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Sometimes I dream of hot rods – a well designed and built coupe with that timeless essence and the delicate balance of rawness and finesse flying down an open road while the vintage flathead purrs its beautiful music as the scenery passes by in a blur. This may be the fantasy of a lot of people have as we daydream about things that we love. So, when Mr. Ken Schmidt of Rolling Bones fame kindly invited me into the inner sanctum to photograph the cars and shop and then ride down with them to the 2017 Race of Gentlemen there was no way I could say no. Photo by Tim Scott - Scott Photo Co. (IG: @scottphotoco) THE ROLLING BONES What can I say about the Rolling Bones that you don’t already know? Their cars and reputation for building one-off custom hot rods first came to my attention in the early 2000’s when a friend shared a video of the Bones and their cars driving across the country from their home in upstate New York to the hallowed salt flats at Bonneville where they would see just how fast these beautiful pieces of wheels and steel would fly across the salt. After a week of pushing for speed records driving back to New York at a measly 80-90 miles an hour probably felt like they were crawling. But regardless, these cars were meant to drive. And while they look amazing just sitting still they are in their prime habitat when the engine is pulling these works of art as fast as possible into the horizon. I met Ken and Keith, founders of the Rolling Bones, at the Grand National Roadster Show in January of 2017. I had seen them at previous GNRS shows but thanks to my good friend Mike Takagi a more formal introduction was made. Mike is an incredible illustrator and true artist and had “met” Ken and Keith on-line through their shared passion for art and hot rods. Ken and Keith welcomed us into the crew and immediately invited us to join them at “a small gathering in Burbank”, later that evening. Not really knowing where we were going or what was happening, we were directed to a dark driveway and a door by a small lot in Burbank. When we walked in, we were greeted by a collection of historic cars and memorabilia that that one only dreams about in testosterone fueled fantasies. A very kind, vivacious and passionate gentlemen named Tom McIntyre graciously welcomed the small group into his inner sanctum and shared his incredible stories of the cars in his collection and his love for all things automobile. It was an unforgettable evening. The following day I shared some of my images from the 2016 Race of Gentlemen at Pismo Beach with Ken and Keith and that was when I was kindly invited to visit the barn known as the Rolling Bones shop just outside of Saratoga Springs, New York. I had five months to plan for an adventure that so many people dream about but relatively few have the opportunity to experience. “As a photographer with a specific vision I shoot film. This is a creative choice for me as it best represents the vision I have and hope to share with my viewers. It’s also a challenging vision as it can be gear heavy and requires a commitment to the process. I shipped out two decent size boxes to New York a week before the trip. These boxes included a 4x5 camera made some time between 1910-1912 and a ridiculous amount of film. I also took along a Rolleiflex twin-lens camera, a Pentax 67 and a Nikon 35mm camera. Why so many cameras? Because every camera, lens and film combination has its own distinct look and perspective and I wanted to show a variety of perspectives to best convey how I experienced this trip.” THE BARN There is much lore about this old barn in upstate New York where incredible hot rods are born. Well, it is just that–an old barn–and that’s pretty awesome in itself. Coming from Southern California I was struck by just how green and beautiful the area was as we rolled up to the shop for the first time ever. Sitting just to the side of the barn under a small awning there stood two Rolling Bones builds that hot rod dreams are made of. The door was open, and we could hear the sounds of activity as we approached the door that had a small Rolling Bones metal sign hanging on the front. We walked into the shop and were immediately greeted by the sights and sounds of hot rod heaven. Some might even call it the ultimate man-cave. Surrounded by five Rolling Bones cars in various states of build I immediately wondered if any of the Rolling Bones might consider adopting me. Work stopped briefly as Ken, Keith and Matt came to welcome us to the shop and see if we brought donuts. There are three master builders known as the Rolling Bones. Mr. Ken Schmidt whom I affectionately call the Godfather, Mr. Keith Cornell, partner and builder extraordinaire and last but far from least Mr. Matt Schmidt, son of Ken and also a master builder. These three men work together on each and every project to collectively make some of the most beautiful hot rods I’ve ever seen. These cars are made to run, and run they do. Ken gave Mike and I a tour of the shop and it was everything I dreamed it would be with a combination of tools, dust, vintage parts and cars tucked into every nook and cranny. If heaven were a hot rod shop, I believe that it would look and feel a lot like this. There is so much history, so many stories and so much knowledge in this modest barn in the countryside in upstate New York that if those walls could talk there would probably be a lot of guys in a lot of trouble and one hell of a good book. So, how do you tell the story in a new way of a hot rod shop that has been talked about, photographed and shared for over a decade? This was my dilemma as I grabbed one of my cameras and started exploring this storied brand. “My goal with this story, both visual and written, is just to give you a glimpse from my perspective of what this experience was for me. There is no way to capture all that the Rolling Bones are, personally, professionally or even all that they have accomplished in their time working as the Rolling Bones. So, as you read and see images from my trip my best wish is that you could get just a taste of what I saw, felt and experienced with the Rolling Bones for a few days in June, 2017.” THREE DAYS TO THE RACE OF GENTLEMEN Preparation was fast and furious as cars were readied for the trip to Wildwood, NJ for the 2017 Race of Gentlemen. With three days to prepare the cars, as well as continue work on the builds in progress the shop was in constant motion. Well, with the exception of coffee and donut breaks, which I came to learn are vital to the creation of hot rods, the shop also seems to be a community gathering spot for neighborhood gearheads and people would randomly stop by just to talk hot rods and soak in some of the hot rod juju that seemed to flow from the barn. Stories are told, some true, some questionable, friends are made, and the builds go on. Two of the three days before we left for TROG it rained. And rained. And rained. I spent a lot of time inside just looking and listening, trying to take in as much as I could to remember and capture this experience. Matt and Keith constantly move around the shop focused and crafting incredible details at every corner of the builds in places that most mere humans will never even notice. Mr. Jon Suckling flew in from England to race his car 232b at The Race of Gentlemen and to see his coupe in progress. His new build was sitting at the very front of the garage and every time I turned around Jon was sitting there looking at every detail, curve and element of his car trying to keep his excited child-self in check as his mind saw what this car was going to be someday. It is already a work of art. There is no modesty or restraint in this build, yet there is a refined subtly and finesse that seems to be in every Bones creation. This car is going to be incredible. Ken, the godfather, seems to be everywhere and see everything. He knows what’s going on and is always there to make sure there are no corners cut or effort wasted in building the best hot rods in the world. Mr. Schmidt, as I’m sure he was known to his former students when he taught school is also a fine artist and you can see his eye for shape, form and detail in everything the Bones do. Ever the teacher, Ken took Jon aside and showed him how to shape the ribs of aluminum that would form the nose of his car. With a lot of good-natured ribbing Ken gave Jon the chance to experience a very small part of just how much work it takes to build something that ends up looking so perfectly simple. While Jon spent quite a few hours learning to shape these elements we were educated to the fact that this was not even a scratch on the surface of the work that it takes to build the nose-let alone the entire car. I can’t speak for Jon but knowing that I had had a small part in making something that was going on such an incredible build would be largely fulfilling and satisfying. A truly unique Rolling Bones build experience. On the day before we were to leave for New Jersey the sun finally revealed itself. As the day passed tires were checked, oil was changed, and details reviewed all in preparation for the trip to The Race of Gentlemen and the race on the beach to come. (To be continued...)

My flight to Paris has landed with a two-hour delay. I hate being late for interviews, and I’m almost running through the streets of the city, my map opened on my smartphone to show me the way. I’m so focused on not getting lost that I barely notice the sun shining over me, and the Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Garden on the left. Spring is here, and everything is scented and coloured. Photos by Rémi Dargegen (IG: @remidargegenphotographies) Rémi Dargegen and I have arranged to meet in a Café at the end of the street: as I see him from a distance, I immediately notice he is exactly the same person I’ve seen online while searching for images. A brown leather jacket, a long black beard and handlebar moustache: a nice person, like a character from a fairy tale, and for a few seconds I forget he is one of the world’s foremost automotive photographers. Actually, as I have a seat in front of him and he starts talking about his job and passion for classic cars, I realise everything started as if he were part of a tale. When he was a child, during a trip in Venice with his parents he saw a model of a Ferrari 250 Testarossa in a shop window and was fascinated by it. His parents were not the ones who always said “yes” to all his requests, but that time, as he asked to have it, they accepted. I think that was a sign of fate. From that episode, his passion grew by reading classic cars magazines, and attending classic cars events. The magazines were in French at the beginning, as he was too young to read in any other language, but as soon as he began studying abroad during summer holidays, he started to buy them in English and German. And this helped a lot to acquire a certain knowledge. Concerning the events, as he was at school or college, he couldn’t move so much. So, he just picked two or three of them in the year, the best ones, and most of the time, his father came with him. He has been a member of the Club Bugatti France since he was 14, and attended the two last editions of the "Bugatti at Montlhery". A very informal event, but with around fifty or sixty Bugattis enjoying the old banking for one day. That's where he had his first ride in a Bugatti (a Type 43 Grand Sport), and he couldn't believe how perfect everything was: the sound, the smell, the power. Every time he mentions a car, his eyes shine: so, I’m curious to know how and when his passion for classic cars met photography for the first time. It happened in his teenage period, when he attended together with his dad the amazing "Louis Vuitton Classic à Bagatelle", one of the best Concours d'élégance worldwide in the 90's. Before leaving, he told him: "OK, but I want to bring my own souvenirs back: I want to take my own pictures, so please tell me how to use your camera!". His dad lent him his Canon AE-1 and explained how to change the setup, the rolls and the lenses, and off they went! That’s how he started with a proper camera. I’m quite convinced of the fact that we are the result of what happened in our childhood and teenage period, and Rémi’s story confirms my theory. Some years ago, as he was still working for Peugeot, one of his friends suggested that he leave the company and start to work as a freelance photographer. One month later, his new life started. Apart from attending some courses to learn technical aspects, he has always been a self-made man. But in a world that runs fast, where on social media everything seems to be easy and perfect, it is important to remember that being a professional photographer means never stop working hard, studying, being kind and humble. Rémi is a lucky man: this is something he recognizes every single day when he wakes up, because it’s quite rare to have your passion as a job, and your job as a passion. Car makers want him to shoot their classic cars: they have become fancy, more and more people have one, especially from the 80s and 90s. It’s all about passion. Some brands have always paid attention to their heritage showing their collections in museums, for example. And some are reviving memories now, buying classic cars and paying tribute to some important models of their history. It’s never too late. I’m curious to know if he has a camera he’ll never sell, and the answer is maybe quite predictable: his dad’s camera, the Canon AE-1. His journey as a photographer started with it, unfortunately he never uses it as his customers need pictures as soon as possible. But he would love to find someone interested in a different project, on film. He tells me he works with two cameras, and there is one lens he always has with him, which is a Sigma 50mm Art. That's a choice - to work with a 50mm fixed lens, because you cannot adjust anything. You have to move around your subject. It's not like a 24-70 zoom lens or something like that where you can change your focus; you have to adapt, and you have to move, changing your perspective all the time. There’s a saying that a good photographer is firstly a good dancer. He’s not sure he’s a great dancer but you have to, in a certain way, dance around your object, especially when you have a fixed lens, because your movements are going to influence everything. So the 50mm is something very special, and he wouldn't go to any photo shoot without it. Studying his Instagram feed, I immediately notice that he pays a great attention at shapes and light, and he always captures the perfect moment of a situation. Every photograph is a story with a protagonist: a pilot, a mechanic, a child. It’s so easy to look at them and imagine how it all started, and how it will go on. There’s so much life behind his shots and this is the power of great photography. Rémi confesses he is mostly inspired and fascinated by photographers from the 40s to the 60s, like Vivian Maier and Henri Cartier-Bresson. And what he has in common with them is an attentive but discreet eye behind the lens, that gives attention to the subject and at the same time offers uniqueness. My time to leave has come, but before going he confesses to me that in his private life, he only uses his smartphone to take pictures. It is incredible, isn’t it? A few hours later, on my flight to Italy, I remember Rémi told me he also likes shooting portraits. I open my smartphone and start scrolling my favorite pictures and here it is: a portrait of a child which Rémi shot at the Goodwood revival two years ago. He is driving a red pedal car, he’s so focused and proud, as a professional racing driver. The caption says “Follow your dreams”. That’s what Rémi did, and what we all should do. P.s. I’ve never been to Paris to interview Rémi Dargegen, but with a little bit of imagination everything is possible, and all of you have been there with me, through the streets of the Ville Lumière and then in a café, chatting with this amazing photographer. This is the power of storytelling.

