You can keep your traction control. You can keep your Bluetooth-synched Sat Nav. You can keep your self dimming mirrors, your piped two-tone leather upholstery and eighteen speaker Bose system.
Give me a foot full of grunt with a heavy clutch, a ramrod straight shifter and an open expanse of bone dry tarmac.
That’s what I call an automotive experience.
Happy Friday, drive safely.
About this time of year, with the back-to-back bank holidays and the blossom hanging heavy on the boughs, even the most committed drivers among us begin to think of the beauty of sports utility.
Despite the partly justified bad press that the four wheel drive behemoths known as SUVs have received of late, there remains a strong argument for their use. Especially if that use is actually for that which they were designed.
Just look at this mutant wagon (above). Woodied up and loaded down with all the add-ons known to man. It’s undoubtedly stylish and even cool in an ironic kind of way. Aerodynamics, we think, may have been affected by the lifeboat tackle and the BBQ extension. Pure King of the Hill.
And look, then, at one of our favourite pieces of beautifully boxy utility from American company International Harvester. IH was one of those companies that was founded in the protean energy of turn of the century America, and remains one of the venerated founding fathers of the American motor trade. The gorgeous little Scout (above) was their mainstay and has been credited with sparking the original SUV revolution. When kept pristine and preserved in its original state, the simplicity and no nonsense fun of the car shines through.
Even more brawny, rare and desireable is, though, IH’s Travelall. If you can find one this side of the pond it’ll be a miracle. But, what better than a Travelall to tick of your neighbour and the teeth-sucking environmentalists than to load this baby up and take it camping for the weekend. Just better make it a local campsite, lest the fuel bill cost as much as a flight to the Carribean.
But if you needed convincing that these domesticated agriculturals are worthy of note, just take a couple of minutes to look at the video from one of the original US dealers. We would certainly buy a car from this man.
Regular Influx devotees will realise that we spend a righteous amount of time scouring the World Wide Web for vintage images that reflect car culture down the ages in order to share their beauty.
It’s an addictive, time-consuming pursuit but one we think is worthwhile.
If you’re not aware of the past, so goes the saying, you can’t make proper plans for the future.
With that dictum in mind we were stoked to find these beautiful shots of Las Vegas that date from, we would guess, around 1958.
Wrought in the cult-provoking and recently discontinued film stock known as Kodachrome, they shine an incredibly intimate light on a bygone era – and illustrate perfectly how the colour and variety of car design from that American boom time has these last 50 years been so influential on popular culture the world over.
Not being experts of chrome-clad Yankee iron, we can only make an educated guess: we think the off-white car in the foreground of the shot above is a ’57 Chevy (look closely and dig the glamorous girl in white shades riding in the back).
We would appreciate the feedback from any of you American car experts out there to name the rest of this colourful assemblage.
The shot below, meanwhile features a beautifully framed Ford Thunderbird, offset nicely by the otherworldly architecture of 50s Vegas.
Imagine what shots from these exact perspectives would look like in 2010?
Images via A Continuous Lean.
Every manufacturer of performance cars is obsessed with power-weight ratio. You don’t have to be a physics professor to realize why. If you take away the adornments of luxury and concentrate all efforts on optimizing performance you’ll give yourself every chance of producing a truly dynamic vehicle that stays ahead of the pack.
Just look at the popularity of relatively affordable pocket rockets like the Ariel Atom and the KTM Xbow – which produce power-weight ratios that are staggering and match the performance of hyper-cars that retail at six figures. The thing is, however, about these high-revving flyers that while they are extremely quick – they don’t exactly tick all the aesthetic boxes.
But whilst planning a trip to Porsche’s Museum at Stuttgart, we came across an early superstar in lightweight sports car engineering that manages to retain it’s svelte beauty in the face of all the imperatives of desired speed. When form follows function closely, you often get a beautiful product. The 909 Bergspyder is certainly beautiful to behold.
The car was conceived in 1968 by Porsche to become the dominant force in hill climbing. The roots-and-culture time trial form retains a simple and classic appeal – and cars like the 909, with its low kerb weight, high power output and low centre of gravity, have a natural advantage.
Tipping the scales at a measly 380 kilograms, the 909 packed an 8-cylinder boxer engine that produced close to 300 horsepower. The engine was almost exactly centred and the cockpit hovered over the front axle and the frame was made from lightweight aluminium. The shell meanwhile was formed from a plastic composite and the brakes and fuel tank also featured experimental lightweight design and materials.
According to experts the 909 wasn’t easy to drive and in June 1968 Ludovico Scarfiotti was killed when the 909 he was driving went out of control, flew off the road, and slammed into some trees — a stuck throttle blamed as the culprit.
Plastic shells, high speeds and safety rarely mix. No matter. We love the 909 because of its sheer prettiness.
love this rendering of the humble, but subtly phat and menacing Volvo Amazon.
Volvo must be one of the most misunderstood automotive brands ever created. Tarnished with decades of middle-of-the-road, family focussed earnestness, I’ve always thought there has been something innately stylish about most of the cars the company has marketed.
