Seaside, California Hosts the Concorso Italiano
Even at a time when many young people are more interested in having the latest electronic teat to latch onto than they are in getting a driver’s license, you might be surprised how many can be seduced by beautiful automotive sheet metal (or carbon fiber). For them (and the rest of us), there is no better place to be than at the annual extravaganza of Italian rolling art known as the Concorso Italiano at Black Horse golf course in Seaside California.
This year is the 70th anniversary of Ferrari, and while a substantial amount of acreage at the event was occupied by examples of the cavallo rampante, there are lots of other beauties to catch the eye or, if you stick around and listen, the ear.

Monterey Bay, ancient Monterey pines, and the sweeping fairways of the Blackhorse Golf Links provide a beautiful and relaxing backdrop for viewing Italian automotive treasures.
Alfa Romeo
There is no automobile manufacturer building cars today that can claim a racing heritage to compare with Alfa Romeo. They have won more races around the world than any other.

When even many expensive American cars were powered by L-head engines with valves in the block, exhausting between the cylinders into “siamesed” cast-iron manifolds, the typical Alfa engine had a racing engine’s dual overhead cams, hemispherical combustion chambers and beautiful sand-cast alloy headers. This Alfa 6C also has twin-park ignition and triple carburetors.

After WWII, Alfa continued its winning ways, capturing the first Formula One Championship and many other prestigious titles. But no manufacturer can live on race victories alone, and the company improved its survival chances with a range of small, efficient cars with features no other contemporary firm approached.

While the British were building sedans with agricultural pushrod engines, Alfa went upmarket with dual overhead cams and five-speed gearboxes straight out of their sports cars.

A “moveable feast” typical of the Concorso, spread out between Jim Felice’s Giulia 1600 “Berlina” sport sedan, above, and its spiritual successor, his new Giulia turbo four.
Below is Alfa’s challenge in the upper end of the sport sedan market, the 505 hp “Quadrifoglio” version of the Giulia, continuing a tradition that dates back to 1920.

Racing Superstition – Now a Tradition
In 1920, Ugo Sivocci was a member of Alfa Romeo’s four-man racing team that included Enzo Ferrari. Ugo had never won a race, but he changed his luck for the 1920 Targa Florio by painting a green four-leaf clover in a white square on the front of his car, a “quadrifoglio.” He won the race, and thereafter Alfa’s team cars always carried that symbol. It must have worked. They won the first manufacturers’ championship. Today, the highest performance version of every Alfa carries the Quadrifoglio.
A Master’s Early Promise

The Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV and its siblings like the Giulia Sprint GT and others, designed at Bertone by a young Giorgetto Giugiaro, stand as some of the most perfectly proportioned cars ever.

In 1983, the last of the “105-series” Alfa Romeo Coupes was an affordable Italian semi-exotic. You could pick up a nice one-owner GTV 2000 for $3,000. Fast-forward to 2017 when a beautifully restored example just sold for $76,500.
Back in the USA
In 2008 it had been 13 years since Alfa had imported a car to the US. Alfisti were encouraged by the arrival of the 8C Competizzione, but that initial entry into the US market was too limited in production, and too exclusive for the average buyer to aspire to.

Alfa Romeo re-entered the American market with the 8C Competezzione, a limited-production high-performance coupe and spider. A 4.7 liter cross-plane crankshaft V8 of 444 naturally aspirated horsepower, assembled by Ferrari, gave them a top speed in the 180 mph range and a different sound from their flat-plane-crank brothers from Marenello.
Alfa Romeo introduced their 4C sports car in Europe in 2013, and began imported them to the US starting in July of 2014. It had been 19 years since a new series production Alfa was officially imported to the US.

Although sadly unavailable with a manual transmission, the 4C’s light weight (Its 143 pound carbon fiber chassis tub weighs less than the wheels on many cars.) puts it in an agility category of one, and allows its 240 hp turbo four to give it the performance of a more powerful car.
Wolves in Lambs’ Clothing

The Lamborghini Miura was the car that put the marque on the map, but the one that put it on all the middle school boys’ walls was the Countach. The name is usually translated to a less euphemistic form of “OMG!”
After a little research, we learned that the car in the foreground is a 2013 Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 FL2. Their website states it was listed for €320,000 plus taxes.
Does 185?
It’s difficult to walk among the Maseratis at a concours without being infected with an earworm of Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good to Me.” The consensus seems to be that he was not referring to an actual car when he sang “My Maserati does 185.” In the long nightmare that was emission controls in 1978 there was no Maserati that could do 185 mph. The most powerful Corvette could only manage 127.

Your correspondent rates the Maserati Ghibli of Giugetto Giugiaro (working at Ghia), among the top ten automobile designs of all time. It is assumed that Joe Walsh was talking about this model in his song, although if he was, he meant kilometers per hour. The Ghibli only goes 185 kph, not mph.

