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Massimo Grandi brings us into the fascinating history of Giuseppe Furmanik’s Maserati Siluro 4CM Carenato, a record-breaking car in automotive engineering. The article traces the origins of the Maserati 4CM, highlighting its development by the Maserati brothers and its transformation into a speed record challenger. Furmanik's innovative work in aerodynamics and engineering is explored, showcasing how his modifications led to multiple world records. The Maserati Siluro 4CM Carenato exemplifies the blend of scientific principles and aesthetic design in early 20th-century racing. Words and Drawings Massimo Grandi The history of Giuseppe Furmanik's record-breaking Maserati 4cm is profoundly intertwined with the birth of the prestigious Italian brand Maserati. In the early 1920s, the brothers Alfiero and Ernesto Maserati were well-known and esteemed, both as drivers and designers, and in 1922 the prestigious firm Diatto called them to direct its racing team. In 1923, the engineer Giuseppe Coda, Diatto’s director and designer, built 2 experimental 4-litre straight-8 engines, coupling standard Diatto Type 20 blocks. Between 1924 and 1925, under Coda's guide, Alfieri Maserati designed and built a new engine, with a smaller displacement of 1995 cc. This was the first 8C Diatto built by Maserati, an aluminium twin-shaft straight cylinder block with 2 Memini carburettors and a Roots-type compressor. This engine was used in the now-legendary Diatto 8C Grand Prix with compressor, 160 HP and bodywork by Schieppati that saw the light in June 1925. When Diatto withdrew from racing in 1926, ten Type 30 sport chassis, equipped with gears and other mechanical parts, were purchased by the gentleman-driver Marquis Diego De Sterlich who, a huge fan, wanted to give them to the Maserati brothers, convincing them - also with financial help - to set up their own car racing firm, and thus in 1926 Alfieri and Ernesto Maserati set up the historical “Trident” company. The first racing car was named “Tipo 26”, after the year of manufacture. It was driven by a straight-8 1500 cc engine, meeting the new international regulation, and was supercharged by a compressor that produced 120 HP at 5,300 rpm. It was the very first actual Maserati. On 25 April, 1926, the Tipo 26 made its début in the Targa Florio. It was red, the Italian national racing colour, and wore number 5. Alfieri, assisted by the mechanic Guerino Bertocchi, won its class and eighth place overall, even ahead of two Bugattis. Three were made during the first year of production, with chassis numbers 11, 12 and 13. Production of the Tipo 26 continued until 1932, with constant technical improvements and different set-ups. Between the late 1920s and early 30s, racing cars with small engines - the so-called “Voiturette” class, gained popularity in the racing world, especially among private drivers. And so, in 1929 Maserati developed a 1100 cc version of the Tipo 26. Yet compared to the French Salmsone and Amilcar, the car was overweight, so after producing four cars, the Tipo 26C or 8C 1100 was abandoned and Alfieri Maserati started from scratch. One of the main reasons for the excessive weight of the Tipo 26C was the rather large and heavy straight-8 engine. It was replaced with the first 4-cylinder engine, much better suited to the small car. With two overhead camshafts and a Roots-type compressor, the new 1088 cc "quattro" delivered 90 HP. And so, in 1932, the small, single-seater Maserati 4CM was born. The 4CM was produced until 1938, in several series, with engine capacities respectively of 1100, 1500, 2000 and 2500 cc. Giuseppe Furmanik, a key engineer in the Italian racing world and famous driver from Rome, bought a Maserati 4CM 1100 cc in August 1933, #1120. Intending to join the world speed record challenge, Furmanik immediately began to develop the mechanics, and progressively also the body. In the mid-30s, aerodynamics was in its very early stages, and Giuseppe Furmanik's Maserati 4 CM was used as a laboratory car for the new experimental aerodynamic studies. The car developed rapidly as the studies progressed. In 1934, on the Firenze-Mare motorway, Giuseppe Furmanik set a new world flying kilometre record in the 1100cc class, reaching a speed of 222.634 kilometres per hour (over 138 mph), beating the previous record of 207.527 km/h held by MG. The car had not only evolved in its mechanics but above all in terms of aerodynamics. The front had been completely re-designed, reducing the front air intake to an oval opening in the profile of the old grille, now fully integrated into the body. The chassis and front leaf-springs were also hidden inside a shaped fairing. Two years later in Pescara, the car won the standing kilometre record in 27’’38/100 with an average speed of 131.483 and the standing mile in 39’’57/100 average km. 146.415. Twenty days later, on the Firenze-Mare it beat its own records, with the flying start over a kilometre in 14’’42/100 average 249.653 and over a mile in 27’’28/100 average 212.376. It also beat the records in class D with standing start over a kilometre in 23’’865/1.000 average 150.849 and over a mile in 35’’00 at an average speed of km. 165.532. In 1937 Furmanik went even further in his aerodynamic experiments, and at the Viotti Coachbuilders in Turin, designed by Mario Revelli from Beaumont and developed at the Experimental aeronautic research centre in Guidonia, came the Maserati 4CM 1500 LSR (Land Speed Record) more commonly known as the “Maserati Siluro 4CM Carenato". The engine was a Maserati 1495.7 cc (1500). The greater displacement was obtained by changing both the bore and the stroke. The larger engine also demanded a larger compressor and a Weber carburettor. The 4CM 1500 engine delivered 130 or 150 CV depending on the use of the fixed head. The supercharged engine further developed by Furmanik, with a 100 mm stroke and 69 mm bore, with Burgo pistons, reached even 200 CV at 7000 rpm. The original bodywork of the 4 CM was then completely changed, with a practically complete fairing, aiming to create increasingly fluid and continuous lines. A huge stabiliser fin sat at the back. It was designed by Mario Revelli from Beaumont, with the bodywork by Carrozzeria Viotti. The passenger compartment was closed by a dome that made the car look more like a torpedo - siluro in Italian - that gave it the name "Maserati Siluro 4CM Carenato". Even the front brakes were eliminated to lighten the car as much as possible in order to give it more speed. The underlying arrangement of this aerodynamic model was the classic one specified in Jaray’s 1920s patent, with a central body with a longitudinal winged section with a drop-shaped roof. A similar solution had already been adopted for a 1934 Maserati 4CM 1500, based on the design by the German designer Reinhard von Koenig-Fachsenfeld with bodywork by Vetter for the Swiss driver Hans Ruesch. With his Maserati Siluro 4CM Carenato, on 2 and 3 June 1937, on the Firenze-Mare motorway, he beat the class record for the standing start kilometre in 24’’935/1.000 average 144.3, and in the standing start mile in 34’’325/1000 average 168.8 and the flying kilometre in 15’’9/100 with an average of 238.6 km/h. Although he won these two major international records, Furmanik didn’t manage to beat Frank Lockhart’s record on the flying mile. This was a really exceptional record: Lockhart was not only a skilled driver but also a great engineer and manufacturer, who had developed his Miller Perfect Circle 8-cylinder 1.500 cc supercharged engine that delivered 240 HP at 7,500 rpm. In 1927, in California, he covered the flying mile in 21.95 seconds, at a speed of 263.946 Km/hour. Furmanik couldn’t get more than 6400 rpm from his engine, while at full power it was 7000 rpm. This is enough to explain why the attempt to beat the previous record failed. But his attempt did trigger a discussion on aerodynamic efficiency, and so on Furmanik’s Maserati CX and its exposed front wheels with only a rear fairing. As we know, exposed wheels offer higher aerodynamic resistance, and so a full fairing drastically lowers the drag coefficient. Right from the start, they imagined that perhaps with a full fairing, seeing as the Maserati weighed less than Lockhart's Miller at 800 kg, they would have been able to reach higher speeds. In fact, in the original rendering the fairing covered all four wheels, also using disc hubs. This solution was similar to the one adopted by Lockhart for his wonderful 1928 Stutz Black Hawk Special. We do not know why Furmanik opted for this choice, from the period photos of the record attempt on the Firenze-Mare motorway, the car appeared even without any fairing on the wheels. Also in an original Luce film of the event, the car appeared initially with the fairings on the rear wheels, and then racing without them. Whatever Furmanik’s choice of racing with or without the fairings, the original design of this car fitted out by Viotti remains very interesting. It represents an excellent combination of the scientific application of the principles of aerodynamics and aesthetics, seeking an elegantly harmonious model even for a car intended simply to beat a speed record. With its records and its design, Furmanik’s Maserati 4CM undoubtedly wrote a chapter in the history of car racing and car design.

In a region of empty roads winding through the forests, the pleasure of driving blends with the discovery of some charming and, at times, mysterious places. We stumbled upon them at the wheel of a 1969 Junior Zagato 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. This is the only one of the 26 Swiss cantons to have Italian as its only official language. This is why, imagining an itinerary through Ticino, we decided to start from its south-western border with Italy, following the river Tresa, an emissary of Lake Lugano in the municipality of Ponte Tresa which then flows into Lake Maggiore. Ponte Tresa is not only a major border crossing, it is also a lakeside town with beaches and tourist amenities that, in the warmer season, offer visitors a full range of bathing facilities and opportunities. A couple of miles from the town, heading towards Lugano, you reach the municipality of Caslano, a charming and colourful tourism and cultural outpost looking over the water with its characteristic peninsula. Here you can not only surf, swim and sail: there are also some interesting trekking routes on and around Mount Sassalto, a protected natural oasis with a variety of plant species, and then take a tasty break at the Museum & Chocolate Experience Alprose, or a cultural diversion at the Fishing Museum. [click to watch the video] Having explored the area, we start our itinerary from Ponte Tresa, taking Via Cantonale along the right bank of the river Tresa. In contrast to the rather impervious Italian bank, as soon as you leave the town the Ticino coast of the river opens into a large, sun-kissed plane criss-crossed by straight roads linking farms, small businesses and charming villages typical of the border areas, where the lasting presence of two close yet different cultures has created a curious mix of habits and traditions. With the support of Reto Sormani, Alfa Romeo collector and expert of the local area, we wanted the route through this part of Ticino to be marked by driving pleasure, on exhilarating yet possibly quiet roads. A pleasure that was crowned by the agility and power of the car Reto put at our disposal: a bright red 1969 Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato 1300, for the occasion assisted by a really special support car, the 520 HP Giulia Quadrifoglio. The first leg of the tour runs through Sessa, recognisable even from a distance by the size of the bell tower of the San Martino Church, dating back to 1200 and built by the local feudal family Sessa, which took on its current Baroque style in the 15th century. This pretty town has a characteristic urban structure, which has maintained its appeal as an ancient hamlet. Here we also find the Palazzo del Tribunale (Court Building), because, we should remember, Sessa was to all extents and purposes the capital of Malcantone, the region connecting Milan to Lugano and then to Northern Europe. There are several theories behind the name. One states that the strategic and disputed border region was inhabited by both traders and travellers and bandits and criminals, who robbed the wayfarers. Another states that it comes from the rather bad-tempered character of its inhabitants, rough mountain folk: both are sufficient reasons for adding the prefix “mal” (“bad”) to the term “cantone”. Departing from Sessa, the first part of the route runs through the chestnut woods covering the hills. The route runs uphill along wide, well-marked and enjoyable winding roads, where the GT Junior Zagato began to offer all the thrills it is capable of. By one of the bends you will see a minecart, telling of the mining tradition that made Malcantone one of the richest mining regions not only in Switzerland but in the whole of Europe. The minecart is but a clue to the location of the gold mine (along with the local silver mine) which lies a few miles ahead in Costa di Sessa. Following the signs, you will reach the entrance of the mining tunnel, recovered in the last decade and offering interesting guided tours, as well as the first leg of the Mining Park Trail, along which trekking enthusiasts (frequent visitors to Malcantone) can reach other sites telling of the special and somewhat unexpected history and economy of the Confederacy. Like the story of Domenico Trezzini, architect and town planner born in Astano, a village with 300 inhabitants lying three kilometres from Sessa, who studied in Rome and in 1703 was called by the Tzar Peter the Great to help design St Petersburg, the new capital of the Russian Empire. Trezzini, to whom an impressive statue was erected in the Russian city, designed the Summer Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral, curiously the saints after whom the Baroque parish church in Astano, dating back to 1636, is also named. The route then continues on to Novaggio from where, running along the southern face of Mount Lema, reaches Miglieglia. In addition to the modern cable car that leads to the top of the mountain, here you can also visit the beautiful Romanic Church of Santo Stefano al Colle, inside decorated with brightly coloured late-Gothic frescoes: don’t miss this tiny gem. From here on the road becomes quite spectacular, with its harmoniously winding bends and scenic views that appear out of the blue. In Breno, the main town in Upper Malcantone, the beautiful blue and white Casa Cantonale welcomes visitors. Wander round its narrow streets, stop for a tasty meal in one of its “trattorie” and then visit the monumental Church of San Lorenzo, built in the 13th century, renovated two centuries later, its neoclassical façade added in 1912. And talking of religious buildings, the view from the Church of Santa Maria Juvenia, a beautiful complex dating back to the 9th century next to the Iseo cemetery, near Vernate, is quite spectacular. The church can be reached along a short diversion from the route, offering breathtaking view of Lake Lugano and beyond. And here in Vernate we begin to approach the lake. Descending into the valley, on a right-hand bend, take the road to the left towards Bioggio, an alternative scenic route that runs half-way along the hillside. Driving through almost uninhabited ancient hamlets, you will enjoy the genuine simplicity of mountain life, while the architecture of the houses and commercial activities dotted along the road clearly indicate that you are approaching more sophisticated places. Returning to the rhythms of nearby Lugano, marked by the bridge over the A2 motorway leading to the Gotthard Pass, you will drive through Breganzona, Muzzano and then Risciano, towards Agno as far as the left-hand turn towards Figino. This picturesque lakeside town is the point of arrival for this unusual yet appealing itinerary, through a Ticino in which Lugano is the main place of attraction and yet has some unexpectedly wild delights to be discovered amongst the chestnut-covered hills. THE COLLECTOR: Reto Sormani The "Junior Z" I chose the Junior Z for its classic mechanics, with a four-cylinder, twin-cam engine, housed in a unique body. For me, who has always loved Alfa Romeo sedans, it was an extraordinary choice that added some zest to my collection, as well as an investment in a model produced in limited numbers. From a dynamic perspective, I appreciate its exceptional road-holding, thanks to a combination of lightness and power that make it agile and easily manageable. The 90 hp engine, which may not seem like much on paper, performs excellently on a weight that doesn't exceed 1000 kg. It's very responsive to the load, and it's clear that you feel the difference when you have a passenger. However, it's a very enjoyable car and surprisingly fast: on the track, I've reached 180 km/h effortlessly. Not bad for a fifty-year-old car of only 1.3 litres. The Modern Alfas As an ardent Alfista, it's enough for me to get behind the wheel of a modern Alfa to find many things that make it unique and recognizable. I recently spoke with someone from the Centro Stile, and I was struck by the fact that even today, those who work at Alfa Romeo put their heart and passion into it. I have a Giulia that I use every day and a Stelvio Quadrifoglio: then I get behind the wheel of a 2004 GT 3.2 with a manual gearbox, and my heart opens up. Perhaps I am made for slightly old-fashioned, rough Alfa Romeos.

