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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Monterey Auction Highlight: Ex-Phil Hill Jaguar C-Type

It’s strange how the D-Type seems to overshadow the memory of the C. Even here in the States, where the excitement of the Ecurie Ecosse team’s achievements was more distant. For me, the C-Type is the very epitome of the 1950s big boys. It’s important to remember that, particularly in the States, sportscars were an extreme rarity, and in 1952 here comes a proper-built racing car. This example is coming available as part of RM Auctions’ Sports & Classics of Monterey auction.

I’d like to give credit to Jaguar for predicting the coming wave of popularity on American road racing. The truth, though is that the credit belongs to Jag’s Beverly Hills dealer, Charles Hornburg, who convinced the boys back in Coventry that some race wins stateside would increase road car sales. This very car was the first to arrive on US shores. Once here, it was driven straight to Elkhart Lake, WI to be driven by Phil Hill in the last street course race before Road America was built.

The race for the Sheldon Cup was a bit of a nail-biter, but ultimately Phil Hill took the victory after a nice battle with Phil Walters’ Ferrari. That win made this car, chassis XKC-007, the first C-Type to win a race on American soil.

C-Types are incredibly striking machines, and an ex-Phil Hill example is even more impossibly valuable. Phil Hill probably said it best when reminiscing about this car: “I was just in awe of the C-Type when I first stepped into it. When I look back on it now, it makes me smile. The steering was light – almost scary light. It was the first car I ever drove that had a really precise feel about it – it really felt like a racing car.”

More photos and information on the auction’s lot details page.

Update: This car set a new record price for a C-Type at auction by selling for a top bid of $2,530,000. Yowza.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Monterey Auction Highlight: 1952 Siata 208CS Berlinetta

This little beauty has a story to tell, my friends. Any Siata is a magical beast. Rare. They’re all rare. But this one. This is the one.

Siata may have started out just hopping up Fiats, but they really started to hit their stride in ’52: the year this magnificent little barchetta coupe was built for the Turin Auto show and a little race they call the Mille Miglia. In fact, the car was pulled early from the Auto Show, leaving behind a bare stage as her Fiat Otto Vù V8 engine was tuned for the Mille.

Arnaldo Tullini and Luigi Rossi hopped into this marvelous Siata, and pulled off the starting stand at 5:42. Sadly, this example didn’t last the race and dropped out early. But who cares? Just look at this thing. These photos show the car standing still in a warehouse. Look again, it’s standing still. I know it looks like it’s pulling 2 miles a minute.

You don’t often see Siatas come available for sale, and when you do, it’s almost always an open-top. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a Siata coupe. When you see the slippery lines and stunning roof-line of this amazing machine, it makes me wonder why.
Bonham’s Quail auction this year is absolutely on fire with the quality of machines coming available and I’m sure We’ll be featuring more in the days leading up to the event. I would have thought that with the economy being what it is, we’d see people holding on to their cars and waiting for ‘better days’, but the lot list at this year’s auctions sure seems to indicate otherwise.

The Siata 208CS is being offered with an estimate of $1.6 – 1.9 million. That’s a lot of scratch in anyone’s book, but it would almost certainly be worth it every time you blipped the throttle on an empty country lane.

More photos and history at Bonham’s lot detail page.

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Classic Cycle Racing Ephemera Video

Moto-Champ Arcade Classic

This has been getting some play on the motorcycle blogs, but the sheer beauty of this demands that I share it with you. This 1973 (non-video) arcade game is a thing of engineering and aesthetic joy. In the pre-video era, these remarkable coin-op games were not uncommon, and growing up in Michigan meant I could occasionally visit Marvin’s Mechanical Museum, which is a living museum of classic coin-ops. I don’t think ole’ Marvin has one of these, but if he did, I might have to move in.

This arcade game gives the customer, through a set of handlebars, control over a motorcycle which weaves, through traffic on its way to the finish line. Unlike some arcade driving games of the era, this game does not have small vehicles riding across a spinning treadmill to simulate motion. This game can do away with the visible strings holding the participants by using magnets to push the competitor motorcycles over a static play surface. The video does a much better job of explaining it than I ever could. It’s definitely worth a watch.

Needless to say, I’ve got a new obsession for an object to put in the garage. I’m not sure if this one is more or less expensive than a real race bike from the era would be. I’m also not sure which would be more fun.

More at The New Cafe Racer Society.

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Video

Formula 1: Nell’Inferno del Grand Prix

Nell'Inferno del Grand Prix

I’ve been enamored with this movie poster since it popped up on l’Arte el l’Automobile a month ago, but haven’t been sure what to do with it. Certainly we can just appreciate it for what it is, but I wanted to know more. More about the bunch of Italian racing b-movies that never made it to the States. Which of course got me wondering how I was going to see these (probably terrible) films. How could I incorporate them into the ‘car movie night’ parties I’ve been known to throw from time to time?

Search after search yielded nothing, and I have to admit it was getting to me. This review on IMDB should have quelled my desires.

“When I found this movie on DVD in a store, I thought that it might be a B-Movie with a bad story, but good driving-scenes. What a mistake!

1. The story of this botch is not worth mentioning, the performance of the actors is not worth mentioning and there are a couple of cut scenes that are repeated in quick succession that everybody should notice.

2. As a fan of old Grand Prix Racing I thought it would be nice to see some old Formula 1 action, but that hope was disappointed too: The racing-scenes with the actors are on such an unrealistic level that it hurts. It seems to me, that they looked at a couple of 4 year old boys playing with their toys and directly realized it for the movie.”

Is there something wrong with me that I still want to see it anyways?

Then, by pure happenstance, I came across the opening sequence of the film on YouTube today. The synchronicity was too good to pass up.

What precious little information I’ve been able to find is all nicely summarized on the Internet Movie Cars Database.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Monterey Auction Highlight: 1976 Lamborghini Countach LP400

The Wedge.

Monterey and its innumerable automotive events are quickly approaching. I’ve been trying to quell the burning envy I have for those of you attending this year’s races and concours by browsing the auction catalogs for cars I can’t afford. No, I don’t know why I do this to myself either.

This might be a bit ‘newer’ than our typical fare, but there’s something about the Lamborghini Countach that still looks like the future. And if you’re visiting here, chances are very strong that you’ve had a poster of this car on your wall.
I did. sadly it was the later 1980’s coke-dealer styled version with weird wheels parked in front of a series of palm trees looking ever so Miami Vice. Now I find that the early LP400 models are where the magic still lives. When you think of the Countach, it is perhaps THE defining symbol of 80s sportscar aesthetic. Looking at this earlier model though, you can see how very 70s the car actually was. This was still reasonably early in the wedge look that would come to define the late-70s automotive styling.

This Countach is marvelous. I love everything about it. I love that it doesn’t have the wings that peppered later models. I love that the front of the wedge is still sharp and not cluttered with the bumperettes of later models. I love that it isn’t red. I love that seeing a Lamborghini Countach today still feels the same way it felt when I was 12 years old. I (still) love that NACA duct behind the door. It is excessive. It is gorgeous.

This example, chassis 1120154, will come available at RM Auctions’ Sports & Classics of Monterey in just a week’s time. I imagine that the hold it still has over me will be the same for a few more well-heeled buyers as well and that it will meet its $350,000 – $400,000 estimate. There have been a lot of tremendous sports cars that have come out in the 33 years since this Countach was assembled, but it would be difficult to think of one that would turn more heads today than this.

More photos are available at this auction lot’s detail page.

Update: Amazingly, this car didn’t meet it’s reserve, bringing in a top bid of $315,000.