If Joe was in Europe when he wrote the song it might have been about a Bora, the later mid-engine car (again by Giugiaro, this time at Italdesign) powered by a version of the same 4.7 liter four-cam V8, although even the European version only did 174 mph.

The V8 was enlarged to 4.9 liters for the Khamsin, probably to make up for federal emission controls. This one was a Marcello Gandini design for Bertone, characterized by Gandini’s vertical glass tail widow with floating taillights. The federalized version was ruined by mounting the taillights below that widow and adding awful bumpers.

Black is a good color on the GranTourisimo Convertible, currently available. It manages to avoid the slightly stubby proportions of the Coupe, at least with the top down. It’s powered by a more modern interpretation of the 4.7 liter four-cam V8.
The Main Event
Where does one start? All Ferraris are interesting, and with acres of them to choose from, we’ll just pick a few and run with them.
The legendary Ferraris are the classic front mid-engine V12s of the fifties and early sixties, like the Cabriolet above. The Marenellos, 550 and 575 below, carried on the tradition for ten years from 1996 to 2006.


The last Ferrari model with manual steering was the 348. This “TB” with the fixed roof is the more sought-after, according our photographer, who regrets selling his one-owner 1991 “TS” with the removable roof panel. Speculation is that these are the next Ferrari to take off in value.

The successor to the 348 was the F355, with its power steering, scoops in place of strakes and a 3.5 liter five-valve engine, somewhere under all those shrouds and ducts, below.


The Testarossa may have suffered a little from its association with the drug drama “Miami Vice” but they are recovering in value. In black, there is no more menacing Ferrari.

Hard to believe all that stuff fits in a Testarossa’s trunk.

Two-tone paint is not as popular as it was on American cars in the ’50s, but this 458 was special-ordered in nero and rosso.

We just recently lost the American designer Tom Tjaarda. Your correspondent has a soft spot for his Pininfarina 275 GTS. Only 200 built, it’s the first open Ferrari with IRS, and the only open 275 other than the seven 275GTB/4S NART Spiders, renowned for their appearance under Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair, success under Denise McCluggage at Sebring, and their value.

Lancia
Lancia was maker of cars with advanced engineering, luxury, and high performance. Their Flaminia Berlina was a luxurious roomy coachbuilt sedan featuring the Jano V6, DeDion suspension, and a four-speed transaxle. The Pininfarina version had windshield wipers on both the inside and outside of the rear windscreen.
Lancia swept the podium in the 1953 Carerra Panamericana with their D24s, their D50 Grand Prix cars won five of the fourteen races entered, and they won the World Rally Championships in 1974, 1975 and 1976 with the Stratos.

This fourth generation of the Aurelia GT coupe featured a transaxle, DeDion suspension and the first series production V6, designed by Vittorio Jano, designer of the Grand Prix-winning Alfa Romeo P-2, and Ferrari’s Dino V6s and V8s.

Marcello Gandini designed the Stratos, introduced at the 1971 Turin show. It was powered by Jano’s Ferrari Dino V6 after a reluctant Enzo approved it.
Italian-Americans
Neighborhood American mechanics, accustomed to relatively primitive flathead and pushrod engines, might be excused for being wary of the overhead cams and foreign sounding components on Italian exotics like Ferrari and Maserati.
Several Italian manufacturers saw this as a barrier to sales, but along with other foreign car makers they also saw an opportunity to provide power and torque unheard of where large engines were heavily taxed. Thus was born the American-European hybrid.
De Tomaso
Alejandro De Tomaso was born in Argentina, and built prototypes and racing cars, including the 1970 Williams Formula One car. His first car was the Vallelunga, a mid-engine sports car powered by a Ford Cortina engine.
Mangusta
Only 3.3 inches higher than the Ford GT40s, the mid-engine De Tomaso Mangusta was sexy and exotic. The name is Italian for mongoose – the cobra’s mortal enemy, and it may have been an inside joke between Alejandro and his friend Carroll Shelby, who reportedly supplied the 289 cubic inch Ford Mustang GT350 engines that powered the prototypes and European versions. Only 200 American examples were built with the glowering quad headlights before regulations forced the change to pop-up headlights that gave the last 50 cars a cross-eyed look during daylight.

This might have been the very car we rode home in from Orange County Airport in 1971 on discharge from the Army. The Pullman suitcase had to be left in a luggage locker.

