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The Quest for Beauty
Original beauty has no equal. A UNESCO recognition for Corrado Lopresto’s Giulietta Coda Tronca Prototipo. by Duccio Lopresto
THE QUEST FOR BEAUTY // 63
T
here is something common to all humans that makes them fundamentally different from other species. It could be represented by the 5th Sonata by Beethoven or by the desperate chants of blues street singers. It could be the “Ultima Cena” painted by Leonardo da Vinci or the graffiti adorning those sad, gray concrete buildings of modern cities, making our surroundings a bit more cheerful. It could also well be a shiny, restored 1920s Isotta Fraschini with its chromed, luxurious details or a simple, completely preserved, untouched Fiat Topolino found in a barn. We cannot be satisfied by just observing how beautiful and perfect nature is, but we often try to shape it according to our own pleasure and taste. We want to leave our mark on this planet, in everything we do. This is why this article ends quoting Ulysse’s words in “Dante’s Inferno.” They represent the principle that should guide every human being: a constant universal search for knowledge, virtue and beauty. We are all doomed to pursue beauty. It’s in our bloodstream. We are all Ulysses. I would like to tell the story of my father, Corrado, who has married this philosophy in full, making it his life mission. He applied it so deeply and with such passion, strength and dedication that he has created one of the most important and admired collections of Italian cars in the world. He followed his ideology so strongly that it is not only money that counts — in fact, it is of relative value — it is beauty, design, history, passion and dedication that represent real worth. He taught me that collecting cars should be an active experience, a research for knowledge and preservation of Beauty. A collector of unique cars should invest a lot of time and effort in searching for the history before restoring them, applying his own philosophy to these objects that we consider pieces of art, just like paintings: sculptures in motion. Let’s go back in time to November 4th, 1966, when the city of Firenze was destroyed by the flood of the Arno, the worst in 400 years. The damage caused by the water and mud had a devastating impact on the millions of original books, paintings, archives and sculptures kept in the museums and homes in the city of the Renaissance. In a desperate effort to save the Worldwide Heritage site, Italian and foreign volunteers alike, known widely as the Angeli del fango (“Mud Angels”), came to Firenze to save and restore its severely damaged beauties. New, innovative techniques and methods of conservation were conceived, together with the set up of advanced restoration laboratories. Fundamental was the work of the Opi-
64 // TOP OF THE CLASSIC CAR WORLD
ficio delle Pietre Dure, which applied state-of-the-art technology together with principles of chemistry and physics to preserve the original colors of the paintings and the marble of the sculptures. The approach was clear: preserve everything that could be saved, while restoring with new painting the elements that were damaged too severely by the water. This event inspired my father to apply the same philosophy and techniques of preservation, for the first time ever, to the world of classic cars. In particular, he chose a very special car as a test case: the prototype of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca, the first car in the world to feature the famous “cut tail” shape. I still remember the day when, with great emotion, my father informed me that he had found the Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca Prototipo in the United States. Its American owner, who bought the car in the sixties to race but then left it untouched in his garage for nearly 40 years, had decided to get rid of the car. The day after this call, my dad was on a flight to Philadelphia. A few hours later, the deal was signed and the unique Alfa became part of the Collezione Lopresto. It is important to explain why this car is so relevant for automotive history and heritage. “L’Arma della Vittoria” (“The Weapon of Victory”) is how the magazine Auto Italiana celebrated in March 1962 the newly created Alfa Romeo SZ Coda Tronca, a car born from experimental trials and “shape and function” needs, which are the peculiar aspects of Zagato’s design DNA. The Alfa Romeo SZ Coda Tonda (rounded tail) was the starting point of the development of our car. If it’s true that the Coda Tonda was easily dominating the 1300 GT classes, it is also true that the fast and light Lotus Elite were the hands-down winners in all other most important international races. That was an issue for Alfa Romeo, as big car manufacturers at the time were using race wins as a powerful selling tool. You win on Sunday so that you sell out on Monday. That was Alfa Romeo’s strategy at the time and it worked pretty well. For this reason, they had to create a completely new car. Elio Zagato, driven by his visionary spirit, working together with the Politecnico di Milano, Alfa Romeo, and excellent testers such as Conrero and Facett, started a technical analysis aimed at the evolution of the SZ Coda Tonda. After long and intense studies, they decided to use as an inspiration the research on aerodynamics done by professor W. Kamm in
