Back at the end of 2015, Pininfarina announced that it was being bought by the Mahindra Group, an India based conglomerate. Mahindra was founded in 1945 to trade in steel and other related products. They first entered the automobile industry three years later by licencing the local manufacture of Willys Jeeps on the sub-continent. Over the last few decades they have grown … [Read more...]
Itala
Itala is one of the pioneers of the motor sport industry notably the 1907 Peking to Paris race that an Itala won. Starting life as Itala Fabbrica Automobili, then simply Itala, it ended life as Itala Societa Anonima Costruzioni Automobilistiche after several re-incarnations. Itala was founded in 1903 by Matteo Ceirano and several partners including Guido Bigio an engineer. … [Read more...]
Abarth
Karl Abarth was born in November 1908 in Vienna and as a boy became a very competitive bicycle racer who could maintain his own bikes and as he got older he started to look at the new motorcycles that were hitting the market. By the time he was 16, he was working for a motorcycle chassis builder and a tuner and he designed his first full motorcycle at the age of 20! The … [Read more...]
Auto Italia 2017
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...]
6 Wheeled Cars
When I started Motoring Weekly back in 2008, I made a list of the weird cars that had been produced, mostly as a way of finding new technologies or a competitive advantage. The 6-wheeled car was at the top of my list! Pat Clancy Special One of the first true 6-wheeled car was actually a racing car - and built in the late 1940s! It raced at the Indianapolis 500 in 1948 … [Read more...]