This year, the Pebble Beach weekend‘s traditional Friday celebration of Italian cars moved both its date (to Saturday) and its location (to the Bayonet Black Horse Golf Course in Seaside). Many people, including your author, predicted disaster, mainly because large crowds usually flock on Saturday to nearby Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. But the thick crowds and dense show field proved otherwise, as a rare Monterey Peninsula summer sun shone and the coastline was in full gorgeous view of the show. Here are six cars—plus a sweet Alfa Romeo jeep!—that we found particularly interesting.
Ferrari 308GT/M
Brought by the owners of the Ferrari dealership in Salt Lake City, this obscure bit of 1980s Ferrari racing history was built by Michelotto, Ferrari’s outside race shop for non-F1 efforts at the time. The tube-frame prototype was built to Group B rally spec and runs a 32-valve 3.0-liter naturally aspirated V-8 with KKK fuel injection and lots of magnesium and titanium parts. It was good for about 380 horsepower. One of three made, this carbon-Kevlar-bodied car ran some local rallies in Europe in the mid-’80s but never competed on the big stage, retiring before it could kill anybody with the end of Group B in 1986.
1953 Alfa Romeo 1900M Matta
In the early 1950s, the Italian government asked Alfa Romeo—of all companies—to gin up a small four-by-four for the Italian army. The result was the Matta, a square-rigged jeeplet with a sports-car engine in the form of a twin-cam 1.9-liter dry-sump four-cylinder. The four wheels are permanently engaged, but the driver can select between high and low. Only 2070 or so were built, with about 50 sold to civilians. As the Matta was so short-lived, the Italian army quickly gave its soldiers a more reliable transportation option: walking.
1965 Sunbeam Venezia Superleggera
Yet another Italian rebody of a British frumpmobile from the ’60s, the Venezia was an ambitious project by Carrozzeria Touring to put a new Italian suit on the Hillman Super Minx sedan. Sales tanked soon after a heady launch in September 1963 by the British ambassador to Italy in Venice’s Saint Mark’s Square—the first time a car had ever been in the famous piazza, having been brought in by gondola, of course. The car’s failure could be hung on the fact that it was more expensive than both the Sunbeam Tiger and the Jaguar Mark II. Only about 200 were ever built, and it’s believed the failure helped seal the collapse of Touring.
1958 Fiat 1200 TV
This styling romp with swivel-out seats was penned by Fiat’s own design director, Fabio Luigi Rapi, and was recently called “teasingly voluptuous” by one auction house known for its great euphemisms. This “transformable” spider was based on Fiat’s middle-class sedan of the 1950s. By 1958, Italians could order a TV option (it stands for “turismo veloce”) that included a raging 1221-cc four-cylinder with 55 horsepower. It’s not known exactly how many were built, so let’s just be brave and say a bunch. One sold at auction in 2010 for $35,100, which means its value today surely must be approximately $6.2 million.
1968 Fiat Abarth 2000 OT America Coupe “Continuation”
Fiat madman Carlo Abarth was so enamored with the new 1965 2.0-liter Porsche 911 that he decided to build his own ass-engined slot car, calling it the America with expectations of earning great riches in the country where the electric shavers were more powerful than most Fiats of the day. However, only three were ever built originally. This fourth example was commissioned a couple of years later as a Shelby-like “continuation car.” The motor is a worked Fiat 131 twin-cam making 175 horsepower, while the Koni adjustable shocks and Lancia Stratos front brakes leverage the best of Italy from the time.
1966 Maserati Mistral V-8
When Bill Scott of Victorville, California, ran into trouble with the Lucas fuel injection on his Mistral’s original straight-six, he couldn’t find anyone who could (or would) work on it. So he yanked the engine and stuck in a ZZ4 small-block Chevy 350. The car, which he’s owned for 39 years and which appeared in the 1970s TV series Switch with Robert Wagner, also got a new grille to resemble those fitted to Maserati racers of the 1950s. Scott made the grille on his own water-cutting table. Scott plans to return the original engine, properly rebuilt, to its original home this year. So just settle the hell down, people.
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1972 Lamborghini Espada “Injectzione”
It’s a fact: Old Lamborghinis stink. A combination of no smog equipment and massive overlap in the factory cam timing, which enables the 3.9-liter V-12 to spin to 7500 rpm, means that at idle they are toxic death on wheels. Laust Pedersen, the mad Santa Barbara scientist of the Lamborghini community, decided he’d had enough and in the mid-1990s designed and built his own custom fuel-injection system, complete with catalytic converters. Three sets of cats later (the car goes through them, apparently), this example smells like fresh honey and morning dew. Well, not exactly, but a lot closer to it than the four other Espadas at Concorso.
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