The international charm of a city where contemporary architecture blends with the wonderful views of the lake and the surrounding peaks 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. Among all the Swiss cities, Lugano has a strong and special personality. Its proximity to Italy and the short distance that separates it from Milan have helped develop a lifestyle where a taste for beauty, particularly fashion and design, and cultural opportunities, expressed through a packed calendar of exhibitions and events, have made Lugano the most Mediterranean city in the Confederation, as well as a top financial centre. [click to watch the video] In the light of these considerations, we imagined an intense and “short but sweet” itinerary around Lugano and its lake to take in the scenery. Continuing our exploration of Ticino, which began in the hills of Malcantone, we set out from Figino, a small municipality on the banks of the Ceresio, the point of arrival of our first itinerary through the canton. And here we met Giovanni Poretti, Lugano-born legal expert and economist, who for the tour lent us one of the most valuable pieces in his Alfa Romeo collection: a shiny pastel grey 2600 Coupé Sprint with its long front, ideal for housing the straight-6 engine. All in all, a very classy car and sufficiently glamorous for visiting the sophisticated and picturesque locations along the route. Starting from Morcote, an authentic lakeside gem, we pass through the village following the road keeping the lake on our right. Here the spectacle of the arcades adorning the luxury villas along the lakeside invites us to stop, even just for a refreshing drink while admiring the view across the water, with the Mottarello, Cascolo and Grumello mountains that draw the Italian coastline alongside the bay at Porto Ceresio. The village of Morcote stands on the bank. Strolling around the narrow streets, you take in some interesting architectural details and soak up the relaxing atmosphere; you really must climb the 400 steps at the back to reach the Renaissance church of Santa Maria del Sasso and the oratory next door, devoted to St Anthony of Padua. Right next to these two church buildings are the Scherrer Gardens, one of the amazing creations of Arthur Scherrer, from St Gallen, who in the early 1930s imaged a place that could contain all the wonders he collected on his travels around the world. Open from March to November and known as the “Garden of Wonders” (the naturalistic transposition of the “wunderkammer” that were so fashionable in the 19th century among aristocratic families), the park is home to numerous subtropical plants, bamboo forests and Mediterranean maquis, dotted with art works and reproductions of temples, villas and constructions styled to underline the eastern or western vegetation. Don’t miss it. Returning to the lakeside road, leaving Morcote, turn left up the slopes of Mount Arbostora towards Carona. This is a spectacular and really enjoyable road, even in the rather narrow stretches. The ideal place for making the most of the driving pleasure in a charming and very punchy car like the 2600 Sprint, as well as the technology that keeps the 520 HP of the red Giulia Quadrifoglio accompanying us at bay. It's quite hard to keep your eyes on the road without being distracted by the view, which in some points is absolutely breathtaking! Carona is a hamlet perched at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level, and is considered a neighbourhood of Lugano even though it lies 8 kilometres from the city. It is bursting with artistic expressions, with many houses decorated with sculpted friezes and fine details. The symbol of this pervasive refinery is the frescoed façade of the municipal Loggia and arcade: the building stands next to the church of San Giorgio (where you will also find a large 16th century painting inspired by Da Vinci’s Last Supper), with a bell tower in local pink stone and the sacristy above an arch over the road, all forming a beautiful square at the entrance to the village. Talking of religious buildings, the Madonna d’Onero sanctuary, with its porticoes and Via Crucis in front, occupies the top of the hill just outside the village. Driving downhill from Carona towards Lugano, we come across small hamlets and ancient villas looking over the lake to our left along the route. A large sign stating “Benvenuti al Paradiso” (“Welcome to Paradise”) should not be misconstrued: nothing supernatural, just the boundary with what is considered the most prestigious residential district of Lugano, but which in fact is a municipality in its own right. With its elegant and exclusive contemporary architecture, it is also the departure point of the funicular railway that runs 1660 metres to the top of Mount San Salvatore, a very popular scenic spot with breathtaking views over the lake and the peaks of the highest mountains in Switzerland and Italy. Lugano’s urban development, overseen by some of the greatest names in world architecture, is one of the most inspiring reasons for visiting the city. Starting from the buildings by Mario Botta, internationally renowned Ticino-born archistar which can be admired entering Lugano from Paradiso: the cylindrical Cinque Continenti centre, topped by a metallic structure, or, just outside the city centre in Via Pretorio, the red-brick Palazzo Ransilia, this time topped by a tree. The works of another Ticino-born architect, Ivano Gianola, include the spectacular LAC culture centre, which hosts exhibitions and artistic performances, as well as the MASI - Italian-Swiss Art Museum - , surprisingly built on pillars so as to not hinder the view of the lake. A suggestion: the centre of Lugano is quite compact with a large pedestrian area. It is worth visiting it on foot, maybe starting from the lakeside promenade. Visit the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, next to the LAC, with its wonderful Renaissance fresco by Bernardino Luini “Passion and Crucifixion of Christ”, and enjoy a stroll along Via Nassa, which under the 270-metre-long arcade once used by fishermen to dry their nets, today offers classy shops and boutiques, up to the historical Villa Ciani and its gardens. Back in the car, the itinerary sets off once more from Villa Ciani towards Castagnola, leaving the lake for a few kilometres before finding it again on the right, at Ruvigliana, and on to Aldesago, on the slopes of Mount Brè, which with its 933 metres dominates the eastern part of the city. From here, along 6 kilometres of straight roads and wide sweeping bends, we reach Brè Sopra Lugano (its full name), a small hamlet with stone houses and streets, dotted with frescoes left by numerous artists – from Aligi Sassu to Wilhelm Schmid and Josef Birò – on the houses during their stays there both in summer and winter. From the village, a partially unpaved road leads to the top of the Brè in just a few minutes. In this charming panoramic spot, a terrace looks over Mount San Salvatore and the gulf of Lugano below. Then, looking up across the Alps and Monte Rosa, it springs to mind that perhaps it would really be worth putting up a sign “Welcome to Paradise”. THE COLLECTOR: Giovanni Poretti The "2600 Sprint" Not a particularly famous car, many have never driven it, but this has fuelled its reputation as a car with heavy steering, which is not true, especially when seen with the eyes of today and in relation to the cars of its time. I find it very pleasant to drive, it’s not a light car as it was intended for a certain type of use, a large touring coupé, although some people did try to race it on the track. The 2600 is quite agile, but don't be afraid of its weight (1370 kg) and size (4.58 m long, 2.58 m wheelbase): the engine is sufficiently powerful and has enough torque to be entertaining. I agree with the tests conducted by Road&Track at the time: they said don't worry about entering a bend at high speed, as once it gets in there the 2600 Sprint is stable and safe, and holds the road well, despite the tyres of the time not being what they are today. The Modern Alfas I have always been a car enthusiast, and an Alfa Romeo fan in particular. While I loved all the cars of the 1960s and most of those of the 70s, from then onwards I have noted some kind of increasing banalisation, in the sense that the characteristics of each brand have been lost, in favour of uniform performance. The ties with Alfa Romeo make me like its models more than others. I recovered this respect after all the events that have marked and rather watered down Alfa’s history, but which today place the company in the centre of a development programme that, I hope, will help it to regain those unique features that made it a worldwide driving legend.

