A few weeks ago I headed down to Canberra for Auto Italia 2107. This was my fourth visit over the years having been down for 2013, 2015 and 2016. Each year there are two interesting points about the day. The first is that there is usually a "headline" marque - this year it was Ferrari for their 70th anniversary. The second point is that it brings out some of the rarer machines … [Read more...]
Boxer & Flat Engines
Like the W formation engine discussed recently, the flat engine has been around since the very early years, in fact Karl Benz used a boxer engine in his first car! There is actually a subtle difference between a flat engine and a boxer engine: both are flat however a boxer engine uses horizontally opposed cylinders where the corresponding pistons on each side reach top dead … [Read more...]
Centenary of Ferruccio Lamborghini’s Birth
On Sunday I attended a lunch to honour the birth of the founder of Lamborghini. Ferruccio was an industrialist who owned many sports cars before creating his own supercar company Automobili Lamborghini to produce luxury Grand Tourer (GT) cars. He had owned several Ferrari and Maserati vehicles and felt he could do better! His birth was actually on April 28th and this was the … [Read more...]
Touring Berlinetta Lusso
Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera is a true coach builder from Milan in Italy who have made some of the most beautiful sports cars of the 20th Century. They are famous for creating cars for Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Maserati as well as Jensen, Bristol and early Ferraris. The original company founded in 1926 collapsed in the mid 1960s however the name was resurrected around … [Read more...]
Ferrari IPO – an update after a few weeks trading
Many of you will know that there was a great deal of airplay regarding the IPO of Ferrari, however how many people know the structure of the deal and what has happened over the past couple of weeks - the media exposure has dropped away completely! So, FIAT Chrysler Group (FCA) decided, actually the boss Sergio Marchionne decided, to float some of the stock of Ferrari to … [Read more...]