Giugiaro, working for Bertone, incorporated butterfly doors over the rear luggage deck and engine compartment. Emission regulations meant American cars had the 302 V8, down 85 from the 306 horsepower of the European 289s. A 32/68 weight distribution and willowy backbone chassis yielded challenging handling characteristics.
Pantera
The successor to the Mangusta was another Tom Tjaarda design (see Ferrari 275GTS, above), this time working at Ghia. With a unibody rather than a backbone chassis, and powered by Ford’s Cleveland 351 cubic inch V8 of 330 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque, handling and acceleration were both improved. It has been written that one factor in the improvement was that the ZF transaxle was inverted in the Pantera, dropping the engine in the chassis for a lower center of gravity.

A luscious burgundy finish complements the less aggressive styling of the Pantera, belying its greater performance capability. Around 5,000 Panteras were imported by Ford and distributed through Mercury dealers.
Others
Italian cars with American drive trains included Isetta designer Piero Rivolta’s Iso Grifo and Iso Rivolta, powered by Chevrolet V8s.
The Apollo Coupe was a very low-production American project with body designed by Italian Bertone stylist Franco Scaglione. In 1963 Intermeccanica in Turin built the bodies, which were shipped to Oakland, California, where the 218 cubic inch Buick alloy V8 (used in various forms in everything from Range Rovers to the Brabham Formula 1 Champion) was installed.

That’s the Chevrolet-powered Iso Rivolta, far right, and the Apollo Coupe, center. We didn’t get the name of the car on the left.
Three Countries, One Car
Around 1950, Donald Healey was returning to England from the U.S. on the Queen Elizabeth. Cadillac had declined to supply him with their OHV V8 for his Silverstone sports car, but on the ship he met Nash-Kelvinator CEO George Mason, who agreed to supply the Nash Ambassador engine and transmission for the car.
In addition to the more luxurious production cars, they built four endurance racers with an lightweight alloy body made in Birmingham by Panelcraft Sheet Metal. After two years coming in fourth, they won a podium third place behind two Mercedes 300SLs in 1953. The car averaged 13 mpg and needed no oil or water added during the entire 24 hours.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted an exhibit in 1951 entitled “8 Automobiles,” featuring the Cisitalia 202 Coupe by Pinin Farina. After Mason saw that car, all 1953 Nashes were designed by Pinin Farina, including the new Nash Healey.

The Petersen Museum in Los Angeles owns the Pinin Farina Nash Healey loaned by Dick Powell to George Reeves for him to drive in the TV series The Adventures of Superman when he was in his Clark Kent guise. It was his explanation why he always arrived at the crime scene before Lois Lane.
And Finally

