold across all body styles. The outbreak of war in 1939 brought an abrupt halt. Production was suspended, and only in August 1944, immediately after the German surrender in France, did Darl’mat reopen his garage. The situation was desperate—raw materials were scarce across Europe. Peugeot managed to restart production in 1945 with the small 202, initially built almost entirely from prewar stock. The Postwar Peugeot 202 Coupé Darl’mat obtained a running 202 chassis, number 629844, and used it to build a lightweight, streamlined coupé. Gone were the flamboyant, extravagant prewar “streamlined” forms. His 202 design looked decidedly more “Teutonic,” inspired by the German scientific approach to aerodynamics pioneered by Paul Jaray in the 1920s and refined by Koenig and Kamm. The resemblance was clear to contemporary projects such as the Opel Autobahn Stromer of 1936 and the Maybach SW38 Stromlinie of 1938. As Jaray had theorized, the 202, the Opel, and the Maybach were essentially built around two elemental volumes: a wing-section lower body with a constant longitudinal profile, and an upper “teardrop” cabin. The result was a fully integrated body: pontoon fenders, flush-mounted headlamps positioned low in the nose, and smooth, continuous surfaces to minimize turbulence. The car’s efficiency paid off. In 1947, with Charles de Cortanze at the wheel, the 202 Darl’mat set three 1,100cc class speed records at Montlhéry, including 1,000 miles at 144.5 km/h average and 2,000 miles at 145 km/h. It was displayed with pride at the Peugeot stand of the 1947 Paris Motor Show. Yet despite the attention it generated, the 202 Darl’mat never entered production—not even as a small racing batch. Postwar shortages meant all available materials were reserved for France’s reconstruction. The Peugeot 203 Darl’mat: A French Sports Sedan After the war, Peugeot developed the 203, its first monocoque car, launched in 1948. It remained the company’s only model until 1955. Strong, comfortable, and reliable, the 203 was not a sports car—but Émile Darl’mat set out to change that. In 1949, he unveiled a more muscular version of the 203, effectively creating a French take on the sporty sedan—anticipating, in spirit, what the 205 GTI would represent three decades later. Darl’mat used the short-wheelbase version (435 cm overall, 258 cm wheelbase). Built at Sochaux, chassis and engines were sent to Paris for transformation. To distinguish it, Darl’mat lowered the roofline by 14 cm. Since the monocoque couldn’t be modified, he adjusted the suspension springs (dropping ride height by 7 cm) and reshaped the upper body panels. The bonnet, roof, and windows were reduced in height, improving aerodynamics and road holding. The rear was redesigned with a subtle fin, while the grille took inspiration from contemporary Cadillacs, flanked by additional driving lamps. Mechanically, the 203 Darl’mat remained close to factory spec, but lower, sleeker, and stronger—up to 75 hp from its 1.8-liter engine. Between 1949 and 1954, 135 examples were built, including a few rare 1952 cabriolets. On this foundation, Darl’mat produced one last streamlined variant: the Peugeot 203 DS. The Peugeot 203 DS Darl’mat Introduced in 1953, the Peugeot 203 DS followed the same philosophy as the earlier 202: a 203 chassis and uprated drivetrain clothed in an ultra-light, aerodynamic aluminum body. The car weighed just 600 kg, with cleaner, simplified lines compared to its predecessor. The nose now featured a low, horizontal, elliptical intake framed by spotlights. Its teardrop tail recalled the futuristic Dubonnet Xenia, while the steeply raked windshield reinforced the impression of speed. Originally, it had gullwing doors like the later Mercedes 300 SL, but these were replaced with conventional doors after Montlhéry test sessions. In 1953, Darl’mat and de Cortanze returned to record attempts. The 203 DS looked set to achieve its goals, but one hour before the finish a lightweight Borgo piston failed. The car was never raced again, for reasons that remain unknown. The Unbuilt Peugeot 402 DS In 1946, even before the 203, Darl’mat had envisioned an elegant new coupé based on the Peugeot 402 L chassis, no longer as a racer but as a grand tourer. The design was sleek, aerodynamic, and refined—an evolution of the themes later seen in the 202 and 203 DS. The proportions followed the same logic: a flowing teardrop cabin, integrated pontoon bodywork, and a distinctive oval grille. Longer at 4,760 mm and 1,370 mm tall, it promised to be an elegant, two-seat GT. But it never left the drawing board. Postwar shortages and the 402’s aging technology consigned it to history. Remarkably, its shape has since come to life: in 2010, Romanian coachbuilder Mebbero Automobile SRL of Cluj constructed a faithful Peugeot 402 DS coupé on an original 402 L chassis. Even the interior—missing from the original drawings—was recreated in the style of late-1930s Peugeots. -- Massimo Grandi , architect and designer, previously director of the Car Design laboratory at the Design Campus of the Department of Architecture at the University of Florence. Member of the ASI Culture Commission. Among his published works: “La forma della memoria: il progetto della Ferrari Alaspessa”, “Car design workshop”, “Dreaming American Cars”, “Ferrari 550 Alaspessa: dall’idea al progetto”, “Quando le disegnava il vento”, “Il paradigma Scaglione”, “La più veloce: breve storia dei record mondiali di velocità su strada” (with others).

When Ferrari’s name began to shine brightly across the Atlantic, few figures shaped its American allure as decisively as Luigi Chinetti—and fewer still gave form to that allure as brilliantly as Giovanni Michelotti. Through Chinetti’s vision and Michelotti’s pen, Ferrari’s most exclusive clients discovered cars that went far beyond Maranello’s catalog: unique bodies, daring prototypes, and Daytona rebirths that blurred the line between road and dream. This is the story of their partnership, told not from archives, but from memory. Words by Edgardo Michelotti Photos and Drawings: Archivio Storico Michelotti www.archiviostoricomichelotti.it The Encounter of Two Pioneers The bond between my father, Giovanni Michelotti, and Luigi Chinetti was born in the 1950s through Alfredo Vignale, the Turin coachbuilder and dear friend with whom my father collaborated for more than 15 years. Together, Michelotti and Vignale produced hundreds of cars that would earn worldwide acclaim, marrying elegance with innovation. Luigi Chinetti, Giambattista Guidotti and Edgardo Michelotti Chinetti, a racer of Alfa Romeos and then Ferraris in the early 1950s, had by then retired from competition and looked across the Atlantic for new horizons. Settling in the United States, he brought the Ferrari name to a fascinated clientele, transforming it into a symbol of exclusivity among America’s East Coast elite. But Chinetti also knew the magic behind the Michelotti–Vignale duo. Soon, he began commissioning special Ferraris for his most discerning clients, cars that would stand apart even in the rarefied world of Maranello’s creations. Ferrari by Michelotti: 156 Unique Designs Between the mid-1950s and 1963, Michelotti and Vignale produced no fewer than 156 unique Ferrari bodies out of a total of 311 built—many destined directly for Chinetti’s customers. Their lines varied from the elegant to the audacious, always infused with my father’s relentless pursuit of proportion, lightness, and modernity. When Michelotti and Vignale parted ways in 1963, the story didn’t end. Chinetti continued to trust my father directly, this time for the projects of N.A.R.T. – North American Racing Team, the private Ferrari squad he had founded. What followed was a decade of experimentation, innovation, and some of the most surprising Ferraris ever built. The First Exercises: 1967–1968 The first Michelotti-Chinetti prototypes of this new era appeared in 1967: two Ferrari 330s, a coupé and a targa, both characterized by a long tail and a four-headlamp front with Ferrari’s distinctive squared grille. In 1968 came something even bolder: a gull-wing coupé on a 275P chassis. The concept sketch was drawn by Coco Chinetti, Luigi’s son, but it was my father who translated it into a coherent, buildable design. His touch gave proportion and credibility to what could have remained a dream on paper. The Daytona Years: 1974–1979 The culmination of this partnership came between 1974 and 1979, when five Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona specials were created by Michelotti for Chinetti. 1974 – The “Marion” Spider/Targa Commissioned by Chinetti as a gift for his wife, Marion, this metallic blue spider debuted at the Turin Motor Show. Its polyurethane bumpers anticipated the safety trends of the era, while the interior, finished in pale brown leather, combined elegance with comfort. 1975 – The Le Mans Prototype The following year saw a far more aggressive Daytona. Conceived to race at Le Mans, it wore a striking French-flag livery in white, blue, and red, with partially covered headlights that lifted only for night driving. Inside, blue leather and bold NART lettering on the tail underlined its racing intent. Mechanical issues prevented it from ever starting the 24 Hours, but its presence remains unforgettable. 1978–1979 – The Final Three Chinetti ordered three more Daytonas, rebodied from accident-damaged cars. Their mechanics were handled by Sergio Rossi, a magician of Ferrari engines, while the styling and full-scale forms came from my father. Sadly, he would never see them completed. In June 1979, illness forced him to set aside his pencils forever. When my father passed away in January 1980, the first of these last Daytonas had only just been finished. Painted in Ferrari red, it featured an unusually flat, shark-nose bonnet, in stark contrast with the stock Daytona’s domed “gobbone.” At the 1980 Turin Motor Show, I personally witnessed an unforgettable scene: a distinguished gentleman approached the car, skeptical that such a flat bonnet could conceal a V12. At his request, I opened it to reveal every component in place. The man was astonished—the car had arrived under its own power, on test plates. Only afterwards did I learn who he was: Ing. Fusaro, Ferrari’s CEO. His surprise was a quiet recognition of my father’s ingenuity. The other two Daytonas followed, painted in elegant two-tone liveries: silver/light grey and light/dark blue. For me, they remain symbols not only of Michelotti’s design but also of continuity—cars that my father conceived and that I, together with his loyal collaborators, ensured would see the light of day. A Legacy Beyond Cars The Chinetti-Michelotti projects may never have reached the numbers of Ferrari’s mainstream production, but their impact was profound. They embodied a spirit of daring, of creating automobiles not for the many, but for the few who demanded beauty beyond convention. They also testify to the unique chemistry between my father and Luigi Chinetti: one a designer of inexhaustible creativity, the other a visionary entrepreneur who understood that in America, exclusivity was the ultimate luxury. Today, when I look at the photographs of my father with Chinetti, with Giambattista Guidotti, with Marion, or standing next to those Daytonas, I don’t just see cars. I see a dialogue across oceans, a bridge between Italian craft and American desire, and the enduring mark of Giovanni Michelotti on Ferrari’s story.

