Tag Archives: Alfa Romeo

Goodwood 76th Members Meeting – Sun 18th Mar 2018 Part 2

Such is the variety and age range of cars that turn-up for the Goodwood Members Meeting – it can sometimes be difficult to come up with natural grouping topics in a blog post.

Participants in a particular race or demo run is the safest option as these are normally related to a former race category from a specific time period unless it’s to celebrate the career of a racing driver in which case it might span many years.

Certain cars, marques and models however merit greater focus.

Continue reading Goodwood 76th Members Meeting – Sun 18th Mar 2018 Part 2

Goodwood 74th Members Meeting – Sun 20th Mar 2016 Part 1

The signs are unmistakeable – Spring has definitely sprung! :-

  • Longer hours of daylight and occasional sightings of a yellow disk in the sky have encouraged the daffodils to bloom and trees to bud,
  • Classic racing cars have been awakened, coughing and spluttering from their winter slumbers and their doting owners have squeezed themselves into their race suits and boots for the 74th Goodwood Members Meeting.

Rejoice – the 2016 racing reason is upon us!!!

Continue reading Goodwood 74th Members Meeting – Sun 20th Mar 2016 Part 1

A-Z of Car Stuff: B is for Bizzarrini

A-Z of Car Stuff

This is one in a series of posts on cars, drivers, designers etc. that have interested me over the years. I’ve bored my family and friends with this stuff for years – now it’s your turn!

See A-Z of Car Stuff page for more posts in this series.

So, what’s so special about Bizzarrini?

Well it depends if you’re talking about the designer or the car!

Starting with The Designer:-

1) Giotto Bizzarrini designed/developed some truly iconic sports cars. These included the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, Ferrari 250 GT SWB, Ferrari 250 GTO, Ferrari 250 Drogo Breadvan, Iso Rivolta GT, Iso Grifo and the Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada & Corsa.

2) He created one of the most fantastic and enduring V12 engines. The V12 engine created for Ferruccio Lamborghini was an up-scaled version of Bizzarrini’s design for an unused ATS engine. The Lamborghini V12 remained in production from 1964 (when it initially powered the Lamborghini 350GT) until 2010 (when in much expanded and highly developed form it powered the Lamborghini Murcielago).

3) He was a brilliant hands-on development engineer. Bizzarrini masterfully combined insightful test driving technique with his engineering skills to effectively and directly convert issues into engineering development solutions. This approach was epitomised in his rapid development of the Ferrari 250 GTO and he subsequently applied the same principles to other cars he created and developed.

Moving onto The Car:-

4) The wonderful Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada/Corsa. This Livorno (Bizzarrini’s hometown) manufactured car was built for an all too brief period between 1965 and 1969 resulting in just 133 examples. This beautiful car was a wonderful amalgam of Italian style, inspired engineering and reliable/powerful Chevrolet grunt. Thankfully many survive and some are still enthusiastically raced at historic events.

Continue reading A-Z of Car Stuff: B is for Bizzarrini

Brooklands

As the weather was much better than forecast I went down to Brooklands early yesterday morning. It’s a bit of an anorak’s paradise but there is some interesting stuff there and the remaining sections of the banking are quite poignant.

the old workshops

The old workshops and sheds contained some nice old cars & bikes and there were also some interesting original and replica planes in the big hanger. John Cobb’s 23 litre Napier Railton is one of my favourite cars – it set a Brooklands outer circuit lap record of 143 mph. There was also a fantastic Alfa streamliner that was originally designed by Vittorio Jano to challenge the all-conquering Silver Arrows but he was sacked by Alfa before it was completed. It disappeared and then resurfaced again in 1978. It’s been restored back in Italy and looks fantastic with a mid-engine, central driving position and passenger seats either side. Shame it never received the V12 engine it was intended to have.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59728935@N07/6626490007/
http://www.classicandperformancecar.com/features/octane_features/233224/alfa_romeo_aerodinamica_spider.html

The Wellington bomber fished out of Loch Ness was also a bit special.