It’s not all about red Ferraris and orange Lamborghinis. The Italians also invented the bubble car and the first really mini van, the Fiat 600 Multipla.
Plan Ahead
Monterey in August is the destination for automotive pilgrims of all types. If Italian brands spark your fantasies, be sure to reserve a spot in your calendar for the event where you will see more of them than just about anywhere, anytime, the Concorso Italiano. Next year be sure to check online for the date. The Pebble Beach Concours has moved to the fourth Sunday to avoid conflict with a golf tournament, so surrounding events like the Concorso are likely to follow suit.
2020 Porsche 911
My How You’ve Grown!
The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles will be winding down it’s Porsche Effect exhibit in the next few months, and Porsche just introduced the 2020 911 at the LA Auto Show, so now’s a chance to investigate just how much their famous sports car has changed in 55 years.
Disclaimer: the new car is not expected to be available for purchase until the spring of 2019, so the following information is subject to change.
Origins
The story should be familiar. In 1961 Porsche, in order to expand its market, wanted a larger, more luxurious, more powerful car to follow the 356, by then in its 12th year of production. His son (also Ferdinand, but nicknamed “Butzi.”) and Body Construction specialist Erwin Komenda, retained Ferdinand (“Ferry”) Porsche’s layout, with an air-cooled boxer (horizontal opposed) engine mounted behind the rear axle, this time a six, with a single overhead cam on each bank.
Cutaway image of 1965 Porsche 911. (From Car and Driver Archive Road Test)
The cars were polarizing, but then Porsches always were. The rear-engine layout had always had a reputation for wagging its tail in unskilled hands, often with embarrassing results.
Even some of the Porsche faithful were suspicious of the six-cylinder, viewing it as abandoning the lightweight Porsche ethos. Designer Robert Cumberford, writing in Automobile, went so far as to say, “. . . the 911’s initial design was quite weak, and early models were simply bad cars.”
Others have been more charitable, and most were impressed by a car that, through the skill and hard work of those who prepared them, and the bravery and skill of the drivers, achieved almost instant success in racing. I was one who was hooked.
Your correspondent in full ‘seventies regalia in his 1967 911.
Purity v. Profitability
The evolution of the Porsche has been purity compromised by competitiveness. Porsches have never been inexpensive, and over the years 911s, to appeal to those with the means to buy one, have gotten bigger, more luxurious, more powerful, and alas, heavier.
Filling a Gap and Restoring Posterity
Until 2014, the Petersen Museum had a car in its Collection that even Porsche’s impressive museum lacked.
At the Rodeo Drive Concours in 2013, Beverly Hills Porsche had to borrow the Petersen’s 901 for the 50th anniversary of its introduction in Frankfurt.
82 901s were produced before Peugeot objected to the name, claiming the right to all three-digit numerical labels with a zero in the second position. In 2014 Porsche finally filled the void in its collection when 901 Chassis number 057 was discovered in an old barn in Brandenburg (Yes – literally a “barn find.”) along with a gold 911L from 1968.
We are under no illusions that this is an actual photo of the car as-found, but it’s the first image in the on-line article by Road & Track.
The car was missing wings and doors, along with other absent pieces and significant rust, posing a challenge requiring a three-year meticulous restoration. The gold 911L that shared the barn will not be restored.
Tah-dah! At the 2018 Los Angeles International Auto Show, Porsche showed the results of that restoration.
The 911 you could buy in the US in 1965 was just under 167 inches long on an 87 inch wheelbase. It was 63.4 inches wide and 52 inches high. It rode on 15 inch steel wheels carrying 165/80 radial ply tires. The 1991 cc engine began by making 130 gross horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 119 pound-feet of torque at 4,600 rpm. The car in the archived 1965 Car and Driver road test had 148 horsepower at 6,100 rpm and 140 pound-feet at 4,200 rpm.
And Now?
Like many of us, the 911 has gotten wider.
The most obvious visible difference between the early car and today’s is the width – it’s an even six inches wider to accommodate today’s wide low profile tires.
It’s certainly recognizable as a 911, but the 992’s windshield is lower and more steeply raked, the roofline slopes more gradually, and – those wheels!
In the last 55 years, the car’s wheelbase has stretched nine and a half inches, each increase moving the rear engine farther ahead in relation to the rear axle, for a little less tail-wagging rear weight bias. A 20 millimeter shift forward of the engine mounts this year also helps.
The 2020 911 is more than a foot longer, reportedly about an inch longer than the 991; so it’s up perhaps 14 inches overall at 177.9 inches. The only place it’s shrunken is in height, down 1.1 inches – that wide open feel from the tall windshield of my 1967 may have diminished somewhat.
Some basics have not changed. The 2020 car is still a rear-engine, rear-drive car powered by a horizontal opposed six-cylinder engine. The biggest change is a sacrilege – there is no manual transmission. Instead power is transmitted to the rear wheels (and the fronts in the 4S) through an eight-speed version of their dual-clutch PDK gearbox.
The torsion bars in the original suspension got twisted into coils in 1989 with the 964, and air cooling gave way to a radiator and related plumbing with the 993 in 1994. Four-valve heads arrived in the 996 in 1997.
With the added inches and plumbing, you know it’s also added weight, a whopping 40.3% increase over 55 years – almost a half a ton more, 959 pounds – for a road-hugging 3,340.
Power?
All that extra weight over the years has been countered with a steady increase in displacement and power. While the weight has increased by about a third, engine displacement ballooned over the years to keep up, with the 991 GT3 version peaking at 4 liters. Lately though, the ubiquitous turbocharger (It has two.) has permitted a return to an even three liters – still up by half from the original – permitting the sort of early torque arrival and flat curve common in modern turbos. Horsepower has gone up by a factor of 2.4, to 444. And that’s net, while the original engine was rated at gross.
To handle all that power, for the first time all 911s will have staggered wheels – 245/35-20s at the front, 305/30-21s at the back on the Carrera S. Treads measure 3.15 inches wider at the front (+48.5%), 5.51 inches wider at the back (+84.8%).
Performance
Fifty-five years of constant development by some of the world’s best engineers is bound to raise performance level, but we doubt even the most optimistic prognosticators would have predicted these results.
Car and Driver’s Archived Road Test Review (https://www.caranddriver.com/archives/1965-porsche-911-archived-road-test-review) had the ’65 doing the 0-60 sprint in seven seconds flat, which seems a bit optimistic for a car where every horsepower has to move 16 pounds. The XK-E did the same with a weight/power ratio of around 11. The 992, with only 7.1 pounds burden on each horse is expected to do the deed in about 3.7. And that’s just the base 911 Carrera S. Top speed is similarly elevated, from 130 mph in 1965 to a predicted 191 for the 992.
At what Cost?
The 911 had an MSRP of $6,490 in 1965 (About $45,235 in 2018 money). If you can keep out of the multipage options list on a 992 it is expected to list for about $113,200. There’s a silver lining though. In the last 55 years the 911’s expected mileage has improved by 2 MPG. So if gasoline stayed at $3.50/gallon (Yeah. Right. If.), in just 587 years you could amortize that cost increase through gas savings.