“Dreams are what makes a man alive. Destiny rests largely in our own hands, provided that we know what we want and are decided to have it”
I wish these words were mine, but they actually are from Enzo Ferrari. A man who knew a thing or two about dreams, and definitely one that lived life on his own terms.
The way I like it.
I’ve been obsessed with cars since I can remember and started drawing them almost as soon as I could hold a pencil in my hand. I remember spending my school years incessantly drawing cars and telling my incredulous classmates I’d be a car designer someday!
I grew up in Turin, Italy, between the 1980s and 90s. At the time, Turin still was the mecca of automobile design…
As the automobile industry goes “all-in” on battery electric vehicles, do Italy’s high-end performance car manufacturers still have a place in an electrified world?
“A very fast car, usually one that is an unusual or rare type.”
That’s what “supercars” are, according to the Cambridge dictionary.
However, there’s no general consensus among automobile historians about the origins of both the word and the kind of automobile it defines.
Still, it’s fair to say most people associate the word “supercar” with a low-slung, brightly coloured object of desire whose name ends with a vowel.
The Italians certainly don’t have a monopoly on impossibly expensive and outrageously fast machinery, but the cars made by the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini indeed epitomize the “supercar” genre.
And the world just can’t have enough of them.
Every professional field has its own jargon, and car design is no different. Here are five of the most curious terms from an automobile designer’s vocabulary, “translated” into plain English.
DLO or Daylight Opening
It may be hard to believe now that it’s a coveted classic, but the Lancia Beta Montecarlo, also known as Scorpion in the United States, wasn’t popular with buyers in period…
…Still, its existence led to two successful racing programs for Lancia. Funny, given the Montecarlo wasn’t supposed to be a Lancia at all.
The Lancia Montecarlo story started in 1969 when famed design house Pininfarina began working on the Fiat project X1/8. The market for traditional rag-tops like the 124 Spider showed signs of decline, and the X1/8 was to take its place in Europe and the United States. The first prototypes hit the road between 1970 and ’71, after which the project was temporarily suspended.
Work resumed in 1972 under a new codename, X1/20, still as a future Fiat…
The last XM left the Rennes-La-Janais production line over 20 years ago, and it’s fair to say that Citroën’s flagship for the 90s is aging like the finest Chateau Laffite.
I fell in love with the XM since I saw it on magazine covers in 1989, and my admiration for what Citroën achieved with this model has only grown since then.
Project V80
It was late 1984 when PSA’s management tasked three design studios to submit their proposals for Citroën’s new flagship saloon. But it’s fair to say that the project, codenamed “V80,” was late before it began. …
If you look for Turin on Google Earth, you’ll find out that this city in Northwestern Italy is “known for its refined architecture and cuisine.”
Sure, there’s plenty of that on offer… So much so, in fact, that a small memorial near the “Valentino” park can get very easily overlooked.
Laying on the tarmac in front of a magnificent former Royal residence certainly doesn’t help it to get noticed. Still, this white marble inscription it’s here to remind us of a touching moment of Italian motorsport history.
Citroën has been making forgettable econoboxes for a very long time now, but it’s not always been that way.
There was a time in which the French brand sold what’s perhaps the most effortlessly glamorous automobile ever made, the DS Décapotable.
Except it actually wasn’t Citroën’s idea.
Henry Chapron’s atelier was, by the time the revolutionary DS was launched, the last surviving of the great pre-war French coachbuilding firms.
Like pretty much everyone else who saw the DS’s launch at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, Chapron was deeply impressed by the new Citroën’s otherwordly appearance.
Unlike everyone else, though, he thought he could improve on it by making it into a convertible, and he presented it at the 1958…
The compact flat-four Alfas created a whole new generation of Alfisti, over almost two decades of production. Here’s the story of this brilliant family of engines.
In September of 1967, The Italian government green-lighted Alfa Romeo’s project for its new compact family car, to be built in a brand-new factory near Naples, whose construction started on the 29th of April 1968.
Every nut and bolt in the Alfasud was new, designed under Austrian engineer Rudolf Hruska’s direction. The flat-four engine configuration was chosen to lower the center of gravity and the car’s bonnet line, thus improving handling and aerodynamic performance.
Don’t let anybody get in the way of something you love.
I was, rather absent-mindedly, scrolling through my email inbox while having breakfast when I opened that seemingly inoffensive unread message. Little did I know that its content was going to be rather tough to digest.
Someone who’d purchased my then-recently published first book had taken the time to fully express in writing his disappointment with my work, over several paragraphs and without pulling any punches.
In hindsight, that first edition of my book about the 1977–85 Alfa Romeo Giulietta wasn’t perfect, by any means. …
The classic Alfa Romeo V6 engine, nicknamed “Busso,” from his creator’s name, is so revered among enthusiasts that its presence under an Alfa’s bonnet often multiplies the car’s market value. Let’s go through the history of this legendary powerplant.
Genesis
This story starts in the late 1960s, a time of success and confidence for Alfa Romeo. With the Alfetta and Alfa 6 on the drawing board, a brand new engine was needed, especially for the larger saloon. The engineers wanted a compact, lightweight unit, leading to an aluminum 60° V6 engine, with a more modern and efficient cylinder head design than the firm’s existing twin-cam fours.
On the new V6, the two valves per cylinder had a much tighter angle between them to reduce thermal losses and have straighter inlet tracts. …
Matteo Licata
I’ve been obsessed with cars for as long as I can remember, and, after working in automobile design for a decade, now I am an Automobile Historian and Writer