In the Soviet Union and the better part of Eastern Europe, hundreds of millions of people were living under communist terror, in the world where the car market was nonexistent or state-controlled and where listening to western radio stations playing the newest rock and roll records could land you in jail. If you think owning a Mustang in those places would be unimaginable and impossible, you are right. Still, there was a place in the communist universe where new Mustangs were cherished cars just like in the imperialist, western world. Photos courtesy of Vukasin Herbez Archive The history of the Ford Mustang has been a popular topic amongst automotive historians and journalists. After all, despite being one of the definitive 60s cars, Ford's bestseller introduced a completely new segment to the market, abandoned typical American styling of the period, and embraced compact dimensions, sporty image, and youthful appeal, which very few cars actually had back in the early 60s. Its enormous success was a surprise even to Ford's executives but showed just how sound the original idea was. Offer elegant European-inspired styling with a V8 engine, an enormous list of optional extras, and a base price of only $2.368 was the recipe that earned Mustang the place in history as one of the most successful new car releases ever. No wonder that it took Ford just a year and a half to make million Mustangs and that by 1973 and the end of the first generation, Ford managed to sell amazing 2.9 million copies. The global popularity of the Mustang is also well documented, like its racing success. The Detroit pony was raced practically all over the world, from New Zealand and South Africa to 24 Hours of Spa and 1000 Kilometers of Nürburgring, not to mention its dominance in domestic SCCA and Trans Am championships of the late '60s. Along with the appearance in some of the most popular movies of the decade, Mustangs were driven by celebrities and featured in songs by the top artists. It looked like Ford had indeed conquered the world and, for the first time after the Model T, delivered the equally understood, loved, and accepted product in Buenos Aires and Brussels, in Manilla and Milan. However, people tend to forget that for most of the 20th century, the world wasn't a "global village" as it is today. A significant part of it was behind the "Iron Curtain", tightly controlled by autocratic communist governments, rigid political doctrines, and lack of free will. In the Soviet Union and the better part of Eastern Europe, hundreds of millions of people were living under communist terror, in the world where the car market was nonexistent or state-controlled and where listening to western radio stations playing the newest rock and roll records could land you in jail. If you think owning a Mustang in those places would be unimaginable and impossible, you are right. Still, there was a place in the communist universe where new Mustangs were cherished cars just like in the imperialist, western world. This place was the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, an interesting country in Eastern Europe that was one of the rare bright spots in the rather gray and dull communist regime. Before disintegrating in the bloody civil war in the early '90s, Yugoslavia was an open and modern country, economically more oriented to the West while retaining a communist political system. In such a unique climate, Yugoslav citizens could enjoy Hollywood movies and wear Levi's jeans without fear of oppression but still lived in a tightly-controlled society where the communist party was the only political option. Mixing consumerism and communism had a tremendous effect on local car culture. While state-owned car company Crvena Zastava (Red Flag) produced the Yugoslav version of Fiat 600, president Josip Broz Tito's motorcade was filled with Cadillacs. Yugoslav cities were packed with all kinds of cars, including a fair amount of American machines used mostly by companies and government officials. While in other communist countries, owning a car was considered almost a bourgeois act, in Yugoslavia, it was encouraged by affordable loans, domestic brands, and expanding road network. Yugoslav car fans were aware of the new Ford model when the Mustang was released in 1964. Mainly through movies like "Goldfinger" or French classic "Gendarme From St Tropez" but pretty soon by seeing them with foreign plates driven by tourists on Adriatic Riviera or by Yugoslav ex-pats coming for a visit home. Seeing a Mustang on Yugoslav roads must have been a pretty impressive and unexpected sight back in the mid-'60s in a country where the majority of vehicles were economy cars. The initial popularity of the Mustang in Yugoslavia was aided by the legendary Liege-Sofia-Liege rally, which consisted of 5000 kilometers through Europe, from Belgium to Bulgaria and back. Several stages of this tough road-racing event were driven through Yugoslavia, giving local fans a chance to see Detroit's pony in its element, running through the back roads, filling the air with dust and intoxication rumble of legendary 289 cubic inch V8 engine. Those evens enjoyed a fair amount of local media coverage, emphasizing young Jackie Ickx and his winning 1966 Mustang. It is hard to tell who owned the first Mustang on Yugoslav plates, but the first cars were privately imported soon after the official European premiere. In those days, importing a new vehicle in Yugoslavia was a costly, complicated, and time-consuming affair since the Yugoslav state was protective of its industry. Still, apparently, in 1965, one dark blue, six-cylinder coupe was registered in Novi Sad and immediately became the talk of the town. In those days, the general importer for Ford vehicles was a state-owned company called "Interkomerc," which was surprised by the interest of the potential buyers. In 1964, the Yugoslav government started significant economic reforms designed to open the market, raise the standard of living and attract foreign investors, which by 1966 showed the first results. Suddenly, there was a small but influential and well-to-do class of people hungry for a hot new sporty coupe with a seductive name, powerful engines, and sexy image. That is why, by the end of 1966, Interkomerc had announced that starting from 1967, Ford Mustang would be offered to Yugoslav buyers and that Yugoslavia would be the first (and only) communist country where this was possible. The official presentation was held in March 1967 at the Belgrade Motor Show, where the newly redesigned Mustang was the centerpiece of Ford's booth and generated an enormous amount of interest. As expected, Mustang was very expensive for the average Yugoslav citizen since the draconian fees of almost 120% over base price were added. However, that high price wasn't a problem for sixteen people who bought brand new Mustangs on the spot. In an effort to promote the tourist potential of Yugoslavia, state-owned travel company "Putnik" bought 18 brand new Brittany blue, six-cylinder coupes for its rental car branch and sent them to all major cities and tourist destinations. In a few short months, communist car fans fell in love with one of the prime examples of the American car industry. But Mustang's popularity has just started, and on the 1968 Belgrade Motor Show, twenty-five people decide that they want to spend their hard-earned dinars on brand new Mustang. The Mustangs started being featured in Yugoslav movies, in commercials, and in magazines. They have greeted the foreign tourists in front of hotels and photographed for brochures. Putnik rental agency even sponsored a popular traveling music festival called "Pesme Leta" (Songs of Summer) and gave several Mustangs to music stars to drive across Yugoslavia. Even the Yugoslav pageant for Miss Europe contest used one of those Mustangs to travel to neighboring Italy. The popular legend from those days states that Yugoslav Mustangs had been so impressive to car enthusiasts from the region that they traveled to Yugoslavia, rented the cars, switched the license plates, and tried to smuggle them back to their countries in which owning such vehicles (or any car for that matter) would be unimaginable. In one of the first big football transfers in Yugoslavia, perspective football player Džemaludin Mušović moved from FK Sarajevo to Hajduk Split in Croatia. In this well-publicized transfer, he was paid an astronomical 36 million dinars. Young football player spent about half of that on brand new and bright red 1968 Mustang coupe, which he used to cruise around the coastal town of Split. Even though almost all of those cars were base, six-cylinder models, their appeal was fantastic, and very soon, Mustangs were well-known all over the country. By the late '60s, the number of Mustangs on the Yugoslav streets grew, and private imports from West Europe started pouring in. Some of them were German-spec, Ford T5, which Ford used in Germany until 1978 because a truck manufacturer owned the name Mustang. Amongst those imports, V8-powered cars were a popular choice, and some people even imported big-block models like S-Code 390 V8, and a few Mach Is. Unfortunately, there isn't any information about ultra-rare Boss 302/429 or Shelby models registered in ex-Yugoslavia. By the early '70s, Mustang's popularity veined a bit along with the final restyle and the global oil crisis. Despite all of that, Interkomerc still offered the cars to the public, but Putnik rental agency decided to retire and sell its fleet. In 1974, the controversial Mustang II debuted, smaller and less powerful, but it was still officially offered in Yugoslavia and managed to find some buyers. For the rest of the decade, Mustang sales were slow, but the car's popularity remained strong, with more privately imported cars roaming the streets. In 1979, the Foxbody Mustang arrived as a fully-redesigned and re-engineered model. Interkomerc managed to sell twenty-one examples in Yugoslavia with a base 2.3-liter four-cylinder and optional 2.8-liter V6 engine. However, in 1981, Ford Europe decided to stop importing Mustangs for the European market, including Yugoslavia. Even then, few Mustangs somehow managed to find their way to Yugoslav roads, keep the name alive. If we wanted to put the exact number of how many Mustangs actually were in Yugoslavia, several hundred cars would probably be accurate, if not a conservative estimate. Since then, Yugoslavia met its tragic end in the civil war, and classic Mustangs were forgotten while the region's history was re-written. Most of the cars never survived, plagued with rust, negligence, and unenthusiastic owners. After a while, spare parts became a problem, depreciation had affected the value, and car enthusiasts turned to more modern and better-performing cars. Some were even lost in the civil war in Croatia and Bosnia. During the 80s, many Mustangs were crudely modified, V8 engines swapped for more economical powerplants, and some even had roofs cut to make a convertible. Of course, since then, the popularity of the Mustang as the classic car influenced car lovers from all ex-Yugoslav countries, so remaining cars were restored and dozens more imported. However, it is quite possible that somewhere in rural parts of one of seven countries born out of the demise of Yugoslavia, in some hidden garage, lies a forgotten classic Mustang waiting for a new generation of car enthusiasts. As one of the coolest and obscure chapters in the history of the Mustang, it would be very cool to find a proud American machine with the red star on the old license plates and communist passport.