Designer Paolo Martin shares the story of his P33 Roadster concept. The P33 Roadster was created shortly after the famous Ferrari Dino Berlinetta Competizione, crafted at Pininfarina. Characterized by sharp lines and edgy contours, this vehicle was an innovative interpretation of the roadster type. Presented at the 1968 Turin Motor Show, the P33 Roadster combined bold stylistic elements and advanced technical solutions, embodying the essence of automotive design of the era. Preface by Gilberto Milano Texts by Paolo Martin Photos and Drawings courtesy of the Paolo Martin Archive Surviving less than three years, it was then destroyed and sacrificed as an organ donor. A decision that forever deprived enthusiasts of the possibility to admire a car that, in its short life, represented more than any other the link between two eras: that of the “curvy” cars typical of the 1950s and ’60s, and the “sharp edges” that were popular from the late ‘60s and throughout the following decade. But that’s how things were in the coachbuilders of the time, whether small or large. It was a shame that the one who paid the price was precisely her, the Alfa Romeo P33 Roadster (the “P” stands for Pininfarina). Two years after being presented at the 1968 Turin Motor Show, she was completely stripped of her bodywork and her chassis was reused for the Alfa Romeo P33 Spider, exhibited by Pininfarina at the Brussels Motor Show in 1971. All that remains of the Alfa Romeo P33 Roadster are a few archive images, the sketches done at the time by the author, Paolo Martin, and his personal notes. You will remember that Paolo Martin revealed to SpeedHolics how this car was born, telling of the behind-the-scenes and its special place in the history of design. It was built on a chassis sent to Pininfarina in 1967, directly from Alfa Romeo after the Milan-based car manufacturer decided to halt the production of the 33 Stradale. This was one of the 18 chassis built for that splendid supercar (designed by Franco Scaglione), of which 50 were originally supposed to be manufactured but which was suspended after the thirteenth to make way for the Montreal, for which too many investments had already been made to give up on the project. After this, Alfa Romeo decided to send the remaining five unused chassis (along with the engines, all 2.0 litre, 230 HP Alfa Romeo V8s) to Italy’s most famous coachbuilders. They were to be used to produce Alfa Romeo-based dream cars to be put on show at the most prestigious international motor shows. And that was exactly what happened. In chronological order, the first coachbuilders to produce a show car on one of the five chassis was Bertone with the Alfa Romeo 33 Carabo designed by Marcello Gandini, exhibited at the Paris Motor Show in October 1968. A month later it was the turn of the car designed by Paolo Martin, which we will talk about here, the Alfa Romeo P33 Roadster, presented by Pininfarina at the Turin show that same year. A few months later, in March 1969, at the Geneva Show, once again Pininfarina showed off his style skills with the Alfa Romeo P33 Coupé Prototipo Stradale, the show car designed by Leonardo Fioravanti, derived from a Ferrari P5 that Enzo Ferrari didn't like and then “camouflaged” as an Alfa Romeo. At the Turin Show in November 1969, it was Giorgetto Giugiaro’s turn to present his idea of a dream car, based on the 33 Stradale chassis, at the Italdesign stand la Iguana. Two years later at the Brussels Show of 1971, Pininfarina presented the Alfa Romeo P33 Spider, again designed by Leonardo Fioravanti, and christened the “Cuneo” due to its extremely sharp lines inspired by the geometrical wedge shape. And this was precisely the show car for which Paolo Martin’s P33 Roadster was sacrificed. Finally, in 1976, at the Geneva Show, Bertone presented the Alfa Romeo 33 Navajo, again designed by Marcello Gandini, the sixth Alfa Romeo dream car born from the last of the famous five 33 Stradale chassis. The reason for the “sacrifice” of the P33 Roadster was never fully clarified. As often happened in the coachbuilders of the time, it was probably dictated by the urgent need to put a new concept car on display at a new Motor Show. But Paolo Martin never forgave this: powerless before the decision taken by Sergio Pininfarina, he still wonders if it was really worth it. Here, in his own words, is the story of the genesis of one of his most interesting concept cars. -¦- The P33 Roadster was born immediately after another famous dream car built by Pininfarina, the Ferrari Dino Berlinetta Competizione. Two cars with totally opposite styles: one very “curvy”, the Dino; the other with straight lines and sharp edges. There was really no clear reason why, in just a few months, this style revolution came about. Even today I wonder what the reasons behind this metamorphosis were. Probably the desire to propose something new, the attempt to clearly break with the habits of the past. The clear-cut lines also had a practical motivation; as often happened with all coachbuilders, a new prototype had to be created for the Motor Show in a very short time, and this had to be both easy to build and modern and original in style. The fact is that all the stylists moved towards square lines and wedge shapes. Luck had it that I was given a real chassis with a functioning engine; a beautiful, special, very low tubular chassis with a rear engine. But we really weren’t particularly interested in having a real chassis at our disposal: the work was done on the drawings, we had a dimensional drawing with all the sizes and measurements, interior space and so on, and that’s what we used to develop our ideas. I remember that I was appointed to do the design because at that time I had less work on than the others. It had to be a quick design to implement. It was June, and the car had to be ready for the Turin Motor Show in November. As usual, we had to make do with what we had. So the theme we chose was a new interpretation of the roadster. The car was a compromise on style, a mix of curves and straight lines. I can’t remember how we got to that choice, but these are the kind of intuitions that come to you, and that day that’s what I decided to do. Maybe the day after I would have done things differently. The simplicity of the bodywork was expressed through the straight lines and the lack of doors and roof, but the whole car had a really strong personality thanks to some of its characteristic features, like the wedge-shaped profile and plan view, with very small front end. As can be seen, the wedge starts from the black rubber front bumper, a novelty for the time, and ends with the rear K-tail, cutting the front mudguard (rounded in shape to add a softer feel to the overall look) in half. To me it seems that by breaking up the wedge shape with curved inserts added personality to the car. The black rubber front bumper had a purely aesthetic terminal function, but helped to make both the front and sides more aerodynamic. In addition, it partly hid the wide front air intake at the bottom. The two small adjustable appendices, another feature of this concept car, should have offered a new solution for optimising the aerodynamic flow, but more than anything had an aesthetic function. Renzo Carli, Sergio Pininfarina’s right-hand man, came up with the idea, suggesting that they add them to the sides when he saw the design: “Let’s try and add something,” he said. The headlight unit, fitted in a single retracting, tilting module, was a forced addition: Leonardo Fioravanti was the one with a mania for single headlights. And so he was happy too. To reduce the complexity of the design and consequently increase the production speed, I reduced the size of the two doors to make them practically non-existent, hinged at the front and opening upwards. They had to be made this way because getting into the vehicle was complicated by the presence of the main spars of the chassis, which ran right beneath the doors making it almost impossible to get into the passenger compartment. The low, wrap-around windscreen had to be tiny to maintain the clean lines of the wedge. Initially I had thought of fitting Naca ducts in the side, as can be seen in a rendering, but then I took them out because they seemed over the top. They were just another complication, one of those solutions that seemed simple to apply but which then make your life difficult. Everything that was taken away made the car cheaper and easier to build. In the end the side had a clean line, the only thing protruding slightly were the rear wheel arches, which was necessary to house the very wide tyres. The most surprising innovation of this Roadster was the roll-bar with a hydraulically driven adjustable cast aluminium fin, which also housed the oil circuit. This style element had three functions: the fin, to adjust the downforce; as an air-air heat exchanger and a protection if the car overturned. It was aesthetically pleasing but there was no follow-up and the solution was never used on other cars. The idea was actually very spectacular, but also rather unrealistic: if the fin broke, there was a concrete risk of boiling oil pouring onto your head. The rear engine had eight intake trumpets that poked out of a rectangular opening in the rear, protruding just a little and without ruining the line of the boot, which ended in a vertical K-tail. This had four rectangular lights fitted longitudinally around an exhaust unit set in an aluminum finned frame to dissipate the heat. The interior was perhaps even more essential, but with some characteristics that make it unique, with two anatomic seats and the transversal frame supporting the dashboard and the controls. This transversal frame also served as the pipe for the internal air circulation. Its style was very similar to the ultra-modern steering wheel. The car was not only beautiful but apparently very pleasant to drive, as the racing-style mechanics borrowed from the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale worked like a dream. It’s a shame that it didn’t reach our times, at least not in this shape: the chassis was disassembled and reused for the 1971 Cuneo.

Our colleague the engineer Luigi Marmiroli has devoted a simple but fond tribute to the Master designer Marcello Gandini. Words Luigi Marmiroli Photography Courtesy of Luigi Marmiroli Archive Marcello Gandini left us on 13 March at the age of 85. His unmistakeable signature on the style of 20th century cars remains immortal. An infinite number of words, books, articles and web files bear witness to his style genius. His designs run from sports and road cars to trucks and even an original helicopter. Here however I will only mention the designs for Automobili Lamborghini. Having joined the famous Carrozzeria Bertone very young, from 1966 to 1978, Gandini designed icons including the Miura P400, Marzal, Espada, P250 Urraco, 400GT Jarama, Countach, Bravo and Silhouette. Going freelance in 1980, he was appointed to design the style of the future Diablo (technical code P132). For over a decade from 1985, Gandini remained Lamborghini’s stylistic and philosophical benchmark. Despite the corporate trials and tribulations and the style inputs of various shareholders, the Italian managers at Lamborghini always admired his work. This is why I’m sure that the fans of SpeedHolics will not mind if I devote these few lines to him. This tribute aims to recall Gandini’s huge contribution, especially to the Diablo project, which gave me the opportunity to have contacts with him for over ten years as the Technical Manager of the “House of the Bull”. His style genius, along with his in-depth engineering skills, made him unique. I was very pleased when Turin Polytechnic awarded him an honorary degree in Mechanical Engineering. I was present at the ceremony and listened to his “Lectio Magistralis”, which, who would know, was to be his professional testament. Unfortunately, he passed away peacefully just two months later. I recorded his speech, although the audio quality is poor. However, you can look for it online if you wish. I shall never forget his exceptional human qualities. Gandini was a real gentleman, and a modest man despite his calibre. Only after a lot of insisting he accepted to sign the design for the Diablo bodywork, the only design of this type. I promise that in future we will examine all the other designs for Automobili Lamborghini, including the sketches, models, prototypes and concepts. However, to conclude, let me highlight one of the 17 Diablo “children”. The Lamborghini Diablo Roadster Concept, showcases all of Marcello's stylistic quality. Historically, Lamborghini had explored open-top versions including the 350GT and the Miura Spyder, which Ferruccio Lamborghini considered too affected. However, the temptation to propose an open-top Diablo was irresistible. An extreme car, with no roof and a very limited windscreen, was not a mere exercise in style. The Roadster’s beauty concealed long engineering studies to maintain the rigidity of the roofless chassis. The oversized air intakes, the shorter gear ratios and the new engine electronics made the car easier to drive, with no overheating problems at relatively low speeds. The aerodynamics were not designed for very high speeds, but for those looking for thrills, with the 12-cylinder engine singing and the wind in their hair. Once again, Gandini exalted the mechanics while maintaining the Lamborghini design philosophy. Farewell Marcello, we will miss you.

When he invented the Magicflash in 1983, the world of automotive photography was changed forever. But this futuristic invention was only one way in which the German photographer innovated his way to the top of his craft, making his name shooting Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, among many others, along the way. In an exclusive interview with SpeedHolics, the celebrated photographer and founder of Staud Studios tells us tales of fortune, ingenuity, and relentless ambition Words Sean Campbell Photography René Staud Fuerteventura, Spain, 1972. A 21 year old René Staud is standing on a sand dune on the undeveloped, unfrequented island of Fuerteventura. He was about to take the photograph that would launch a tourism boom. Set against the glittering Atlantic ocean backdrop, a dune buggy launching off the ridge,  front wheels mid-air, the rear pair just grazing the surface of the sand. “The Leap over the Dune” sparked a sense of adventure and ignited the first major influx of international travelers to the now popular Canary Island. Just a day or two prior however, Staud was little more than a clerk in a photography shop in Stuttgart. Freshly trained as a photographer, he was making ends meet at Foto Krauss, when an ambitious real estate developer walked in. He boldly asked for the most expensive camera available. When Staud showed up to the man’s office that afternoon to deliver the camera, a chain of events were set in motion that would kickstart his career. Around a decade later, his invention of the Magicflash propelled Staud into the higher echelons of automotive imagery, and led to him becoming one of the most influential and important car photographers in history. But let’s go back to the beginning... “I came from an artistic family. My father was a wood sculptor. But this was post World War II  Germany, so there wasn’t a good income,” Staud offers. “He sold some small works from time to time, but there was a problem. When he sold a piece, he would have to describe it in words to the next potential customer. He had no pictures.” It was this necessity that led a ten year old Staud to pick up a camera for the first time. Even in those first moments, he had a fascination with lighting. “He bought a film roll and lent me his camera. I decided to make these offset images, contrasting light and dark effects. We used these images to sell works within weeks. That's when I realized you could use pictures to communicate or even sell. Over the next few years I became the photographer for all the makers and artisans on my street.” By the time he was 14, Staud had won his first photography awards. “There was a competition at my local youth center, where we went to learn about music and art, and in my case photography. Kodak had sponsored this competition to promote the new Instamatic camera, the first camera with a film roll, ready to shoot. 50 of us had to go out and shoot in one day – whatever we wanted, houses, people, etcetera.” “My theme was ‘industrial dynamic’. I took pictures on the street and at the station of trains passing by. I had no idea what I was shooting because we just handed the cameras back at the end. A few weeks later I learned that three of my images finished in the top 5. I came first, second, and fifth!” With his prizes, Staud showed his first flair for business and investment. “I traded the three small cameras I won for one SLR (single-lens reflex) camera.” And so René Staud the photographer was born. The conditions in which Staud grew up allowed him, or perhaps forced him, to pick up skills quickly, “Being born into this handcraft-oriented family, and in my neighborhood, where wood and steel and such things abounded, I had to learn things quickly. I used all the lessons at the youth center to get better. I built my own black and white lab at home – it was half a washroom and half a darkroom!” Armed with his trusty SLR and a place to develop his work, the teenage Staud began to seek an income from his passion. “There were these dance clubs every Wednesday and Saturday for young people. I went and took pictures every Wednesday. Then I’d develop them at home, and go back to sell them on Saturdays and take more to sell Wednesday again! It was great for me but not great for my school results.” It didn’t take long for Staud to meet his first challenge as a young semi-pro photographer – color images. One of the markers of his career is how he’s always managed to get ahead of the game and invest in the future, and it was the same in the late 1960s. “Color prints were now in big demand, so I needed a place to develop my images. This was the beginning of a good friendship with a local photo store I’d go to to develop in color. And this was how after school, I got my first job. The photographer in the store had fallen in love with this beautiful dancer who was moving to Melbourne, and he was set on following her! When I showed up on my last day of school, the owner said ‘You’re here early. Shouldn’t you be in school? I just told him ‘No more school. Forever’! Right then and there he offered me the photographer’s job, but only taking passport photos and things like that. I started a few weeks after that and started to do my photography training. He paid me very little but it was work, and I still shot parties on weekends.” The next few years saw Staud go on something of an early career odyssey which would bring him through the automotive world and right back to photography. Because of the low pay at the shop and the financial demands of his training, he took up a job at a friend's gas station, pumping fuel, cleaning cars and doing handiwork on cars. One gas station job led to another – one which was often frequented by VIPs. “I got great tips from them, but I worked all day and came home late at night tired and covered in oil. I went there for the money but I lost a lot of friendships because I couldn’t go out.” Tired of the lifestyle, Staud took his newly earned photography diploma and got a job at Foto Krauss, where this story began. “Just a few days after I started, that businessman – the Fuerteventura property developer – walked in.” In his personal essay “My First Car Shoot” which details his meeting with the developer and delivering the camera to his office, Staud writes: “As I sat there in the secretary’s office and the minutes ticked by, I was starting to sweat… after an hour, the man came out of his board office and just said in passing, ‘Oh, you’re still sitting there. I don’t have time now… come down to the car with me quickly.’ And I ran down beside him into the garage and was suddenly sitting in his Opel V8 Diplomat with all the cardboard crap on my lap, and he said, “Please don’t try to explain the camera to me now, I still have calls to make… Twenty minutes later we were standing at the airport, a barrier went up in front of us, and there I am looking up at this giant plane, his private jet… I don’t know how it happened, anyway, at some point the doors are closed, the engines start, the plane takes off, and four hours later we land somewhere in the Atlantic on an island that nobody in Germany knew about… I never went back to the camera store. Over the coming months, Staud spent time coming and going from Fuerteventura, photographing marketing materials for the developer’s company as he turned the deserted island into a powerful tourism hot spot. The most historic of these is the “Leap over the Dune”. Now a made-it, professional photographer, Staud spent the 1970s carving out a niche for himself shooting product images for a range of high end companies, but he was quickly becoming more and more interested in cars. “I had a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz S Class. But back then, there wasn’t much really good marketing for these brands. It wasn’t until the post war recovery was almost complete that they really started to think about better advertising materials. So in 1982, I started to think about how I could make money in cars. These car companies now had huge campaign budgets – no questions asked, big money. But here is the problem I noticed: When you shot a car in the street or in the garage, it looked like anyone could do it. What style of photography could make cars so unique and sexy? I had to shoot cars like they were jewels. No more street, no more forest, no more supermarket family friendly.” This realization marked the beginning of a period of experimentation that would eventually lead to the invention of the technology that would take Staud into the stratosphere — the Magicflash. “I began studying with small scale models of cars, experiment with light effects. No spotlights or light cubes worked on reflective cars. The sexy, glossy look you can only create with very smooth, very direct light. You need a lightbox. The first one I made with a shoebox. I illuminated car models with it and it worked. But then I needed to adapt this in large size. And I would need one hundred thousand lights in my box! I was told I was crazy – that I’d use it two days a year only and go bankrupt. But if I wanted to follow my passion, I had to find a style that made me unique. That would give me access to the very best clients.” So Staud borrowed and invested in a huge lightbox that would put that now ubiquitous sheen on a car in the studio. This was the Magicflash. Staud was convinced that his invention would cause a huge stir, that it would excite people and make him a star in the industry. In 1982, he decided to throw a huge launch party for the Magicflash, forking out on catering, entertainment, VIP treatment. “Six weeks before the launch I met a videographer who wanted to shoot a whole film for big screens to showcase the Magicflash. I was sold, and ended up buying out five parking areas nearby, and screens on the street. I thought we could get 2,000 people to join! … In the end, 20 people came… It was a catastrophe. More screens on the street than people in the audience. I had catered for at least 600! I went to the office and shut myself away, deciding to quit this dream.” While Staud was laying low, hiding his shame and embarrassment, there came a knock on the door from an unexpected guest. “It was the marketing manager for Mercedes Benz. He asked me if he could book me for 80 days that year, and 250 days the next.” While virtually nobody had come to the party, the right people had come. It wasn’t only the Mercedes-Benz leaders that had come either…“30 minutes later, a similar guy came from Porsche.” With that, Staud was the photographer for the country’s greatest car manufacturers. Staud found himself in such high demand through the mid 1980s that he was barely able to keep up with his schedule. “In 1986 I had 1,000 shooting days in a year! How was this possible?” Staud had to get creative to meet demand, creating better workflows and being more efficient than any other photographer had ever been. “I needed a new studio. My architect came to watch me work for a few weeks and came up with his plan. We built Staud Studios in 1985 and opened in 1986. It was hard work. 12 hours shooting, six hours creating and developing, six hours planning the studio and directing the build.” “I thought I’d need four people to work there, but in the end I needed more than thirty! The only way I managed was to set up more workstations and break down the shots into different flows andsetups. I mean, BMW gave me 28 cars at once! How could we do this? So I set up these different stations and focused on different things – in this corner we’d shoot the dashboard, over there the front, over there the wheels and so on. We worked all day and night. In daytime we’d make the beauty shots, and at night we’d bring in junior staff and freelancers and go right through the night on the nitty gritty.” While Staud is most famous for inventing the Magicflash, a lesser known fact is that he was one of the first commercial photographers – if not the first – to embrace retouching and editing technology in his work, and at scale. What this meant for this work turnover was mega efficiency, mega scalability, and mega success. “In 1998 I was at Photokina (the world’s largest photography and imaging industries trade fair). I was asked what I thought the most important development or instrument was going to be in the industry. I said retouching technology – and nobody agreed with me. They all said it was too expensive to buy the machines, that it was a poor investment.” Just like he’d done before, Staud went against the grain and followed his instincts. “After six months I owned three machines and had nine people working them. My turnover was incredible.” What this retouching technology gifted Staud Studios more than anything else, was time, and as a result, access to volume. “There was a shoot I did for the S Class. 500 shots. But there was a mistake! The wrong grill had been installed on the model I’d shot, and this made it look like an E Class. Anyone else would have to go back and shoot the whole thing again – months and months of work. But we were able to retouch them and stay on track, while I prepared the next batch of work.” Staud Studios has kept up with, or stayed ahead of, the times, to the point where it is still one of Europe’s most respected studios, and Staud is still known as a legend in the field of automotive photography. His sons have taken over the majority of business operations, and the company has recently merged with the celebrated global creative production company Mediamonks. But Staud now has all the time in the world for shooting as a passion. Before we get off our call, he shows me what he’s up to today. A gorgeous Porsche 917 – the car that dominated sports car racing in the early 70s, including wins and Le Mans in 1970 and 71. Still fascinated by classic cars (like ourselves here at SpeedHolics, and our readers), I ask for one more minute of his time. I’m keen to hear his thoughts on classic race car culture, and how it stacks up against modern car manufacturing. “Nowadays everything is overdone,” He affirms,”The best period was in the 70s, when cars often had maximum 200hp. This was pure driving. The development back then was immense.” He wraps things up by explaining his gripe with modern cars. “They’re not so much fun. Cars today have everything, but they don't have identity. You can’t control a 1,000 hp car – it controls you. That’s why we’re so into classic cars. For mass mobility, more safety was a good thing. But for fun, it was bad.” We’re on the same page then.

Several years ago, I was at a major automotive event watching a lot of famous, big-name builders greet their adoring public and show off their latest builds. As is often the case I was in the back of the crowd studying the events at hand looking for photo opportunities that caught my eye. Standing a few feet from me was a man who was also watching, and he caught my attention. Something about the confidence with which he stood there and the seemingly kind and genuine aura he radiated made me notice. Words & Photography by Tim Scott (IG: Scott Photo Co.) I remembered seeing him a couple of times previously though I couldn’t recall exactly where, so I went up and introduced myself. His handshake was firm and confident, and he said that his name was Lynn Park. I really had no idea who I had just met but I was sure that there was something interesting to this man’s story. It was only years later that I would come to learn that Lynn Park was known worldwide as Mr. Cobra and had been deeply involved with the Cobra story, almost since the beginning, and was a friend and confidant of legendary men like Peter Brock, Mike McCluskey and even Mr. Carroll Shelby himself. This is a story of a man with a love and passion for the iconic Cobra that has lasted more than 60 years and is still going strong. Lynn Park grew up in Southern California during a time of immense optimism and prosperity following the darkness of WWII. Working at a service station meant that Lynn had to learn about cars, as in those days’ “service” meant more than just putting gas into cars. From fluids to tires to engines, Lynn was building the foundation of knowledge that would serve him for the rest of his life. When he got his driver’s license in 1959 his mom gifted him the ’56 Ford Mainline that had been her daily driver. With gearhead blood already flowing through his veins he went down to the local scrapyard and bought a 410 cubic inch Edsel motor to put in the underpowered Ford. Everyday he learned more about his automobiles as he and his friends worked to make them nicer, faster, and more fun. Soon he discovered that he could buy stripped and totaled cars from the same scrapyard, often very clean cars simply missing an engine or an interior or needing basic body work to make them road worthy again. He would buy, repair, and then sell them to fund his growing love for cars and was soon driving very nice cars himself. Lynn’s sister’s boyfriend, Joe, was also into cars at this time and owned a Lotus. Of course, this led to many spirited discussions about horsepower versus handling. One fateful day Joe brought the September 1962 issue of Road & Track magazine that had this new “Shelby AC Cobra” on the cover. A sleek, curvaceous, sexy body with V8 power? This one moment and photograph lit a spark in Lynn that was to become a lifelong passion. With curiosity overflowing Lynn drove down to Venice where the Shelby “factory” was at the time. By this point, after flipping many cars, he was able to drive a really nice automobile so when he drove up, they assumed that he could actually afford one of these hot, new sports cars. Carroll Shelby did his best to sell him one not knowing that he was unable to afford one. While Lynn didn’t buy a Cobra then, Carroll and the staff at the Cobra factory were so nice to him that he just started coming back time and time again. He befriended many of the people there and before long most people just assumed he worked there. Lynn really wanted a Cobra but couldn’t afford one, so he bought an AC, put a V8 in it and made, perhaps, the very first Cobra replica ever. From 1963-1967 Lynn raced his home-made “Cobra”, attended college at UCLA and enjoyed life in Southern California. In 1967 Lynn joined the Army and was honorably discharged in late 1969. It was now 1972, and Lynn was determined to get his first “real” Cobra. He found a wrecked one for $2,100, ordered parts directly from AC and started the rebuild. Before his first Cobra was even finished, he found another Cobra, the 10th ever built, which had also been wrecked and was now in parts. He purchased this one for $2,000. As was the norm for the time he bought a new, original AC body and completely rebuilt the car. This was just the beginning as he started buying every Cobra he could find. Working on his Cobras alongside a legend himself, Mike McCluskey, who has done all of the paint and body work on Lynn’s Cobras from day one, Lynn has learned every little detail of his cars with his own hands building priceless experience for use for the next 50+ years. L.P. "The yellow car is a 1963 Cobra. It’s the car that my wife and I have taken on thirty “Cobra 1000” tours over the years. I put a Tremec 3550 five speed transmission in it to reduce the RPMs during the long road trips. Otherwise, the car is very original and is a fun car to drive.” Lynn continued buying, repairing, and driving Cobras from that time on supporting his habit while running several successful businesses. He has never approached buying Cobras as an investment and will quickly caution would-be buyers against doing so. L.P. “I don’t look at them as money-makers or an investment. Don’t buy a car thinking of it as an investment. That means that you’re not going to use it. You’re going to park it and wait for the opportune time to sell it.” Lynn drives all of his cars. Some are street cars, and some are race cars. With many, many Cobras passing through his hands through the years, he currently owns 10 “real” Cobras, 10 replicas and 6 of them are race cars. Every single one has its own personality, patina and story and is “perfect”, to him. He explained to me that cars that are banged up often have more personality than a “perfect” car (ask him about his Cobra that he’s affectionately named “Dirtbag”). L.P. “The #12 Cobra is one of the five FIA Cobras that Shelby built to race in Europe.  It has been vintage raced since the early 1980s by a good friend of mine who sold the car to me about a year ago. As you can see it’s got a lot of “Patina” but to me that’s part of the charm of this car. No one mistakes the car for a replica, that’s for sure. In addition to being raced for so many years it has participated in the famous “Cobra 1000” tour for ten years or more.” To be clear, Lynn has no issue with replicas. Proof-in-point, he owns ten. Shelby officially stopped production of “real” Cobras in 1967 only to return years later and make replicas himself. The good thing with replicas available is that you can still get parts, which would likely be nearly impossible to come by otherwise. Having more Cobras out there allows more people to see and appreciate their beauty and uniqueness. “Real” or “replica”, these cars are meant to drive. Lynn and his family and friends have been vintage racing his Cobras since 1982, racing all over the country at tracks from Monterey to Willow Springs, to Lime Rock, to Watkins Glenn, to Kansas City and St. Louis, to Road America and more. To this day, Lynn and his sons, Steve, and Tim, race their Cobras twice a year at Willow Springs. They would often take “Cobra 1000” trips – 1,000-mile trips driving with a group of Cobras to destinations across the country. Just because “driving a Cobra is fun!” This brings us back to the big question of why Cobra? L.P. “You know what’s fun about Cobras? You meet the people that own them and almost without exception they’re nice people.” The more Lynn talked about his years with his Cobras the more it sounded like a family. His entire family was involved from the early days – from making 1,000-mile trips, to racing with his sons – to this day the Cobras are a family affair. Beyond that there is an entire extended family and close community built around the love for the Cobra – a community of friends built over the past 50 years that still gathers as friends, brought together and united by this car. L.P. "The maroon coupe is a 1959 AC Aceca. I have owned it since 1985 and it reminds me of the Aceca that I bought in 1963 when I couldn’t afford a Cobra. The Cobra was $6000 and the Aceca was $1500. I promptly swapped the original six-cylinder engine for a 289, added a four-speed transmission and had my own Cobra. When I bought this particular car, it had no engine or transmission so the decision to put a 289 in it was an easy one. This car has Cobra disc brakes all around, Cobra rack-and-pinion steering and Cobra suspension so it’s basically a 289 Cobra with an Aceca body. There were only 350 or so of these cars built and even fewer than that in the U.S. which makes it virtually unknown to anyone but an AC enthusiast." The Cobra has lived and thrived well beyond its relatively short manufacture period. Its essence is so much more about the car and the experience than some kind of perceived “status”. It’s a different kind of supercar. Even Carroll Shelby himself, while bold and larger than life, was always about the car and the people that loved it. Whenever there was a Cobra event, Shelby would show up. He was kind and accommodating to the crowds, signing autographs, and talking to them about the cars. A kind and genuine person attracting other kind and genuine people that would become part of the Cobra family. For many years the Cobra was the epitome of a performance car. It was doing everything better than what was being offered at the time. It’s noisy, it’s hot, it’s cold, it’s open to the elements and that’s part of what makes it special. When you drive a Cobra, you experience the world in a more immersive and memorable way. When is the last time you remember fondly driving your perfectly comfortable, soundproofed, fully enclosed car? This is a car for the pure joy of driving, for experiencing your journey in a way that no other can offer. It’s not for everyone and you may have to make time to wave and talk to complete strangers who may or may not know just how valuable and special this car is. L.P. “The silver 427 is a Kirkham replica. It was built by Mike McCluskey roughly thirty years ago.  It has a 427 engine and a top loader transmission and is as accurate in every aspect to an original 427 SC.  With its big tires and loads of power it is a ball to drive.” But to Mr. Cobra, the true value has always been in the friends he has made, the experiences he has lived and the joy of sharing that love and passion with all who will listen. Even with so many years of owning, driving and being involved with Cobras you can still see the smile on his face and hear the passion in his voice as he talks about his family of Cobras and friends. In his words, “Someone my age has grown up with the best 80 years of American history”. These days Mr. Cobra still drives each and every one of his cars. Whether on the track, or even just an 8 mile drive up the beautiful Angeles Crest Highway, these cars are loved and driven. People like Louis Hamilton, Jay Leno, Ashton Kutcher, and so many others from all over the world call him for information and his expertise – and of course, advice on buying a Cobra. The next time you are at a car event take a moment to look to see if there is a quiet, unassuming gentlemen in the back wearing perhaps a hat or shirt with a Cobra logo. If you see him, say hello, ask him about Cobra and enjoy some wonderful stories from a wonderful man. This is what the Cobra family is all about.