From a city blending international lifestyles and Swiss traditions, passing through vineyards and wheat fields to the strength and power of unbridled nature Words Alessandro Giudice Photography Alessandro Barteletti Video Andrea Ruggeri Swiss Grand Tour is a project to discover itineraries driving classic Alfa Romeo cars, in partnership with Astara, the distributor and importer of the Brand in Switzerland. Canton Zurich, Schaffhausen Route from Zurich to Schaffhausen Distance 95 km Travel time 2h 10min Driving pleasure 3/5 Panorama 4/5 Fresh out of college, Benjamin Braddock was getting ready for a relaxing and somewhat peacefully boring Californian summer. He was yet to find out how that magical season would turn into a transgressive, rebellious adventure, with a grand finale of emancipation. Played by the newcomer Dustin Hoffman, Benjamin was the leading character in “The Graduate”, the 1967 film that, with only apparently trivial topics, underlined the desire for freedom and young people’s deliverance from conventions that would explode the following year across the globe. Accompanying Benjamin/Hoffman in the key moments of the plot was a red Alfa Romeo Spider, the Pininfarina masterpiece that, following a public competition. was christened the Duetto, although the name was never made official as it belonged to a snack; it was however the only one ever used by Alfa fans. [click to watch the video] (Map by Sansai Zappini) Like Marcel Untersander, who fell in love with the car the first time he saw her on the big screen, promising to himself that one day he would own one. And indeed a few years later Marcel found his Spider 1750 Veloce “cuttlefish” (the nickname given to the later K-tail model), and made it his favourite summer car, used every day, strictly with the top down, even in Canton of Zurich where the climate is not always Mediterranean. And this is where we met him, our guide for an itinerary that blends the charm of Switzerland's largest city with the force of the river Rhine, which along the German border offers a sparkling natural spectacle: we accompanied the spider for a hundred or so kilometres between Zurich and Schaffhausen, in our support car, a Junior BEV Speciale, which offers all the silence of an electric vehicle without compromising on the Alfa Romeo spirit.    And so we left the charmingly cosmopolitan city of Zurich, with its air of an international capital crowned by the lake, the historical villas nestling along the banks and the sailing boats waiting at anchor to sail on its peaceful waters. Yet it is also a city dotted with pointed bell towers and buildings, a mix of classic and avant-garde architectures, much appreciated and admired in this Swiss capital. One of the busiest streets in the city runs over the Quaibrücke, overlooking the lake and the river Limmat, which just a stone’s throw away on the opposite bank hosts two of the city’s most popular landmarks, the Grossmünster, the cathedral with its two Romanesque-style towers, and the Fraumünster, the Evangelist church built on the remains of a former abbey for aristocratic women that houses five stained glass windows designed by the artist Marc Chagall. In the company of Picasso, Munch, Giacometti, Monet and many others, the artist's works are also on display in the Kunsthaus, Switzerland’s largest art museum designed by David Chipperfield. Moving to the east bank of the lake, you will come across the baroque-style Zurich Opera House and the Pavillon Le Corbusier, the great architect’s last project, with multi-coloured blocks inserted within a steel and glass structure. A masterpiece that design lovers should not miss. Climbing up Monte Diggelmann, we enjoyed a unique panoramic view of Zurich and beyond before leaving the city towards the north-east along Road 1 (Zücherstrasse, which then becomes Winterthurerstrasse) running almost parallel to the motorway and heading towards Winterthur, the second leg of our itinerary. This fairly normal main road passes through some characteristic, traditional towns, offering us the chance to admire the Duetto’s lines and personality as she moves swiftly and easily through the local traffic, standing out not only for her red colour but also her light, elegant style. When we reached Winterthur - “Winti” to the locals - we left the car in one of the many car parks surrounding a record-breaking pedestrian area (the largest in Switzerland and indeed, according to some, the largest in Europe) for a stroll. Along Marktgasse, with the town hall, and the multi-coloured buildings running along Steinberggasse, and on to the Stadtkirche, the church devoted to St. Laurenz with its two twin bell towers with red roofs crowning the façade. The town has several museums devoted to photography, art and science. The last two are near Stadthausstrasse: the Kunstmuseum and especially the Museum Oskar Reinhart, housing a major collection left to the town. With two different sites, the one in Stadtgarten is less spectacular than the other in Römerholz, housed in the benefactor’s charming home around twenty minutes away on foot.   Leaving Winterthur, we headed north-west along Wülflingerstrasse, into the countryside towards Neftenbach and on to the picturesque villages of Buch am Irchel, Gräslikon and Flaach, where we turned onto the main road towards Andelfingen. The crops along the way tell of Zurich’s wine-growing vocation, as well as its rich wheat growing sector, the point of reference of which is Andelfingen, another place to stop. Here, the town is famed for the castle that dominates from above and the typical timber-framed houses, as well as the ancient covered bridge and adjacent mill on the river Thur. From here we headed towards Ossingen and then Stammheim, from where we reached the penultimate stop of our itinerary, the beautiful Stein am Rhein, in the Canton of Schaffhausen. Here , the local police kindly allowed us to drive the charming Spider Alfa Romeo into the spectacular main square leading into the town’s main pedestrian street, Oberstadt, for a few minutes, for a thrilling photo shoot set against the unique architecture of the town hall, surrounded by the finely frescoed façades of the houses. Leaving Stein am Rhein, we drove less than twenty kilometres to Schaffhausen, capital of the canton of the same name running along the Rhine. Right near the town, the river drops 23 metres, not the tallest of falls but certainly the widest in Europe, measuring 150 metres across. The falls are one of Switzerland's most popular tourist destinations. To visit them, it is worth leaving the car in the large car park at the medieval castle of Laufen, where you get a great view of the river from a panoramic terrace. Or you can take the spectacular glass lift leading from the castle directly to the banks of the Rhine, hit by the noisy, foaming waters: a great way to enjoy a different sound to the joyful roar of the four-cylinder Alfa Romeo.  THE COLLECTOR: Marcel Untersander I have had a passion for cars since I was five: at night I could recognise a model just by looking at the headlights. The first time I saw the Duetto was in the film “The Graduate” and I thought, “sooner or later I’m going to own one of those.” When I grew up, I worked as a mechanic, and I knew how to repair cars, but my father told me that the problem with that kind of car was the bodywork, so I couldn’t buy one. But I never forgot her: those lines and round headlights have always been in the back of my mind. Then, seven years ago, I found one in Canada and had it shipped to Switzerland, where in the meantime I had begun to renovate cars. The bodywork of the 1750 Spider was in really bad shape, and I enjoyed giving her a second chance, and in the end the car drives like she had just come off the production line. This has always been my dream and my passion. Alfa Romeos have always been famous for their engines, not to mention the quality of the materials, which don’t rust and that makes a huge difference to other cars. They are great to drive, especially along the bends of the mountain roads. The suspensions are really ahead of their time, the chassis smooth and the engines fun. They have always been light, but with enough power to enjoy the drive. For me, that is pure joy.

A tale of genius and passion, on both sides of the ocean, starring personalities of the calibre of Marcello Gandini and Lee Iacocca: the heir of the Countach was not only the fastest production car ever built until that time, but was also what it took to transform the brand from Sant’Agata Bolognese into a technological company in step with the times. Leading this miracle was Luigi Marmiroli, the project manager who, forty years after the start of the works, agreed to tell us the "behind the scenes” Words and B&W Photography Alessandro Barteletti Car Photography Paolo Carlini Video Andrea Ruggeri   Archive Courtesy of the Luigi Marmiroli Archive That year, the Marmiroli family had decided to spend their Easter holidays on Lake Trasimeno, one of the rare opportunities to enjoy some time all together. Aged just over forty, the mechanical engineer Luigi was always traveling around the world. He parked the motorhome near a large farm estate and asked his wife to wait there with their three children, while he continued on foot. It was 1985. On that short trip from there to the gates of the estate, he couldn't help smiling. After all, his was a story of fate. He was born in 1943 on a farm in Fiorano Modenese, on the very land that would later be home to the Ferrari testing circuit. And it was precisely at Ferrari, after university, that he began his career as a designer. His was dumb luck. It was 1970, and he was put in charge of overseeing the introduction of computers, a matter that was as futuristic as it was complex. The Ferrari veterans, from Franco Rocchi to Walter Salvarani to Mauro Forghieri, had to go through him to translate their drawings and ideas into a language that could be managed by the modern computer. And that was how Marmiroli learned the secrets of building cars from the best. In 1976, with his friend and colleague Giacomo Caliri, he set up Fly Studio, and soon became a consultant for Fittipaldi’s Copersucar, ATS, Minardi and Carlo Chiti, the former Ferrari engineer and then star of Autodelta, so all the Alfa Romeo racing history from the 1960s onwards. For Chiti and Autodelta those were the Formula 1 years, and Marmiroli found himself increasingly involved in the project, and indeed in 1983 was appointed technical director of Euroracing, the team that inherited the Alfa Romeo single-seaters. After two years on the world circuits, the call came. During the 1984 San Marino Grand Prix, Marmiroli was approached in the pits in Imola: “Come and work for us,” a Lamborghini delegate asked him. “We have to develop the heir to the Countach.” And that’s how the incredible story of the supercar that would one day be called the Diablo began. [click to watch the video]   When he arrived in Sant’Agata Bolognese, his first decision was the most honest and intelligent. For a few months, Marmiroli stood in the shadows and watched, studying and breathing in the Lamborghini air. And to complete the picture, there was just one more thing he had to do: go and meet the Founder. By the Seventies, Ferruccio Lamborghini had retired to Umbria, to the estate near where Marmiroli had parked his motorhome. This was the man who, with great determination and vision, or rather his authentic character, had given birth to a legend. And the story of that legend is well-known: an acclaimed manufacturer of agricultural vehicles, one day Lamborghini was visiting Maranello and, as a customer of the Prancing Horse, he permitted himself to criticise the Commendatore's cars. Enzo Ferrari, another man with not the easiest character in the world, clapped back immediately: And what would you, a man who makes tractors, know? And so, in 1963, Ferruccio began to make cars. He did this until the early Seventies, but then the accounts didn't add up any more and he decided to move to Umbria, where he began to make wine. “I bought a box of his famous red, Sangue di Miura,” Luigi Marmiroli tells me today. “In fact, I never drank it, I’ve still got it today, a souvenir.” Sitting opposite me, the engineer agreed to tell his story and the behind-the-scenes of the project that, more than all the others, he is still very fond of. We are in a place for enthusiasts, a garage in the province of Padua that hosts the collection of Andrea Nicoletto, President of the Lamborghini Club Italia and owner of the Diablo chassis “No. 41”, the star of the photos in this article. One from the first series, red, in perfect condition and with a unique and original history: it was bought new by Alpine, the famous car hi-fi brand, and was used for its advertising campaigns at the time. “Ferruccio was very hospitable, but I didn't tell him who I was,” Marmiroli continues. “He spoke with such enthusiasm that he gave the impression that the company was still his, when in fact he had left over ten years earlier. In his opinion, a Lamborghini should get a speeding fine even just sitting in a car park. What he meant by that was that a car deserved to bear his name only if it could arouse feelings of speed and high performance even without switching on the engine.” That was all Marmiroli needed to finally find the right direction to follow. Marmiroli explains the various style proposals put forward by Chrysler. The Americans created their mock-ups using clay, which allowed them to quickly refine the models. In the end, Gandini's design was chosen, with only a few minor adjustments.                   Being the worthy heir of the Countach was not the future Diablo’s only burden and honour. The new project – code name P132 – also had the responsibility of turning the company around. After Ferruccio, Lamborghini ended up in the hands of two Swiss businessmen and, at one point, risked bankruptcy. And then the French Mimran brothers came along. “And precisely at that time, came the period that I like to call the Lamborghini Renaissance ,” Marmiroli confirms.          In the years when the Diablo was being designed, the climate at Sant’Agata warmed up again. “We started working on the style,” the engineer insists. Someone from inside chose Giugiaro, but when the Chairman Patrick Mimran received his proposal, he wasn't very keen. “I remember I was quite pleased, because I wanted to call in Marcello Gandini. Who better than the man who, from the Miura onwards, had unequivocally defined the Lamborghini style?” According to Gandini, the new car had to be exclusive. As already happened when passing from the Miura to the Countach – two very different cars, and for this reason each with their unique style – it wasn’t so much the ‘family feeling’ but the uniqueness that counted. “Working with Gandini meant fully returning to Ferruccio’s philosophy. He too thought that the exceptional mechanics and technology under a beautiful cover had to be clearly understood at first glance.”          Gandini’s approach was more one of an engineer than a designer. “Rather than sketches, he started directly from the construction plan, drawing a 1:1 car with all the lines. His staff then made the model starting from these huge drawings. When he presented us with the first full-scale scale model, the approval at Lamborghini was unanimous.”          In April 1987 came the first running prototype. “We renamed it the P0 and painted it an anonymous mousy grey colour so that it didn't attract too much attention, and we camouflaged it with a few fake air intakes here and there. These were the means we had at the time to mislead the photographers and journalists who lay in wait behind a bend or a tree, looking for a scoop. On its first trip out, the prototype drove three times round the company.”          However, the Mimran management began to falter, as it didn't have the economic strength to carry on developing the project. By surprise, the French sold the company to the US Chrysler, whose boss was Lee Iacocca, the Ford Mustang man. “He was of Italian origin, and spoke our language, so it was an easy transition. Iacocca had a beautiful villa in Tuscany, and we set up a meeting there to compare Gandini’s style model with a Countach and a Ferrari Testarossa, the benchmark competitor at that time. He liked our proposal, but I got the impression that a company like Chrysler wanted to demonstrate a more concrete participation in the project.” When they said goodbye, the Americans asked the Lamborghini managers to make a few changes to the rear.          “So Gandini softened the tail, and we went back to Iacocca, but this time he had brought the managers from the Chrysler style centre. There seemed to be more of them than all the Lamborghini employees put together. On that occasion, it was decided to send the style model to the States, where two proposals would be made, one smoother and the other much more aggressive, which to me seemed outrageous compared to the original idea.” Marmiroli and Gandini left for the States on what seemed a diplomatic mission, seeking to find a solution that was not disliked by Chrysler but which didn't betray the original idea. “And we succeeded. I must say that the Americans played the tough guys, because they continued to churn out proposals. They used clay to create the style models. They spread it over and modelled it, really quickly. Iacocca was very decent, because in the end he called us to see all the Chrysler proposals and Gandini’s version, all lined up next to each other. He said: You choose, you have the final say . Our reply was obvious. We went back to Sant’Agata more than happy.” And then Marmiroli had another idea: “ Marcello, we’ve got to sign this,” I told Gandini. He was quite reserved, a bit of an introvert, but he accepted in order to avoid any misunderstandings and to underline the car’s Italian style. And so, on the right-hand side of the final car, we applied a plate with his name on it.” A decision that was also the manifesto of an all-Italian philosophy. “There has always been a sense of belonging here, a kind of engagement, awareness and affection the workers have towards what they are creating. I firmly believe that this was a very important lesson for the Americans too.”   