The Lamborghini men had some amazing adventures during the first, top-secret tests on the Diablo prototype. Years later, Luigi Marmiroli recalls what incredible lengths they had to go to, to avoid the lenses of the photographers chasing a scoop. Photos courtesy of Luigi Marmiroli Archive As explained in previous articles, I was hired by Automobili Lamborghini with a mission: to design a new supercar to replace the legendary but now obsolete Countach. Having studied all the designs of my illustrious predecessors, engineers of the calibre of Bizzarrini, Dallara, Stanzani, Alfieri, and having met the founder himself, Ferruccio Lamborghini, I threw myself whole-heartedly into the P132 project, the future Diablo. The first thing I did was send the mechanical layout of the car to two of the most important stylists of the period: Giorgietto Giugiaro and Marcello Gandini. Traditionally, at any car manufacturers the burden and honour of the choice of style lay with the shareholder. And Patrick Mimran, the young shareholder, with all my support and approval, chose Marcello Gandini. I think readers will be pleased to see Gandini’s first P132 rendering, which he kindly dedicated to me. In April 1987, the P132 prototype was rolled out into the factory courtyard for the first time, for the tests on the road and in the wind tunnel. And no-one could have imagined that the moon could have influenced the development of the design...! Episode One: the real moon. The news that Lamborghini was working on a new prototype had reached the press, and outside the factory gates we began to see photographers with their telephoto lenses, trying to steal a few shots and be the first to publish a photo of the new car. Today, specially designed skins are applied to the bodywork to completely hide the shape of the car. But at that time, they didn’t exist, and we decided to paint the P132 in an anonymous “mousy grey” colour and add improbable air intakes using adhesive tape. We had also decided to do the road tests at night: both to hide the prototype from prying eyes, and to avoid any speeding fines, as it was fundamental to test a high-performance car at high speed. Not far from Sant’Agata, there was a petrol station on a long straight road, and at night it was closed, but kept a few dim lights switched on. It immediately became our control and support base. I remember perfectly how, in the dark, you could hear the roaring engine in the distance, and then suddenly when the grey car flashed past the station it caused a huge thrill. The test driver was almost always Valentino Balboni. One night, in the car with him was an engineer from the ‘Esperienze’ department who was recording the vehicle data. Suddenly, the – clearly still experimental – electrical system broke down, and the car, at high speed on a rather narrow road, found itself with no engine and no headlights. Luckily, there was a bright full moon that night, and Valentino was able to stop the car without hitting any ditches, bollards or trees. So, the moon saved Valentino, the engineer and the newborn P132 prototype. Episode Two: that same moon brought us luck. Obviously, I was anxious to test the aerodynamics of the P132 in the wind tunnel. The nearest tunnel to the Lamborghini factory was at Pininfarina in Turin, but I thought we should avoid that one because Ferrari used it for both their competition and road cars: I was worried that the results could fall into the hands of Ferrari, potentially our competitor. So I decided to go to the St Cyr tunnel in Paris. To save money and keep things under wraps, we decided not to appoint a professional haulier but to transport the prototype ourselves. So we put the prototype on a trailer. Of course, we covered it with a waterproof canvas, and used polyurethane blocks to make the cargo unrecognisable. Then we hitched the trailer to my company car, without thinking that its front-wheel drive wasn’t suited to towing a heavy trailer. And we realised this immediately, when one Sunday morning we set off for Paris. There were four people in the tow car, all involved in the tests in the wind tunnel. I was half asleep in the back, and as we were driving along the A1 motorway near Parma, a terrible thing happened. I woke up with a jolt as the convoy, heading north, suddenly found itself in the fast lane, but heading in the opposite direction. The prototype on the trailer was resting heavily against the guardrail, but luckily was undamaged thanks to the polyurethane masking. All four of us in the car were unscathed, but our hearts were pounding, and we were terrorised by the thought of a truck coming at high speed towards us, which would have caused an inevitable and disastrous head-on collision. With a cool head, the driver did a U-turn to face the right direction and move onto the hard shoulder, as many cars continued to fly past. We were all safe, us and the prototype. A miracle. The only problem was that the drawbar on the trailer had broken: we fixed it and set off once more for Paris. However, at speeds of more than 50 km/h, the convoy would sway awfully, and we were worried that we would find ourselves in that same dangerous situation we had narrowly escaped. At that speed, it took us a whole day to get to Paris. Our nerves in tatters from the hazardous journey, and worn out, we were welcomed by a Frenchman, whose words I will never forget: “Les italiens sont toujours en retard”. The Italians are always late. I didn’t even have the strength to retort. However, immediately afterwards, the positive aerodynamic tests made me forget the fatigue and fear of the journey. But in any case, I took the plane home.

At dawn on an August day, forty-six years ago – 1976 – the French film director Claude Lelouch (author of “A Man and a Woman”) grappled with one of the craziest, most controversial and extraordinary attempts at motoring cinema. Original title: “C’était un rendez-vous”. This is the story of a man running from his woman. Pictures © Les Films 13 Archive A modern story, one of wild and reckless romanticism. A subjective sequence shot, eight-and-a-half minutes’ long, covering ten kilometres through the streets of Paris, in a car at ultra-high speed: "The film was made without any tricks and is not speeded up," reads the initial warning. Without any stops, not even at a red traffic light, up to the steps leading to the “Sacré-Cœur”. A beautiful blonde girl appears, the only face seen in the whole film. The man gets out of the car, enters the frame and a still image freezes their embrace. The girl is Gunilla Friden, ex Miss Sweden and semi-finalist in the 1968 Miss World competition, at that time French director Claude Lelouch’s fiancée. The instructions were clear: “Wait at the bottom, and run up the steps as soon as you hear the sound of a car,” Lelouch told her, with no further explanation. The only accomplice in this crazy adventure was Élie Chouraqui, the director’s assistant, who stood at a crossroads where there was not enough visibility. Using a walkie talkie, he was supposed to inform the driver if there were any pedestrians or other obstacles. But, as Lelouch himself later declared, the radio transmitters were faulty and there was no way of communicating during the shoot. “C’était un rendez-vous” (“It Was a Date”) was shot with a single camera mounted on the front bumper of a Mercedes “450SEL” 6.9 to obtain the subjective frame. The car, the director’s own, was considered suitable for the job because of its smooth chassis and the automatic transmission, which guaranteed the necessary stability and progressivity during the shoot. A second lap with Lelouch’s Ferrari “275 GTB” was needed to record a more alluring sound, which was superimposed over the original during post-production. Doing the maths, it is estimated that it took just over eight minutes to cover the 10.6 kilometres, travelling at an average speed of 80 kilometres an hour. But beware: this is an average, because legend has it - and the film confirms - that in some stretches the driver reached speeds of up to 140 kilometres an hour. Out of respect for the traffic rules, the contents compromised the dissemination of the film. It was screened only a few times, unexpectedly, during the interval in other films: anyone who had seen it had something to boast about. Very poor-quality pirate videos cost more than 50 dollars, if you were lucky enough to find one. And then came the Youtube era, and in 2003 attempts were made to get hold of the original film and make a DVD. Years later a remastered Blu-Ray limited edition was released. Today, both have become a real collector’s pieces, very hard to find and very expensive. For years, rumour had it that Lelouch had hired a Formula 1 driver for his escapade. “I was at the wheel; it was my film, and I took on all the risks and responsibilities,” the director later confessed, without every really convincing the film’s fans. “After the film was shown for the first time, I was summoned the police chief in person. He read me an endless list of violations, gave me a hard stare and asked for my documents. He had promised his superiors that he would take my licence away, but didn’t actually say for how long. In fact, he looked at it for a moment and then handed it back to me, with a huge smile on his face. Dismissing me, he told me that his children loved my film”. Forty-four years later, in 2020, the year of the pandemic, Lelouch attempted what has been defined as the “remake” of his famous short film. Title: “Le Grand Rendez-Vous” (see the video here). This time the starring role was played by the Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, at the wheel of an SF90 Stradale on the streets of the Principality of Monaco, with Price Albert II in the passenger seat. Waiting for them, playing a florist, is Rebecca Blanc-Lelouch, Claude and Gunilla Friden’s granddaughter, just to underline the shrewd connection to the 1976 “Rendez-Vous”. The 2020 edition was filmed during the time the Monaco Grand Prix was due to be held, involving a crew of seventeen people equipped with six iPhones, nine GoPros and a camera. To support the Ferrari SF90 (two of them were used), a team of six mechanics and engineers came over from Maranello. These numbers, and a story that cannot be described exactly as brilliant, are enough to understand that this was a completely different matter. A six-minute “short” that was unable to thrill the fans like the 1976 original did. It was a commercial operation, but above all an “official” one: and today, this is what makes Lelouch’s first crazy and “illegal” race an even more legendary and unrepeatable exploit.