The 240s, 740s, 850s and V70s had the boxy utilitarianism that was a template for getting the job done. The P1800s meanwhile were rakishly dashing, and many were produced with Jenson DNA here in England. The C30 remains an interesting little hatchback with a stamp of individuality amongst the cookie cutter mass.
The Amazon may have reminded the world of the stolid end of the Scandinavian identity, but as the creator of the bad-looking Amazon above drew out, there was an element of that clichéd cool sexiness there too. Watch this space for more Scandinavian adventures.
Four Italian craftsmen who would define twentieth century automotive style.
Illustrations by Current State
//The Founding Father: Carlo Castagna//
Castagna started out as an apprentice at the prestigious Mainetta and Orseniga workshops in Milan, which was one of the main producers of coaches to European Royalty. When the patron of the company retired in in 1849 Castagna took over the company, renaming it C. Castagna & C. Castagna’s promenade carriages (the nineteenth century equivalent of open-top sports cars) were ostentatiously appointed, passionately conceived and meticulously constructed. Towards the end of the 1800s Ottolini and Ricordi, importers of Benz Quadricycles for Italy, commissioned the first motorised carriages from the master. Castagna set the benchmark that all other European carrozeria aspired to, and therefore set the tone for Italian motoring for the entire twentieth century.
//The Autodidact: Ugo Zagato 1890 – 1968//
Ugo Zagato’s legacy is to have created a distinctive, instantly-recognisable aesthetic based on lightweight, aeronautical style bodies. Throughout the twentieth century the ‘Z’ appellation gave client cars a sleek, aerodynamic remix of the base design. Designs like the Alfa RL SS Torpedo, through to the 1938 Lancia Aprilia Sport were shot through with the flowing lines of the modernist movement, and later models, like the Aston Vantage Zagato of the mid eighties remain classics of uncompromised penmanship. Though the Zagato look will never be to everyone’s taste, it remains unconventional and classic. Take a look of some of our favourite z-cars.
//The Populist: Giovanni Michelotti 1921 – 1980//
Michelotti Began his career as an apprentice at the Farina works in the mid-30s and in the 50s became business partner with Alfredo Vignale. In the 50s and 60s he was one of the most prolific Italian designers – having as many as thirty cars on display on various different stands at the Turin Motor Show of 1960. Whilst working for Vignale he designed the BMW 700 and 1500 Coupés which raised his and BMWs profile greatly – and Michelotti’s innovation and foresight meant that he was the first western car designer to be hired by a Japanese company (he designed a car for the Contessa for the Hino company in 1959). He also worked extensively for Triumph, creating the particularly successful ‘2000’ series and developments like the Triumph Stag. Michelotti may not have had Gandini’s flair for the jaw-dropping stylistic flourish, but was more responsible for disseminating the Milanese aesthetic than any other Italian designer of the century.
//The Genius: Marcello Gandini 1938-//
There was obviously something in the water in Turin during the summer of 1938. Gandini was Born on August 26, just nineteen days after his legendary collaborator and rival Giorgetto Giugiario. Both pensmen would come to represent the apotheosis of twentieth century car design. When Giugiario left carozzeria Bertone in 1965 Gandini was offered his job. Controversy still rages as to which of the pair was ultimately responsible for the epoch-making Lamborghini Miura of 1968, but Gandini’s early, bold statement was the introduction of the scissor door on the Alfa 33 Carabo concept, which was first shown at the Paris Motor Show at the time of the Miura launch. This, of course was one of the most distinctive elements of the Lamborghini Countach, Gandini’s outrageous masterpiece.
“People just like 500s. We drove down to Italy for the 500’s anniversary _ everyone was smiling and waving”
What is it that makes Italian cars so special? Liz Seabrook asked the question at the Italian Car Picnic at Honnington Gardens.
1 John Day: 2002 Alfa Romeo 156 GTA V6
“I like Italian cars because they keep you on the edge…there’s always the risk that they might breakdown.”David Muriel and his 1969 Alfa Romeo 1300 GT Junior Zagato
“Italian cars have soul…But the Zagato is not the car for an old man with a bad back.”
2 John Jenkins and his 1972 Fiat 500
“I like the fact that Italian designers break the rules, like Alfa Romeo choosing to put the registration plate to the left and not central.”
3 Ignazio Maniscalchi: Lamborghini Diablo (kit car)
“I’m from Sicily, I’m not patriotic but everything Italian is beautiful.”
4 Giovanni: 1972 Alpha Romeo Bertone 2000 GTB (aka Giulia coupe) 105 model
“My favourite Italian cars are reliable ones; the problematic ones were sold to my customers.”
5 Stuart Palmer & son and their 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce
“My wife had a Fiat uno as her first car, she used to pick me up, but there was nowhere to sit because the dogs had eaten the seats!”
6 Simon Lavis and his 1986 Ferrari 412
“The 412 is a nice comfortable car. En route to a car event everyone falls asleep until other Ferraris drive past and beep their horns!”
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Choose your own classic car of the future and let us know why — or tell us why we’re wrong.
The finest automotive creations of the most style-centric motoring nation on earth
Does the beauty of their design, engineering and manufacture mean that cars qualify as art?
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