The heavy body weighed 1,500 pounds, too much for its puny 47-hp motor Giovanni Moretti founded his company in 1925, and started off designing and building motorcycles. The Cita, built in 1946, a tiny two-seater powered by an air-cooled 250-cc motor, was Moretti’s first conventional car. In 1949, Moretti introduced […]
Columns
“I Don’t Care What You Say, You’ll Never Have As Many Cars As Harold E. LeMay”
Harold LeMay was a car guy, just like you and me in a lot of ways. He figured out how to use his day job, owning waste-hauling franchises, to help him build his car collection. Myth has it he paid a spiff to garbage collectors who told him about interesting […]
1985-87 Honda CRX Si
The real appeal was a 0-60 time below nine seconds, quicker than a Porsche 944 By the end of the fuel-crisis-plagued 1970s, Honda and its Japanese counterparts had all but beaten the American auto industry into submission with legions of cheap and highly efficient pint-sized sedans and hatchbacks. American […]
1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Sport Cabriolet
Restoring a 540K is not for the faint of heart. The chrome bill alone on these cars can run close to $50,000 Mercedes-Benz introduced the 500K in 1934. The “K” designation stood for Kompressor, German for supercharger. With power increasing from 100 hp to 160 hp when the supercharger engaged, […]
1930 Pierce-Arrow Model B Convertible Coupe
If you own one of these old chariots and you’ve been thinking about parting with it, this would be a good time to act Before entering the automotive business in 1901, the George N. Pierce Company of Buffalo, NY, had been engaged in making such diverse products as birdcages and […]
1980 Alfa Romeo 179C Formula One
Alfa Romeo’s F1 program was classically Italian, i.e. lots of people, huge egos and ambitions, chaotic organization and neither enough money nor development {vsig}2003-12_1275{/vsig} Alfa Romeo had dipped a toe into the waters of Formula One in 1971 when it supplied a V8 engine for Andrea de Adamich’s works March. […]
1933 Alfa Romeo Tipo 6C 1750 Supercharged Gran Sport Spyder
The steerinThe steering is precise, the brakes are excellent for the era, and the handling as good as it gets for an early ’30s car The 1750 Gran Sport is regarded as one of the finest sports racing cars of its time and its race record is nothing short of […]
1972 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder
This unique GTS/4 Daytona Spyder is that most mythical of beasts, a genuine one-owner-from-new Daytona Spyder. We know of just one other, a North American-specification model resident in the U.S. Ferrari sold just 121 Daytona Spyders. Left-hand drive chassis number 15845-the car offered here-is one of just 25 built to […]
1956 Maserati A6G2000 Zagato Coupe
Maserati decided to build a slightly de-tuned version of the A6GCS and go for the Holy Grail of specialty manufacturers, the dual-purpose sports car This beautiful 2-liter Berlinetta was one of a handful of Maserati’s sports-racing A6G series to be clothed by that master of ultra-light bodywork, Zagato. Allemano, Frua, […]
1961-71 Austin/Morris Mini Cooper
A wolf in sheep’s clothing and a giant-killer on the track, the Cooper’s most famous racing victory came in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rallye The story of the original BMC Mini is long and complicated, and there were countless versions produced during the car’s 40-year run. But Sir Alec Issigonis’ […]