Fifty and Looking Good

A miscellany of cars first registered in 1971 and photographed this summer.  They're wearing well, looking better than ever and with no need of fillers or botox - just some regular exercise and a drop of STP every now and again.

Porsche 911S

Lotus Elan Sprint

Alfa Romeo Giulia Super

Posrche 911T

Dino 246 GT

Alfa Romeo Spider 1750

Fiat 850 Sport

Maserati Ghibli SS

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Nearly Alfa - Part 2

Image
Once again, the control of Alfa Romeo by the state organisation, Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale – IRI – through its finanziaria, (financial entity), Finmeccanica, would be highly influential.  Not for the first time, the managements of Alfa Romeo and Autodelta were compelled to make decisions constrained by directives formulated on the basis of political expediency rather than engineering savvy.  Responding to recurrent government diktaks seeking to promote the use/consumption of Italian-made products, Finmeccanica ‘s nose intruded into the 890 engine project, stipulating that its turbochargers must be locally-sourced.  Accordingly, the KKKs were soon replaced by units made by the Alfa Romeo aeronautical manufacturing subsidiary, Avio.  Unfortunately, the performance and reliability of these was clearly inferior to the German blowers.  At this stage of the 890’s development, the induction characteristics were rendered furthermore problematic by the difficulty found in the se
Read more

Jo's Last Season

Image
This month it is fifty years since Jo Siffert died at a meeting I'd been really enjoying, since I was also a fan of Jackie Stewart.  For this to happen at an event held to celebrate JYS's second World Championship at the circuit where Seppi had won his first Grand Prix was especially poignant. But whilst the year 1971 will always bring to mind Jo's death - along with that of fellow Porsche 917-great, Pedro Rodriguez –   rather than dwelling on the tragedy, I wanted to establish an upbeat record of his '71 season by writing an account of the forty one races he contested that year prior to the Brands Hatch 'Victory' meeting.  Here, too, is a selection of images from '71, and for several of these I'd like to record my thanks to Michael Keyser . January: Daytona  Courtesy autosportsltd.com April: With Simone at Oulton  Courtesy Getty Images May: Monaco  Courtesy autosportsltd.com June: Zandvoort  Courtesy autosportsltd.com    August: Osterreichring  Courtesy
Read more

Abarth T140 Update

Image
It's taken longer to get here than I had expected, but I now have an update to the December 2021 post about the Abarth T140.   The car offers a great deal of intrigue, all the more so since we can only 'glimpse' it as a concept - no functional example ever having been constructed, let alone run on-track.  Tantalising too, since the 12 cylinder engine had been completed/tested and a full size body model made.  And with many hours and lire spent on the project, it was cancelled unceremoniously, in response to the FIA's abrupt revision in June 1967 of the International Sporting Code, Appendix J definition of racing classes for the 1968 season. Writing about the engine up to now has mostly included opinion that it was heavy and not especially powerful.  But development had only just got underway and I believe that given Abarth's proven expertise with the highly successful upgrading of Fiat and Simca engines for the little GTs, it could have made the Tipo 240 V12 a full
Read more