In the year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary Countach, I would like to send the traditional Happy New Year wishes to the readers of “Insights” and to all the “Speedholics”, with two documents that talk about the car and which in some way offer an analogy with our present... Courtesy of Luigi Marmiroli Archive The first document is a vintage greetings card printed by Automobili Lamborghini many years ago. As you can see, the wording is: “A good start to the new year”. This is perfectly suited to our times, wishing a quick start out of this unfortunate pandemic period. The second document, again relating to the Countach, seems to describe the current situation even better. It is an old Pirelli advert, filmed in the old city of Matera. A sudden, unknown disaster stops the Earth rotating around its axis. Panic spreads among all the inhabitants of the planet. But a lady, dressed in white, climbs into a splendid red Countach and drives it into a cave, placing the rear wheels on an uncovered portion of the globe. The power of the Lamborghini engine, and the perfect adherence of the Pirelli tyres, are able to set the Earth rotating again, and save the world. If we replace the planet at a standstill with that caused by Covid-19 and the Countach effect with the vaccine, the analogy is clear. So best wishes for a quick restart…

A rather incredible story that began in 1988 following a special request from Prince Jefri, the brother of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, a fervent car collector, to whom it would have been impossible to say no: a top-secret mission to build an exclusive supercar, based on the chassis of the Ferrari Testarossa but with a completely unique design. Enrico Fumia, the designer behind the lines and the concept, told SpeedHolics how Pininfarina built six cars, unbeknown to Maranello. Photos courtesy of Enrico Fumia Archive There is a very tiny space in the car world in which cars are half-way between dream and reality. This is mostly a place in the mind, but sometimes, if we are curious and lucky enough, we may have a chance to pass by this space and take a look. In this small, unspoiled part of the car world, where the fresh winds that blow are so wondrously far from the rules and conventions governing common sense, we may find the human imagination acting alone, in a revolution that seeks to combine innovation and creativity. “Innovation not just renovation” is the mantra that has always marked Enrico Fumia's way of designing and understanding life. From Turin, a degree in aeronautical engineering and a long-standing career as manager and designer, a free thinker and free spirit, after a very long career in Pininfarina and Lancia - where he shaped some of the very successful models including the Alfa Romeo 164 (1987), Spider and GTV (1994), Lancia Y (1995) - he went freelance, firstly at Master Design Intl., then Fumia Design Associati and Fumia Design Studio (designing cars and more for Japan and China), at the age of 73, Fumia continues to feed off dreams and fantasy. He does not fear contradiction, indeed he believes it to be a blessing: “To the Contrary Mary in me”, recites the dedication on the cover of a copy, by mistake bound on the wrong side, of “AUTOritratto”, the autobiography published by Fucina Editore in which, using brushstrokes that are at times unexpected and often fierce, with no fear of going beyond the canvas, he tells of a life of ideas and projects “outside the box”. We met him to talk about one of his most important (and yet least famous) projects, in his cosy house in the Piedmont hills of San Matteo, a stone’s throw from Bra, the city of sausages, cheese and good wine. The story of the Ferrari F90, closer to an adventure novel than the tale of a supercar, began over a delicious ‘moka’ coffee prepared by his wife Kazuko, who is 100% Japanese but, next to Enrico, has learned all the lightest and brightest arts of Italian living. Let’s start from the beginning. How was the Ferrari F90 born? From a specific request of Prince Jefri, the brother of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, a fervent collector of cars, all the better if tailor-made. Having commissioned twelve Testarossa-turned spiders from Pininfarina, in 1988, through the then-Ferrari importer in Singapore, he asked us to build an exclusive, top-secret supercar, based on the Testarossa chassis but with a completely unique design. What do you mean by top secret? The importer explained to us that, if we accepted, nobody was to know about it, especially not Ferrari. There and then, this was quite a shock, as Pininfarina would have had to hide the project from Maranello and the manufacturers they were closely tied to. But in the end, you agreed. In economic terms it was very enticing. We couldn’t say no, both for the amount and the advance payment for the first and then the following cars; because the idea was that if he liked the first F90, he would have ordered others. And in fact, the order went from one to six. Which made the prince our top customer in terms of turnover, it was more profitable than any other manufacturer we worked with. That’s why we couldn’t say no. And at that point, how did you decide to proceed? We had almost finished the Mythos, which was still called the P7 in Pininfarina code, chosen as the show car for the Tokyo salon in 1989 and so not unique, but Prince Jefri demanded that the car had to be made starting from scratch. But faced with this specific request, there was someone - not me - who preferred to offer the prince some of the designs that had been rejected before the Mythos was chosen. And among the many sketches was yours. Did you run a kind of in-house contest to decide the winner? No, as usual in these circumstances we sent the pack of drawings (the ones recycled from the Mythos project) with a range of proposals to the prince. And according to his own taste, he chose mine. He then confirmed this decision after seeing a 1:5 scale model first-hand. At that time, you were deputy general director at Pininfarina. How did you find the time to sit down and draw? At work I had very little time to sit down and put the ideas running through my mind onto paper. So I drew in my spare time: even - though not mostly - at home, but only when I was inspired or particularly interested in the project. And in this I realise that I was very lucky. Then, I must say that at work, anyone who could hold a pencil, even the gatekeeper (no offence!) could draw something and present it to the style department. Everything was hung on the wall, and nothing was ever rejected a priori. And now, the name: why the F90? Easy: it was an acronym of Ferrari for the 90s, which were almost there. So, something imagined as the forefather of a new generation of “Cavallino” cars for the coming decade. And talking of inspiration: is there a creative link between the past and future of the Prancing Horse in the forms of the F90, which was extremely pioneering compared to the Ferraris of the time? Looking at the models that came before, I would say yes. For those that came after, absolutely not; if not for one detail: the headlights. But only for some. Having to design a Ferrari-Pininfarina, I knew that I would have to respect two great traditions. This is why I built that which, in the style studies of a brand, I call Recognisability or Identity Cycle; this is a method I used, consisting of three steps: 1) reinterpretation of the Brand’s stylistic past; 2) selection of the consolidated stylistic features, even the forgotten ones; 3) historization, in other words the updating of the most significant stylistic features and the introduction of new ones, in line with the brand’s tradition. While the first two are academic, the third is based on the subjectivity of the designer: a play on words to say that the designer must be able to justify the new style codes introduced as ideally part of the Brand’s tradition. This is far from taken for granted. And this is why today, new stylistic features are as rare as great designers. It’s all dominated by stylistic imitations, bordering on caricatures, legends of the past, something I would define as examples of a creative void. I say this specially to spur on the new generation, forcing them to squeeze their brains and attempt new solutions, which can in turn become icons. And you had already experimented this method? I had applied it to the Alfa 164, Spider and GTV, but without stating it, because at that time - in contrast to today - taking inspiration from the past sounded like you didn’t have any new ideas. But seeing the objectively good results, I continued to use it, with some great satisfaction. Going back to the F90, which style detail most inspired you looking back over the Ferrari tradition? The one element that I updated so much as to make it a new stylistic feature of the Ferrari tradition is what I call the “pointed ellipse”. It is the reinterpretation of the elliptic front grille on the Superfast II, 365 and 330 in the 1960s, inspired by the “mouths” of the F1 cars of the time, including Ferrari. But I challenge anyone to notice at first glance without this explanation. Which means that the pointed ellipse grille became a modern innovation. We shouldn’t forget that the drawing of the F90 dates back to September 1988, so today is more than thirty years old. And as mentioned, in that drawing even the headlights were really innovative for the time, in both shape and technology. Looking only at the narrow and elongated shape, they are the update of those that we usually hidden beneath glass in the 1960s GT Ferraris. Then, moving on to the mid-2000s, those on the Enzo, 612 Scaglietti and F430 aren’t that much different. The pointed ellipse motif is repeated on four sides: the two sides, the front and the rear. Something very similar can be seen on one of your greatest successes, the Lancia Y. How did the idea of that symmetry come about? The idea of repeating the same graphic motif on four sides of the bodywork, that I defined “quadrifrontal”, has always been used in architecture, especially in symbolic monuments: from the Egyptian pyramids to eastern pagodas, from the Eiffel Tower to the Mole Antonelliana. But not on four sides of a car. If anything on two: similar front and rear, like the Panhard PL15-17, Renault Dauphine, Simca 1000, Chevrolet Corvair, and even the first Audi TT. Four equal sides have the considerable advantage of ensuring instant recognisability of an object from any angle, which I think is very useful. This is where the idea of repeating the pointed ellipse of the grille also on the rear and the two sides came from. Not in the same proportions, but adapted to each function. A style that is not an end in itself, but is always functional. The grille is not fake like on the Testarossa, here it really carries air to the front radiator, built ex-novo to replace the two side ones on the Testarossa, on which the F90 is based. The elliptical casing on the side, on the other hand, includes other air intakes and the door handle; while at the rear, half contains the lights and the rest is the air grille, to dissipate the residual heat from the engine. As for the comparison with the Y, only I knew, and had the professional honesty, to remark in my book on the analogy of the quadrifrontal of the first style model of the Y with a “Stop & Go!”. Otherwise, nobody would have ever noticed it, as the F90, unknown at the time, is recognisable to most people even today. With this, we can't say that the Lancia Y looks like a little Ferrari, nor the F90 like a hyper-Lancia. I swear that if the F90 ever appeared in public, almost certainly I would not have transferred it onto the Y. So, it’s fate was sealed. And I would add that if they had both been on the market, well... Giugiaro’s first Lancia Delta is pretty much the transposition of his Audi concept-car Asso di Picche. And nobody cried foul, far from it. The twelve Testarossa Spiders for Prince Jefri were tested directly by Ferrari, while the F90 had to keep its distance from Maranello. How were the tests organised? We tested mostly at night, without the Prancing Horse emblem and with the bodywork completely camouflaged to make it unrecognisable. I took part in the tests sometimes, and, as the car was a right-hand drive, when I drove someone else had to sit in the passenger seat to pay the tolls at the motorway exits. For instance, I remember the engineer Renzo Trivero, who unfortunately died prematurely. Not only was he a 100% engineer, he was also an excellent driver. After my traumatic departure from Pininfarina in late ‘92, he was the one who developed the last three units of the six built and still in Brunei today, who knows in what condition. But at one point, the secret got out. Yes, it was all the fault of the web! One day in 2002, in one of the very first car scoops appearing on the web, a photo was published showing a red F90 in one of the garages where the prince kept part of his collection of - so they say - over 7,000 cars. How did Ferrari react? In total silence for quite a while. Then, in 2005, Roberto Bonetto, the then-deputy editor of the historical Italian magazine Quattroruote, phoned me to find out the true story of the F90 and ask if he could put a photo of the car in the Extravaganza section of the Ferrari annual. In fact, Quattroruotine, a model-building magazine which no longer exists today, had already published the pictures of a 1:43 scale model that ABC Brianza had made 300 of, simply called the F90 Sultan. Which meant that neither the name Ferrari nor any Prancing Horse symbols appeared. This time the situation was much more delicate, so I told Bonetto that I would like to talk it through with Maranello. And that’s what I did, I went to see Antonio Ghini, the then-communications manager at Ferrari. Did you tell him everything? From start to finish. I told him about the photos that had appeared on the web, about the Sultan and all the rest. And how did he react? Better