Achille Varzi: The Anti-Nuvolari, the Morphine, and the Helmet He Wasn’t Wearing Drop Tazio Nuvolari and Achille Varzi into the same room and the only thing they share is the language they speak. Everything else divides them. Nuvolari came from a Lombard farm, the son of a cyclist. Varzi came from a Piedmontese textile factory, … Read more
Alfa Romeo 8C 2300: The Car That Buried Bentley at Le Mans Four Years Running Between 1923 and 1930, Le Mans belonged to Bentley. The British marque won five of the first eight editions of the 24 Hours (1924, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930), with those enormous British Racing Green machines, 4.5- and 6.5-litre engines the … Read more
Opel GT: the baby Corvette that was never actually a copy Everybody who clapped eyes on an Opel GT in 1968 thought the same thing: somebody shrank a Corvette. The nickname wrote itself. Mini-Vette. Baby Corvette. And for fifty years that lazy shorthand has buried the far better truth, which is that this little German … Read more
Vincenzo Lancia: the racing driver who became a manufacturer and refused to let his cars race Here’s a paradox that almost never gets told and that defines this man better than anything else. Vincenzo Lancia, before he turned thirty, was arguably the fastest racing driver in Italy. He drove for Fiat. He racked up podiums … Read more
Antonio Ascari: The European Champion the Sport Killed Before He Could Lift the Crown Let me start with the coincidence, because there isn’t another way to start. Two men dead at age 36. Both on the 26th day of the month. Both four days after surviving a serious accident. Both at the exit of a … Read more
Maserati: Seven Brothers, One Trident, and the Greatest Race Ever Run The family born for speed To understand Maserati, you need to start with a fact almost nobody knows: there weren’t six brothers. There were seven. Rodolfo Maserati was a locomotive driver for the Italian railways, based in Voghera, Lombardy. He married Carolina Losi, and … Read more
