Category: Classic Sportscar

Fiat Chassis? Check. Hot Rodded 1.5 Liter Fiat straight-6 with and inline overhead cam? Check. Coachbuilt aluminum bodywork? Check. So far, so good, right? That description is basically the formula for every perfect little Italian sportscar. The wrench in the works in this very unique case is that the coachbuilt bodywork isn’t Italian in design, it’s Dutch.

This 1948 Gatso 1500 Sport is a fantastic little racer designed and built by Maus Gatsonides; the inventor and Dutch racing and rallying prodigy. He was a race winner before his 20th birthday, and when the time came to create his own racing car, it sure looks like he did a right good job of it. The Fiat chassis was shortened for greater maneuverability. The high compression Fiat 6 banger was good for 55hp at 5,500 rpm. The experimental French-made brake drums were lightweight and finned for greater cooling (although their fragility would be this car’s downfall).

After Gatsonides was forced to sell off this brilliant little car during financial hardship, the car largely disappeared until a Maserati collector happened on it quite by chance in 1974. A 16 year restoration followed, and now this amazing little racer is available in The Netherlands for €148,000.

These swooping curves in the bodywork and lovely little proportions make for a beautiful little gem of a car. I find it hard to even look at it without imagining whipping through autumn leaves on a narrow country lane. She’s lovely.

More information on Dutch dealer The Gallery’s detail page. More photos can be found from Flickr member willemalink’s visit to The Gallery.
Read more about Gatso cars here.

This Cunningham C3 is the first of the mere handful of Briggs Cunningham built cars designed for the road and is simply astonishing. This Vignale-bodied beauty, chassis 5206, is often referred to as “the prototype”, being the first of the 20 coupes assembled and its unique stance (it’s 2 inches shorter than the others, and curved side glass (the other 19 built had flat windows). This car was originally owned by Brigg’s friend Carl Kiekhaefer, the owner of Mercury Marine and prominent NASCAR team owner.
Paul Russel and Company offers this majestic machine now, and it looks built to their usual concours winning standard.

It is not, however, completely original. The powerplant has been upgraded to a period appropriate Chrysler FirePower Hemi coupled to a modern GM 5-speed. The brakes have been swapped for front discs and contemporary brake cylinders. The original parts come with the car, but these upgrades seem like a fine idea for classic rallying and touring. I might scoff at a contemporary Corvette block dropped in there, but a mid-fifties Hemi seems like a perfectly logical and non-jarring upgrade, with oceans of improved experience on the road.

Call it frivolous if you like, but a real standout feature of this car for me is the included and original fitted luggage. What could look more refined and orderly than interior leather matched luggage properly strapped in place in the perfect fittings. It couldn’t look more streamlined and sophisticated.

She’s simply a stunning car, and with only 20 C3 coupes produced, there certainly isn’t likely to be another on your block. Or State. There’s certainly not going to be many restored to this level of quality. Simply amazing.

I can think of worse ways to spend $875,000. More photos at Paul Russel, and Concept Carz.

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.

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.

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.