Technically, the car concept was based on the idea of top performance. “The layout of the Countach, with the longitudinal rear engine and the gearbox between the drivers, would also have worked well on the new car. But that was only the starting point, because in the end the only detail that the Diablo shared with her heir was the Lamborghini emblem on the front.” From the square-section trellis chassis to the V12 5.7 litre engine (that delivered 492 HP at 5200 rpm), from the gearbox to the differential, everything was re-designed. And the P132 also had another merit. When Marmiroli came to Lamborghini, he was forced to make the first calculations with the computers at his Fly Studio, because in Sant’Agata they were still using drawing boards. One step at a time, the engineer managed to introduce the calculation of the finished elements for the chassis, and CAD. “At the same time, we trained young engineers who then went on to become successful throughout Europe.” In addition, the previous models were powered by carburettors, and this was a problem working in the United States because of the strict anti-pollution laws. “There was only one solution, to convert to electronic injection. Marelli worked with Ferrari, and didn't want to work with us. We tried with Bosch, who laughed when they heard our production figures. So we made a crazy decision, all in all, and made it in-house. We called it Lamborghini Electronic Injection, and it was brilliant. In those years we also introduced composite materials for various details on the bodywork, and did this with the help of a young guy called Horacio Pagani, who started out as one of our employees.”   We can say that the Diablo was the last Lamborghini to be tested old-style on the road. “We drove the first prototype round Sant’Agata at night. There were these long roads in the middle of the fields, and a petrol station that always had the light on, and we engineers camped out there. The car was test-driven by Valentino Balboni: when he was about to pass in front of us, we could hear the roar in the distance, and then we saw the car rocket past like a UFO.” One night they stopped hearing that roar. “All of a sudden, silence. Coming from racing and the track, for me, not hearing the sound of the car engine on a test drive meant that something was wrong. I've always been very worried in those moments, until you see what has happened and have checked that everyone is fine. We raced over in the service car, there were no mobile phones in those days. We found Valentino standing outside the car, lit only by the moon. In Modenese dialect, which was our official language, he said: Engineer, nothing’s working here. The electric system had broken, so no headlights. He had stopped before he ended up in the middle of the fields.” Having completed the development and the final prototypes, Lamborghini took on some new testers, notably including the name of Luigi Moccia. “We defined a route that left the company premises, went down the motorway and then along some minor roads. We covered thousands of kilometres, and every now and then our testers passed those from Maranello. It was absolutely forbidden to break the highway code, but I reckon that they had a few races every now and then… Those were the days.” And then the tests began at the Nardò track in southern Italy. A tarmac ring used to test high-performance cars at their top speeds. “That was where we type-approved the Diablo at 325 km/h, so the first production car to reach that speed. I remember that day very well, it was a great celebration for everyone, and I remember another very curious episode. When the Diablo had been on sale for a while, I received a call from a French client: Ingénieur, at 300 km/hour, the windscreen wipers don't work . I replied: Sorry, you drive at that speed in the rain? His answer made perfect sense: Oh yes. You promised this performance, and at that speed the whole car has to work ! We went back to Nardò and tried to recreate the same situation. And in fact, the wipers didn't move. So we started to add a few little fins here and there to deviate the air flow, until everything went like clockwork.” To choose the name for the new car, originally known as Project 132 during its development, a list of proposed names was drawn up on a sheet of graph paper. Each executive then marked their preferred option with a check. The winner was "Diablo".   While the car was being developed it was given the code name Progetto 132 , but soon the time came to find a name worthy of a Lamborghini, also complying with the now-consolidated tradition of references to bull-fighting. “At the time there was nothing like a marketing department, which today would handle a question like this. I took the initiative and, with an eye on the past, I set a few ground rules. The names had to be short and immediately recognisable, possibly just two syllables, perhaps with a Spanish flair. I threw in a few Modenese words for good measure, like “Fulmen”, meaning lightening, so something really fast". "I drew up a list of around thirty options on an A2 sheet of graph paper, the ones we used to draw our designs, I still have it. I sent it round the managers and employees of the company, asking them to tick their preference. In the end, the name Diablo got the most votes.” The car was finally ready to be launched in early 1990. On 20 and 21 January, Montecarlo, the place chosen for the presentation, seemed like a branch of Sant’Agata. “We had organised a Lamborghini Day,” Marmiroli recalls. “The place was full of flags and Lamborghini cars, but nobody knew the real reason for the invitation sent out to the specialised press and sector experts from all over the world. Of course, Emile Novaro and Lee Iacocca were there, respectively the chairmen of Lamborghini and Chrysler.” Around a thousand people came to the presentation in the evening, and looking at the shape of a car hidden under a sheet on the stage, some people began to realise what it was all about. “At one point, the lights faded and the Spanish tenor José Carreras sang Nessun Dorma from Giacomo Puccini's Turandot . When he got to Vincerò, Vincerò, red smoke filtered up from the ground and the Diablo was unveiled to the audience.” Everyone wanted to see it close-up, and ran to the stage. “The floor began to wobble. Off, everyone off … someone cried. We literally had a few moments of panic, but all’s well that ends well. That day, Iacocca said that in all his years he had never seen such a thrilling presentation.” The Diablo was produced for over a decade, from 1990 to 2001. The saga that, if we consider the years of design, with four different managers (the Mimran brothers, Chrysler, the Indonesian Megatech investors, and finally Audi) took Lamborghini from being a small trade business to a modern, technological company. Around three thousand Diablos were built, in seventeen different versions. “There were three progenitors: the coupé on show at the presentation, with rear-wheel drive; the four-wheel drive VT with viscous coupling on the gearbox outlet; an open variant that we called Roadster. I should also mention the competition versions. First and foremost, the JLOC, for racing in Japan, and then the SV-Rs for the Lamborghini Super Sport Trophy, around thirty derived directly from the SV production version, having removed all the superfluous parts and adding safety features such as rollbars and extinguishers.” The engines and gearboxes were sealed so that nobody could tamper with them and so all the cars were the same: what made the difference was the driver. “And at the end of the championship, the parts could all be refitted on the car so that the owner could continue to enjoy their Diablo every day on the roads.”   Marmiroli gazes into the distance, and then smiles. “I want you to really understand the spirit driving this whole project,” the engineer says, returning to the day of the presentation in 1990 again and reciting the speech he made that day: “We come from a small town in Emilia Romagna surrounded by fog. We have come to Montecarlo to present you a project. To create this project, we used all the techniques and technologies you can imagine. We used the best computers, but this car is not the result of a computer. We did lots of tests in the wind tunnel, but this car is not the result of aerodynamics. The Diablo was designed and built by humans for other humans. This is our philosophy.”   Marmiroli stands up, strolls round the Diablo parked behind him and rests a hand on the bodywork, like a father fondly patting his daughter. A recent photo of Marcello Gandini and Luigi Marmiroli, two of the key figures behind the success of the Diablo. Gandini, who passed away in early 2024, played a fundamental role in defining Lamborghini's style, starting with the Miura.   --- Credits and Acknowledgments The author, Alessandro Barteletti: A photographer and journalist with more than twenty years of experience, Alessandro has been capturing and telling the stories behind social, sports, and news events through both images and words. Driven by a lifelong passion for anything that goes fast—whether on the road or in the sky—he has specialized in motorsports, aviation, and space, collaborating with some of the leading industry magazines and creating exclusive projects for National Geographic, Dallara Automobili, and the Italian Air Force. Throughout his career, he has accumulated several flight hours as a photographer aboard jets and military aircraft, including Eurofighter, MB339, M346, AMX, and others. A photography teacher, his work has been exhibited at galleries around the world on several occasions. Alessandro was born in Rome, where he currently lives. The photographer, Paolo Carlini : He is a professional photographer from Milan with over thirty years of experience. He is a member of the Order of Journalists and the National Association of Professional Photographers Tau Visual. Specializing in commercial imagery, he has worked with prominent clients both in Italy and internationally. Carlini has captured portraits of artists, designers, and entrepreneurs, which have been exhibited in prestigious shows. He has also published photography books and shares his expertise through workshops and courses. Paolo Carlini is a respected figure in the world of photography. The videomaker, Andrea Ruggeri : He was born in Rome. He collaborates with magazines and companies as freelance photographer and videomaker. His pictures and videos have appeared in Vogue, Trussardi, Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, L’Officiel, Brioni, Harper’s Bazaar, National Geographic, L’Espresso, Geo, Gambero Rosso, Robb Report, Glamour, Class, Ansa, Repubblica, La Nación. He exhibited at “Festival Internazionale di Roma” of photography and at the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. He currently lives in Orvieto. SPEEDHOLICS WOULD LIKE TO THANK ANDREA NICOLETTO, PRESIDENT OF LAMBORGHINI CLUB ITALIA, FOR ALLOWING THE FILMING OF THIS FEATURE AT HIS HEADQUARTERS AND FOR PROVIDING HIS PERSONAL LAMBORGHINI DIABLO. THE CAR (CHASSIS NO. 41) WAS ORIGINALLY OWNED BY THE CAR AUDIO COMPANY ALPINE, WHICH USED IT FOR ITS ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS AT THE TIME.

# Discovering the Thrills of the Alfa Romeo S.Z. on a Scenic Route A delightful route through the mountains awaits, featuring selected stops and the engineering thrills of the Alfa Romeo S.Z. With its 6 cylinders and 210 HP, this car is perfect for discovering the racing spirit of the “Biscione” even off the track. Words Alessandro Giudice Photography Alessandro Barteletti Video Andrea Ruggeri Swiss Grand Tour is a project to discover itineraries driving classic Alfa Romeo cars, in partnership with Astara, the distributor and importer of the Brand in Switzerland. | Canton | Vaud | |------------|----------| | Route | Aigle-Gstaad-Aigle | | Distance | 101 km | | Travel time | 2h 15min | | Driving pleasure | 5/5 | | Panorama | 4/5 | The appointment was at Aigle Castle, perched on a slight hill surrounded by vineyards. Driving up towards it, the last 100 metres of a narrow road are flanked by high, plastered bastions. This creates a feeling as if you're driving between two walls of snow. It was a bright day, and the blue sky contrasted beautifully with the red object shining ahead after the last bend. The Alfa Romeo S.Z. looked more like a spaceship than a car. Its extraordinary clean lines, smooth polished shapes, and large windows blending into the shiny black roof made it resemble an airplane cockpit more than a passenger compartment. [click to watch the video] (Map by Sansai Zappini) The Alfa Romeo S.Z. still catches the eye today, 36 years after its launch. It demonstrates that originality and genius withstand the test of time. This is a hallmark of Zagato, who has always infused their special cars with an unmistakable touch of personality: “who dares wins.” The S.Z. remains part of this tradition. It looks like an aerodynamic study and has divided Alfa fans between those who criticise it and those who love it unconditionally. One such enthusiast is Daniel Imhof, who has owned one for 18 years. He has turned his passion into a life’s work with a workshop in Bex, located at Route des Tioleires 3. This workshop focuses solely on Alfa Romeos, whether modern or vintage, road or racing models. He met us in Aigle with his magnificent S.Z. ready for a spin. We embarked on a thrilling sixty-mile journey, following a ring around the slopes of the Vaud Prealps. The start and end of the route was Aigle, the capital of a district renowned for its wine-making traditions. This is expressed by a famous fragrant dry white wine and the vineyards that surround the town for miles. In addition to the historical centre, with its characteristic Rue de Jérusalem, the bike racing track, which is home to the International Cycling Union, is also noteworthy. The medieval castle is the most interesting site in the town. Inside, the Wine Museum narrates the age-old local culture with exhibitions, objects, and artefacts. We took the main road no. 11, a major road that runs east to Wassen, even though we would take a turn off way before there. Right from the first bends, as the road climbed upwards, we realised that the route was a playground for the S.Z. The 6-cylinder engine roared in different tones with each gear change. You could feel how it followed the bends along the road: safe, precise, and without any jerks or rolling. Following in a hybrid Junior, the road was a bit tougher for us. However, the dynamic attitude of the new Alfa crossover was a pleasant surprise in terms of setup and stability, especially when braking. The climb from 436 metres a.s.l. in Aigle to 1445 metres at the first mountain pass, Col des Mosses, is just over 10 miles. But beware: this beautiful stretch of road is also a favourite with motorcyclists, who often come in large groups. So take care, especially near the bends. Over the pass, we descended towards Chatêau d’Oex and Rougemont. This area, due to its microclimate and lack of wind, has become a paradise for hot air balloons. There is even a museum devoted to them in Chatêau d’Oex, and trips are possible all year round. This is the Pays-d’Enhaut district, the holiday destination in the Canton Vaud and the nearby Bernese Highlands. A few miles from the two towns lies Rossinière, a village with 500 inhabitants renowned for the artistic façades of its wooden houses. It is well worth the detour. One of these houses is the impressive Grand Chalet, which has 5 floors and 113 windows. Originally used to age the traditional Etivaz DOP cheese, it was later bought by the painter Balthus in 1977, who lived here for a long time. If you like chalets, another place to see is Saanen, where many chalets nestle in a large plain among the meadows and along the road. Here we were already in the Canton of Bern, where we turned off the main road to the right, towards Gstaad, the most famous and elegant hamlet in Saanen. The Gstaad Palace, a 5-star hotel, dominates the town from above like a castle. Built in 1913, it has welcomed the international jet set, who satisfy their desire for high-quality shopping in the cosmopolitan boutiques and local luxury brands. Chalets are the most representative and exclusive architecture in the pedestrian town centre, whether private homes, stores, or hotels, many of which have spas. The quality of these establishments has made this mountain town a point of reference for the whole country. After some luxury pampering, we still craved driving pleasure. The road to Ormont-Dessus, although straight, demands a stop at the start of the cable car leading to Glacier 3000. This spectacular, magical place at the foot of the glacier offers an amazing view of the over-4000 metre peaks that surround it. But the S.Z. called, and Daniel answered. When we reached Ormont-Dessus, we could have chosen to backtrack and return to Aigle along the same road. Instead, we opted to take the cable car to Les Diablerets and headed up to Col de la Croix at 1778 metres. The road here was less busy and much narrower. It took around forty minutes to cover the 10 miles and 5/6 bends to Villars-sur-Ollon, putting pressure on both the Alfa Romeo and its driver. Upon exiting the car, Daniel smiled broadly, ready for a coffee. “For me, Alfa Romeo means performance, beauty, and sound. These are the ideal roads for a car like the S.Z. Pure emotion, mile after mile.” The last stretch of road descends towards the pretty town of Ollon, where our paths separated. As Daniel Imhof took his red coupé back to the workshop in nearby Bex, we returned to Aigle. Twenty or so miles separated us from a glass of fragrant, dry white wine gifted to us by the vines that shine more than ever in the sunset. THE COLLECTOR: Daniel Imhof I’ve been mad about cars since I was a child. When I was 15, I began an apprenticeship as a mechanic. But I wasn't interested in all cars, just Alfa Romeos. At that time, in the Seventies, Alfas were unique. They had aluminium engines, double overhead camshaft, and 130 HP when their competitors stopped at 80: it was a different world. As soon as I finished my apprenticeship, I went to work for Alfa Romeo. From that day, I was able to live the dream, every day, with the brand I loved. A few years later, I set up my own firm and since then have always worked with Alfa Romeos. My clients are wonderful, all true enthusiasts. Some come from far away just to have the carburettors tuned or some other special job. I take care of every mechanical detail. It’s an all-consuming passion. Anyone who has an Alfa Romeo likes to drive it like a sportsman. Although I’ve never been a professional, I’ve been taking part in track events for over forty years, just for the pleasure of driving. Of all my Alfa Romeos, the S.Z. has a special place in my heart. It has a legendary, slightly larger 3-litre V6 engine, height-adjustable suspensions, and holds the road like a dream. Driving pleasure at its best. Once there was a slogan: “Alfa Romeo thrills the road.” For me, it’s not just the road but the spirit too. It’s pure emotion with the S.Z. For me, Alfa Romeo means performance, beauty, and sound.