the ‘30s. According to him, a highly extended shape increases the aerodynamic efficiency and maximum speed of a car. Elio Zagato, with the design help of a young Ercole Spada, modified a Giulietta SZ Coda Tonda, stretching the nose of the car and cutting the tail. They started with the front part, taking inspiration from the work applied to the Maserati 450 S built for Sir Stirling Moss a few years before. As the newly modified car had a long and unusual body, which could compromise handling to the detriment of maximum speed, they decided to also cut the tail. When Elio Zagato, sitting next to Ercole Spada, tested the newly modified car on the highway between Milano and Bergamo, the result was just incredible: an increase of 20 km/h in maximum speed. Ercole Spada, with the chronometer in his hands, at first did not believe the results. They tried again and again, always getting the same result. The car was much faster: more than 220 km/h with a small 1.300cc engine, compared to the 200 km/h of the Coda Tonda. Same chassis, same engine, same wheelbase and, in addition, fifteen additional kilos caused by the stretching to the back part of the car. It was a revolution! The first time Elio competed with this same car, he won the first overall prize at the 1961 Monza GP. Alfa was back. Lotus was not unbeatable anymore: Zagato and Spada had discovered the true “Weapon of Victory”! This car was then used as the official testbed for all future cars by Alfa Romeo and Zagato. It inspired the developments of the TZ1, TZ2, Junior Zagato, Giulia Berlina, Alfetta GT and GTV, up to the most recent Alfa Romeo cars. Our Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca is the car we are talking about here: the actual car that Zagato built cutting the tail and stretching the nose of an Alfa Romeo SZ Coda Tonda. The car that sparked a revolution in aerodynamics and design for the whole automotive industry. It is a true milestone, which had to be preserved carefully in a way of which only my father could think of. In an interview with the FIVA, my father stated: “In art it is mandatory to try to save as much as possible of the original. Every retouch has to be done in a way that does not affect the original work, and the same has to be done for sculptures. For example, when restoring a Caravaggio painting, you have to know that behind the paint there are often scratches that the artist made with the wooden shaft of the brush to
The Coda Tronca when discovered and the drawing that defined its aerodynamic, starting from the SZ Coda Tonda.
The UNESCO ambassador giving the award to Corrado Lopresto, the mind behind this cultured project. Here with the author of this article, his son Duccio.
To preserve the original paint they injected special glues, similar to the ones used in painting restoration. The same care was applied to the interiors.
THE QUEST FOR BEAUTY // 65
sketch some part of his figures, and if you clean the paint too energetically you risk removing them.” My father treated this car as a work of art, saving as much as possible of the incredibly well-preserved original. With techniques borrowed from the restoration of painting and sculpture, the car was first taken apart, cleaned and restored without any of the typical invasive interventions of traditional restoration. The original paint was maintained, fixing those parts at risk of detaching with special glues, carefully injected below the original paint. The body was polished with wet sandpaper. To allow the welding of some parts, a special paste was applied on the paint to freeze it and prevent damage due to high temperature. Also, special treatment was applied to Plexiglass and seals, as well as the interiors, with techniques to preserve all the original parts. But he also drew on art and archaeological techniques: he decided to clean only half the car, leaving the other half frozen in time. In the uncleaned part, he preserved everything (including the dust) under a thin layer of transparent matte lacquer. The restoration was completed a few months before the 2016 Concorso d’Eleganza di Villa d’Este, the most exclusive, elegant concourse in the world. Presenting the car in such a condition (half cleaned and half preserved), my father wanted to provoke the car community and, at the same time, show his new ideas of restoration. Villa d’Este accepted the car in its unusual condition. On Sunday, with a shocking announcement, the FIVA, for the first time under the patronage of UNESCO, awarded my father the Preservation Award in recognition of the particular philosophy applied to this car and the incredible preservation work done. My father has won four gold cups at Villa d’Este and one Best of Show, but that prize was something completely different: It transcended car collecting. It was the recognition of 35 years of work on creating a unique approach that is now admired and respected by classic car collectors around the world. The provocation had the unexpected effect of changing the whole automotive scene. On that day, a car was no longer just considered an industrial object, a means of transportation or even a piece of design: It was celebrated as a World Cultural Heritage piece. FIVA subsequently invited my father to talk about this restoration approach at the UNESCO HQ in Paris for the 50th anniversary of the FIVA, where the car was featured on the official brochure of the event and