that we could ever have expected, in fact, after consenting to the publication of the photos in the 2005 annual, which the clients would have received in 2006, Ferrari officially recognised the F90 as an authentic Ferrari, without ever having seen or touched it. And of course, as the father of the design, I was over the moon. And today, what do we know of the F90s? I often wonder that too. As far as I know they're all still in Brunei, even though we have no idea in what condition. I’m still in contact with the prince’s intermediary, and I asked him why, at one point, the relations with Pininfarina stopped. From what I understood, his brothers, tired of his whims, wouldn’t put up with his crazy car spending anymore. The prince must be quite an extravagant one. I don’t know, nobody ever had any direct contact with him. I for one owe him a lot, because he was the only real patron I came across in my life. I consider him much more than a sponsor, as he trusted me and the Pininfarina style and its skilled workers, without ever interfering or demanding anything, despite paying handsomely for the objects of his desires. Did you never think to send him a letter? No, but I will do soon, with a copy of my book. But I’m superstitious, and would rather not talk of that right now. What I can say is that I will thank him for choosing the F90 and that I still have two dreams to make come true… if he wants, and if he can, I hope. OK we can respect your superstitions, but do tell us something more… I don’t know what I would give today to see at least one of the six F90s again and be able to show it off in public at last. Even for just one day. Then, I would tell him about the concept F1o2, a supercar with a rotating mechanism that can create a single-seater or two-seater layout, that I began to work on in October 2000, when Schumacher was about to win his first Formula 1 world championship with the Ferrari after more than 20 years, as a homage to Ferrari’s new-found supremacy. I proposed it to Maranello, talking to Amedeo Felisa, ex-General Director and in more recent times the CEO of Ferrari, for 5 years. Although he was very interested - they even successfully tested the mechanism in the passenger compartment of the Enzo -, in the end nothing came of it. We can see from Fumia’s face how disappointed he still is about this missed opportunity. “I still have that healthy professional arrogance to consider the F1o2 an authentic piece of Made in Italy,” he says as he takes a white-painted 1:10 scale model from a cupboard in his office. He opens the doors, slides out the steering wheel and shows us the mechanism that, in just a few simple steps, turns the car into a single-seater or a two-seater. Not a three-seater. Who knows what Prince Jefri would think of it. “Good question,” Fumia replies. If he likes it, he knows where to find me. But first I have to pull my finger out and send him that letter…”.

After the extraordinary adventure with the Lancia Delta Integrale, the engineer from Turin - and father of the 037 - found himself catapulted into a completely new sporting world. In the early ‘90s, the Delta was biding its time until retirement, and the company management decided to wager everything on the new Alfa Romeo 155. A car that wouldn’t have to cope with snow, ice and mud, but with the tarmac of major European circuits. Thirty years on, exclusively for Speedholics, Limone takes a trip behind the scenes of that unknown yet thrilling and gratifying challenge. Photos courtesy of Sergio Limone Archive - Alessandro Barteletti Archive Anyone au fait with motorsports history, whose favourite ‘poster car’ was the Lancia Delta Integrale, will have no trouble identifying the period of Sergio Limone’s career that best tells the story of the man and the professional. Seventy-three years carried lightly, the physique of a ballplayer and eyes that run as fast as the bolides he designed in over thirty years working for Abarth, he is one of the “heroes” who in the 1980s and early ‘90s helped Lancia to dominate the rally circuits. Today he still has the same curiosity as he had when, just thirteen, he dreamed of a future in racing cars. “But not as a driver. I never had that kind of ambition, it didn’t interest me,” he tells. “What attracted me, if anything, was to be able to learn the technique, how to design cars.” More “Torinese” than gianduia cream, Limone has always preferred rallies to track racing. And he has never tried to hide this. It’s a matter of curriculum, he would say today, as this is the field that offered him his greatest professional satisfactions (seven Manufacturer’s titles and six Driver’s titles with Lancia). But, as he explains, it’s also a matter of feeling: “I was lucky to work in years in which the regulations offered ample freedom of action. Creativity paid off. In those days, rallies meant unpredictability and improvisation. Today the great variable is the race conditions, but the rules are much stricter than in the past and don't allow designers to let their imagination run wild.” And after an introduction like this, we are almost embarrassed to ask about the races on the track. “I may exaggerate slightly if I said that I always found them boring, but I must admit that it was quite a trauma for me when, in December 1991, I found out that the Delta and the rallies were to be abandoned, focusing instead on the touring car races with Alfa Romeo. But why? According to the Fiat Group management of the time, Alfa Romeo had more global commercial potential than Lancia. In fact, we had won six world rally championships, and seeking a seventh title with a car that, by then, was at the end of its career didn’t make much sense. Alfa, on the other hand, had just presented the 155: racing it, and winning, would have meant raising its status to that of a true Alfa Romeo, boosting sales.” A bit like the GTAs of the ‘60s and ‘70s, even though, in contrast to its predecessors, the 155 wasn’t a racing thoroughbred. Among the brand’s purists, some even considered it to be on a par with the Fiat Tempra, which was anything but a sports car. “That’s true, but if you look at things that way, the Lancia Delta wasn't born as a sports car either. The 155 was based on the Fiat Tipo 2 front-wheel drive chassis, but the Turbo Q4, the first version we worked on, had inherited all the four-wheel drive mechanics of the Delta Integrale, with the exception of the rear suspensions which, although IWD, didn’t match the classic McPherson layout. So, the racing 155 shared much of its DNA with a car that had won everything there was to win.” So, you took the standard Q4 and turned it into a racing GTA. What changed in the passage from road to track? “We didn't have much time to develop a car to race in the Italian Superturismo Championship in 1992, at the same time getting ready for a huge challenge for a team that was quite small and with limited resources: the 1993 German DTM. The design was managed in Turin, with a direct line to Alfa Corse in Settimo Milanese. We made all the changes needed for competition use on the track, and immediately noted a clear advantage compared to the Delta: born over a decade later, the 155 had benefited from more detailed aerodynamic studies, so it cut the air better and it was easier to make it fast. The greatest difference between the road and the competition versions was the rear suspension, which was very similar to that of the Delta.” In Italy, 17 wins in 20 races: an undisputed domination that rang a warning bell for the German cars battling in the DTM. “The Germans certainly pricked up their ears, even though they were quite confident that they would have an easy ride. I remember one very funny anecdote that, more than any other, describes that ironic and rather mocking climate that welcomed us in Germany: on the first race in Zolder, the Mercedes team made us a large cake decorated with a snake biting their symbol, the three-point star. We had completed 4,000 kilometres of test runs and our car was far more modern than the 190E, but there was no certainty of winning on the début race, especially with two test cars. But it was a great surprise, just like the final championship title won, a race early, by Nicola Larini, who set the record of ten wins out of twenty races In the racing world, you are famous for your special skill in interpreting the most hidden loopholes in the regulations. Class 1 Touring regulations, which limited engines to a maximum of six cylinders and 2.5 litres capacity, was an absolute novelty for the DTM. What were the greatest difficulties in developing this car? “We were free to revolutionise the car, and that’s what we did, in fact the only thing that remained the same as the standard model was the angle between the cylinder banks of the V6 engine, derived from the Alfa 6 2.5. One thing I remember like it was yesterday was the huge stir caused by the upturned tailpipes. As our car was faster than the others, the German newspapers construed that strange invention with a big dose of imagination, even suggesting that it hid some kind of aerodynamic advantage. But the truth was far simpler: out of desperation, the only way I could find to make the 155 pass the sound test was to turn the exhaust upwards, to reduce the reverberation and remain within the noise limits set in the regulation. In 1994 we made some other changes, lowering the car and making it faster, but we had some problems in the team management. We won a lot of races, but always with different drivers. And so we didn’t win the title again.” And the year after that? “That was even tougher. The regulation gave more freedoms, and we were unprepared. We were late in developing the car, and arrived short of breath, while for the new Mercedes C-Class they had come up with suspension arms similar to those used in the Formula 1 cars…”. The Mercedes traditionally had rear-wheel drive, while the Alfa Romeo cars had four-wheel drive. Which one had the advantage? “The C-Class weighed around forty kilos less than the 155, and to compensate the drive gap due to having only two-wheel drive, it had an actuator that hurled a 50 kg mass forwards during acceleration. The four-wheel drive was very helpful on the wet, but also made a difference on a dry track, as dividing the power over two axles meant less stress on the tyres, so softer mixes could be used to increase the grip on the tarmac.” The 155 V6 TI was made famous by winning the German DTM against giants of the calibre of Mercedes, BMW and Opel. But much less is said about the 155 TS D2, with its 2-litre, 4-cylinder Twin Spark engine. “Yes, and it’s a shame, because in 1993 it almost won the Italian Superturismo Championship, and the year after that it won the BTCC in the UK. Maybe today its technology makes it quite low-profile because objectively it was inferior to that of the V6, which, beneath a silhouette reminiscent of the standard models, hid numerous developments, including loads of electronics and a super-advanced chassis. Once again, it was all a matter of regulations: although there was a certain amount of freedom for the engine, choosing the components from all the brand’s models, the Class D2 rules meant that the drivetrain had to be that of the standard model, which was front-wheel drive.” A handicap compared to the BMW M3? “At the end of the day no, although, even if they were a bit heavier, the rear-wheel drive M3s were faster in tight bends. But we had a great engine, with the crankcase of the Fiat Croma Turbo and the head of the Lancia Delta Integrale. And we were also better on fast bends, even though at the start the nose of the car had a rather worrying tendency to rise. I had to think hard and come up with a front air intake that could increase the downforce of the front end, and in the end I found a way of keeping it flat on the ground.” And so we come to 1997: from then on, the DTM admitted only rear-wheel drive cars. And in the meantime, the Alfa Romeo 155 made way for the 156. “In fact, I still have a model with the Alfa Romeo 156 body and rear-wheel drive. But nothing came of it. The escalating costs of the championship were far greater than the benefits in terms of image, and we decided not to participate. These were the first warning signs of what the epilogue was to be: our official participation in touring races, and indeed Alfa’s racing history, came to an end due to the lack of interest of the public, and consequently the manufacturers, in this kind of race. It was a shame, because they were thrilling, macho, with real contacts and knocks. But before throwing in the towel, we still had another ace up our sleeve.” Indeed, the 156's appointment with the track had only been postponed. That gap year was used to prepare another season of wins. “Meanwhile, the sports management had been transferred to the Nordauto dealer in Cremona. At first, we worked on a Superturismo version with a 2-litre engine, winning the début race at the 1998 Italian Superturismo Championship with Fabrizio Giovanardi. And the development continued in 2002 with the Super2000. This was a far simpler car than the previous D2, because the engine and the gearbox had to be those of the standard model. In the BTCC, we took BMW by surprise for two years in a row, winning in 2003 too. But then, for the reasons already explained, that was the end of that.” In technical terms, what was the greatest step forward compared to the 155? “We were able to make the car easier to handle, easier to drive, because when we were finally able to do so, we moved the engine to a better position. We set it as far back as possible, between the front axle and the bulkhead, reducing the inertia deriving from an overhang powertrain on the front end. It was nothing outstanding, in fact: the powerful Volvo 850 station wagons racing in the BTCC, that were great to drive, were already built like that.” So, to win, you decided to study the competition. “Yes, that’s the way it should be. As I always say, you never have a monopoly on good ideas.”