Words Sean Campbell Photography Tim Scott/Scott Photo Co. He made a choice that is increasingly rare today: he captures cars and car races using film. In other words, he creates images of a fast-paced, frenetic world with a thoughtful and introspective approach. At first glance, this may seem like a contradiction, but it is precisely this pursuit that distinguishes an artist with a personal vision from an ordinary photographer. After years in the fast-paced world of advertising, where instant gratification and hard deadlines reign, Tim Scott has found solace in the deliberate, contemplative craft of film photography. His work—rich with texture, detail, and narrative—captures timeless images of classic cars, motorcycles, and the humanity intertwined with motor culture. In this in-depth interview, Scott shares his thoughts on storytelling through film, the allure of hot rods, and what keeps him inspired. Why do you choose to shoot primarily with film in an era dominated by digital photography? What does this medium offer that resonates with you as an artist? Every creator has tools that resonate with their vision. For me, film evokes feeling, authenticity, and timelessness. It’s not about film being better than digital—they’re both amazing tools—but film slows me down, requiring intention in every decision. I first learned photography in high school, working in the darkroom. After years in advertising—a fast-paced, perfection-focused world—I needed an outlet that felt creative and personal. I picked up a digital camera but found my images to be lacking in real soul, more like tourist snapshots. To completely change my approach, I bought an old film, twin-lens reflex Yashica and set about learning how to shoot film again, and how to better see and execute what I saw in my head. I love how shooting film is a process that slows me down and makes me feel like I’m creating something, not just taking something, making key decisions that affect the end result, every single step along the way. It’s “imperfect”, it can be quite expensive, and the process can be very time-consuming, but when you get that one perfect photograph it is so very worth it. Film to me is a craft, a process, and a commitment. Film equally surprises, frustrates, inspires, disappoints, and just when I feel that it may not be worth all of this, it rewards me with something magical. How does the slower, more deliberate process of film photography influence your storytelling? Film isn’t cheap. Each shot can cost anywhere from $0.50 to $20, so I must be selective and intentional. I spend a lot of time observing and visualizing what I want before pressing the shutter. Of course, I won’t know for sure until I see the film—that’s part of the challenge and the reward. When telling a story through multiple images, I plan carefully to ensure I capture enough variety to create a complete narrative. However, what I am constantly hunting for, striving for, is an image that can also stand on its own – a full story told in 1/60th of a second. If I can catch someone’s attention and engage them to spend more than three seconds looking and reward them with some kind of visual moment that brings back memories or inspires some imagined adventure, then I have succeeded. Photographs like this are few and far between and oh so rewarding when they do come to life. What is your go-to film format and camera setup for capturing cars and motor culture? There’s no one setup for me. I switch between 35mm, medium format, and large format, depending on the subject. Every camera, every lens, every film and every exposure gives completely different results in the analog world. Plus, I get creatively bored if I always do the same thing and chase the same result, so I am constantly experimenting and trying to find something that keeps me inspired. The analog process is so much less exact and “perfect” than with modern technology – and I love that. However, medium format is what I often find myself reaching for as it splits the difference between usability, flexibility, affordability and quality of the final result. I shoot almost exclusively black-and-white film, mostly Kodak TRI-X and Ilford HP5. My workflow involves home processing—loading film onto reels in a light proof tent, developing it in my kitchen sink, and scanning negatives on an Epson Perfection V850. Post-processing is minimal, focusing on adjustments that could be made in a darkroom. For me, a photograph isn’t complete until it’s printed. Printing brings the image to life and allows it to exist beyond the limits of screens. A print is the only final result where I have total control of the end result from beginning to end and has the potential to live way beyond my limited years. Your work often captures speed and movement, yet your medium, film, requires patience. How do you reconcile this contrast? I actually thrive in this and enjoy the challenge of achieving something that I’m happy with. I love that it takes a lot of thought, planning and intention to create these images. It feels like I am collaborating with the subject and the process to create something, not just take something. There is a lot of luck in photography, and we all have to accept this and explore, play and find our own vision and moments. As it’s said, “luck favors the prepared”, so I do everything I possibly can to be the best prepared, inspired and passionate photographer that I can possibly be. You’ve mentioned being inspired by people and the humanity surrounding cars and races. Why is the human element so important to your work? Including people gives images a sense of time and context. Cars and motorcycles may last generations, but people are fleeting. Their presence adds depth to the story, offering a glimpse into the era and culture surrounding the machines. It feels like the human element in society is diminishing every day as we become more and more reliant on technology, always on the hunt for “perfection” and being divided from each other for whatever reason society can find to benefit. Every photograph is history from the moment it is captured. That exact environment, light, content, context and situation will never again happen in exactly the same way. The way that it’s photographed and portrayed has the potential to be something special and valuable to future generations – and that very much includes the human presence of today. While many feel that this may make the photograph less interesting or the people a distraction, I really feel that in the future, when the styles have changed, and the people may be long gone, this tells an even deeper story because of this time specific context. The cars and motorcycles, and the images of them, may exist for generations, but people exist for a limited amount of time, and even within that time they change daily. I hope that in 25, 50, 100 years from now that people will see my work and be interested in this history and hopefully will be inspired to create their own. Your LEGENDS project focuses on iconic figures in motorsports. Can you share a particularly memorable experience from this series? A few years ago, I attended a memorial for a famous drag racer and realized we were losing these icons quickly. I am greatly inspired by the portraits by photographers like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Yousef Karsh and I wanted to find a way to combine my love and desire of making portraits with building a series of legendary faces that were falling into history all too soon. This project has been so rewarding and inspiring in many ways. I get to meet, spend some time with, and call friends, people that have accomplished incredible things and have made history. They have been so kind and generous with their time and presence and have often expressed their appreciation for this series. At the 2024 drag racing historic event called the Nitro Revival I shared many of the portraits from years past as a mini exhibit just outside of my humble tent studio, and it was so amazing to watch people come by and get excited seeing these legendary faces. Even better was when the Legends themselves came by and stood looking at their portraits and those of their friends. They told stories, they laughed and even some tears were shed for a few that we had lost in the past couple of years. These moments made it worth every dollar invested, every second spent and all the hours spent working to make this happen. I am blessed. You’re transforming a 1964 Ford Econoline van into a traveling story hub. What are your plans for this project? I love photography, I love storytelling, I love travelling, I love unexpected adventures, and I love people, so this is my plan to bring all of these things together. The van will allow me to be on the road more efficiently and take the time to know my subjects better as I am able to spend a bit more time with people and at the places that make the stories special. Of course, I had to find a vintage van because I love classic vehicles, and a van because I have a lot of stuff to schlep around to make my work. It will also give me a place to sleep occasionally to save some money for more film. It will have a stock inline-6 engine and manual transmission to help keep gas mileage as high as possible and being such a simple, mass-produced engine and basic van, I can find parts and make most repairs almost anywhere. Slow, semi-comfortable and reliable is my goal but (at the time of writing) I still have quite a way to go for this build. Anyone interested can follow the build along at my website! Your photography often explores traditional American car culture—hot rods, drag racing, and salt flats. What draws you to these themes, and how do you keep your work fresh? When I returned to photography 15+ years ago, American car and motorcycle culture was what my friends and I were into. I started photographing that simply since I was around it and my love and appreciation has grown over the years. Now, with more than a decade of memorable adventures and like-minded friends all over the world it is something that I enjoy every day. Hot rods, drag racing and land speed racing surround me here in Southern California. Photographing shows is interesting, but capturing these amazing vehicles and people in action and context is a rewarding challenge that keeps me inspired. The historic racetracks, the dry lakebed at El Mirage, and the legendary salt flats at Bonneville are a backdrop made in heaven. Again, seeing these subjects in context with historical surroundings helps lend a timeless feel to my work that I enjoy. Fresh and engaging is difficult to define as it means something different to everyone. I started photographing again after years away from it as an outlet and creative endeavor just for me. It is really quite selfish; I photograph subjects and tell stories of things that interest and inspire me. I really feel that it does a disservice to the subject just to make photographs or try to tell a story about something that I’m not really interested in. By engaging deeply with what inspires me I approach each story with genuine interest, curiosity and passion. What I strive for most in my work is conveying some kind of emotion. I really want the viewer to feel something when they see my photographs. I work to use every tool in my photographic arsenal to help communicate this; whether it is blur, light, tones, motion, connection or anything else I can find to bring these images to life. Very, very rarely, all of these things come together, and I’m blessed with a 1,000-word worthy photograph. I do a lot of good work, but I always strive to do great work. Great is an elusive and often cruel mistress but there are still so many great photographs to be made. What has been your biggest challenge in pursuing analog photography—or photography as a whole—and maintaining such a niche focus on automotive storytelling? How have you overcome it? There are quite a few challenges still shooting film; it is slow, expensive and there is no immediate gratification. So many publications and outlets nowadays are working with very limited budgets and require almost immediate delivery of final materials. As I shoot 99% black and white this also makes it difficult to engage with many publications because they are so accustomed to color. I don’t consider myself an automotive photographer. I’m a photographer who makes photographs and tells stories. While most of my more known work has been in the motorsport realm, my approach is the same with any other genre. I find a subject that inspires me and dive in 110% to learn as much about it as possible so that I can tell that story with the same passion and depth as anything else I do. What I really love the most are portraits. So, while I do make many portraits, I also approach every subject as a portrait as well. You can make a portrait of a car. You can make a portrait of a tree, of a rock, of a mountain, or pretty much anything with the mindset of capturing a moment of that subject and revealing something that engages someone to spend a moment looking closer and understanding better what you’re trying to say. I have no answer as to how to overcome these challenges. I keep going because I have to. This passion is the fire that feeds me and gives me purpose. Looking back at your journey, what advice would you give to aspiring photographers and storytellers? A famous photographer was once asked this same question, and his answer was, “Quit if you can.” Like me, you might wonder how dare someone say this!? But much like a great photograph, the heart and truth emerges when you dig a little deeper… Even in the glory days of staff photographers, assignments for global magazines and newspapers, multiple fold photographers making a career of sorts, there were still relatively few who were good enough, connected enough, and lucky enough to actually make a living doing this. I would say that it is even more difficult now and the opportunities are even fewer. Without an almost unquenchable fire to do this—a limitless drive no matter what—the path will be even more difficult. There are many, many days of hearing “no” and hundreds of hours of work and time to create what you love with no return in sight. In the darkest of times, it will be easy to quit. But if you really cannot quit and you have the drive and self motivation to just keep moving forward, then perhaps you might just find the opportunity that lets you live what you love. What more can you ask for?