Prof. Grandi looks back over the style genesis of the three prototypes that Franco Scaglione made for Bertone on the 1900C chassis. The aim was to amaze the motor show audience and the Alfa Romeo management with solutions born from the Tuscan designer’s simple mathematical application of principles and solutions to reduce aerodynamic drag   Words and Drawings Massimo Grandi   In 1950, Alfa Romeo made its début with the 1900, a four-door sedan. This was a milestone in the Milan-based company’s history, as it was the first Alfa Romeo mass produced on an assembly line, the first Alfa Romeo ‘unibody’ and the first Alfa Romeo with standard left-hand drive.   The car met with some success among the specialised press, but some of the Alfa customers wanted more power and the gear lever on the floor. On the other hand, the coachbuilders complained that it was impossible to fit out custom builds because of the unibody frame. Finally, neither coupé nor cabriolet versions were planned.   And so, to meet these needs, less than a year after its launch Alfa Romeo presented the 1900C chassis (the C stands for "Carrozzieri", “coachbuilders”) on which Touring and Pinin Farina built the coupé and the cabriolet which were added to the price list and sold directly by the network of Alfa Romeo dealers, called the 1900C Sprint and 1900C Cabriolet. The same chassis was rebodied by many other coachbuilders, more or less successfully. The wheelbase on the 1900C was shortened by 130 mm, from 2630 to 2500 mm, and the 1884 cc engine was fitted with a Weber 40 DCA3 dual-body carburettor, larger intake and discharge valves, respectively from 38 to 41 mm and from 34 to 36,5 mm, with the compression ratio increased from 7.5:1 to 7.75:1 to reach 100 HP at 5500 rpm. Axle tracks: front 1320 - rear 1320 mm. Bertone also worked on the new 1900C chassis, asking Franco Scaglione to design a car on which to experiment new solutions aiming to minimise aerodynamic drag while amazing the motor show audiences, and especially the Alfa Romeo management, with his pioneering design.   Scaglione was an enthusiastic aerodynamic scholar, and his designs were always based on the application of aerodynamic solutions and principles, and here Scaglione’s mathematical approach to design is similar to other great designers of the past, including Jaray, Komenda, Sayer and Savonuzzi.   And thus, the first of three cars marking car design and car history was born, the B.A.T. 5 (Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica no. 5). The B.A.T. 5 was a revolutionary car, the result of Scaglione’s talent: under the supervision of Ezio Cingolani, head of design development and production, he perfected the concepts inherited from aeronautics that he had previously expressed on the Abarth 1500 Biposto. This car, presented at the Turin Motor Show in 1953, aroused the wonder and curiosity of all the visitors. In fact, it was an authentic mobile experimental laboratory, its fantastic forms being none other than Scaglione’s mathematical application of aerodynamic principles and solutions. No element of its design was a self-referential end unto itself, there was a reason and function for everything in terms of aerodynamic performance. Starting from the main lines marking its side profile, designed based on geometric patterns including ellipsis, parabola and hyperbole, mathematical solutions responding to precise needs of maximum penetration and minimum drag.   But Scaglione’s solutions were already applied to the bonnet design and modelling, characterised by a large double air intake between the extended bumpers, without the typical triangular Alfa Romeo grille, replaced by a metal "nose" built into the body. Here we see the upturned W solution, previously experimented and applied to the Fiat-Abarth 1500. In front-engine cars, the air for cooling the radiator water is forced to pass through the grille, filtering through the very narrow gaps in the radiator to be centrifuged by the fan, when forced around all the elements and protrusions in the engine compartment and colliding with the rear bulkhead, leaving through the only exit point at the bottom between the bulkhead and the engine.   The upturned W design responded to the need to rationally convey the huge flow of intake air in the engine compartment to minimise the turbulence on the front and inside the engine compartment, also through the large air discharge apertures behind the front wheel arch.   A similar solution would also be applied by Scaglione to his Ferrari-Abarth 166 built by Scuderia Guastalla.   In the B.A.T. 5, the central headlight of the Fiat-Abarth replaced a “nose”, but the design was identical and this arrangement could later be seen in the 1961 Ferrari 246 P and 156 F1 and again in the 2013 Ferrari “La Ferrari”.   The most eye-catching part, however, which captured the public’s imagination, is certainly the tail, which has a huge window divided into two parts by a thin metal strip, a concept later borrowed by the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.   And especially the two large fins almost as high as the roof, each with a slit and curving inwards. In fact, these fins were far from sci-fi or pure fantasy, they were the result of a strict, thorough aerodynamic research. To understand this, we have to start from the beginning, that theoretical shape with CX equal to 0.0, the so-called “ elongated drop”.   This solid allowed the fluid stream to flow perfectly adhering to the surface, without creating any turbulence. The problem of practically applying this shape to a car lies in its proportions, which require a length around five times the width. Starting from the minimum width of a two-seater car, the final length of the car would be at least seven metres. The engineer Kamm had solved this problem if only in part using the famous K-tail, while Scaglione sought a solution for the pavilion of his B.A.T. 5 using these large fins.   In this drawing we can see how the pavilion of the B.A.T. is shorter than the virtual pavilion (in red), causing the fluid stream to become detached more or less at the height of the rear pillars. Introducing these large concave fins, the fluid stream was forced to realign to the virtual profile of the elongated drop.   The operational diagram of these fins is even clearer in the second drawing. So these amazing lines and shapes were merely the result of an aerodynamic solution that obtained a Cx of 0.23, which allowed the car to reach a maximum speed of 200 km/h, over 30 km/h more than the 1900 C SS with the same 100 hp engine. At that time, Bertone didn’t have a wind tunnel, and to obtain the precious aerodynamic information necessary for the design, they used a system commonly used at the time based on some woollen yarns. These were applied to the bodywork of the cars driven on the road at different speeds and photographed by another car driving alongside to observe the movements of the woollen yarns in the wind.   In the second experimental car, the B.A.T. 7, the solutions adopted in the B.A.T. 5 were developed further. In the B.A.T. 7, the general profiling of the whole front part was further extended and lowered by 70 mm. Here too we see the double front air intake which had the task of “guiding” the air flows in the engine compartment in a more regular manner. As seen for the B.A.T. 5, the air flows have an escape route through two apertures on the sides of the car just behind the wheel housings and in front of the rear bulkhead. In the B.A.T. 7, having eliminated the fan, given the exceptional nature of the car, Scaglione adopted two continuous tunnels running from the front air intake to the side discharge vents.   The radiators were placed in the tunnel in order to avoid parasite turbulence in the engine compartment. As with the B.A.T. 5, the four wheels were completely faired, the finned air vents of the radiator cooling tunnels were integrated into the front casings, while those in the rear had the profiled shape of the air intakes for the brakes. As concerns the design of the side of the B.A.T.  7, with the casing integrated flush to the body, the inevitable “weight” of the side panel is resolved exceptionally by a balance of solids and voids, a perfect hyperbole drawing the finned air vent of the radiator cooling tunnel here too, a hyperbole that splits into smaller parts in the shaped profile of the rear air intake for the brakes.   The upper arm of the first hyperbole runs perfectly horizontally along the whole length of the door, recalling the horizontal arm of the smaller hyperbole running along the rear mudguard to draw another hyperbole represented by the opening for the exhaust pipe. The curved design of the large windscreen is also very interesting, joining the 45° angle of the side windows to the 30° inclination of its midline. Also in the B.A.T. 7, the most eye-catching part is the rear, where the concave fins are even larger and rounded, indeed in the collective imagination they are reminiscent of the huge wings of the manta ray. In fact, the increase in surface area and therefore the size of the fin terminals is due to the fact that, increasing in height in the front, these had unwillingly moved the centre of pressure forwards, and this could only be compensated by increasing the rear surface area; in any case, in the B.A.T. 7, the function of the fins in the reconstruction of the virtual elongated drop was even more evident, and this further aerodynamic development of the rear fins gave it the lowest Cx value of the B.A.T. series, 0.19.   The B.A.T. 7 was presented at the 1954 Turin Motor Show, and like the B.A.T. 5 it aroused great amazement and admiration. Two years after the B.A.T. 5 and one after the B.A.T. 7, the 1955 Turin Motor Show saw the launch of the B.A.T. 9.   For this car, Nuccio Bertone asked Franco Scaglione to develop the aesthetic concepts of the B.A.T. 5 and 7, again on the Alfa Romeo 1900C chassis, to try to make it more similar to a car suitable for mass production, without however ceasing to amaze the motor show audiences and Alfa Romeo, which that year had planned to launch the Giulietta sedan and had begun working with Bertone to build the Giulietta Sprint bodies.   The B.A.T. 9 of 1955 was in some way different from the formal and conceptual path of the previous models. Here too, due to the direct intervention of Nuccio Bertone, the project aimed mainly to show how the developments of the B.A.T. project could lead to large-scale car production. Although developing the style code of the previous models, the B.A.T. 9 had far more subtle lines, just think of the rear fins: on the B.A.T. 5 and B.A.T. 7, these were very large and ostentatious, while here they were reduced to two far more discreet metal strips. Bertone abandoned all the most extreme features of the previous two cars, turning them into features that were more suited to normal road use: the non-retracting front headlights were now located on the bumpers. For the first time, the classic Alfa Romeo badge adorned the front of the car.   It is important to underline this “diversity of intentions” to better understand the formal solutions of the three cars in a comparative analysis. In the B.A.T. 9 we find all the elements characterising the two previous models, but in a more reduced form. The rear ellipsis is more open, and the shorter side profiles, originating from the rear cut of the door and with a constant progression parallel to the belt line.   A particular feature of the B.A.T. 9 is the ribbing and beading running along the whole side of the car, at the rear maintaining a straight horizontal line deviating from the narrow profile of the fairing, almost as if forming other horizontal fins. Setting out to maintain a low aerodynamic drag, the bodywork kept the large front and rear overhangs, faired wheels (only at the front), a very sleek “drop-shaped” passenger compartment with less angled side windows compared to the body and a large panoramic windscreen with an upturned pillar integrated perfectly into the almost-flat pavilion.   The large air vents behind the front wheel arches also disappeared. One curious thing about this car was Bertone and Scaglione’s decision to eliminate the fairing on the rear wheels but not the front ones. In fact, doing the opposite would have significantly narrowed the front of the car where the fairing, having to leave room for the wheel movements on the vertical axis, caused an inevitable swelling. The two solutions are compared in this drawing.   Of course, there must have been objective reasons for this peculiar solution, but to be honest I have no idea what they might have been. At this point we can look at these B.A.T.s for a comparison of their similarities and differences.   We have already examined the more general aspects the three models have or do not have in common, but it is perhaps interesting to underline the different solutions Scaglione applied to the front headlights. Aiming to eliminate sources of air flow disturbance at the front of the car, in the B.A.T. 5 and 7 the headlights are fully retracting in the B.A.T. 5, incorporated in the internal face of the bumpers. In the B.A.T. 7 they are again retracting, but are placed inside the two air intakes near the central “nose”. In the B.A.T. 9 on the other hand, the headlights are fixed and on show, but integrated into the bumper profile with a Plexiglas casing. Another special aspect marking the three designs is the pavilion. Talking about the pavilion design, Scaglione stated, “ It is certainly the hardest part, both due to the insufficient elongation ratios and the interference that this creates in the fluid stream on the main fairing ”. The solutions on the rear of the pavilion are particularly interesting, with the window and the central stabilizer fin with a different design for each of the three cars. As with the Fiat-Abarth 1500, the window is again very wide and divided into two parts. In the BAT5, the rear pavilion is particularly long, and tapers to create a kind of thick central fin with the two parts of the rear window running from the rear pillars almost to the top of the pavilion. In the BAT7, on the other hand, also in the longitudinal section the pavilion forms a more specific drop shape, connecting to the main fairing with a concave profile that continues onto two large curved fins which, separating the two parts of the rear window, create a thin yet evident central crested fin, limiting the formation of parasite turbulence created by the meeting of the two masses of air running along the sides of the pavilion as far as possible. In the BAT9, these forms are “normalised”, recalling more the BAT5 solution but in a smaller size. The pavilion follows the drop shape to the rear, regularly tapering into a just-hinted thin fin shape, with the two trapezoidal rear windows on the two sides. As explained above, the drop-shaped pavilion requires rear fins to overcome the insufficient length of the pavilion. As we can see, this special function of the fin requires that it be located in the point in which the fluid stream becomes detached from the curve of the pavilion, but in fact it is also necessary for the fin to be progressively aligned along the side of the pavilion both before and after the point in which the stream becomes detached. These aspects can be perceived immediately when looking particularly at the B.A.T. 5 and 7. In both profiles, the fins start at the height of the front edge of the door, rising progressively and following the sides of the cars and ending on the edge of the rear coupling. The concave-convex section of the fins creates a channel between the fins and the sides of the pavilion, drawing a kind of open ellipsis at their ends, which in the specific case of the B.A.T. 7, seems almost to close definitively. In the B.A.T. 9 we find all these elements, yet in a reduced form. The rear ellipsis is more open, and the shorter side profiles, originating from the rear cut of the door and with a constant progression parallel to the belt line. So, as we have seen, while the B.A.T. 5 and 7 seemed to be two authentic mobile experimental laboratories, with the B.A.T. 9 the designers attempted to translate these experimental elements into a formal synthesis suited for a car produced on an industrial scale.   Clearly an experiment, the B.A.T. 9 was never produced in series, but overall these three technical aerodynamic berlinettas contributed enormously to aerodynamic studies applied to cars, and the ability of these applications to generate new and advanced formal languages, as all Franco Scaglione’s works demonstrated to the full. -- 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).