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where FIVA decided to include my father’s techniques among the official guidelines for preservation of historic vehicles. Like in any aspect of life, perspectives always matter. When restoring a Michelangelo painting, would you change its colors to adapt the object to your personal taste? If it is in bad conditions, would it make sense to restore it completely, with new paint and new materials? The answer, for us, is quite clear: never. Unique classic cars must be treated like paintings or sculptures: objects that are part of the cultural heritage and need to be preserved. If we consider them as such, we will be able to treat and respect them as art objects. Being an architect and a true Italian, my father has always had a deep love for art and beauty. But the real turning point occurred when he started collecting and restoring 17th century paintings. It’s in those years that he matured a deep understanding of how a good restoration should be. When he decided to use the same approach with cars, he surrounded himself with the best “Maestri” in the field, such as Tito Anselmi, Dino Cognolato, Veniero Molari and Felice Bianchi Anderloni. He had close and personal relationships, with these men, who taught him all the secrets of the art of collecting and restoring classic cars. In twenty-five years, he has never spoken to me about how much our cars are worth. He has always talked in terms of history, culture, beauty or design, which are the values that represent our philosophy. Oscar Wilde used to say that the cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I consider my father more an artist than a businessman or collector. I have been to concours all around the world, but I have rarely seen the same dedication, love and attachment that my dad shows to these cars, which he considers pure works of art, sculptures in motion. When people tell me that “cars are meant to be driven,” I do not completely agree. Cars have different functions. They are a means of transportation, and in this they offer driving pleasure and emotion. You can enjoy them on a beautiful rally on the Tuscan hills or on the racetrack. But, for me, they represent one of the highest expressions of art and design. The aesthetic function of cars, especially prototypes and special one-offs, is the aspect that strikes me most. Particularly because it is not evident with paintings or sculptures. It is a subtle kind of beauty, which you have to discover slowly, with dedication and attention, studying the shape of the car but also knowing the history behind its conception.
My father always digs deeply into the history of a car: who designed it, why, in what historical circumstances. He always tries to keep original elements that he can save and he restores only when it is strictly necessary. He spends days researching the history of the designers and who built the cars. The work applied is a university-inspired approach with inordinate attention to detail. For example, when we restored the 1931 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 bodied by Aprile, we worked together with the Politecnico Universita’ di Milano to find the exact colors of the paint of the car. We only had a black-and-white picture of the car. Applying the same scanning technology they use to restore pre-war black-and-white movies, we scanned this image and found the original color combinations of the paint. Many have asked us why we stick to this unusual philosophy. As I mentioned at the beginning, the quest for beauty is what keeps us alive and human. It is what gives sense to our existence. People who collect classic cars usually do it as a hobby. They see cars as toys for grown-up boys or as investment vehicles. This is not how we perceive cars. We see beauty in the patina of the original paint, in the imperfect lines of the original body hand-sculpted by master artisans back in time, in the original leather that was created with special materials, such as the python leather of the Isotta Fraschini 8ASS or the magnificent original leather made using textile fabrics of our Lancia Aprilia, still in completely original condition. People tend to follow the easy path: make everything new. It is faster, cheaper and it will pay off in terms of investment, maybe. Our approach is exactly the opposite. My dad likes to compare himself to the artist who suffers while giving birth to his creation, always driven by a constant, painful, torturous, fascinating quest for beauty. As Irving Stone wrote in his book “The Agony and the Ecstasy”: “One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.”
This quote from the poet Dante reminds us how, dealing with an extraordinary discovery, you can give value to the time elapsed.
“... fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.” “... you were not created to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.” (Dante, Inferno, Canto XXVI, Firenze 1320)
THE QUEST FOR BEAUTY // 67
THE K E Y T O THE
TOP OF THE C L A S S I C CAR WORLD
2018
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