Is this a car story with people, or a people story with a car? What you see in the photographs is a car, but it’s not just a car. To really understand, you need to know the people that built it, and the journey they had to make to chase their dreams. This car is the realization of decades of dreams by two aspiring, passionate young people, built on the hope of the American Dream. Words and photographs – Tim Scott/Scott Photo Co. Stanislav (Stanley) Chavik was born in Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia on September 14th, 1981. I picture this smiling baby with a wrench in one hand and a warm bottle of oil in the other as both his father and grandfather were car guys, and to this day you immediately sense his automotive passion. Growing up on American movies, young Stanislav soon developed a strong affinity for all things Americana. 1989 signaled massive changes in Czechoslovakia with the “Velvet Revolution” and a shift from communist control. In 1990 the first democratic elections were held and in 1992 the former Czechoslovakia split to become the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Stanley’s parents opened a restaurant in Zlin and he and his brother found mechanical focused hobbies to keep busy as the restaurant business kept mom and dad away. He started with motorcycles at 9, and then on to four wheels not long after. It’s not surprising that when people ask him how long he’s been doing this he easily replies, “all of my life”. The other half of Hot Rod Chavik, Daisy Dagmar, was born on March 11th, 1983, in Gottwaldov (now the city of Zlin). Her father is an artist and designer and her mother, who wanted to be a mechanic but was not allowed to under communist rule, instead learned fabrication and worked in an aircraft factory. You could say there was something special in her blood and that creativity and the art of fabrication is in her genes. Daisy is easy to smile, vivacious, attentive, and always alert for connections, creativity and business opportunities. To meet her once is to feel like you’ve known her for years and her passion for her family, personal and hot rod, is immediately obvious. One serendipitous day in 2007, in the city of Zlin, Daisy and Stanley met through mutual friends. Stanley offered Daisy a ride on his motorcycle, and the rest, as they say, is history. Daisy is the organized and business-minded yin to Stanley’s passionate-creative-chaos yang – a match made in heaven. Stanley and Daisy were married in 2008. Stanley had begun his American car journey with a 1980’s era Mustang, which he customized and showed at American focused car shows in the Czech Republic. People started to take notice and were soon inquiring about having Stanley work on their projects. Stanley's first restoration project for a client was a 1967 Ford Thunderbird, followed by a 70's Mustang Mach 1, a ‘66 Mustang coupe, a Plymouth Barracuda, and other American muscle cars from the era. One day a WWII collector entered the shop with a dream opportunity to do a period-correct restoration of his 1941 Dodge WC-Command. This historic vehicle was present on D-Day at Normandy and had quite high historical value – a perfect opportunity for Stanley to show his unique skills and attention to extreme detail. This was a new period for Stanley with more opportunities to work on American automobiles from the 1930s and 40's. Stanley had long dreamed of building lakes-style race cars and hot rods inspired by so many he had seen in the movies. As time passed, he hand-built two traditional hot rods – a ‘32 Edelbrock roadster tribute and a ’34 three-window coupe. Stanley was also very interested in straight-8 Buicks, like the Buick Special and Buick Roadmaster, and bought his own 1939 Buick Special with grand plans to build a chopped, custom car. As his dreams of racing and speed grew, Stanley grew dissatisfied with his Buick, his focus moving more to vintage race cars. Then one day he chanced upon a photograph of the Phil “Red” Shaffer Indy Car, the Shaffer 8 and it all began. Living in the Czech Republic and having to source and ship many historic parts from the USA, this wasn’t going to be easy. Stanley began the daunting task of reverse engineering, fabricating parts and working around rough dimensions. He slowly began to build as exact a replica of the Shaffer 8 as he possibly could. That Shaffer 8 replica, built in the Czech Republic, driven by a vision, sheer passion, and hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work is what you see on these pages. More on this soon. While Stanley built a successful design-engineer-build shop and explored his automotive dreams, Daisy had opened a growing luxury hair salon. On December 31st, 2010, baby Stanley Jr. was born – and life was good. America; the land seen on the silver screen with movie stars, fast cars, unlimited opportunity, and freedom. Stanley and Daisy were raised on American movies, World War II surplus, and imported American cars, so the “American Dream” was firmly planted. They were born under the communist reign in Czechoslovakia, had lived through the oppression and turmoil of the revolution in 1992, and the struggles of the newborn democracy of the Czech Republic, making the American Dream even more appealing. Stanley had long dreamed of living in the USA, so one day when Daisy, said “Let’s move to America!” it took almost no time for an enthusiastic Stanley to say “YES!!!”. Many of the hot rod movies that they had seen were based in the land of sunshine and opportunity – California. With hopes high, they considered Southern California to search for their own American Dream. The first time that they arrived in Huntington Beach, they immediately felt like they had been there before. It felt like home. They went back and watched many of their favorite American hot rod movies and then searched out the actual places where they were filmed and then visited them in person. This was the America they had dreamed of. They found a condo in Huntington Beach and while corresponding with the owner he noticed that their email address said “HotRodChavik” and asked if they were “car guys”. They immediately became great friends, and he went on to help them in so many ways as they started their journey to becoming Americans. Stanley, Daisy and Stanley Jr. “came here to be American”. What does that even mean? If you watch old American western movies it looks like America is the Wild West, filled with open lands, outlaws and cowboys. If you watch the next generation of movies, America is a land of great opportunity and hope, filled with people who love their cars and motorcycles. Growing up watching these movies you can see the grand appeal of a place like this for people growing up under the thumb of communism and repression. The dream that had begun so many years before was slowly becoming more than a dream. Now, fueled by hope and passion it was time to begin the truly hard work to build their dream business not far from their Huntington Beach home, Hot Rod Chavik, in Orange, California. Four months after landing in Los Angeles, California, the Shaffer 8 arrived and has been gathering crowds everywhere it goes ever sense. Hot Rod Chavik now is bustling, building cars for people and even well-known museums. The Shaffer 8 has been the recipient of many awards to date including events such as The Grand National Roadster Show (first place, racing category), La Jolla Concours (Best of Show), Huntington Beach Concours (first place, racing category), Highway Earth Car Show (Jay Leno’s Best of Show pick), and others, and has been featured in magazines and stories around the world. Using a combination of as many original parts as possible, custom fabricated parts and built on a meticulously crafted chassis, their ethos of “perfection is not optional” comes to life for each and every one of their clients. With a love for classic restorations and custom builds, Hot Rod Chavik truly builds what they love with clients who are passionate and collaborative in the process – and it shows. Ok, you’ve met the people, now let’s get into what you’re here for–this stunning 1936/‘38/‘39 Buick. Back to the Czech Republic. Stanley’s dream was to craft something incredibly special that for one reason or another no longer existed. This is where the pictures of the Indy car called the Victory Gasket Special come back into the story. Phil “Red” Shaffer had been quite a success around the Indy circuit. Between 1925 and 1934 seven of his cars had qualified for the Indy 500. In 1935, Shaffer had three Victory Gasket Special, Buick-powered cars attempting to qualify for Indy. During qualifying, one of his drivers, Stubby Stubblefield and his mechanic, were killed and the car destroyed when their car went over the retaining wall. This is the car that Stanley would painstakingly recreate. Stanley had the Buick engine that he had picked up as part of a project years before. With the photographs he had found, he reverse engineered the specifications. He determined that the original car had a 105-inch wheelbase. Using the pictures as reference he painstakingly built a frame as the foundation of his own Shaffer 8. With his love for using original parts, he started with the 1936 straight-8 engine, a 1936 3-speed transmission, 1938 brakes and 1939 rear axle from the previous project. Other than a few various other parts he had to build the rest of the parts himself. The frame, the grill, and the body parts were all beat into submission by hand, using the tools that Stanley had made himself. He used the well-loved photographs he’d been carrying as reference to get the forms and shapes as close as possible to the original. After focusing meticulously on every detail he could discover, the “new” Victory Gasket Special was revealed in the Czech Republic in June 2017. Needless to say, this car received much attention around the city of Zlin and many newspaper and magazine stories created a lot of buzz about Stanley and Hot Rod Chavik. This brings us back to a few years later when the decision was boldly made to find their American Dream. Driving the Shaffer 8 (and drive it Stanley does!) has garnered a lot of attention in America as well. The interesting thing was that Stanley and Daisy had originally planned to sell the car to help fund the new shop. Fortunately, this didn’t end up needing to happen and the car has now gone on to inspire people here in America and attract commissioned builds for their now thriving shop in Orange, CA. Stanley Jr. seems to have inherited a lot of the Chavik magic genes. At 13 years old he’s already in the family business, contributing design ideas and supporting the marketing efforts. He’s learning the craft of fabrication with Stanley Sr. and creativity and business skills needed to succeed with Daisy – two generations, side-by-side, sharing passions from past generations to present and on to the next. Stanley Jr. is already pushing into the future, having earned diplomas at ID Tech camp, for Robotic Engineering and 3D modeling. Young people like this are the future of automotive engineering and development and we truly need more young people like this to keep this passion we all share alive and well. In so many ways this story lives up to the proverbial “American Dream” – people with big dreams coming to America with hopes to build a successful business and a life, and through determination, endless faith, and a lot of hard work, begin to build a life that so many can only dream of. And the dream continues as they work every day to not only build cars, but to build a future, a reputation and a life that they always dreamed of, one car at a time. Details: Vehicle: 1933 Buick Shafer 8 – Victory Gasket Special tribute Owners: Stanley & Daisy Chavik, Hot Rod Chavik, Orange, CA. www.hotrodchavik.com Engine: 248 Straight 8 Buick Carb: 4 Stromberg 97s Trans: 5-Speed Shifter: Custom hand-made Front axle: Forged I-beam Bendix Rear axle: Custom-made posi Springs: Hand-made Shocks: GM lever shocks - late 30's Brakes: Buick 1938 Headlights: 1933 Buick Taillights: Chevy 39 Wheels: Custom, special-order, 72 spoke rolled edge w/knock-offs About the author: Tim Scott Tim Scott is a creative director, photographer, writer, and storyteller based in Los Angeles, California. Always on the hunt for images and moments that inspire, Tim’s work is both timeless and modern. Offering a taste of days past, his focus on black and white feels just right for the historic Americana subject matter often in front of his lens. Tim’s motorsports photographs and writing has been published in books and magazines such as HOT ROD Magazine, Hop Up Magazine, and Men’s File Magazine. His work has also been exhibited in galleries, museums and is held in exclusive private collections worldwide.

Only true car lovers and historians would recognize the Monteverdi badge. Perhaps even fewer would know that its creator, Peter Monteverdi—the last Swiss luxury car maker—had once been a racing car driver of some repute. While plenty of column inches cover his exploits in the design and manufacturing world, this story delves more deeply into the lesser-told, and wildly mixed, fortunes of his racing career. Words Sean Campbell Photography Paolo Carlini Archive Courtesy of Monteverdi Archive - Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Peter Monteverdi during the construction of the Monteverdi Hai 450 SS, 1969 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz A kick in the backside Imagine: it was a kick in the backside and a punch in the nose that set Peter Monteverdi on the path to automotive legend. He had been determined to study medicine when, in the mid-1940s, a particularly crabby teacher called him an idiot. In the ensuing argument, the teacher called him to the front of the class and kicked him in the behind as a form of "discipline." Peter went home and recounted everything to his father, Rosolino, in the tractor and plant machinery workshop his father had built. Without hesitation, Rosolino rolled up his sleeves, marched straight to the school, stormed into the classroom, and punched the teacher in the nose. After the incident, Peter’s father sent him to another school that focused more on practical skills rather than theoretical study—an environment far better suited to his skills and interests (and his attention span). It was there he met a vocational advisor, Ernst Bertschi, with whom he got along handsomely. Taking stock of Monteverdi’s adept hands and upbringing, Bertschi encouraged Peter to pursue a career as an automobile mechanic, beginning a cascade of events that would lead to one of the mid 20th centuries most loved car brands. Italian Blood, Swiss at Heart Peter Monteverdi grew up in Binningen, a small town near Basel. His roots traced back to Italian immigrants who had settled in Switzerland during the late 19th century, bringing with them a heritage of hard work and technical ingenuity. Peter Monteverdi and his father Rosolino in Binningen, 1936 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz His father embodied these traits, building a reputation as a skilled tractor mechanic and opening a workshop that became a cornerstone of the local community. Monteverdi Garage Binningen, 1924 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Monteverdi Garage on Oberwilerstrasse in Binningen, 1933 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Peter Monteverdi in his pedal car, 1938 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz As a boy, Peter spent much of his time in the workshop, immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of grease and machinery. Peter Monteverdi at the wheel of a Vevey Diesel - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz But while Rosolino's world revolved around tractors and practical engineering, Peter's imagination raced toward something entirely different—cars. Not just any cars, but fast ones. At just 15, influenced by Bertschi, Peter left home to serve his apprenticeship at the Swiss firm Adolph Saurer near Lake Constance. Saurer was a pioneer in heavy commercial vehicle engines, and Peter’s early years were spent learning to tune automobile engines. The apprenticeship required him to spend time in the town of Arbon before moving closer to home, working at the Saurer service and repair shops in Birsfelden, near Binningen. Peter Monteverdi for Saurer at the Basel Trade Fair in 1952 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz The Monteverdi Special & Dreams of Racing He didn’t just dream of fast cars either—he built them. At just 16 years old, he began crafting his first car, the Monteverdi Special. During his apprenticeship at Saurer, Peter had thrown himself into the mechanical craft with gusto. Despite his youth, he was often chosen to tackle complex mechanical problems. One day, while riding his moped to work, Peter spotted a battered Fiat Tipo 508C Balilla 1100 in the yard of a dealership. It had collided with a tree, but on closer inspection, Peter decided it was still in decent working order. Knowing the Balilla was highly tunable, he saw an opportunity to restore and transform it into his first performance car. Remarkably, Peter was only 17 and not yet old enough to drive himself. Peter Monteverdi and his Monteverdi Special, 1952 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz His ultimate ambition, however, was to become a professional racing driver. After a few trade-ins, steadily getting better cars each time, he possessed something raceworthy, the Alfa Romeo 1900 Sedan—at that time a popular touring car. And so his racing career began in earnest. In his view, mechanicing was now just a means to fund his racing career. Monteverdi drove bravely and boldly, but was a rookie in comparison to the seasoned, cool competition he faced. He was, for want of a better phrase, too keen. Able to drive well, able to gather great speed, but with little consistency. He went through car after car, flogging each to its end. His competitors did however, learn to take him seriously. They had seen a natural talent in him that in time could be molded and honed and developed. In an outdated VW convertible, he even managed to finish 3rd in the hill climb at Reigoldswil in 1954, beating a 4.5l Talbot in the process. In 1955, he bought a one year old Porsche 356 1500 S. Small, fast and agile, it was perfect for hill climbs. And so, going all in as was his wont, he entered every single hill climb event in the 1955 season. The car did well but struggled against Porsche’s own specialized models, which the company itself entered in the season to dominate the 1.5l category and grow its brand in the Swiss market. Undeterred, Monteverdi decided that he would try again in 1956, after converting his own engine to a 1.3l to race a category below where he would stand a better chance. An impossible task to most, this was too easy for the autodidactic skills he’d built over his teenage years. Through Tragedy, From Tractors to Sports Cars Before the season began though, tragedy hit the Monteverdi family. Rosolino had taken suddenly ill. A malignant brain tumor was diagnosed, and before the week was out, he was dead. Peter, just 22, realized the family’s fate now rested on his shoulders. He essentially had no choice but to take over the family business, which Rosolino had nurtured from simple shed to respectable, modern—and large workshop. This came with a cost. It needed to be paid for, mortgage payments, upkeep, day-to-day business. While the garage ticked over in trade, the family was cash poor. This was the Monteverdi family’s only true asset of wealth. Young Monteverdi weighed up his options, and took the workshop in his own direction—moving from repairing tractors and machinery to tuning sports and luxury cars. A clean slate, the beginning of a legacy. The business got off to a promising start, with word of mouth spreading about the Garage Monteverdi. Before long, the country’s first true sports car owners —for the industry in Switzerland was still in its infancy–were bringing their cars to him. With the business up and running, Peter turned his attention back to hill climbs. In his mind, a reputation as a racer would only help his business’ reputation, while of course the young man would be continuing his true ambitions of becoming a star of the racing world. The restored Monteverdi Garage on Oberwilerstrasse in Binningen, 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz As he had planned, the now 1.3l Porsche more than held its own fighting a weight class down. A 5th place finish at the Steinholtz hill climb showed promise—and finally a 1st place at Kandersteg was the crowning moment. Young Monteverdi was getting noticed. A feature in Automobil Revue magazine put him on the map. Pausing for thought to weigh up the next step, he decided one simple thing—he would need a faster car. Falling for Ferrari He drove to a Chrysler dealership in Bern having gotten wind of a very special car being traded in. He left his Porsche there that day and drove home in a Ferrari. A 1953 3L Mille Miglia Coupe. He was still just 22 years old. Indeed, he was almost laughed out of the dealership when he asked about the car, until they saw his Porsche and decided to take him a little more seriously. Monteverdi knew he was taking a risk. The Ferrari was not in top condition—the clutch was harsh and it bellowed blue fumes, but he was captivated. It was arguably the first illogical, purely romantic decision of his life (aside from his desire to race cars). He’d traded in a perfectly reliable and high-performing Porsche for a temperamental Ferrari. On a mountain pass from Bern to his home near Basel, one of the two distributors that powered the 2 banks of 6 cylinders broke. He drove home on six cylinders, and proudly took his mother for a drive in his new Ferrari before getting started on repairs. Bold Ambitions & Opening Gambits Peter Monteverdi with his Ferrari 3-Litre Mille Miglia - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz The Ferrari would cause headache after headache, but never true heartache. It was a labor of love. Indeed, it was a mechanical problem that led to a moment that would define Monteverdi’s career. Defective Ferraris, after all, need new parts. And parts need to be distributed. Switzerland had just a single Ferrari agent in Bern. Peter Monteverdi racing his Ferrari Mille Miglia in Rheinfelden, 1956 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz After hauling the car back across the french border following an ill-fated tour to Paris and a busted valve under the Champs-Elysee, he dissected the car, and removed the damaged piston. Knowing full well that the future would bring the need for many more repairs and spare parts, the bold young man wrapped the piston up, placed it in the back of the car, started it up and made for Maranello—the home of Ferrari. “Why not go right to the source?” he reasoned. And while there, why not pitch the idea of his Binningen workshop becoming Switzerland's newest Ferrari dealership? He was confident that if they could excuse his age and just hear him talk shop—technical features, specs, granular details—and of course see him in the Ferrari that he himself owned, they would at least hear him out. Piston in hand, the earnest young man addressed the security guard, and pleaded his case. The next morning, he was meeting Signor Gardini, Head of Sales at Ferrari. Gardini presented him with every spare part he’d requested, and even better, took him on a tour of the works at Maranello. And so began a careful game of cat and mouse. Even the bold young man knew that he couldn’t blithely ask for a franchise as a Ferrari dealer in Binningen. And so he played his opening gambit. Could he buy a sports racing car? Indeed he could, was the response. A brand new Second Series, 4 cylinder, 2 liter Testa Rossa Roadster was just about to arrive. And if he were to buy it, he enquired, what chance would there be of attaining a franchise in Switzerland? The response was cryptic but not impossible to follow—without buying the car, there's no chance of the dealership. Here he was, on the cusp of owning not just a sports racing Ferrari, but owning the preeminent Ferrari dealership in an entire country at the age of 22. Indeed, were he to succeed, he would become the world’s youngest Ferrari dealer. Finding A Way The obstacle in his path, however, was the 43,000 Swiss Francs he’d been informed as the price for the Testa Rossa. Monteverdi drove home with plenty to ponder, and a problem to puzzle over. He needed to make more money. He needed to spend more money to make that. And the more he invested, the less he would have, and the smaller the chance of becoming a Ferrari dealer (and Testa Rossa owner). Impressive as the tuning shop was, it could only fit two cars. And as impressive as Monteverdi’s skill was, he could only work so many hours. So, he decided to kill two birds with one stone. He would scale up the garage, hire help, and while he was at it, he’d buy the damn Testa Rossa. It’d just take some bending of the truth to do it. In his discussion with the bank for a loan to expand the garage, he tacked on a few extra tens of thousands of Swiss Francs. With the business turning over nicely, the bank paid out, and in the autumn of 1956, work began. By winter he would have a modern, six car garage, complete with electrical power tools. The little tractor workshop had come some way, and Monteverdi had gone some way to funding the purchase of the Testa Rossa. Peter Monteverdi on his new Ferrari Testa Rossa, 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz During the renovations, he made a number of trips to the Modena test track to meet Gardini. Somewhere between a test drive for the would be customer, and a test of the would be dealer, these meetings held incredible importance. Ferrari were not willing to let Monteverdi represent their brand if he proved unfit to handle their cars. And so, under the guise of taking both the Testa Rossa and the bigger, more powerful—and more tempestuous— 3 liter, 4 cylinder Monza, Gardini secretly appraised the young Swiss man’s skill behind the wheel. Peter Monteverdi in Modena, 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Before the year was done, Monteverdi made another trip to Modena, still in his Mille Miglia GT coupe, to iron out any finer points in his dealership pitch. When he left that day, a deal had been struck. For his purchase of the Testa Rossa, he would not only own a Ferrari dealership, he would own the distributorship for the entire county of Switzerland (save for the existing Bern dealership). He sold the Mille Miglia, purchased the Testa Rossa, made sure to spend an extra few days testing it on the track (he did, after all, still harbor ambitions to race) and so began a new chapter of Automobil MONTEVERDI. A Racer Is Born In April 1957, Monteverdi obtained his racing license in quite some style. With three new white stripes added to the Testa Rossa, the car stood out from the crowd as truly Swiss amidst an international glut of would-be racers at the Monza circuit during an FIA-affiliated race driver’s course. Monteverdi’s fervour had seen him register for the course before anyone else, and so the car also sported the number 1. Peter Monteverdi and his mechanic, ready to race the Ferrari Testa Rossa, 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz With his freshly obtained license, and having impressed none other than Karl King during the course, Monteverdi now dreamed of being a Ferrari works driver. But the higher powers would need some convincing. He elected to give the 1957 season his best, and see how far it might take him. Meanwhile, he also had the not small task of getting his new business off the ground. A Ferrari dealership had to sell Ferraris after all. He started wisely, offering a brand new 250 GT to an old racing colleague at cost price. Then a few weeks later, he sold his first at list price. Once again, the young man showed he was the master of the opening gambit… But these aims ran parallel to one another in Monteverdi’s mind, just as they had years before. The more he raced, and won, in his Testa Rossa, the more demand would grow, and the more customers he would have. Ups, Downs & Ups At the end of April, he shocked onlookers as he qualified in second place at a race in Aspern, Vienna. On race day, he flew into an early lead, the Testa Rossa broadsiding wildly all over the track as it roared from the starting line. As before, Monteverdi’s racing was the opposite of his mechanical skill—all heart and guts, with a deficiency of composure. He was soon overtaken by the renowned Willy-Peter Daetwyler. Not to be put off, Monteverdi floored the Testa Rossa and became embroiled in a 4 way battle for pole position. Daetwyler ahead, two more Testa Rossas breathing down his neck. In the heat of the dogfight, Monteverdi spun off the track, before coming to a stop facing 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Peter Monteverdi racing the Ferrari Testa Rossa in Wien-Aspern. 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz With no damage done, and adrenaline pumping, he rejoined the race and little by little, pulled himself back into 4th position, where he would finish. Not a bad return to the track. It may not have been the result he wanted, but it came with all the thrills that seduce race car drivers into the life in the first place. Months later, Monteverdi faced stiffer competition at the Belgium and Spa-Francorchamps, with a number of full-time professional drivers, including Tony Brooks and Colin Chapman, joining the ranks. The qualifying laps were a bitter pill to swallow–he could not keep up no matter how he tried. When the starting flag fell and the real race began, he quickly found himself completely alone, his rivals disappearing into the distance. No longer in a fight for position, Monteverdi felt a strange freedom. He was free to focus on technique and skill, to just enjoy the ride and make it out alive. Still only 23, Monteverdi had lost close friends to racing, and it dawned on him that he was but a mistake away from meeting his end at all times. Guts and heart could get him pretty far, but they could also get him killed. And so over the remaining laps, he set himself a new goal—not to win but to get better, race more smoothly, and simply try to finish within visible distance of the leading group. This newfound serenity began to pay out right away. Within just a few laps he’d not only gained ground… having glided past car after car, calculated in his movements and consistent in his technique, he’d driven himself back into second place! With victory in sight, his blood and thunder instincts kicked back in, albeit tempered, and so began the hunt. Then inexplicably, while cresting a hill at 160 kmh, the front windshield collapsed and flew off the car, leaving the exposed driver battling the full force of the wind. Just like in Aspern, the car spun off track, landing in a ditch. But as luck would have it, he at least settled in the ditch facing in the right direction this time. Undeterred by the wind, he went back to work, back to that balancing act of cold-blooded technique and fire-in-the-belly determination. In a race filled with reputed professional drivers, he finished in fourth place. With his self belief validated, Monteverdi committed to the rest of the season with full force (within financial and work-bound reason), even driving at Nürburgring 1000 km in May, with Karl Foitek. The following week, he took his momentum to new heights at the slalom in Campione. Peter Monteverdi racing the Ferrari Testa Rossa in Campione. 