This time, Luigi Marmiroli’s memoirs look back on the times when Lamborghini’s path met that of the “Designer of the Century”, leading to the style proposal of the first P132, the future Diablo, and the creation of the Calà prototype Words Luigi Marmiroli Photography Courtesy of Luigi Marmiroli Archive Among the many people I met during my professional life in the car world, and with whom I had the opportunity to work, Giorgetto Giugiaro occupies an important place. Not only ironically, he always referred to himself as an honest “pencil pusher”, and, as he started to work at Fiat at the tender age of 14, I think he must have consumed thousands of pencils during his career. These pencils helped him to influence the shape of cars in the last sixty years, and rightly so he entered the Hall of Fame of the Motor Shows in Geneva and Detroit. This article helps me to dust down my memory of when I worked with him on two projects during my time as Technical Director of Automobili Lamborghini. I refer precisely to the style proposal for the P132, the future Diablo, and the Calà prototype, which also had the support of his son Fabrizio. The P132 project was the first of the future Lamborghini car range to replace the Countach. I submitted a preliminary layout of the mechanics to Giorgetto Giugiaro's company Italdesign, and immediately he developed an original bodywork to go round it. We worked continuously with him and his engineers. I remember that we agreed to integrate a spoiler into the front of the car, with two functions: one linked to aerodynamics, to increase the car’s down force, and the other structural, to meet the US type-approval requirements in the crash test. Even the pole test, during which the mid-line of the car hit a vertical pole at high speed, would certainly not have caused any harm to the driver or passenger. Giugiaro produced a whole series of renderings and gave an original presentation to the managers at Lamborghini. He rested a full-scale cardboard cut-out of the car against the wall. Facing the wall as we listened to his learned presentation, I heard Patrick Mimran, the young Lamborghini shareholder who also owned his own splendid Countach, mumble to himself that he didn’t like it. I must admit that, while admiring the style proposal, I too felt it was closer to the philosophy of British sports cars than to the Lamborghini style code. Although it was thought that the project could have obtained the same commercial success as many of Giugiaro’s other works, nothing ever came of it. Exactly 10 years later, in 1995 and after many other not entirely positive adventures with Automobili Lamborghini, Giugiaro presented the Calà at the International Motor Show in Geneva. Like all the Italdesign prototypes, to demonstrate that their proposals were not merely inert models, the Calà was driven onto the stand. The Calà was presented as a research prototype, a 2+2 coupé that could be turned into a Targa top car simply by removing the roof. Designed for everyday use and therefore far more comfortable and functional than the supercars, the Calà was higher than all the other Lamborghini cars of the past. The bodywork was similar to a people carrier, although the effect at the rear was more one of a two-volume car with a short tail and a spoiler with high visual impact. The style was marked by an unusual windscreen that ran into the roof, with two grooves lying above the heads of the driver and the passenger. This solution brought more light into the passenger compartment, which could comfortably hold two adults, and two children on the rear seat. The original dashboard had a rounded ergonomic profile that  protruded towards the driver. The seats were hand stitched and, like all the panel work, were covered in an original and almost shocking bordeaux suede. I was personally very excited about the possibility to dust off the mechanics of the P140 with a design solution by Giorgetto Giugiaro. The chassis mechanics were in fact based on the ashes of the P140 project which should have become the successor to the Diablo. Unfortunately, after prototyping and even industrialisation involving international partners, the US Chrysler, shareholder from 1987, due to internal problems the project was aborted and even Lamborghini was sold to the Indonesian company Megateck. In any case, following the success of the Calà at the Geneva Motor Show, Mantovani, Giugiaro’s technical partner at Italdesign, sent Lamborghini a quote for the supply of the industrialised bodywork, complete with interiors and installations, to be sent to Lamborghini to assemble the mechanics and for the delivering. The proposal included the fitting out of 13 prototypes and, after the tests, the supply of 5 cars a day for a total of 4000 cars. The disappointment when the programme was not accepted by the new Indonesian shareholders was huge. Whenever I climb into the classic Panda designed by Giugiaro, which I keep in my garage, I am filled with nostalgia for this wonderful design that was not-to-be. -- Luigi Marmiroli was born in Fiorano Modenese in 1945. After graduating in mechanical engineering at the University of Padua, in 1970 he was hired by Ferrari to introduce electronic computing to Maranello for the first time. In 1976 he founded Fly Studio with Giacomo Caliri, designing and managing competition cars on international circuits. Their main works were for Fittipaldi Copersucar, Autodelta, ATS and Minardi, with whom they joined forces. The developments in the partnership with Autodelta led Marmiroli to manage the technical unit of the Euroracing team in 1983. Two years later he was hired by Lamborghini to design the heir of the Countach. Other projects came after the 17 versions of the Diablo, though due to the continuing changes of ownership of the Sant’Agata based company, they were never put into production. Marmiroli relaunched Fly Studio in 1997, providing consulting services. One of the projects of the last few years is the development of microcars, quadbikes and commercial vehicles, including electric versions.

The initials MC mean “Maserati Corse”, while the number indicates the number of cylinders hidden under the bonnet: twelve. In the plan to relaunch the historical Modena-based brand, the then-management of Ferrari decided unconditionally to focus on a prestigious project, in line with the Trident traditions: the GT1 series. A “monster” car came from a team effort that also involved Dallara: this is the story of the car and the men that created it Words Alessandro Giudice Photography Paolo Carlini Anyone who loves racing cars will not only have memories but also emotions linked to a series of sensations that sometimes they are not even aware of. And so the sound of a far-off engine or the smell of petrol or sharp braking, or why not, some music, a word, a special light instantly takes us back to a moment in our lives buried who knows where, surprising us with all its strength. When in 2003 Giampaolo Dallara was asked to work on the aerodynamics of the racing Maserati MC12, he probably just had to hear the name to take a step back 60 years in time. He did this reliving all the emotions he felt back in 1961 from behind the walls of the pits in Sebring, Florida, when, aged 25, a young, enthusiastic yet inexperienced engineer, he was catapulted into the USA as sporting director of the Maserati Birdcage with Bruce McLaren, Walt Hansgen and Stirling Moss. And here he is, many years later with an extraordinary reputation in competition car design, dusting off his youthful enthusiasm to bring his extensive experience to the development of a name which, for him, meant fascination, pride and opportunity. In 2002, Luca di Montezemolo, then-chairman and managing director of Ferrari, after the Maranello-based company had bought out the Trident in 1997, set up Maserati Corse which, led by Claudio Berro with the technical management of Giorgio Ascanelli - former F1 track engineer with Berger, Piquet and Senna - intended to help relaunch the brand image with a focus on sport: the racing tradition that had created the Maserati legend, but which the company had abandoned in the 1960s with the Birdcage, the nickname given to the car because of the tight mesh of aluminium pipes typical of the sports prototypes 60, 61 and 63. While the small committee including Montezemolo, Jean Todt, the engineer Amedeo Felisa, then-general director of Ferrari Granturismo, Berro and, on demand, Ascanelli, decided that the Maserati Vodafone Trophy - the single-brand championship fought with the GranSport coupé - would launch the new sporting season, everyone realised that the Modena-based brand needed a more prestigious stage, in line with its history. And so, among the various alternatives offered by the Motorsports panorama, the GT1 series was chosen, as it was thought that this would soon become a world championship. Montezemolo wanted to design a limited edition of a Maserati supercar, based on the contemporary Ferrari Enzo model but with a spider set-up. And this is where the MC12 adventure starts. The name not only includes the initials of the Maserati Corse, but also identifies the number of engine cylinders, the 6-litre V12 taken from the Ferrari Enzo, catalogued in Maranello with code F140. The MC12 also had the Enzo chassis, although during the design phase this was extended by 150 mm. The underlying idea was to build a road car but which could also be used for racing. Thanks to the personal relationship between Claudio Berro and Fabrizio Giugiaro, the Turin-based designer was asked to produce what was known as an artist’s impression, a sketch of how he would have interpreted the car, the only rule to respect being the measurements and sizes set by the FIA for GT cars: “Because there was no point working twice on a car that would be raced on the track: I might as well have set it up right from the start of the project,” Ascanelli says. The young Giugiaro was the right man for this kind of advice, as he had already been involved in the production of the Saleen S7, the American car that successfully raced in the GT championship. This was the style basis that came to Dallara and on which the team, with Luca Pignacca and Dialma Zinelli, in their respective roles as project manager and aerodynamics manager, worked, supported from the very beginning by Giorgio Ascanelli. And these were the last two who began to adapt the model to the technical and aerodynamic needs of the wind tunnel: “As I didn't how to draw, so I gave Dialma the instructions: ‘put an air intake there, lower the front, a bit wider, a bit narrower’,” - Ascanelli recalls, “and that’s how we managed to defined the car. It was great fun.” So the technical surface we had to work on was ready, including the “Targa” style solution of the road version which turned the car into a spider, with a detachable roof between the roll-bar and the windscreen rim, both in carbon. Pignacca says: “The chassis, engine and Enzo gearbox had come from Maserati. Everything else we made ourselves: the suspension arms, pedals, radiators, the tank. Even the steering box, which we fitted a different pump to.” The body was the Enzo carbon chassis, which we extended by 150 mm for sporting needs: “Extending the chassis was practical for eliminating the front wheel vortices. Because if you have to position a 12-cylinder engine longitudinally, with the straight gearbox and the boot, which was required for both road and racing cars by the regulations, you certainly couldn’t have a short tail,” Ascanelli confirms. And, talking about the engine, the F140 65° V12 had been turned into a dry sump engine with a different timing gear, heads and crankcase. All that remained of the original were the cylinders, pistons, camshaft, connecting rods and crankshaft. It was then depowered, with smaller intake ducts, probably as the MC12 could not be faster than the Ferrari Enzo, which had forty or so more HP. These strategic positioning issues did not however affect the clear success - in commercial and image terms even before its sporting success -, in the slightest. When Zinelli and Ascanelli had developed a shape that considered all the aerodynamic needs of the MC12, at Dallara and directly at Ferrari, in charge of the style, along came Frank Stephenson, a talented designer who, among others, had created the BMW-era Mini. “He came to Varano and we spent a few days together, him working on the details of the MC12 to remove all the rough and overly “tracky” features of the the car, seeing as it had started out as the design of a technical surface,” Dialma Zinelli says. Adding: “One curious thing was that, due to the origin of the MC12 project and the long and close friendship between him and Dallara, Piero Ferrari brought us his own personal Enzo and left it in the workshop for a couple of months, and we dismantled it to study all the solutions that had been adopted.” Stephenson’s job was to make the car type-approved for road use: “For instance, by shielding the large air vents on the front bonnet with longitudinal strips (one of the style features of the MC12, ndr), which were necessary, in the