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Italia
AUTO
GALLARDO TWIN TEST
Issue 194 April 2012 £4.35 US$9.99
BLACK&WHITE
Daytona THE OTHER
ALFA ROMEO TIPO 33/2
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Italia
ALSO Ferrari 308 GT4/LM Victim of Circumstance The Mighty Bora Maserati’s ’70s Supercar From the Archives Lancia Appia Convertible Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCT Twin Clutch Technology Tested
www.auto-italia.co.uk
ITALIAN EVENTS HILLCLIMB AND TRACK ACTION PREVIEW
READER OFFER EXCLUSIVE MODENA EXPERIENCE
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Story by Peter Collins Photography by Simon Clay and RM Auctions
Not a Ferrari, but an Alfa Romeo that also adopted the USA track’s name following a 1-2-3 finish
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ALFA ROMEO TIPO 33/2
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arlo Chiti was talking about the transfer of the Autodelta company to Alfa Romeo in 1965: “Maybe I shouldn’t have accepted the first offer they made, but I have always been affected by that crazy passion of mine for racing.... also, Luraghi’s [Chairman of Alfa Romeo] programmes were brilliant. He wanted, step by step, to bring Alfa back to the level of the great international competitions.” Together they did it with the car you see here – a Tipo 33/2 – being an important step in that process, but the actual creation of Autodelta as a company, had taken place in Udine, almost on the Italian/Yugoslavian border, in 1963. Originally called Delta Auto, it had been set up by Carlo Chiti and
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Playing Politics A look back to 1975 when the North American Racing Team had a run-in with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest Story by Richard Heseltine Photography by Michael Ward
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FERRARI 308 GT4/LM
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Black & White
Open and closed Lamborghini Gallardos on California’s Highway One Words & Photos by Ian Kuah Additional Photos by Bruce Benedict
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LAMBORGHINI GALLARDO
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hen I was test driving Italian cars in Los Angeles recently, I made up a driving ritual to help me extract maximum enjoyment from the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder Performante and Superleggera. It goes like this. On one of the sunny days that are so frequent in this part of the world, check your oil and tyre pressures, and drive to the legendary Highway One that follows along the picturesque Pacific coastline. Along the coast near Malibu, turn right onto one of the lightly trafficked roads that wind their way up into the mountains. To be sure of having the road largely to yourself, time your drive for off-peak hours or early on a Sunday morning. Once up in the hills, find a layby and stop for a few minutes to enjoy the scenery and clear your mind of everyday clutter. Once you feel calm, start rolling again, and get into the groove by building your speed gradually. You will know you have settled into a good rhythm when you feel relaxed and at one with the car and the road. A major part of the Gallardo’s unique sensory experience comes from hearing the four-cam V10’s soundtrack in all its glory as it rips up and down through its wide rev band. If you are in the fixed-head Superleggera, drop the windows so that the full effect of the offbeat growl at moderate revs and its top-end yelp reaches your ears. If you are in the Spyder Performante, driving al fresco on a road like this
presents you with a really visceral driving experience. Once you are firmly in the zone, the driver’s natural instinct takes over. If it is part of your repertoire, you will soon find yourself trail braking into the slower turns to maximise front-end grip and rotate the tail. Through and out of each bend, your smoothness and confidence with the throttle is clearly read back to you by the steady increase or decrease of decibels in the V10’s warbling melody. Catch a glimpse of the rev counter needle flying round the dial in your peripheral vision, and as it approaches the 6000rpm mark, you will feel the push in your back going from strong to solid. And there is more to come. Well before the 8500rpm redline, the rising crescendo behind your head has morphed into a racecar-like scream, and the rocky scenery whizzing past the car further amplifies the aural experience into something close to transcendental. At the rev limiter, pull the right paddle to trigger an upshift, and start all over again. Adrenalin junkies should repeat this treatment as often as possible. The LP 570-4 Superleggera was left in my custody on the first day, and its exquisite cabin furnishings recalled my inspirational drive in an orange first generation Superleggera in the hills above Marbella, Spain in 2008. In metallic black, the car actually looks fairly subtle. So while it attracted some attention in the Malibu area, where expensive cars are a dime a dozen, it does not shout out loud, or fry onlookers’ retinas like one painted yellow or orange tends to do
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BORA! BORA! BORA! Simon Park extolls the virtues of the mighty mid-engined Maser, with the help of his own newly-acquired example Photography by Michael Ward
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MASERATI BORA
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t’s a grainy black and white photo, the more so for being stretched over two half-pages – a tight corner somewhere out in the undulating countryside of Emilia Romagna, and a Maserati, seriously sideways, armfuls of opposite lock clearly on display. An image that still haunts the mind nearly 40 years on, it was the perfect visual expression of ‘High Wind In The Hills’, Doug Blain’s evocative account, in the September 1972 edition of Car, of a gale-force blast around the Modenese back roads in Maserati’s latest piece of motorised meteorology: Bora – a cold wind and a hot car. I was hooked. Fast-forward 39 years... It’s 7.0pm on a dark, wet Saturday evening in early October, on the outskirts of Glasgow. The headlights are a virtually non-existent joke, the oil pressure gauge has plunged to zero (but I’m betting on an electrical rather than a mechanical fault...), I’ve scraped the underside of the nose on a low