When I heard that the Clay Regazzoni Memorial Room was being moved from Lugano to Romanshorn, my mind automatically opened the drawer of memories of my relations with him. And so, I decided to see what was inside, and tell the Speedholics fans and readers all about him. Photos courtesy of Luigi Marmiroli Archive I don’t think I can add much to the streams of words, and the many books and websites about the man, but it was a great pleasure to look back over the time I spent with Clay Regazzoni. The autumn of 1970 was one of the best periods in my – private and professional – life, and Clay, who I hadn’t met yet, was – unbeknown to him – one of the main reasons for this. In late August I was on my honeymoon in Apulia, visiting the beaches and the splendid Romanic architecture. Just a month earlier, I had been hired directly by the ‘Commendatore Ferrari’ to follow the racing drivers around the circuits all over the world. And when I learned that Clay Regazzoni had dominated the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Monza in his Ferrari 312 B, I immediately thought that I would become his race engineer. I was in seventh heaven. But things didn’t go exactly like that. On my first day working at Ferrari, they changed my job description. No longer on the track with Clay but in the Studies Office, where, overseen by Franco Rocchi, the Ferrari Sport Prototype 312P was being designed. So, the first time I shook Clay’s hand we weren’t on the track, as I had hoped, but in the office, where Clay, a curious man, came to see the designers working on his car. The Ferrari 312 P needed two drivers, and Clay, along with Jacky Ickx, won a splendid race at the 1000 km of Monza. After the inauguration of the new track in Fiorano, Clay tested the Formula 1 and Sport Prototypes there, and during the breaks between test drives, we came down from the offices to talk with him and his mechanics. In late 1973, before returning to Ferrari with Lauda, Clay organised an exhibition of competition cars in Lugano, and asked Ferrari to put his F1 on display too. Ferrari sent two representatives along with the car, myself and Giacomo Caliri. And it was exactly during those few days in Lugano that I had the chance to get to know him better. Three years later, Clay left Ferrari for the second and last time. And so did Caliri and I, when we set up the Fly-Studio in Modena. From that point on, our acquaintance turned into friendship. Clay went to race for Ensign, an English team with very few resources and little competitive performance. By chance, I found the drawing of a rear spoiler in my archive that we had designed and built for his car, the Ensign 177, even though the car didn’t have much fortune. Many people around Parma, Reggio Emilia and Modena were very fond of Clay. Some of his sponsors, who went on to become close friends, supported him in his darkest hours following the accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. Many of his mechanics, as well as us engineers, were always pleased when he came to visit. At that time, Clay dedicated a splendid poster to my three children. I have many memories of him in my study, leafing through my archive, and in fact one of my grandchildren even devoted a painting to him. As I closed the drawer of memories, one last rather foggy but entertaining episode came to mind. I think it was Christmas 1974, and Clay lost the Formula 1 World Championships by just three points. With his happy-go-lucky character, he had already got over the disappointment and he gave everyone who had worked with him a bottle of champagne. Rumour had it that Niki Lauda, a man with a completely different character, tore him off a strip bitterly for that spontaneous gesture, because it forced the Austrian to follow his example.

In his long career he worked on over one hundred projects, many of which related to fast and racing cars: thinking about how many litres of fuel have been burned by his “creatures”, Marmiroli looks to the future, wondering how to reconcile the passion and very essence of sports cars with respect for the environment. Photos courtesy of Luigi Marmiroli Archive The passage from fossil fuel to electric for all cars of the future - including supercars and hypercars - is a given fact. Thinking back over my career, I can count projects for around a hundred cars. Mostly racing cars (Formula 1, Formula 2 and 3, Sports Prototypes, cars for Le Mans and Indianapolis, Developments of production cars, Challenges). And of course, supercars and hypercars. In the early days, my tasks were minimal: calculating a spring or connecting rod for an engine, balancing a crankshaft, designing a spoiler. This was what I did in the Ferrari Studies Office in Maranello. Then, along with Giacomo Caliri, I set up the “Fly-Studio” in Modena, a consulting firm for racing cars. There, my experience and my influence in various projects grew drastically. Just think, at Lamborghini, working with a team of around fifty people, I completely designed a dozen supercars and type-approved seventeen versions of the Diablo, designing the whole car, from the chassis to the power train, from the bodywork to the electronics, from the engine to the four-wheel drive. But throughout this history, something has always niggled me: that stressful search for absolute speed performance has always prevented me from seriously considering the fuel consumption of the cars I designed. To confirm this, let’s look back at some of the most significant projects. The Formula 1 cars that I worked on held 220 litres of fuel, not always enough to complete races of just over 300 km. And this brings an anecdote to mind. The engines on our Alfa Romeo F1s were guzzlers. Engineer Chiti (who we will come back to later) invented fuel freezing, using powerful refrigerators, aiming to store greater quantities in the tanks. The problem was that it took a long time to fill the tanks at the start of the race, often in the sunshine. As it heated, the petrol swelled the tanks and, wearing their seatbelts, the drivers complained that it was hard to breathe because the passenger compartment was smaller... Other teams followed the example until the regulations forbid it. Moving on to Automobili Lamborghini, we supplied exceptional “marine engines” to some teams taking part in the Offshore World Championship Class 1: 12 cylinders and 8000 cc displacement. Mounted in pairs on the competition hulls, these consumed 1000 litres of petrol for the race alone. In its road version, the iconic 80’s LM002 off-road vehicle had two large tanks incorporated into the rear seat frame. The version developed to take part in the Rally of Greece, the Rallye des Pharaons and the Paris-Dakar had even higher consumption. We also made a racing version of the Diablo, and that increased consumption even further. The SVR allowed around thirty more or less expert drivers to race on international race tracks for the first time. At the start of the inaugural race on the Le Mans circuit, the over 20,000 total horsepower of the thirty Diablos, with open exhaust, caused the stands packed with fans and spectators to tremble. In addition, the chairman of the Lamborghini Club Japan had also developed some powerful racing versions of the Diablo, which competed in the Japanese championships for many years. Sometimes I think that if today siphoned off the fuel consumed in all the races, as well as all that consumed by the thousands of owners of the supercars I designed, it would fill a mountain lake! I must say that in the early 2000s, perhaps to make amends, I began to design electric, hybrid and bimodal vehicles, including a full-electric hypercar with really innovative technical solutions for its time. So, I think that I am qualified to express a technical and emotional opinion on the difference between petrol-powered and electric supercars. As mentioned above, pure “speedholics” shouldn’t worry, as the technical and emotional difference is really not that great: in terms of speed and acceleration, the electric models are already far superior. With the developments in batteries, which are increasingly lighter, the road holding and handling will improve too. So the driving pleasure will remain. The main difference in electric cars is the lack of that fantastic and electrifying (sic!) sound of a nice twelve-cylinder engine, with open exhaust, at 10,000 rpm. A sound that exceeds all other - rather ungratifying - noises generated by a car, which in an electric car can clearly be heard. I refer to everything that is generated by the indispensable mechanical components, the braking system, the air conditioning, the aerodynamic features, the rolling tyres and so on. Somebody will certainly have thought of installing a sound system to simulate the sound of a combustion engine, someone else will have thought of replacing the roar of the engine with hard-rock music or a nice romance sung by my fellow citizen Pavarotti... However, in future a problem could arise. Electric supercars and hypercars are moving quickly from analogue to digital, and ironically, will become more and more like four-wheel “smartphones”. Consequently, they will become obsolete very quickly. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Countach, and its lucky owners can still enjoy driving on normal roads. I wonder how many of the splendid hypercars being designed today will still be allowed on the roads in fifty years’ time? The example of smartphones and many electronic devices is not comforting. Let’s hope that the manufacturers and international bodies will immediately take steps to prevent electric supercars from being relegated to splendid museum artefacts.