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz His first race that would count towards the Swiss Championship, the tight, windy obstacle course would take more finesse than speed. This would be all driver-skill, no engine output. Not to mention, the weather was wet and slippery, and Willy-Peter Daetwyler was back in town. But there was no need to fret. Monteverdi raced the perfect race, and finished first by a distance—three seconds ahead of Daetwyler. The Monza Upgrade & The Racing Addiction A burgeoning reputation led to a boom in business. Monteverdi was living his dream. But the competition in racing was fierce, and only getting tougher. Not only was Daetwyler on his list of rivals, so too was a certain Heinrich “Heini” Walter, a fearsome Porsche driver from Monteverdi’s own stomping ground, Basel Land. If he was going to be Swiss Champion, he was going to have to win a lot of hill climbs. But that required power. The 2l Testa Rossa was an elite car, but it didn’t have the power to keep up with Daetwyler’s 3l Monza. So he simply decided to buy one himself. With Ferrari having recently displaced the Monza at the head of its arsenal with a 3 liter V12 Testa Rossa, Monteverdi went on the hunt for a used Monza at good value for money. He found just that in Geneva—a 1955 model of the 750 Monza— but not before sending the Testa Rossa off in style with a 6th place finish at the international hill climb in Schauinsland in the German Black Forest. On the 1st of August, with a full tank of fuel and a lot less money in his pocket, Monteverdi drove his new Monza home from Geneva, and started preparing for the 1958 season. Peter Monteverdi with the Ferrari Monza 3-Liter in Modena 1956 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the obstinate Monteverdi was as unyielding as ever in his goal of being the Swiss racing champion. Nothing in his life thus far would suggest a swaying of emotion, or any fear or doubt. But in truth, he was beginning to wonder if his racing ambitions were no more than a pipe dream. He could justify his racing by saying it brought him new customers. But for every race, he and his mechanic at Automobil MONTEVERDI would close up and disappear for a week at a time, killing any potential profit. And then there was the creeping fear of meeting a swift and horrible end. Before every race, waiting for the flag to drop, he confessed to wondering if he’d even make it out alive. Then the race would begin, the engine would roar, the smell of burning rubber and hot oil would envelope his senses, and he’d dive once more into the breach. In short, he was addicted. And who could possibly blame him. The Danger of Temptation And as any addict can attest to, there’s nothing quite like temptation. Still enthused by the notion of being a member of the Ferrari works team, he travelled again to Modena to test drive a new 750 Monza—one of the last ever—which was in its final stages of completion. Having not even tested his own Monza on the track, Monteverdi hopped in the new one and, to everyone’s shock, set times equal to the team’s best drivers. Impressed by his marked improvement, Gardini offered that there may be an opening for a reserve driver, but it was slim. And if he were going to drive a car like that again, he’d need to own a car like that. But price wise, it was out of the question. Over the next few months, Monteverdi determined to impress the Ferrari higher-ups with his skill alone, and focused on getting results in hill climbs. His efforts proved disastrous. At Gaisberg in August—known for its tight hairpin turns—he elected to drive his Monza instead of the more nimble Testa Rossa he still owned. His confidence that he could handle its weight well enough to reap the rewards of its power was grossly misplaced, and he finished well behind Daetwyler. Constantly committed to improvement, Monteverdi stuck at it, learning to keep the Monza under control at wild speeds, and clocking better and better times. At a hill climb in The Grisons, he even managed a 5th place finish, in the company of Daetwyler, Hans Herrmann, and the famous Wolfgang von Trips. The Crashes, The Booms & The Rejections Alas, accidents and hurt are just about inevitable for anyone who pushes themselves and their cars to the brink, and while he had thus far evaded tragedy, he would soon have more than one brush with it. In September 1957, at the hill climb of Martigny-La Forclaz, he clipped a photographer standing beyond the safe zone, right in his driving line. Somehow, the photographer emerged relatively unscathed bar a few sprains and bumps, while Monteverdi got away with a damaged knee and bloody face. The Monza, a badly damaged side. Then in Alsace, the hastily repaired Monza suffered a steering loss in a hairpin turn and flew off the wet track. He was dragged from the cockpit, unable to move at all. Paralyzed completely, he demanded to be checked out of the local hospital and taken home to Basel. On a stretcher in the back of his mechanic’s Citroen DS 19, he made his way back home to be diagnosed with a broken pelvis. While he healed up, he focused on business, electing to renovate and upscale his garage once again, selling the Testa Rossa to part fund the operation. In 1958, Monteverdi made another trip to Maranello, this time with hopes of fulfilling his lifelong dream of being named on the team. After building a respectable racing reputation and proving his skills, not to mention his exploits in the Monza, he thought his moment had arrived. But the answer from Signor Gardini was a polite but firm "no." Gardini explained, “I have attended too many funerals of good friends who have driven for us.” While this seemed like a concern for Monteverdi’s safety, the truth likely had more to do with business. Ferrari couldn’t afford to lose their only dealer in Switzerland. For Monteverdi, this was a crushing blow. The dream he had worked tirelessly toward was now out of reach. Still, Monteverdi resolved to continue racing privately. But with money tied up in his expanding garage business and the sale of his Testa Rossa to fund renovations, he decided to also sell his Monza. Unfortunately, the Monza was already on the brink of being outdated. With Ferrari introducing a 3-liter Monza V12, buyers were unlikely to invest in the older 4-cylinder model. Monteverdi, however, had other plans for the car. A Glorious & Unexpected Return Rather than sell the Monza as it was, Monteverdi transformed it into one of the world’s fastest GT cars. With the help of Dr. Alfred Hopf, who had purchased Monteverdi’s Mille Miglia GT Coupe earlier, he created the Ferrari-Monteverdi 750 GT. The Monza received a brand-new steel body, complete with gullwing doors, and an array of features to make it suitable for road use. These included a quieter, more road-friendly exhaust system, a handbrake, power brake systems, and even a heating and ventilation system. The Monteverdi 750 GT, 1958 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz The 750 GT’s debut coincided with a significant personal milestone for Monteverdi. At Ferrari’s annual press conference in Modena, Enzo Ferrari himself awarded Monteverdi a medal for being the best private Ferrari driver of the year. It was an ironic twist, considering Monteverdi had attended the event reluctantly, knowing it would focus on Ferrari’s racing plans—plans that no longer included him. Peter Monteverdi receives the golden Ferrari lapel badge in Modena, 1957 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Monteverdi’s return to racing wasn’t limited to hill climbs and GT events. He made his debut in single-seater racing, piloting a Cooper-Norton F3 at the Ollon-Villars hill climb, where he finished third. To cap it all off, he claimed victory at the Mitholz-Kandersteg hill climb in his own Ferrari-Monteverdi 750 GT. Peter Monteverdi racing the 750 GT at the Mitholz – Kandersteg hill climb, 1958 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Back to Business Despite his racing successes, Monteverdi began to face challenges in his business. Ferrari’s decision to sign direct contracts with Swiss dealerships effectively ended Monteverdi’s monopoly as the sole importer. No longer the exclusive Ferrari distributor in Switzerland, he had to rethink his strategy. Racing had become a financial drain, and Monteverdi decided to sit out the following season to focus on expanding his garage and building a stronger business foundation. Monteverdi didn’t abandon racing entirely. He experimented with other cars, including a Maserati 750 and even test drove a Formula 1 Maserati under the watchful eye of Guerino Bertocchi, Maserati’s chief mechanic. During the test drive, Monteverdi pushed the car so hard that the driveshaft sheared, tearing a hole in the car’s body! Peter Monteverdi with the Maserati Grand Prix 250 F in Modena, 1959 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz And on his 25th birthday, he celebrated by competing again in the Nürburgring 1000km race, partnering with Karl Stangl in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. The duo finished third in their category, further cementing Monteverdi’s reputation as a versatile and skilled driver. Peter Monteverdi at the start of the 1000 km race Nürburgring, 1959 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz The Birth of MBM Monteverdi’s racing ambitions took a new turn with the demise of his Ferrari relationship, and the subsequent creation of MBM. Interestingly, the name would have three meanings over the years; Monteverdi Basel Mantzel, then Monteverdi Basel Mitter (after Gehrard Mitter, his next partner), and finally, after going it alone— Monteverdi Basel Motoren). His goal was to design and build single-seaters that could compete in Formula Junior and Formula 3 categories. In partnership with ingenious mechanic Albrecht-Wolf Mansel, MBM Sport emerged as a dedicated racing arm, producing lightweight, high-performance cars powered by engines from DKW. Peter Monteverdi in a DKW Formula Junior at the Schauinsland hill climb, 1959 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Monteverdi himself raced these cars, achieving respectable results in hill climbs and circuit events, even finishing in second place (behind rival Heini Walter) at the slalom in Dübendorf. Later models, once Monteverdi had parted ways with Mansel, were powered by Ford Anglia, OSCA, and in the case of the MBM Formula 1, Porsche. It was in this MBM Formula 1 that Monteverdi made his one and only F1 Grand Prix appearance—at Solitude race course near Stuttgart. It lasted two laps before a defective clutch forced his retirement. Peter Monteverdi and the MBM Formel 1 in Monza, 1961 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz From Racer to Manufacturer As Monteverdi’s racing career began to wind down, his focus shifted toward manufacturing road cars. In 1964, he’d become the official Swiss sales representative for BMW, in turn ceding the licenses to sell Lancia, Jensen, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley that he’d won in the years prior. Between BMW and Ferrari, business was booming. But it wasn’t enough to scratch the creative itch. He hadn’t built a car in more than three years, and an idea for a new MBM GT was beginning to consume him. In 1965, he received the perfect motivation to bring the idea to reality. A directive from Ferrari informed all Swiss dealers that they were expected not just to hit better sales numbers, but from here on out, pay in advance for spare parts, and deal with a newly appointed Swiss sales rep in Geneva. It only took ten days for Monteverdi to make his move. He decided to go it alone. And so began the chapter of his life that’s best documented. In 1967, he introduced the 375 series, a line of luxury GT cars that combined Italian styling with American powertrains. Collaborations with renowned designers such as Pietro Frua and Fissore resulted in striking designs that appealed to wealthy clientele. The launch of the 375 S Frua - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz The launch of the 375 S Frua - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz The 375L and 375S models featured powerful Chrysler V8 engines, luxurious interiors, and exceptional performance, establishing Monteverdi as a serious player in the luxury car market. The Monteverdi 375 L High Speed - Photography by Paolo Carlini for SpeedHolics The Hai 450 SS, introduced in 1970, was another bold statement from Monteverdi. This mid-engine GT car featured aggressive styling and a 7-liter Chrysler V8, making it one of the fastest cars of its time. While production numbers were limited, the Hai cemented Monteverdi’s reputation as a builder of exclusive, high-performance automobiles—a legacy still appreciated today by true SpeedHolics, if not widely recognized by the general public. Monteverdi Hai 450 GTS 1973 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Onyx Formula 1, The Death of Peter Monteverdi & A Lasting Legacy No mid-late 20th century automotive visionary's story would be complete without a foray into Formula 1. Monteverdi’s came in 1989, when he acquired the Onyx Grand Prix team along with his old friend and partner Karl Foitek, just over 30 years after they’d raced the Nürburgring 1000km. While the venture was short-lived, ending the following season, the team did achieve a notable 3rd place finish in the Portuguese Grand Prix, with the Swede Stefan Johansson behind the wheel. The Team Onyx Monteverdi Formel 1 - Photo Courtesy of Verkehrshaus der Schweiz Monteverdi lived fast, and while he didn’t die particularly young, he wasn’t old when his time came. He was 64 when he passed away from cancer. His final days were spent not in a hospital bed, but in the apartment above his workshop in Binningen. He had come full circle. Today, his legacy lives on through his cars and his contributions to Swiss automotive history. The Verkehrshaus der Schweiz (Swiss Museum of Transport) in Lucerne houses a collection of Monteverdi’s creations, ensuring that his story continues to inspire future generations of car enthusiasts. Peter Monteverdi was more than a racer or a manufacturer. He was somewhere between prize fighter, mad scientist, and cunning strategist—a man who dared to dream big and pursued those dreams with relentless determination. As a racer, he was hot blooded. As an engineer, a problem-solving, highly imaginative visionary, and as a businessman, a cool and calculated strategist —with that passion bubbling just under the surface, fuelling his every move. From his humble beginnings in Binningen, through his never-say-die spirit as a race car driver, to his status as the last Swiss luxury carmaker, Monteverdi’s journey is a testament to perseverance, ingenuity, and the power of a father who would punch a bully in the face for his son. -- SpeedHolics would like to thank the Verkehrshaus of Lucerne (the Swiss Museum of Transport) for making available the two cars featured in this article. The Monteverdi High Speed 375L (chassis no. 3126) was later reacquired by Monteverdi and repainted. The 375/4 (chassis no. 2059), on the other hand, has always remained the property of the company. The steering wheel is part of the specific configuration originally requested by Peter for this particular car. Each vehicle was, in fact, built according to the specifications provided by the customer, demonstrating that individuality was very important to Monteverdi.

