The history behind the brans that shaped the automotive world. Origins, evolution and the moments that made them great.
Lamborghini Tractors: The Kerosene Trick That Paid for the Miura Every Lamborghini legend told in America starts in the same place: a rich tractor maker drives to Maranello to complain about his Ferrari’s clutch, Enzo tells him to stick to tractors, and the rest is posters on bedroom walls. Nobody ever stops to ask what … Read more
Autodelta: the Alfa Romeo race shop that wrote half its story in America Autodelta was an Italian race shop, but a surprising share of its story was written in America. In 1964 a Giulia TZ won its class at the Sebring 12 Hours. In 1966 a Giulia GTA won the under-two-liter class of the first … Read more
Nacional Pescara: The European Champion Spain Almost Lost for Ten Euros On October 5, 2024, in a Brussels saleroom run by the French auction house Aguttes, the government of Catalonia bid against an English collector for a 1929 racing car with a straight-eight engine. It won at €585,348, roughly $640,000. Jaume Perarnau, director of the … Read more
Autos España: The Casa Batlló Heir Who Sold 850 Cars to an Army About to Lose Them Every American who has done Barcelona has a photo of the Batlló family’s money on their phone, and not one of them knows the family built cars. The money is Casa Batlló, the Gaudí house on Passeig de … Read more
Ginetta: The Sports Car That Lived by Hiding the Instructions Most American gearheads have never heard the name Ginetta. That’s not your fault — the little British marque barely crossed the Atlantic. But here’s the hook worth staying for: this is a company whose entire business model, for years, hung on one gloriously absurd detail. … Read more
NSU: The Company That Reinvented Itself Four Times, Then Died the Moment It Finally Nailed It Say “NSU” to most American enthusiasts and you’ll get a blank look, or maybe “isn’t that the rotary thing?” The Wankel. The Ro80. As if the company was born in 1967 to build one weird engine and then promptly … Read more
AUSA PTV: the Spanish carmaker that survived by killing its own car The first site dumper ever built in Spain ran on the engine out of a two-seat convertible. Manresa, 1960. Same engine, same carburetor, same shed, same men. The only thing that changed was who was paying: instead of a gentleman in a hat … Read more
Pininfarina, The House: Ninety-Five Years of Shaping Cars That Other People Built The Geneva Motor Show of 2012. Ferrari unveiled the F12berlinetta. A brutal car — naturally aspirated V12, razor lines, the last card played by pre-turbo Maranello. Nobody made much of it that morning, but the F12 was the last road-going Ferrari drawn by … Read more
Tramontana: the Spanish supercar built by the man who turned down Star Wars A designer once got the kind of offer most people would frame on a wall: come to the United States and design for the Star Wars movies. He said no. He didn’t want to build spaceships for the screen. He wanted to … Read more
Panoz: the nicotine-patch millionaire who chain-smoked and saved American racing There’s an irony so cruel at the center of this story that if a novel served it up you’d say the author overreached. The man who made his fortune leading the team that invented the nicotine patch — the device meant to help people quit … Read more
Studebaker: the last independent Detroit couldn’t let live There’s a grove of 5,000 trees near South Bend, Indiana, planted back in 1937 so that from the air they spell out a single word: STUDEBAKER. You can still find it on Google Earth today. A whole automaker reduced to a piece of landscape gardening you have … Read more
Autobianchi: The Brand Fiat Used to Take Risks It Wouldn’t Sign Its Name To Almost nothing you drive today would exist in its current form without a company most Americans have never heard of. That’s not hyperbole and it isn’t nostalgia. If your car has its engine mounted sideways, driving the front wheels, with the … Read more