This was the car that helped him to prove that he had what it took to be a driver, but it was also a faithful companion in his adventures. With her, he obtained his first important wins and reached the altar, where he found his wife, Anna. More than half a century later, Speedholics helped the “Cowboy” to catch up with his old Alfa Romeo again. Photo by Alessandro Barteletti (IG: @alessandrobarteletti) Video by Andrea Ruggeri (IG: @andrearuggeri.it) Archives: Alfa Blue Team, Arturo Merzario, Fabio Morlacchi Tuesday, 20 July 2021. A sunny, and not particularly humid day, as you would usually expect on the Po Plains around Milan this time of year. This was the climate that partially helped to save Milan during the WWII bombings, when the humidity and high atmospheric pressure dampened the fires triggered by the bombs. The meeting took place in the morning, in an ex-foundry, nestling in the green Lombardy countryside. A man, and her. His gaze falls on her shapely curves, a delicate, translucent white. She seems flattered. She recognises him. They haven't seen each other for a long time, about 54 years, she thinks. The man walks towards her, as she waits, immobile. A hand caresses her fondly, a mixture of melancholy and happiness. She notes that he is still wearing that same old hat... 1971, the second day of spring. A young Alfa fan is out and about in the north-east part of Milan, finally free of the strict hours of high school. The university timetable is easier to manage, and gives him the chance to devote some time to his passion for cars. Gianfilippo “Gippo” Salvetti is driving his Alfa Romeo Giulia SS along Viale Fulvio Testi, a long, wide road leading from Milan to Villa Reale in Monza and the race track at the back, and where, outside the city, there are several salvage yards. “Who knows if I can find a nice little Fiat Topolino in good condition to buy and do up...” - “Here’s one of the scrap yards...”. The Giulia SS pulls up by the fence. Today it might seem incredible and even distressing for younger car lovers, but at that time you could find all kinds of CARS stacked high, Giuliettas , “Alfone” (the nickname of the 1900 ndr), or even a few 6C 2500s. And then perhaps a Lancia Flaminia, Fiat 2100 or 2300, or even a Ferrari or two! But the lion’s share was a huge quantity of Fiats; Topolino, 500, 600, 1100, sad after having been loved by their proud owners, often with their eye sockets dark and empty, abandoned because they were old or often by then frail. Gippo is a bit of a beanpole, but certainly not slight, which doesn’t make it easy getting in and out of the tiny passenger compartment of the SS. Crossing the open gate, he wanders through the piles of stacked cars. There are plenty of Topolinos. He sees two or three in fair condition, memorises their position and head towards the owner's dilapidated office, when he notes a rather particular front end three metres off the ground. His Alfa heart leaps, and he swears instinctively in amazement... “F**k me, a Giulietta SZ!”. There she was, dented, and painted an improbable amaranth red. But it was a Zagato, and almost complete! Although reasonable, the price was in any case way above his budget: 130,000 lire for a ten-year old car, and in a sorry state to boot. But there was even the license plate and the documents! Negotiations with the salvage yard were gruelling. But in the end, they agreed on the figure of 110,000 lire. Today just thinking about it makes you cry, but at that time it was worth around three times its value in aluminium scrap! A few days later, his friend Claudio Bonfioli’s blue Alfa Romeo GT Junior towed the SZ with a rope for around 10 kilometres to his trusted mechanic. To paraphrase the title of a famous film, it was Gippo’s “Longest Journey”, as he himself tells, as the brakes on the SZ weren't working. At that very moment, on the opposite side of town, in the south west, a very young Alfa fan - just eleven years old, as often happens, is standing at the bus stop behind his house. The 50 bus runs past there, through the typical streets of the Lombardy metropolis, spoke-like from the outskirts into the city centre. This is a typical medieval layout, which took over from the original Roman one, made of parallel streets crossing each other perpendicularly. A few buses stop, letting the many passengers on and off, distracted and often closed in their own thoughts. In those days, the city buses and trams were painted in two shades of green: dark up the mid-way line, lighter on the uprights and the roof. The boy watches the bus as it pulls up at the stop, then looks away and thinks of something else. The bus sets off, but the boy is still standing there. A few buses come and go, but nothing changes. Finally, as another bus pulls up, a small smile lights up the boy’s face. Here’s the one, an Alfa Romeo at last! This one’s OK... Perhaps you have got it. Yes, it was me, who today, when the difference in age between two people is really not so important, is a friend of Gippo’s. A month later, towards the end of May in 1971, Gippo reads an advert in the Corriere Della Sera: Giulia TI Zagato for sale. So, a Giulia TZ, the “big sister” of the Giulietta SZ. And the road version too, never used in a race, an authentic rarity! But that’s another story, for another time... The Giulietta SZ was restored and returned to its original splendour of eight years earlier. To tell the truth,it was in fact ten years earlier (1961) when a man from Brescia bought the car, brand new, straight out of Zagato, and kept it for only two years. In 1963 it was sold in Como to a man for his young son, who the year before had proven his worth as a driver in a Giulietta Spider. That young man was Arturo Merzario. With the license plate “Como 119815”, it was taken to the Baggioli workshop, where the engine was finely tuned and then refitted by young Arturo in a corner of the workshop. Merzario is a good mechanic, and often “gets his hands dirty” working on the cars he races in. And even when his fame and top team membership led him to be just a driver, he often supervised the assembly and tuning of his racing cars, sometimes even correcting a mechanic who was too hasty or sloppy when fitting a part. Because, as he told me in his typically pleasant Lombardy accent, “Arturo loves Arturo!” The SZ was raced successfully for around a year (read the full story here) when an Abarth TC 1000 arrived at Merzario’s club. So, the Giulietta SZ was fitted ... with a tow hook (sic!) to tow the trailer carrying the Abarth. As a full-time service vehicle, the proud and invincible SZ accompanied Arturo and his bride Anna to the altar. Where? Well, as this was Arturo Merzario, born in Civenna on the rolling hills behind Lake Como, north of Canzo and Asso, in that strip of land between the two branches of the Lario, the wedding was - perhaps the last to be - celebrated in the tiny church of Madonna del Ghisallo. And if you didn’t know, this church is a sanctuary for cyclists, and here racing bikes that once belonged to cycling legends, like Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, hang from its walls. Today, just a stone’s throw away, you can visit the very interesting Cycling Museum. The area is filled with steep slopes and wonderful landscapes that appear before your eyes suddenly, changing rapidly to offer a myriad of different views. Epic battles took place here between the greatest racing cyclists, and today these legends are still so alive that they continue to make this area a popular destination. In 1967, Arturo sold the SZ to a salvage yard in Viale Fulvio Testi in Milan, whose son used it for a couple of years before it was scrapped to recover the noble material - aluminium - the bodywork was made from. On 22 March, a Giulia SS pulls up outside the fence at the yard. A tall guy gets out... 20 July 2021, a Tuesday. 54 years on, Arturo Merzario meets his SZ again. “Here she is... are you sure it’s my Giulietta?”. “What a fool - she thinks - who else could it be, of course it’s me! Come here, give me a hug...” The genesis: Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ, when a car is dynamic art After the 1900, the first real novelty after the war, presented in late 1950, at Alfa Romeo they decided to build a car of a lower category to accompany the powerful “Alfona” 1900. In 1954 the Giulietta was ready, but in a coupé version, the Sprint, with Bertone bodywork. Perhaps a unique case in car history, the sports version precedes the sedan. Maybe a sign of fate? With an engine made entirely of aluminium, two overhead camshafts, internal dimensions 74 by 75 mm, respectively for bore and stroke, resulting displacement 1290 cm3, it is certainly smaller than the 1900. In 1955, the evolution of the Giulietta came in the form of the sedan, with Alfa Romeo bodywork, and the Spider by Pininfarina. While the 1900 was “the family sedan that wins races”, the smaller Giulietta was certainly no less of a performer. The engine power output grew rapidly, and in 1956 the Sprint Veloce was launched, with two twin-choke carburettors, reaching 79 HP DIN, then improved to 96 in 1958 with a 5-speed gearbox. With a huge sporting potential, easily enhanced performance and great mechanical strength, the Giulietta instantly began a long and prestigious sports career. In 1956, the Milan coachbuilder Zagato, Alfa Romeo’s partner since the late 1920s, replaced the bodywork on a wrecked Giulietta Sprint Veloce with an aluminium version, producing a car that, while not aesthetically perfect, was very light and aerodynamic. The orders soon came flooding in from drivers wanting the version with aluminium bodywork, which was called the Giulietta SVZ, Sprint Veloce Zagato. But it was a very long and expensive job, as for this Zagato car they had to firstly remove the standard steel bodywork from the chassis and replace it with a new aluminium one. The engines, set up by the best fitters of the time, reached powers of between 105 and 115 HP DIN. Nuccio Bertone, the coachbuilder of the normal Sprint Veloce, couldn’t sit on his laurels, and towards the end of 1957 presented a new sports berlinetta based on a shortened wheelbase of the Spider, called Giulietta Sprint Speciale, and then simply SS. With a 97 HP engine, the new berlinetta was very aerodynamic, but the steel bodywork made it relatively heavy - 950 kg - and quite unsuitable for racing. At Alfa Romeo, to avoid unpleasantness between the two coachbuilders, the roles of the new sports berlinettas were divided: Bertone’s SS, with the best finishes, became a version of the Giulietta intended for fast touring, as it could exceed speeds of 180 km/h. The racing role on the other hand was played by Zagato’s SVZ, which had the same engine as the SS, but at 850 kg was lighter. To rationalise construction and reduce costs, in 1960 Zagato began to receive the chassis fitted with all the mechanics but no bodywork. And so the construction of the Giulietta SZ, “Sprint Zagato”, began. Compact, with minimum overhang, the bodywork covered the mechanics and the passenger compartment like a skin, with a beautifully sensual line. According to some sources, 171 were made. The car had to be constantly updated to fight off the fierce competition, particularly from Colin Chapman’s new Lotus Elite, but by then it was impossible to improve the mechanics. Thoughts had already turned to a new sportscar with the new version with a 1600 cm3 engine (the future Giulia TZ), and a variant of the bodywork with an even better profile was experimented, aiming to gain more speed on equal power. And so, the SZ “K-tail” was born, easily exceeding speeds of 220 km/h, compared to the 200 km/h of the previous version. 46 were made, bringing the total production of the Giulietta SZ to 217 units. According to the data Luigi Fusi gave Gippo in 1971, 176 “round tails” and 50 “K-tails” were made. -- Author’s note: she, the Giulietta SZ that belonged to Arturo Merzario, has chassis no. 00167 and is one of the last “round tails” built. Since 1971 she has belonged to Gippo Salvetti (in the picture with Merzario), chairman of the Alfa Blue Team - whom SpeedHolics thanks for lending us the car - founded with his brother Stefano and a few car fans, Claudio Bonfioli, Guido Delli Ponti and Emilio Garavaglia on 14 February 1972.

