A masterpiece of Stile Transatlantico
The most flamboyant era of modern car design must have been the space-age years of the 1950s when US brands like Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac and Ford equipped their cars with mighty tailfins inspired by airplanes and rockets and painted them in glossy, two-tone paint jobs matching the diners and petticoats of the time. The style was also well-received on the other side of the Atlantic –especially in Italy, designers embraced the ‘Stile Transatlantico’ as the aesthetic avant-garde. While Franco Scaglione famously designed the mythical B.A.T. concept cars, Giovanni Michelotti created an equally stunning one-off bodywork for Boano in form of the Abarth 208 A Spyder. Combining an ultra-light chassis with a small displacement-yet-punchy engine, the Abarth offered the unmistakably Italian handling, coupled with an All-American coachwork tailored to please the US audience. While the car never went into production, the stunning prototype restored at the Lopresto Collection is now for sale with RM Sotheby’s.
The Japanese F50
In the art world, a painting or suculpture can significantly increase in value because it has been part of ‘the right collection’. Provenance and ownership history are also important factors in the collector car world – and this Ferrari F50 is the perfect example to make the case: Delivered new to Japanese businessman Yoshiho Matsuda in 1995, chassis number 3355 is number 17 out of the 349 cars produced worldwide and one of only 31 finished in the striking Giallo Modena. Now the famous car from the Matsuda Collection is for sale with Curated in Miami – with 13,000 kilometres on the clock and featuring the Ferrari Classiche certificate as well as a collection books, tools and many rare accessories. If you are thinking about owning the first V12 Ferrari Supercar, this should be the car to consider.
The thinking man’s Cal' Spider
Of course you can spend 17 million dollars on the very first Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider at the Monterey auctions. But luckily you don’t have to, as there’s another Italian Spider from the same era that is – at least from our point of view – equally elegant and alluring for less than a 170th of the price. Designed by Pinin Farina, this stunning green-over-tan 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Veloce 750F would be our dream car for a late-summer road trip down the Mediterranean coast. With a completely overhauled engine, you could even enter it in next year’s Mille Miglia – something you might think twice about doing in a 17-million-euro Ferrari.
Range Extended
Essentially, we at Classic Driver are people of simple taste – we always like the same things. Give us a plate of fresh pasta for lunch, a chalet in the Swiss alps for the weekend, a classic Range Rover for the trip, and we are happy! Although.. Swiss mountain passes are steep and twisted, so this fully restored 1994 Range Rover Vogue LSE with its freshly built 4.8 litre Rover V8 engine boasting a more than adequate 280 bhp and 330 lbs/ft would make us just a little bit more happy than the average car. Plus, doesn’t it look lovely in Ardennes Green over Tan-coloured Poltrona Frau leather seats with contrast Green stitching? Ah, the simple pleasures..
Cat Power
The slow decline of the Jaguar brand is one of the automotive tragedies of recent years – even more so if you consider the cool and competitive sportscars that came out of Coventry until the early 2000s. Designed by Ian Callum, the Jaguar XKR was a timeless grand tourer of classical proportions, subtly covering up the V8 engine under its hood boasting a staggering 503 horsepower. This single-owner car with just 2,251 miles from new is described by Historics Auctions as practically being a new car. So if you would like to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Jaguar brand with one of their greatest modern hits, you should make a bid when the car crosses the block on 14 September in Ascott.