event of collision with a pedestrian, to prevent a ball the size of a child’s head from getting inside. And then the narrow front with rounded corners, similar to the oval “mouth” of the historical Maserati Sports like the 200S and, of course, the shape of the front headlights, the position of the rear lights and so on.” These changes were far from marginal, and were what made Stephenson say that the MC12 was “the car I had most fun designing”; the only compromise on the Enzo style he had accepted was the shape of the roof. Giorgio Ascanelli comments on the shape and size of the car: “It’s hard to pinpoint the paternity of the MC12 style: what with Fabrizio Giugiaro's very immature initial sketches, and the aerodynamic improvements made with Zinelli, I think that Frank Stephenson’s work was decisive in adding grace to the design of this large car". "In any case, when Sergio Marchionne, who liked the MC12 so much that he bought one, asked me who had designed it, I told him, it was the wind." Even though a few “stolen” pictures were making the rounds and a racing preview had been seen on the track in Fiorano, both the road and the racing versions of the MC12 were presented at the Geneva Motor Show in February 2004. The road version had been announced to dealers the previous September, and when the sales opened in early November Maserati instantly received 174 bookings and as many deposits for a car that hadn’t been seen and which at the time cost 720,000 Euros. When it was confirmed that only 50 cars would be produced (25 in 2004 and as many again the following year), the company was forced to refund most of the advance payments, even though this did not stop the constant flow of purchase requests from all over the world. It had a huge impact on both the public and insiders, also on the brands racing in the GT championship, who were worried about the entrance of a top-level competitor. Smiling, Ascanelli recalls: “When I met my German colleagues, everyone asked me what kind of monster we were building in Modena!” A “monster” that began to cover miles and miles driven by another key name in this project, Andrea Bertolini, test driver and symbol of a car that he was able to develop into an absolute GT benchmark. Bertolini’s adventures in and around Modena began way back in 1992, when, aged 19, he was hired to test GT cars in Maranello. In 2002, the engineer Amedeo Felisa assigned him to the new “Corse Clienti” department, developing competition cars like the 360 GTC, in partnership with Michelotto and in which Bertolini ran a few races. In late 2003, Todt and Michael Schumacher saw him on the track in Fiorano, and Todt called him into the office: “From next year you will also be testing the F1 single-seater.” “They told me that Michael had strongly supported this choice. 2004 was really tough, it was tiring work but really great,” Bertolini states. “In the first part of the year I only worked on the MC12 tests. Twice a month we did four test drives a week, and when I wasn’t working on the MC12, I was on the track with the F1.” Ascanelli confirms: “Bertolini and I went out at night to find the most winding routes, to see if and how the MC12 handled the road; after a few tests he told me that he thought we were 4-5 years ahead of the competition, thanks to the great work that had been done on the handling, balancing and traction.” Bertolini tested everything, even sitting in the internal scale model to check the arrangement of the controls and the driving position. At least until the first shake-down of the racing car, in Fiorano on 12 January 2004. Ascanelli tells how the début went: “We didn’t make a very good impression. After a lap and a half we had to stop because of a design error, the drive shaft was too short. The whole world was at the track to see the début of the much-awaited Maserati, and we were embarrassed. We sorted everything out and it was already evening when we went back onto the track, also to test the headlights. At 4 in the morning I told the guys to go have a shower, and we would meet again at 8, and one of them said: ‘Who cares about a shower, men have to stink!” Everyone laughed, and we all got back to work.” Schumacher also tried out the car on the track, and Prost too, for a couple of days: “I got on well with him, he was one of my Formula 1 idols as a teenager, and I wanted to know as much as possible about how he worked, and I did that with Michael too. From Alain I learned how to check the worthiness of the technical works: for example, how the bars had to be adjusted, repeating tests over and over with and without the changes, in order to be fully aware of the differences." "From Michael I learned the importance of attention to detail, even in the passenger compartment, and I applied this immediately to the MC12: starting from putting the switches in the right place so that they could be found intuitively. One indispensable thing about a racing car: if the race conditions change, such as rain, the controls needed couldn’t be all over the place on the dashboard. Michael was very firm about this: the switches for a given function all had to be aligned and the same colour.” Mika Salo started to work with Bertolini on the MC12’s track début in 2004. After the tests that had kept the whole team busy from January to July, in September the Maserati finally got on the track in Imola, taking part with two cars (Salo-Bertolini and Herbert-De Simone) in one of the last championship races, but out of classification as it was not type-approved yet: “It took the FIA three races to judge whether the car was a real GT or rather a monster that would have killed the series,” Ascanelli says. The result was in any case excellent, with the two cars finishing in second and third place. The next two races in Oschersleben, Germany, and Zhuhai, China, went even better, with Salo-Bertolini winning twice. Type-approved at last, the participation in the 2005 season marked the start of the MC12’s extraordinary career, which began precisely by winning its début championship. To celebrate its success in one of the most important races of that year, the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, which the MC12 won twice more in its career, in 2006 Maserati released a limited edition of the car called the “Corsa”, reserved for the most enthusiastic - and wealthy - clients, seeing as it cost a million Euros. Only 12 cars plus a prototype, shown here, were produced. The car was based directly on the racing MC12 and was designed exclusively for non-competitive use on the track. As it wasn’t type-approved for road use, nor subject to the restrictions of the GT technical regulations, the car was the purest expression of the MC12, in terms of both performance and aerodynamics. In the following years, the MC12 won 22 races and 14 Driver, Manufacturer and Team titles, with the crew members Andrea Bertolini-Michael Bartels winning the drivers titles in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010, the latter having become the FIA GT1 World Championship in the meantime. The only regret was that the 12-cylinder never had the chance to take part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “That was a shame,” Giorgio Ascanelli states, “because the MC12 had all that it took to win. Unfortunately, the ACO (Automobile Club de l’Ouest) which organised the race, decided to spoil things for an FIA GT World Championship winner by increasing the minimum number of road cars built on the basis of the GT model from 50 to 100, so the MC12 was left out. It was a political issue, but that was the result.” Andrea Bertolini reckons that, in his day, the road version of the MC12 was the best super sports car on the market for easy driving, predictability and performance: “We always made the difference in terms of pace on the track, the tyres had the best performance throughout the race.” And he continues: “I remember everything about the MC12, as if it were yesterday. It’s the one car that personally changed me, my own progress and my career, it was a tailored suit that helped me win a lot of races. It was the central focus of a close-knit group of people: I remember all the mechanics one by one, all really motivated guys.” For him, the most thrilling win was the 2010 World Championship in Argentina: “It was my fourth title and we all knew that the MC12 adventure was over. We had already announced that Maserati was withdrawing from racing and wouldn’t be taking part in the 2011 championship. It was the end of an extraordinary run, after seven years, with a great car still leading the field". "I often think of Michael Schumacher and when he tested it. He complimented me on the work done, and said: ‘Andrea, you're going to have fun with this car.’ He couldn’t have been more right.”

Tracing the Journey of a Motorsport Icon: The Chassis number 11431954 OSCA MT4's Epic Tale from Italian Tracks to Classic Car Renaissance - A Story of Speed, Triumph, and Timeless Restoration. Photography by Jeroen Vink (IG: @jeroenvinkphotography) From an interview with Alex von Mozer VSOC. The 1954 OSCA MT4 stands as a testament to the craftsmanship of the Maserati brothers, who in 1947 had founded the Officine Specializzate Costruzioni Automobili, or OSCA, which specialized in competition sports cars. Born in Bologna, this iconic sports racing car wasn't just a machine; its low weight and high power rendered it a symphony of speed and ferocious tenacity – one which would etch its legacy on the tracks of Italy and beyond. Having been entered in almost 70 official races between 1954 and 1962, chassis number 1143 is a thoroughbred racer – indeed this was the most frequently raced of all OSCA MT4s. Francesco Giardini, the first custodian of this speed demon, wasted no time unleashing its potential. The year was 1954, and Giardini hurled the OSCA into the crucible of motorsport glory – the Mille Miglia, as well as the 1000km Eifelrennen at the Nürburgring, and the hallowed asphalt of Le Mans with #42 emblazoned on its frame. After conquering this trio of behemoth races, Giardini's journey with the OSCA continued with a dozen Italian hill-climbs and circuit races. In 1954, he etched his name in the annals of racing history by clinching the Italian Championship in the 1.100cc Sport class, securing four overall wins and five class victories. As the seasons changed, so did the hands that gripped the steering wheel of #1143. Attilio Brandi of Florence took the wheel, entering the OSCA into an impressive 37 races over three exhilarating years. He claimed 10 class wins and 10 second places with the OSCA. One of his major results was his class win in the 1.100cc Sport category in the 1956 Mille Miglia. Brandi also claimed second place in the Italian 1.100cc Sport championship in 1955, and was the overall winner of the Italian Mountain Championship in the 1.100cc Sport category in both 1956 and 1957. The OSCA’s pedigree shows that this was more than a race car; it was a perpetual contender, a constant force in the Italian racing scene. It tasted the asphalt of the Targa Florio four times from 1958 to 1961, leaving its mark on the historic circuit. In 1962, the curtain closed on the racing career of #1143 after a handful of Sicilian hill-climbs, and it found its way into the hands of a now unknown Sicilian racing driver. There, it faded into obscurity and sadly, some disrepair, until the 1980s. Alfonso Merendino, the winner of the 1977 Targa Florio, discovered the battered relic in an underground car park, awaiting rescue. The restoration, completed in 1997, breathed new life into #1143, and Merendino sold it to Alexander Fyshe, the long-time president of the Maserati Club UK. For over 15 years, he reveled in its timeless beauty and historic significance. The torch was eventually passed to the current owner through Netherlands-based VSOC, and the OSCA MT4 once again graced the tracks, participating in the commemorative editions of the Mille Miglia and Le Mans in 2023. A third-place finish in the latter race signaled that the old stallion still had plenty of fight left in her.As plans take shape for future classic events, the OSCA MT4, with its rich history of adventure and victory, continues to captivate hearts and minds. Alex von Mózer MsC is a lifelong car enthusiast and owner of VSOC. Grew up with fast cars and clearly remembers seeing his first Ferrari Dino 246 GT in Italy when he was only 4 years old. Father of 2 lovely girls. Always very busy with the client in mind. Enjoys sports, racing and rallying. Photographer Jeroen Vink is a highly skilled professional photographer residing near Amsterdam, Netherlands. With a diverse range of interests and talents, he is not only an accomplished photographer but also an engineer with a profound fascination for vintage cars and exquisite timepieces. His expertise lies in the realm of automotive and product photography, particularly in the captivating domains of jewelry and watches. Throughout his career, he has curated an awe-inspiring portfolio, attracting esteemed clients such as Stellantis, Renault, Fiat Professional, Watchtime magazine, and Hodinkee.