Photos courtesy of Zbigniew Maurer Archive Duetto is a magic word for Alfisti. It was chosen via an international contest to find a name for a very important car, the successor of the already iconic Giulietta Spider. The winning name seemed perfect for a new Alfa Romeo two seater spider, it was easily pronounced in most languages and was internationally familiar as a part of Italian music-related terminology. Strangely enough it was never officially adopted because Alfa renounced its use after the first, unlikely protest coming from a chocolate-based snack producer... Evidently Alfa Romeo had first-class engineers and technicians but very lousy lawyers at the time! Nevertheless the name Duetto has always been used by Alfisti, journalists and general public to identify the four editions of this lovely evergreen spider throughout its almost thirty-years-long life-span. The successor of Duetto, the 916 series Pininfarina-designed spider didn't quite manage to retain the original Duetto's flair and driving pleasure. It was bulky, heavy and in some way alienating for its occupants. Its Fiat Tipo derived chassis, despite many modifications and a completely new, ad hoc developed rear multi-link suspension, failed to deliver the renowned Duetto driving feeling. Even the top-spec, beautiful V6 “Busso”, the last 100% Alfa Romeo designed and produced engine, was struggling to transmit with due refinement its generous torque to the ground through the front driving wheels. But probably the greatest disappointment in comparison with Duetto was the experience of the open-air driving for both the driver and passenger. High, inclined belt-line and massive A-pillars, ending very close to the occupants' faces, resulted in a somehow oppressed feeling, a far cry from the wonderful feeling of freedom and full contact with the surrounding nature the original Duetto was granting its occupants. I have experienced all those differences first-hand, driving my personal 1973 cut-tail, our Centro Stile service IV-series Duettos and the then-recent 916 series spiders. So, when it came to design the new or future Duetto, I had my ideas quite clear. The new Alfa Romeo Spider project begun in the late 1990's and coincided with big organizational changes, the director of Centro Stile Alfa Romeo Walter De Silva left for Seat and was succeeded by Andreas Zapatinas coming from BMW. The design coordinator of the Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo brands, Carlo Fugazza was succeeded by Humberto Rodriguez coming from VW, Fiat Auto CEO Paolo Cantarella was succeeded by Roberto Testore and the Fiat itself entered in a joint-venture with GM. Lots of changes in a very limited span of time. At Centro Stile we started to develop the first proposals based on the modified 916 chassis but after the joint-venture with GM and with the new boss we started again from zero, including some wishful-thinking and, unfortunately short-lived, rear wheel drive proposals. At the end we were given a new, GM-based, front wheel drive chassis scheme. We developed as many as five different proposals at Centro Stile and also Pininfarina was involved with a couple of proposals. Given the great number of initial design proposals I decided from the beginning to pursue the “classic” but by no means nostalgic or even worse, “retro” design philosophy. For me it was logical to design a new Alfa Romeo Spider as a continuity of its best tradition, a contemporary, modern car that would offer the best open-air motoring experience. From all the post-war Alfa spider models, Duetto seemed to offer the best mix of ingredients and was still present in every potential buyer's memory. Trying to understand the reason of Duetto's success under design point of view I quickly realized that the secret of its long-lasting popularity was its timeless styling. It didn't follow the period's fashion or trends that usually help to gain quick acceptance of any new car but, at the same time, date it at the particular period and limit its originality. When launched in 1966, Duetto was like no other car on the market, its bold and unique styling was based on Pininfarina's futuristic concept car, developed for Alfa Romeo more than ten years earlier. Like the 1962 Giulia sedan, with which it shared the chassis and all the mechanical components, Duetto was a typical “love it or hate it”, no-compromise design. As stated earlier, the FWD packaging we received to develop the future spider on was far from the ideal thoroughbred sports car scheme but then again, neither was the Duetto's Giulia sedan based scheme in comparison with British sports cars of the period. So I eagerly accepted the challenge of designing a “classic” Alfa Romeo spider not following the passing styling trends of the moment but applying all the design solutions at the limit of the possible to obtain my goals. I requested the biggest available diameter and relatively narrow tires, a very unusual request at the time, only recently adopted on some modern electric-powered cars. I remembered when I asked some years earlier our Alfa chassis-engineers what were the best tires to achieve the best all-around handling and road holding balance, to my surprise, they told me to choose the narrower tires offered for a given car. They all spent hours at our Balocco test track driving at the limit (and above) all sort of cars so they must have known better... I also wanted the lowest possible seating position to lower the center of gravity and the car's height. The limiting ergonomic factor in this case was the downward visibility angle which, in its turn, was conditioned by the height of the front hood that had to cover the front, transversal engine. At that time the new pedestrian-impact rules were introduced, requiring even more clearance above the engine bay hard elements like the engine itself, battery, upper suspension mounting domes etc. It was definitely the “insurmountable” constraint that precluded any significant lowering of the seating position. After hours spent controlling the critical clearances on various longitudinal and transversal sections trying to find an “impossible” solution I asked what exactly everyone of countless lines on those technical drawings represented. I still remember my disbelief when they told me that the highest, most critical line did not actually represent the highest part of the engine itself but the engine cover... Engine cover???!!! Without hesitation and with a dose of genuine anger I said I will respect only the hard points of the actual engine and that I didn't care about any engine cover! Their reply was that the engine cover was a part of the engine as it came from the Fiat-GM Powertrain and as such it was untouchable. My reply was that since everything that client sees, including the engine compartment, must pass the approval of Centro Stile, we will redesign the engine cover or, better still, we will help them design the cam covers aesthetics so they will not need any purely aesthetic engine cover at all, with resulting cost savings! I insisted that this economic aspect be put on the verbalization of the meeting knowing that it had a great importance in decision making and that nobody would dare to refuse a cost-cutting solution. It was also very unusual situation because usually it was Centro Stile that was asking for costly solutions and not the other way around. Remaining in the engine bay area, another aspect I wanted to optimize from the beginning was the cooling air management. I remember I was told by engine engineers that the performance of the V6 engine equipped 916 series Gtv/Spider was limited by not enough cooling air passing through the radiator pack. They told me the most critical aspect was not a limited air intake area but the difficulty in expelling the hot air from the engine bay, a problem common to the transversal-mounted big engines in very “busy” engine bays. I decided to address this issue with introduction of the air exit louvered grill on top of the hood, just after the radiator, in the maximum negative pressure area, a solution often used on racing cars. To avoid any possible critics that might result in its elimination, I incorporated this grill with the headlights in a unique pattern that made part of the entire front or “face” of the car. The headlights placed on top of the hood and extending rearwards helped to visually shorten the long front overhang and allowed lowering of the leading edge of the engine hood, just like in the original Duetto. The long and low hood allowed a low belt line, a characteristic I wanted from the beginning and especially important in an open car with low sitting position. I definitely wanted to avoid the “sunk”feeling when seated in 916 Spider. For me an Alfa spider is in some way an exhibitionist's car and you don't want to pass unobserved when cruising in a nice scenery with your elbow out. Another crucial aspect of the open air driving experience is the maximum outward visibility and the sensation of close contact with surrounding nature, you usually choose to drive a spider in nice places don't you? To obtain it I wanted the windscreen not excessively inclined and surrounded by as thin and unobtrusive as possible, continuous frame. This allows to avoid the brutally truncated A-pillars that terminate uncomfortably close to your face. A spider, in difference with a cabrio, can and should be designed and visually optimized in the open configuration and the (occasional) closed roof aspect should be secondary. Limiting the windscreen inclination allows to obtain visually longer hood, keeps the top part of the windscreen in a comfortable distance from the occupants' faces and provides a much more rigid structure. This last aspect is of primary importance because the windscreen frame serves as a roll-bar in case of accidental roll-over and makes part of any open car's safety features. Here it's useful to address the contrasting design criteria of A-pillars, present in any body configuration but especially critical in open roof cars. Maximum structural rigidity calls for a generous cross section meanwhile maximum visibility has the opposite requirements. I decided to take the full advantage of the freedom that the spider configuration offered. I decided to adopt the hydro-forming technology for the entire windscreen frame. It consists of placing roughly bent high resistance steel alloy tube in a robust dies and injecting a very high pressure water inside the tube that expands it against the inner die surface. In this way it is possible to obtain a very rigid frame of complex and reduced section. As mentioned earlier, my proposal was one of many and definitely not the preferred one of our new boss at Centro Stile. That meant that I had little attention and limited resources but, at the other hand, I enjoyed a great freedom in decision making. All the attention and resources at Centro Stile were dedicated to a proposal that didn't even respect the basic project dimensional constraints and later, to a new concept design project “Sportività Evoluta” or Evolved Sportiness. Even the fact that my Spider project was preferred during all the intermediate presentations didn't change that peculiar situation. That didn't scare me as I quite enjoyed this internal competition but I can't say it was easy to follow the physical development of the full-size styling model and all the project development meetings all on my own, with relatively great freedom in taking decisions but equally great responsibility with no internal support. This isolation was augmented by the fact that I was often relegated to follow the project development outside our Centro Stile workshop, at various external suppliers. In this period I must say I found much more solidarity and help from those external collaborations, including the Pininfarina project development team even though I was representing alone our Centro Stile in competition with their own design department proposal. They really demonstrated a high level, impartial professionalism. Among many external collaborations I even had a pleasure to work with highly skilled and experienced ex-Bertone modelers who started their long working career with Marcello Gandini on Lamborghini Countach! The whole project was a very intense and full of obstacles experience that was progressing, one might say, against all odds but, unlike in Hollywood, not all troublesome stories have a happy ending. When my project remained the only one from the original five proposals from Centro Stile and was in advanced stage of development, a sudden decision was taken to halt the entire 938 Alfa Spider project. It was not the first time a well advanced project was abruptly stopped so we were all accustomed to it and acquired a sort of emotional immunity. Sort of, because no matter how many times you have witnessed it, when it happens to a project in which you were so deeply involved, it's not easy to accept. I can only say that during all the project duration I have always tried my best. Luckily there were new projects to follow and especially one of them, the future Diva, would give me a lot of professional satisfactions.