Italian cars, motorcycles, historic brands, motorsport, engineering and automotive design.
The Fiat Topolino was born in a country where the automobile was still a distant object for most families. In the Italy of the early 1930s, a car belonged to industrialists, doctors, wealthy professionals, government officials and the fortunate few…
In the history of automobile manufacturing, factories usually end with a gate. At Fiat’s Lingotto plant in Turin, they ended in the sky. A completed car travelled upward through five floors of workshops, reached the roof and emerged onto an…
Autodromo Nazionale Monza is not simply a place where motor races are held. It is one of the great theatres of speed, a circuit where the history of the automobile can be read in layers of asphalt, concrete, trees and…
The Italian Train That Made the Future Look Beautiful When the ETR 300 Settebello entered regular service between Milan and Rome in 1953, it did much more than shorten the distance between Italy’s two most important cities. It announced that…
In an age of satellites, diesel engines and computer-controlled ships, there is still a vessel whose heart beats with steam. Its hull is made of riveted steel, its machinery moves slowly enough for the human eye to follow, and its…
There was a time when an ambulance did not necessarily look like a large, purpose-built emergency vehicle. In the Italy of the late 1960s and 1970s, the sound of a siren approaching through the narrow streets of a town might…
In the late 1960s, the future of the high-performance automobile appeared to belong to the mid-engined supercar. Lamborghini had stunned the world with the Miura, a machine so radical that many believed the traditional front-engined grand tourer had suddenly become…
When people think of Group B rallying, they usually picture the Audi Quattro, Lancia 037, Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 and Lancia Delta S4. Yet hidden among the official records of that extraordinary period is a much humbler—and surprisingly fascinating—Italian name:…
It looked almost too friendly to be a police vehicle. With its round headlights, compact body and curious silhouette, the Fiat 600 Multipla seemed more suited to carrying a large family to the seaside than transporting members of the Carabinieri.…
On the impossible mountain roads of Sicily, the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 became one of the great symbols of the Targa Florio. This is the story of Autodelta, Nino Vaccarella and the day Alfa Romeo defeated Porsche on home soil.