As Sporting Director, he won eighteen world titles, and trained least three hundred drivers, many of whom were Italian and many discovered personally by him. He is the man who created the Lancia rally legend, almost managed to bring Ayrton Senna to Ferrari and still today holds the Atlantic crossing record. He agreed to tell his story to us in his farmhouse in Puglia, where he retired twenty years ago Words & Photography by Alessandro Barteletti (IG: @alessandrobarteletti) Video by Andrea Ruggeri (IG: @andrearuggeri.it) As soon as you arrive, the scene is far from what you might expect. Cesare Fiorio is waiting for us at the door of his farmhouse in Puglia, surrounded by dogs that fill you with joy just looking at them. “They’re all strays,” he explains, “they came here of their own initiative, and we adopted them all.” Their names each tell a story: one of them, Virus, is a black Breton who turned up on the doorstep one day during the pandemic. Class of 1939, born in Turin, Fiorio retired here a couple of decades ago. “It all happened when I stopped working on the races, something I had been doing for forty years. One day some friends took me to Puglia. I’d never been here before, and I never left after that: it wasn’t just the place I liked, but the people, their friendliness and hospitality.” After shaking hands, Fiorio accompanies us into what he called the Breakfast Room, but which in fact is more of a museum packed with the memorabilia of a unique and unrepeatable life. He calls it that because this is where guests are served breakfast, all strictly home-made, including the ingredients: Masseria Camarda in Ceglie Messapica is an ‘agriturismo’ but also a farm. We sit beneath what was once the bodywork of the Formula 1 Ferrari in which Nigel Mansell won the Brazilian Grand Prix in 1989, on Fiorio’s début as Sporting Director in Maranello. An extraordinary story, told also by the many photos, trophies and other mementoes around us. [click to watch the video] All things considered, as Lancia and Fiat rally director, Cesare Fiorio won 18 world titles. Looking back over those amazing years, you realise that his greatest achievement was to be able to compete on equal terms with adversaries of the calibre of Porsche and Audi, even when the terms were actually far from equal. Behind this were creativity, improvisation as well as the ability to invent techniques and strategies. And this is what we came to talk about, the Fiorio Method. Racing is part of the Fiorio family DNA: that goes for you, your son Alex, as well as your father Sandro, who raced successfully in a few competitions (including the ‘Mille Miglia’) before getting a job with the Pesenti family’s Lancia. And going with your father to the races, you also met some of the greatest champions of that time. Who was that young Cesare, and what were his dreams and ambitions? I remember Gigi Villoresi, Alberto Ascari… I was very young at the time, and they were very famous. More than meet them, I saw them close-up, but it was enough to make me realise that my own goal was to race cars. Things were different back then, you couldn’t race until you were eighteen, when you could get a driving licence. That was when I began competition racing, and managed to win the Italian GT Championship in 1961 behind the wheel of a Lancia Appia Zagato. That was when you discovered your true vocation: organisational, or as they say today, managerial skills. As I racing driver, I realised that something was always missing. I said: if this thing had been there, or if someone had been there in charge of doing that other thing… it really didn't take much to get better results. And so I began to organise races for others, and that became my speciality. In 1963, with Dante Marengo and Luciano Massoni, you set up something that went on to become the Lancia racing team, today a piece of car racing history: the HF Squadra Corse. What was the intuition behind that success? At the time there was a club you could only join if you had owned at least six Lancia cars. It was called Lancia Hi-Fi, high fidelity, expressing the members’ bond with the brand. I took these two initials - HF - and put them into a racing team. There were three of us at the start, then we took on two mechanics, Luigino Podda and Luigi Gotta. Then Lancia gave us a small - very small - shed, with no equipment, no rooms, not even a hoist. We had the cars prepared externally, by Facetti in Bresso or Bosato in Turin, and we just managed the maintenance. But in our own small way we did things well, and one step at a time we grew and began racing with the cars we had prepared. Few resources, great determination: aside from the race reports, there are many interesting behind-the-scenes episodes. Can you tell us about the first time you met Roger Penske in Daytona? It was 1968, and we decided to race a Fulvia Zagato at the 24 Hours of Daytona. It was our first time in America, and we were facing opponents of the calibre of Porsche, Chevrolet… I remember I arrived three days before the race, trying to get a feel of the place and understand how things worked. One of the things I realised was that the pit position was very important, given the importance and delicacy of the stops in such a long race. I chose mine and told the organisers, who didn't bat an eyelid. A couple of days later, Roger Penske arrived. To be honest I didn't know who he was, but in the States he was already a big name and his team was one of the favourites in the race. He went to the organisers, and they told him that his usual pit had already been taken by Lancia. He came over to me, introduced himself and told me that it was his pit. I answered, “Look, the organisation gave it to us, we’ve already settled in and we’re not going to move now.” His gentle manners became more hostile, and I can still remember the sarcasm in his voice when he looked at our little Fulvia: “Who do you think you are!” But I didn’t budge. In the end he walked off, sending us to hell, and we kept the pit. At the height of the Fulvia’s successes, after winning the RAC in 1969 (another incredible story: the bushing taken off Lampinen’s car to allow Källström’s to get going again and win), Fiat bought Lancia and you were sent packing. And then you met Gianni Agnelli… When Fiat took over the ownership of Lancia, the changes were instant. I was called in by the Personnel Manager who told me they didn't need me anymore. Lancia belonged to Fiat, and Fiat would do the job instead of me: “You’ve got three months to find yourself another job, after that our relationship will come to an end.” So I went to the Turin Motor Show, where all the stars of this world met every year, hoping to find a few good contacts. As I was doing the rounds, I noticed a line of frantic photographers and journalists: behind them was Gianni Agnelli. I didn’t know him personally at the time, but he saw me and recognised me. “Fiorio,” he said, “now you can help us win a bit too!” I looked at him, puzzled, and told him that I would have loved to if his Fiat hadn't just fired me. A week later, the Personnel Manager called me: “You can stay, we would like you to run both the Lancia and the Fiat racing teams.” Let’s talk about the Lancia Stratos: a puzzle-like project, where you managed to put all the pieces together even when it wasn't sure they would fit. I had a very clear idea about what the car should have been like: Bertone supplied the bodywork, we worked on the chassis, Dallara was going to develop the suspensions after that. The problem was the engine. Fiat and Lancia didn't have anything suitable, so one day I took a big risk and went to see Enzo Ferrari in Maranello. He showed great respect for our work, because - as he underlined - we managed to win with very few resources available. I told him about the new project we were working on, describing it as something futuristic that however was missing the most important part: the engine. “My Dino will be perfect on your car,” he said. A one in a million event. And the rest is history. And then, once again, Fiat put a spoke in the wheel: at the height of the Stratos period, the managers in Turin preferred to invest in the 131 Abarth version, with an eye on the commercial returns of the operation. You didn’t lose heart, and turned this umpteenth “incident” into another success story. Then came the Group Bs, and with the rear-wheel drive 037 the world title was yours, to the detriment of Audi and its four-wheel drive. Audi was ruling the world at that time, being the first to introduce four-wheel drives and having gained experience with that technology that we still didn’t have so weren’t familiar with. I knew that our only chance was to build a completely different car from theirs, closer to our own traditions. That’s how the 037 was born: lightweight, a central rear engine and great handling. Surrounded by a team of tireless mechanics, brilliant engineers, great designers and top drivers. A combination that, in 1983, helped us to win, beating the deadly and, until then, unbeaten Audi Quattros. Do you remember any episodes in particular from that time? We had just finished a special stage on a dirt road and we were in the lead. All the teams were lined up along the same road for assistance. The Germans were a few metres ahead of us, but at one point I saw an Audi pull up at full speed and stop in front of us. Their manager got out, panting, and without saying or asking anything threw himself under one of our 037s. He thought he would find out something, but of course we were compliant, there were no hidden secrets under the car. This episode really struck me, as it proved that our ability to react had caught them off-guard. The Group B years were crazy: cars were monsters, and drivers were tamers, not to mention the fans, who literally tried to hug the cars as they flew past in the race, sometimes even touching them. What was it like to be part of that era? There were many, too many accidents, both among the public and the crews. Losing Attilio Bettega in Corsica in 1985 and Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto again in Corsica in 1986, we were also victims of this. It was inevitable that something had to change. I remember when, at the height of the 1986 season, the Federation put an end to Group B, saying that from the following year our cars wouldn’t have been allowed to race. The regulation stated at least two years’ notice, but that was an extraordinary situation. I accepted the decision, even though I knew we didn't have anything ready. The new Group A only accepted cars that were mass-produced with at least 5000 every year. All we could do was look at the cars that were already in our catalogues, and so the choice fell on the Lancia Delta 4WD. A few months later, at the début Rally in Montecarlo for the first race in the Championship, we took a new win home, with Miki Biasion in first place with Tiziano Siviero and Juha Kankkunen with Juha Piironen in second. In spring 1989 the call came from Ferrari, when - we have to admit - Ferrari was a disaster. I was at the Portugal Rally, it was Saturday and we were winning, when I got a completely unexpected phone call. It was Cesare Romiti, the then-Chairman of the whole Fiat Group, and wanted me to come home for a chat. I tried to explain that we were in the middle of a race, but he wouldn’t listen. I left instructions for the team and on Sunday morning I took the first flight from Lisbon to Milan, where Romiti was waiting for me. “We need you at Ferrari, are you on board?” Of course, I told me, without hesitation, explaining that I could have been ready in a few weeks. “You don’t understand, we need you right now,” he said. So the next day I went off to Maranello and that’s how my adventure with Ferrari began. Many years before that, you had already worked at Maranello. That was in 1972, when Enzo Ferrari called me to manage his team for the Targa Florio. “I think you can be of help to us in Sicily,” he said. He thought that the Sicilian race - at that time a very important part of the prestigious Sport Prototypes championship - was closer to a rally in management terms. I agreed, and we won the race with Arturo Merzario and Sandro Munari’s Ferrari 312 PB. In the first Formula 1 season you won three races, the first on your début, as many as Maranello had won in the three previous years. And in 1990 with Alain Prost you just missed the world title. You revolutionised the whole thing, right from the beginning demanding that the design – at that time decentralised to the UK under the management of John Barnard - should return home. It couldn’t work, a series of dynamics had been triggered that for me were unacceptable: when things went well it was thanks to the UK, when things went bad it was Maranello’s fault. I asked Barnard to move to Italy, but he refused so we said goodbye. Is it true that you then asked Giampaolo Dallara to become Technical Director? Looking for someone to replace Barnard, I wondered who was the best, and of course I contacted Dallara, also because of the experiences I had had with him in the past. We had known each other since the Stratos period, and I had put him in charge of the development of all the Lancia cars for the track speed races, from the Beta Montecarlo Turbo to the LC1 and LC2. But Giampaolo was very busy with his company, and thought that accepting Ferrari’s offer would have been a kind of betrayal to his employees who had always believed in him. Seeing where he got today, I think he made the right choice. You also tried to steal Ayrton Senna from McLaren and bring him to Ferrari. It wasn’t hard to see that Ayrton Senna was the man to focus on. In 1990 we already had Prost and Mansell in the team, two brilliant drivers, but bringing Senna to Maranello meant that he would no longer be an opponent. I was really struck by the way Ayrton managed the whole negotiation. Discussing his contract, who his engineers would be, which driver he would be with on the team and all those aspects that have to be clarified in the draft contract, it was just me and him, no manager, no lawyers. We reached an agreement, but then Ferrari put the pressure on and this blew up the whole operation, and ultimately led to the end of my relationship with Maranello. History, and Ayrton’s own history, could have taken a completely different turn. Tell us about your son Alex: what does it mean to be a driver’s dad? My son’s only defect is that he’s called Fiorio. When he started to make his name, it was clear that the kid had talent, and this made me aware of a very difficult situation. It would have been natural to take him on for his skill, but that would have fuelled a whole load of criticism that would have clouded his career. So I made the ethically most correct choice, even though I knew he was a really good driver and deserved better, in fact he won not only the Group N World Championship with a private car, but in 1989, aged just 24, he came second behind Miki Biasion with a Jolly Club car. Today, Alex lives in Puglia like me, and he also runs the Fiorio Cup, a competition held on a track we built behind the farm. Cesare Fiorio maritime pilot: your adventure with the Destriero is still an unbeaten record. I raced motorboats for eighteen years. Any Sunday when I wasn’t busy with the teams, I would race in the sea, and I must admit I won many of the most important races in this category, including two world titles. But I had my heart set on the Blue Ribbon, the prize awarded to those crossing the North Atlantic, from Europe to America and back again, in the shortest possible time. My first attempt was with an Azimut Benetti boat, but one of the engines broke and we dropped out. I had another chance right after I stopped working at Ferrari, when I received a phone call from His Majesty the Aga Khan, who offered me the possibility to manage, organise and lead that extraordinary boat, the Destriero. It was really futuristic: built by Fincantieri, it was over 67 metres long and was driven by three General Electric aeronautical turbines, the ones installed on the famous F-117 Stealth bomber. We set off on 9 August 1992 from the Ambrose Light in New York, covering 3106 nautical miles without refuelling on the Atlantic Ocean, as far as the Bishop Rock lighthouse in the Scilly Isles in England in 58 hours, 34 minutes and 50 seconds, with an average speed of 53.09 knots (almost 100 km/h). Yes, the record still hasn’t been beaten. So your life has been dominated by passion. But there’s still one thing we haven't talked about: music. Music is another of my great loves. I have played most instruments, from the drums to the double bass. At one point I even had a jazz band, where I played the saxophone and Enrico Rava the trumpet. But then he became a famous artist and my fate led me elsewhere. -- Alessandro Barteletti is a photographer and journalist. Through his photos, he has been revealing the reality behind news stories, as well as social and sports events, for almost 20 years. Being keen on anything that can be driven fast, on the roads or flying in the sky, he has specialized in the auto, aviation and space industries. Among his clients: National Geographic, Dallara and Italian Air Force. Alessandro currently lives between Rome - where he was born - and Modena, the heart of Motor Valley; he is the editor-in-chief of SpeedHolics Magazine.