kerb I couldn’t see, we’re lost and there’s no interior light available on the move by which to read a map. Two hours awaiting the RAC, 30-odd miles back in the little town of Callander (where the Bora had ground to an ignominious halt with an undiagnosed, but fortunately transient, problem), have left us with the devil’s own drive back to our hotel, and I’m close to becoming seriously un hooked. So, why do I still love the thing so much? Well, particular cars can get under your skin, invade and occupy your psyche, for any number of reasons – sometimes specific, often unfocused. To me, the Bora’s allure is multi-faceted, but firmly rooted in the mystique of the Maserati marque. It is restrained, it is dignified, it is nowhere near yer face – ironically, the polar opposite of the Lancia Stratos, for 16 years my equally venerated mistress. Why both should have seduced me in turn is too subjective to analyse; but
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CLUB ITALIA
PREVIEWS AND REPORTS ON INTERNATIONAL EVENTS AND ITALIAN CAR CLUBS
The Modena Experience Story by James Wheeler Photography by Michael Ward
A report on last year’s reader visit to Modena Terra di Motori and a preview of our return trip
T
here is a saying that you are not a true car enthusiast until you have owned an Alfa Romeo, and Auto Italia magazine feels that you are not a true Italian car enthusiast until you have visited what has become known as the Modena Terra di Motori – Land of Motors. At its heart lie the cities of Modena, Bologna and Imola, and all are synonymous with sporting Italian motor cars. However, a trip to this wonderful area of
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Italy need not only be about motorised objects, as there are many other interesting industries and sites to visit. Wineries, parmesan cheese farms and balsamic vinegar producers can all be found situated amongst beautiful countryside and romantic, historic walled towns. The automotive seeds of Modena’s Motor Valley were planted in the early twentieth century, as the farmland in the valley of the River Po has always been
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CLUB ITALIA
ABOVE LEFT TO RIGHT: Local Lambrusco wine. Matteo Panini’s parmigiano reggiano farm. Pedroni’s Balsamico. Pagani V12 engine. Ferrari 250 SWB in good company
LEFT: Drummond Bone’s 599 GTB shared with Auto Italia’s Roberto Giordanelli BELOW: Lancia Stratos was following the official Mille Miglia cars through Modena
a third more fertile than the land above it in the hills. This increased fertility brought with it greater profits and allowed the farmers to purchase tractors which, of course, required maintenance – a new skill that they were soon forced to learn. Some of the farmers went beyond fixing just their own tractors, and flourishing new businesses were formed, repairing not just tractors, but cars and lorries, too. This new-found interest in motorised vehicles soon saw some repairers turn their skills to car manufacture. These entrepreneurial and adventurous men and their families eventually ended up producing some of the finest sports and racing cars in the world. As so often happens with any specialist field of industry, businesses establish themselves where the core knowledge is situated, and the area between Modena and Bologna became the epicentre of Italian exotic and specialist car production in the 1950s and ’60s – and it still is today. A tour of the area and its car and motorcycle
companies can be navigated solo but, for the best and most enjoyable results, we suggest using the services of local travel agent Modenatur. Some owners of private car collections have exclusive ties with Modenatur, and these incredible places can only be seen through this company. Its very helpful and multilingual staff will happily set up a route for you but, to get the most out of your trip, we highly recommend one of its guided tours in an air-conditioned coach. The staff of Auto Italia magazine are regular visitors to the area, as you can imagine, and when we recently attended one of Modenatur’s exceptional guided tours we were treated to many wonderful experiences and they were not all automotive-related. The itinerary of any of Modenatur’s Land of Motors tours can be subject to change at the last moment, due to circumstances beyond their control. Many of the collections are privately owned and housed in generous people’s homes, so Modenatur is unable to guarantee that visiting a specific collection or a factory
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SPORTING ELEGANCE The Lancia Appia Convertible was a status symbol during the 1950s which appealed to refined, outdoor-loving drivers Story by Elio Deganello
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he Lancia Appia Convertible is a member of the family of open-top cars which, during the 1950s, were visible symbols of a new joie de vivre after the suffering of the WW2 years. Open cars were particularly popular with the generation in their 30s. They had experienced the hardships of war as children and during the 1950s saw an exciting new world unfolding before their eyes, where affluence grew day by day and progress seemed unstoppable. Occupants of open cars during that period had (and still have) a great deal more pleasure when driving than in tin-tops. The more comfortable and luxurious a saloon or coupe may be, the more it pleases our senses: quality materials and fine lines appease our sight, touch, smell and hearing. It’s a nice feeling but, once you’re on the move, that feeling of well-being soon turns into drowsiness, and only the person at the wheel pays attention to the outside world and the traffic. Hence, in a luxurious, closed car we feel satisfied but slightly alienated, since the scenery slips by and there’s no physical contact, as if it were an external phenomenon. You can’t smell the perfume of the air or be