Medieval architecture and Baroque frescoes, castles and churches. And a bouquet of international festivals blending art and creativity, set against the romantic and sophisticated lake backdrop Words Alessandro Giudice Photography Alessandro Barteletti Video Andrea Ruggeri Swiss Grand Tour is a project to discover itineraries driving classic Alfa Romeo cars, in partnership with Astara, the distributor and importer of the Brand in Switzerland. Canton Ticino Route from Bellinzona to Ascona and back Distance 80 km Travel time 2h Driving pleasure 3/5 Panorama 4/5 With its distinctive personality, so different and yet complementary to those of the other large towns in the canton, Lugano is a cosmopolitan crossroads of international business. Set against the sparkling background of the lake of the same name, Bellinzona is peaceful and reserved, nestling in the green hills. The capital of Ticino is defined by its splendid architectural features: three spectacular castles and medieval walls that make it a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, as well as the characteristic network of narrow pedestrian streets leading to small and large squares. [click to watch the video] (Map by Sansai Zappini) Also for these reasons, we chose Bellinzona as the starting point for an itinerary through some of the most interesting areas of Canton Ticino, as far as the northern banks of Lake Maggiore, which Switzerland shares with Italy. Accompanying us, two cars representing Alfa Romeo’s past and future: a 1957 Giulia Spider Veloce and a modern Junior in the Special Sport Tech version, progenitor of the Biscione’s electric generation.   Driving the splendid convertible is its proud owner Edwin Navez, manager and businessman, who went as far as Mexico City to buy his Giulia: “I was looking for one of the last spiders made, and I’ve always had a soft spot for the combination of anthracite grey/red bodywork and interiors. As soon as I saw that it had these features, I couldn't let it go." Edwin comes in the Giulia to meet us in Bellinzona on a tepid, early spring day, confirming the extraordinarily mild climate in this part of Switzerland, where the thermometer rarely falls below zero even during the winter.   Due to traffic limitations, it is best to drive round the outer ring of the town, leaving the more characteristic parts of the centre for a pleasurable stroll. For practical reasons, the first stop up a hill passing near the hospital, is at the smallest of the three castles, Sasso Corbaro, at an altitude of 600 metres a.s.l., once used as a prison. Driving down a few bends towards the town, Montebello castle stands on the peak of the hill of the same name, protected by its two drawbridges and castellated walls. From its strategic and panoramic position, it dominates not only the town but also the River Ticino valley to the north-west of Bellinzona. Close to the centre on a rocky ridge, Castelgrande is a fine example of the fortifications that controlled the mountain passes towards Northern Europe, the Nufenen, St. Gotthard and San Bernardino. This control was also assured by the walls, an impressive 800-metre-long bastion connecting the western side of the castle to the gates where the goods passing through were taxed. Returning to the town centre, a stroll towards Piazza Collegiata takes you down Viale Stazione, Bellinzona’s busiest and most famous road, from where you can admire the church and the attractive buildings. From here we continue to the nearby Piazza Noceto and Palazzo Civico, and, passing by the obelisk in Piazza Indipendenza and Via Dogana, we reach Piazza del Governo. Leaving the centre, towards the cemetery, you can admire Santa Maria delle Grazie, a fifteenth century church adorned with colourful frescoes, the most important of which is a “Crucifixion” by an unknown artist and others partly attributed to the schools of Jacques Courtois and Ferrari. From here, we head out along Via Cantonale towards Giubiasco, not a particularly interesting main road but perfect for reaching the tip of Lake Maggiore in Minusio and, from there, on to Locarno.   Not only an attractive holiday spot, Locarno also offers an interesting range of cultural events and recreational activities. One of these is the renowned International Film Festival, calling directors and actors from all over the world to one of Switzerland's most important happenings. In July, the festival is preceded by Moon&Stars, a series of musical events with concerts by some of the most famous musicians on the international scene today. These two events are both hosted in the same place in the town, the renaissance-style Piazza Grande, Locarno's beating heart surrounded by buildings and arcades with a selection of bars, restaurants and shops with alleys leading through the historical centre, to Visconti Castle and other sites. In addition, the Camellia Park is home to the exhibition that brings fragrances and colours to the lake with its magnificent flowers in the spring. Just a few miles separate Locarno from Ascona, which is “the place to be”, according to Edwin Navez. A small yet picturesque town with a lakeside promenade edged with lush plants and pastel-coloured houses, with its mild climate Ascona is a refined, highbrow tourist destination, as well as the home to one of Europe’s major jazz festivals, held between June and July of each year. To reach our next destination, we return to Locarno and from there climb up Via ai Monti to the peak of the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso, a famous religious complex renowned for its visiting pilgrims. Parking here, it takes just a few minutes to walk down to the monastery and the sanctuary which, built on a rocky outcrop, offer a breath-taking view of the lake, before visiting the Baroque church with its frescoes and wood and terracotta statues.   Returning towards Bellinzona, at Gordola we take a left turn towards Lavertezzo. Climbing a few miles, we reach the Contra dam, built in 1960 to close the river Verzasca, which gives its name to the valley. An interesting fact: the dam starred in one of the first scenes of the 1995 007 film “Golden Eye”.   The road running along the artificial Vogorno lake is pure driving pleasure, with a succession of fast stretches and tunnels. This is more than enough reason to take a diversion off the main route, also considering the nature and architecture to be admired in Lavertezzo, with its famous two-arched Medieval Roman bridge crossing the river Verzasca, where its waters are an extraordinary shade of emerald. Returning to Gordola, the road to Bellinzona crosses the vineyards where excellent Terre di Gudo wines are made in this municipality which was annexed to the town in 2017. A perfect opportunity for a “wine cellar fuel stop”, for once without having to choose between thermal and electric fuel. THE COLLECTOR: Edwin Navez The "Giulia Spider 1600 Veloce" The Giulia Spider has always been the car of my dreams: it has all the charm of a convertible Alfa Romeo but with spectacular engine performance. The one I bought fits that dream perfectly. A Giulia, so the second series after the Giulietta; in the Veloce version, with a 113 HP engine, disc brakes on the front wheels, anthracite grey bodywork and red seats. I had been looking for one all over the place, then I found one at a dealer in New York. When I got in touch to make an appointment, he told me that the car was actually in Mexico City. Thinking that it really didn't make much difference between that and the States, I set off for Mexico. The car was perfect, it had already been registered as a historical car in Mexico (and I left the “veiculo historico” sticker on the right-hand deflector) and had it shipped to Europe in a container.  The Modern Alfas What I like about modern Alfa Romeos is their character, which expresses a clean line, a chassis that lives up to the expectations of any Alfa fan and excellent engines, especially the Quadrifoglio versions. Moving into the electric world seems to me to be more to meet regulatory needs than the wish of Alfa Romeo. I have been driving electric cars for years, with great pleasure, and I hope that, no longer driven by combustion engines, the new Alfas can maintain the style and performance that created the Biscione legend.

For Giovanni Michelotti, the motorcar always symbolised freedom. But as he often remarked, it was also “the most widespread legalised weapon in the world.” This awareness accompanied him throughout his career and made safety—both active and passive—a core principle in his approach to automotive design. Words by Edgardo Michelotti Photos and Drawings: Archivio Storico Michelotti www.archiviostoricomichelotti.it Safety and visibility: pioneering ideas for everyday cars Although my father designed elegant and sporty cars, he was never attracted to supercars. He only created one, the “Laser”, based on the Matra M530, unveiled at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. He considered them unsuitable for daily use: too low, with poor visibility, overly large, and often not road legal.Instead, he preferred to focus on innovative vehicles for urban use. As early as the 1950s and 60s, he patented several solutions aimed at improving road safety. Among them, an antenna-mounted red brake light positioned on the roof, to make emergency braking visible even to vehicles not directly behind. He also added lateral brake lights, in addition to turn indicators — an idea he applied to the Osca 1600 Coupé shown in Geneva in 1961.That same vehicle also featured an original pagoda-style roof, raised along the doors to improve access and aerodynamics. Initially criticised by French journalist Alain Bertaut, this solution was adopted two years later by Mercedes-Benz on the 230 SL. As I wrote in a previous piece, Bertaut later publicly acknowledged my father’s priority in the design. The first airbag in the world? In 1964, my father addressed a problem that at the time had received little attention: how to protect the front passenger in the event of a collision. Unlike the driver, the passenger had no steering wheel to hold on to. From this concern came an innovative dashboard, with all instruments placed in front of the driver and, on the passenger side, padding made of mattress springs designed to absorb impact. This solution was applied to a Japanese prototype, the Hino Contessa 1300 Coupé  — and could be considered a forerunner of the modern airbag. Considering pedestrians, too In 1967, he designed a one-off model based on the DAF 55 , named Siluro , featuring a sharply tapered front end to reduce impact surface area in the event of a pedestrian collision. This car is still preserved today at the DAF Museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Aerodynamics and wind tunnel testing Aerodynamics was another key focus of his work. The Triumph Le Mans , developed in 1961 on commission from Standard Triumph, with mechanicals by Virgilio Conrero, was likely one of the first cars to be tested in the wind tunnel at the Polytechnic University of Turin, which had just opened in 1958. Data was collected on graph paper and plotted with great care. Shock-absorbing bumpers With the introduction of polyurethane resins in the early 1970s, my father developed shock-absorbing bumpers , designed to deform and protect the bodywork in the event of an impact. The “resins” department within his coachbuilding facility was highly advanced at the time, and many prototypes featured these solutions: the Fiat 128 Coupé Pulsar , Fiat 132 Coupé Flares , the Ferrari 365 GTC4 Spiaggetta  built for Willy Felber, the Fiat 126 City Car , the Hillman Paykan Coupé  for an Iranian client, the Lancia Beta Mizar , several Felber models, and a number of Ferrari 365 GTB/4s  produced for Luigi Chinetti. Urban mobility and vision for the future Urban mobility was a recurring theme in his thinking. I recall a 1978 concept involving split rear wheels — a project that never came to life due to his untimely passing in January 1980.Among his final significant creations was the Fiat 127 Every4R , developed in collaboration with the magazine Quattroruote : a car designed for young people, with a modular body — summer/winter — made up of easily interchangeable panels. The prototype was presented in Turin in 1978. There are many more urban vehicles that came from his pencil, which I will explore on another occasion. For now, I will simply note how, alongside his taste for design, there was always a deep concern for safety, technical progress, and the human aspect.er maintained a consistent focus on safety, technical progress, and the human being. About the author Edgardo Michelotti: Born in 1952, I hold a diploma as a surveyor and pursued a degree in Architecture in Turin. I began working alongside my father in 1973 until his illness and passing in early 1980. I continued his work until 1991, when I transitioned away from the automotive industry. For the next 15 years, I focused on industrial design, while also engaging in photography and archival digitization from 2003 to the present. This allowed me to manage an extensive archive, including the specific cataloging and complete digitization of approximately 6,000 graphic units, 20,000 photographs, 7,000 kg of full-scale design plans, as well as scale models, tools, correspondence, and periodicals. The archive spans over three decades, covering the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

Words Arturo Merzario Photography Centro Documentazione Alfa Romeo The cowboy racing driver goes back in time half a century, telling the story of the glorious World Championship when Carlo Chiti's Alfa Romeo won with him at the wheel of the 33TT12. A story triggered a couple of years earlier by an incredible series of events that took place in Maranello To tell you how I ended up at Alfa Romeo, we have to take a leap back a few years. In 1969, I had signed a four-year contract with Ferrari to work both on the Formula 1 and on the Prototypes. Mauro Forghieri was technical director. An excellent engineer and designer, but in late 1972 we were testing a Formula 1 single-seater with loads of problems. The 312 B3 was nick-named “Spazzaneve” – the snow plough – due to the specially shaped front that resembled one… It was instantly clear that it would never have been competitive, and the first to pay the consequences of this was Forghieri himself, who found himself relegated to a dusty office in the old headquarters in Via Trento e Trieste, Modena. The Fiat management demanded that a new technical team took over in Maranello, captained by Sandro Colombo. Colombo decided to abandon the classic Ferrari steel trellis chassis structure, adopting a more modern monocoque made in England by John Thompson's TC Prototypes. It was all fine on paper, but not in practice. After the first three GPs with the 312 B2 from the previous season with some parts updated, they went to Spain with just one available B3 “Monocoque”. It was assigned to my team mate, the Belgian Jacky Ickx, who came in last, six laps behind Emerson Fittipaldi in a Lotus. Mine was ready for Montecarlo, but both Jacky and I were forced to withdraw. An absolute disaster that continued into the following races, and indeed in the Netherlands and in Germany the decision was taken to not participate in the race. I went to talk to Enzo Ferrari. I was one of the very few who enjoyed the very honest relationship we had. I think he appreciated it, because he realised that I only had Ferrari’s interests at heart. Moral of the story, I convinced him to give Forghieri a chance to work on a new single-seater. In early August, Mauro, a couple of mechanics and I set off for Zeltweg in a Fiat 124 Estate, towing the B3 behind us. We did endless tests and made a few changes. The result was that in the next Austria Grand Prix I clocked the sixth fastest time, a second behind Fittipaldi, and crossed the finishing line in seventh place. We had taken a step forward, but at the next race in Monza I announced that at the end of the season I would stop racing with Ferrari. In fact, I think that I actually made the decision that the “Commendatore” would have taken only slightly later, considering that my contract was expiring and that the Italian Grand Prix was usually the time when drivers and teams switched around ahead of the new year. Ickx was also let go by Ferrari. Taking our places were Clay Regazzoni, a Maranello veteran, and the very young Niki Lauda, and they found themselves driving an even better honed version of the B3 that Forghieri and I had finally made competitive. But that’s another story. Less than an hour after the news broke of my separation from Ferrari, the home phone in Modena where I lived at the time wouldn’t stop ringing. For the Formula 1 races, I made contact with BRM, as that was where both Regazzoni and Lauda had come from and so there were two free places. It would have been another great story to tell, but the team manager, Tim Parnell, was very honest with me and told me that in all probability BRM wouldn’t have had the means to complete the next year’s championship. So I signed up with Frank Williams, who at the time managed the Team ISO. Having solved the Formula 1 issue, I still had to find a gig for the Prototypes. I was contacted by Roberto Bussinello from Autodelta, who offered me a place racing with Alfa Romeo, and I accepted, but on condition that I was involved in the car development. And that’s how it went. I gripped the 33 steering wheel for the first time in December 1973, in Balocco, where the tests began. The car was brand new, it had a tubular chassis and had abandoned the old V8 for a 12-cylinder boxer that was very similar to what was already used at Ferrari. I then convinced Carlo Chiti, head of Autodelta, to continue testing in Vallelunga, where I was much more at ease. And besides, in the middle of winter it was a far better solution to be just outside Rome than up in the typical cold and rainy weather of Northern Italy. The car was immediately competitive. At its début at the 1974 Monza 1000 km, Mario Andretti and I came in first place. But that year we didn’t take part in all the races, as we preferred to fine-tune the car, focusing on doing even better the following season. 1975 was a brilliant year. The whole team shared the very same goal: to win the world championship. At the start of the season, in Mugello, I was paired with Ickx: we started in the lead, but during the race we had a technical problem with the brakes. The pads couldn’t cope with the stress of the race. After a few laps I had to stop in the pits to quickly mount a new set of brake pads, losing first place to Jabouille and Larrousse's Alpine Renault. But I reassured Chiti that the rest of the car was competitive. And having solved that problem, at the next race in Dijon there was no contest. The battle was between us Alfa drivers, and we didn't give the other teams the slightest chance. There was me, Henri Pescarolo, Derek Bell, Jacques Laffite, Jackie Ickx, Jochen Mass, Mario Andretti, Vittorio Brambilla… There was also Nino Vaccarella, who took part in the Targa Florio, but that year the race didn’t count for the world championship. In the end we won all the races apart from one, and were World Champions. Not even Porsche and Alpine Renault could keep up with us. What we managed to do was not only a technical and sporting victory, but also a historical event, as for the first time we brought a World win back to Alfa Romeo, after the Formula 1 wins by Nino Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio in 1950 and 1951. But there’s more. The following year, the 33TT12 was replaced by the 33SC12, the same 12-cylinder boxer engine but with a boxed chassis. 1976 was another preparatory year, and in 1977 we won the World title again. I often think of how lucky I was to be a racing driver during one of the greatest car racing periods, working with people of the calibre of Mauro Forghieri and Carlo Chiti. Surly and hot-tempered sure, but genuinely unique men. Absolute geniuses.