Etceterini

Most people associate Abarth with Fiat, but a very successful liaison was also formed with Simca. The French company was partly owned by Fiat, and when they wanted to appeal to a younger market with a more sporting image, they turned to the Italian giant for help. Fiat in turn went to Abarth, who received…

he Delage D8 was a glamorous car with a very imposing radiator that had similarities to Hispano-Suiza. It was fast and had impeccable road holding. Although the Delage D8 series became one of the most desired high-performance cars in Europe, they were quite expensive. Louis Delage was reluctant to change this image to suit the…

One of the most exciting off-road vehicles ever conceived, the Lamborghini LM-002 resulted from the marriage of the Countach QV’s 5.2-liter V12 to a functionally styled-some would say brutally styled-4 x 4. The union resulted in scintillating performance and a top speed in excess of 124 mph. The distinctive four-door body was handmade and the…

The remarkable thing about this car is that for many years it was used by its owner to commute from San Francisco to the campus of Stanford University, where the owner was professor of neurosurgery. It is rare that a car such as this is driven on such a regular basis. It has been both…

The Lancia Stratos represents a high point in Lancia sporting history and showed the world a new definition of the ultimate rally car. Yet its birth was merely a matter of coincidence. At the 1970 Turin motor show, Bertone displayed a futuristic design study, a fabulous creation of Marcello Gandini. The Italian coachbuilder had built…

The sensation of the 1971 Geneva Salon, the Countach was styled by Marcello Gandini. Lamborghini’s four-cam V12 was retained, though this time installed longitudinally. To achieve optimum weight distribution, designer Paolo Stanzini placed the five-speed gearbox ahead of the engine between the seats, and the differential, driven by a shaft passing through the sump, at…

Simca first appeared in 1934, making Fiat cars under license in their factory at Nanterre which had previously produced the Donnet cars. For many years the fortunes of Simca were closely linked to those of the tuning wizard Amédée Gordini and many competition successes were achieved including class wins in the 1949-50 Alpine and Monte…

By the time the Maserati Ghibli left the factory in Modena, the company had been successfully building luxury supercars for more than a decade. At the heart of their designs were two outstanding engines: the 3,500cc six and the 4,719cc V8, both of which had twin overhead camshafts and provided enough power to sweep the…

The Type 57S (S for sport) Bugatti together with the preceding Type 55 model are the two ultimate and most sought after sporting Bugattis of the ’30s, with only about forty examples of each being built. While the Type 55 was closely related to the Type 51 GP with roller-bearing crankshaft and supercharger, the Type…

What do you get for the multimillionaire who has everything except a decent car to tour the estate with? The adorable Fiat Jolly, of course. With basket-weave seats and fully open sides, the Jolly was often described by its fans as a “beach buggy.” Road & Track went one step further by saying it was…