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LANCIA APPIA CONVERTIBLE RIGHT: Lancia’s elegant model demonstrates the Appia’s boot, dominated by the spare wheel
caressed by the wind, and there’s no sense of physical movement. Sound is deadened. Drive through woods and you can’t hear the birds sing or sense the change in temperature and humidity. On the tight roads in the Dolomites you wouldn’t get the taste or sensation of conquest. Open cars are different: they give the full perception of motion in the world which surrounds us and offer that extra pleasure of life. The occupants are elated and like to show off to other drivers how they are heroes braving the elements. It was because of this – their natural elegance and that particular moment in history – that open cars were amongst the most sought-after status symbols of the 1950s and ’60s, and few manufacturers failed to offer open versions of their saloons. Italian manufacturers found formidable allies in the ‘carrozzieri’ which, in those days, were plentiful, expert and cheap. Thus Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia collaborated with the coachbuilders to make open versions of their models without having to invest large sums of money. Before choosing an outside partner to build the special versions of the Appia, Lancia decided to test their ability by putting them in competition with each other. It distributed specially built type
812.00 chassis to Allemano, Boano, Ghia Aigle, Motto, Pinin Farina, Vignale and Zagato. It also modified five of these floorpans into the type 812.01, with floor gear change and increased power from 47bhp to 52bhp, for the more sporty body builders. They only had a short space of time between the Turin Salon in autumn 1956 and the Geneva Salon in spring 1957 in which to present their prototypes.
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Quick Change Artist Alfa Romeo introduces its all-new Twin Clutch Transmission Story by Phil Ward Photography by Alfa Romeo
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iat Power Train’s engineering prowess, so ably demonstrated with its current generation MultiAir and MultiJet engines, has been extended to gearbox development. While modern transmissions for its petrol engines have been beyond criticism, Fiat has had issues with its diesel variants, notably the dualmass flywheels. This device, mounted between the crankshaft and clutch, performs the important function of protecting the gearbox by absorbing vibrations from the diesel engine. Over time, the energy-
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absorbing material breaks up, requiring the expensive unit to be replaced – something that is not always evident until discovered during a clutch replacement. This problem is not exclusive to Fiat and Alfa Romeo, as other diesel car manufacturers have also had similar issues. Fiat Power Train has come up with a solution in the form of its new TCT (Twin Clutch Transmission) sixspeed gearbox. This system, allied to a paddle-shift change, puts Fiat well in front of its competitors. Alfa Romeo invited Auto Italia to try out the new gearbox as fitted to
the Giulietta 1.4 TB MultiAir 170 HP and 2.0 JTDm 170 HP at the Balocco test track. I have been to this remarkable test facility before, but not when there has been snow on the ground. Also, I had not driven an Alfa fitted with the DNA system in the ‘all weather’ mode in wintry weather, so it would be a useful test drive. With its multi-circuit layout and the numerous disguised prototype cars coming and going, Balocco is a fascinating place. The unmistakable beat of the TwinAir engine in a passing Doblo was an indication of another new model to be
announced soon. Of course, the garage doors were firmly closed to inquisitive eyes when we were on site, but the car parks were full of test vehicles for all to see. Among the line-up of six Alfa 8C Spiders was a Coupe in ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ orange livery, complete with Confederate flag painted on the roof and ‘01’ on the doors. Quite why we may never know. My first test drive was in the 1.4 TB. My exploratory laps were with the gearbox in the full auto mode and the DNA switch set to ‘normal’. When driving a car fitted with a paddle
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ALFA ROMEO GIULIETTA shift, I always use auto for low speed in-town driving, reserving the paddles for the open road. The MultiAir felt very refined with its petrol engine humming away up front. The TCT changes were mostly imperceptible – and when it came to reverse parking, transmission shunt between forward and reverse was completely absent. I’m not sure exactly how long the nominated circuit was, but it did take some learning as every corner and the approaches were all different. There was even a ‘Nordschleife’ section with blind boobytrap crests and dips. The surface condition varied, too, just like roads in the real world. Most of the bends were lined to the edge with unforgiving Armco, demanding great driver precision. With the layout becoming more familiar, I selected Sport mode and the paddle function. The paddle change allowed me to carry lots of speed into the corners and change down mid-bend, if required, something that is hard – and inadvisable – to do with a manual shift. The up changes were quick and smooth, though not, of course, in Ferrari 458 territory. Sometimes the change from third to fourth felt very slightly laboured, but was by no means an irritation. Power delivery from the engine was linear, as is the case with modern turbos, but it did not feel like 170bhp, although this ‘feeling’ was deceptive and dispelled by increasingly rapid lap times. When you remember this is only a
Power delivery from the MultiAir engine was “linear, as is the case with modern turbos ”
ABOVE LEFT: Paddle shift is tucked away behind the steering wheel crossbar ABOVE RIGHT: Lever for auto selections and sequential shift option
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