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ITALIAN PASSION
Why do the automobiles of Italy strike such a chord in us?
by Pete Lyons |
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How would you complete this sentence? "Italian cars appeal to my _____."
Did you say "soul?" "Heart?" "Sense of beauty?" Perhaps something like "…it is my conviction that the automobile should be as much about spirit as science?"
All great works carry the character of their creators, and though one risks political censure to say so, we recognize that character does have nationalistic components. Thus, aboard a planet hurtling toward cultural homogeneity, we are ever more appreciative of creative individualism, and Italy, that sun-blessed land nestled below the Alps, remains a fertile garden of distinctive art, fashion, cuisine-and motor vehicles. Italian cars, bikes, planes, boats - there's something special about them.
What is it? Obviously, it's the passion that went into them; you can see it in the electric harmony of their lines. Products reflect personality, and you will find no more expressively passionate people than in Italy. To gaze at any of the beloved automobiles born there is to see more than function, and more than mere styling. In those arcs, those shapes, those proportions we see their creators' excitement.
The excitement of racing, primarily. Go to Italy, and you will feel motor racing seeming to throb in the very air. It's impossible to imagine a car designer working there who is not mindful of the old Mille Miglia road race, or who is indifferent to Ferrari's position in the World Championship today.
Just as racing itself demands total dedication to purpose, an automobile true to the spirit of racing will be taut, strong, agile, powerful. It will please our eye like a spirited horse, or a predatory animal, or an athlete. Cars bred on this mountainous peninsula, especially, were shaped by innumerable races, rallies and simple personal adventures over the endless rugged roads.
A century of Italian automaking offers so many examples. Ninety-nine years ago, the F.I.A.T. racer was probably the first from Italy to take the world's notice. A giant locomotive of a thing after the fashion of the day, it had a 16-liter, four-cylinder engine with a key advance-hemispherical cylinder heads housing both intake and exhaust valves. That reportedly made it the most powerful car of 1905, and in that year's Vanderbilt Cup race on Long Island, New York, Vincenzo Lancia drove straight to the front. A collision with an American front-wheel-drive Christie prevented a likely win, but the sight of the burly, opera-singing, champagne-quaffing Lancia atop his bellowing bison of a F.I.A.T. may well have sparked an affection for Italian style that Americans still feel.
In 1905 race cars were more purposeful than pretty, but by the 1920s Alfa Romeo was bringing real art to the road, and in 1931 the firm launched a line of '8C' sporting cars that would become immortal. Built to harness a splendid twin-cam, supercharged straight-8 of Grand Prix ancestry, these were premium machines that commanded the attention of enthusiasts with the means to support the most artistic of Italy's coachbuilders. A particular standout was an open two-seater called the Monza, a marriage of muscle with grace that still looks good from every angle; one of history's enduring heartthrobs. Better yet, 8C models won many races throughout the 1930s, including Le Mans and the Mille Miglia, proving that what looked right, was right.
Post-WWII, the first Italian car that knocked the world's eye out was Carrozzeria Touring's Barchetta for Ferrari. Its lissome roadster lines precisely matched the gorgeous two-liter V-12 within - and its 1949 victory at Le Mans - made The Prancing Horse an international icon.
Fabulous Ferraris followed thick and fast. All-time favorites must include the graceful two-liter Testa Rossa 500TRC of 1957, the soul-satisfying 250 GTs that included the Short-Wheelbase (SWB) GT of 1959 and everybody's favorite, 1962's GTO that now trades for fine-art prices. Those cars were all deliberately styled to enthrall wealthy customers (and everyone else!), but even the factory racers of the era were often aesthetic triumphs; just think of that beautiful 1967 brute, the P4 Le Mans coupe.
But Maranello was far from the only manufacturer in Italy to offer beautiful machinery. Fiat, even though they had become a mass-marketer, offered some fine-looking products. Alfa Romeo came back post-war with the exquisite little twin-cam Giulietta and then the even more successful Giulia. Lancia gave us its handsome V-6 B-20 GT and B-24 sports cars that culminated in the fabulously complex D-24 sports racer. Maserati, nearly as prolific as Ferrari, produced such lovelies as the A6G series, the 300S sports racer, and the 250F, one of Formula One's sweetest shapes as well as the last mount of World Champion Fangio. The Maserati brothers, having lost their original company, forged on with the endearing little O.S.C.A. MT4, surprise overall winner of Sebring in 1954. Another charmer of the period was Siata's two-liter V-8 208S, still a favorite at vintage races today.
Though Lamborghini didn't make racers, its cars ran like them. Perhaps the most memorable was the Miura, a haunting blend of sinew and sensuality with a transversely-mounted V12 that made music to die for.
And whose heart could ever forget the imperfect but dazzling DeTomaso Mangusta?
From Abarth to Zagato, there have been literally hundreds of Italian carmakers and coachbuilders over the years. Some were large, most tiny, but all crafted automobiles that clearly sprang from the very air of Italy. To look at them-so purposeful, so prideful, so mechanically ingenious - is to see reborn the masterworks of metalsmith Cellini, painter/engineer da Vinci, and perhaps even the unknown roadbuilders of the Roman empire, many of their famous routes remain in use to this day.
No, like parts of the country itself, not every Italian car has been lyrically lovely. And yes, owners of some of the most magnificent will admit they can be mechanically maddening. Still, they're mad about them. Because they're exciting. The spirit you can sense in their engines, the muscle you can feel through their controls, the poised-to-spring look in their lines - it gets your blood going. Alive with the passion of their native land, these wondrous cars are one of Italy's great gifts to the world.
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| Officina Specializzata Costruzioni Automobile-Fratelli Maserati, always written as O.S.C.A., produced very successful 1100 to 1500 cc cars from 1947 to 1956. |
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| Two of Ferrari's most enduring classics: In the foreground the 2-liter V-6 Dino 206S, one of which finished second overall at the 1966 Nurburgring 1000-Kilometer race, and the 250 GT Short Wheelbase Berlinetta (SWB) that dominated the GT championship before being made into the 250 GTO. |
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| Then, of course there is the Bizzarrini, here as a rare spider P-538, a misnomer, it seems the "P" (posterior) 5.3 liter Chevrolet V-8 was never installed and it is powered by a 4-liter Lamborghini, so, it should should have been a P-412. |
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| Epitomizing our story premise, the 1957 Maserati 250F was both beautiful and brilliant. |
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