Images Via Life Archive/Conceptcarz/Supercars.net.

Italian neorealist film director Roberto Rossellini had a bit of taste.

Not only was he one of the definitive auteurs of post war European cinema, he also commissioned this gobsmakingly beautiful car. You can see by the cut of his suit that the man had style. But getting on the phone and getting Sr. Scaglietti to rebody your Ferrari?

That’s what we call panache.

The story goes that the car the great director owned was originally a red 375 Pininfarina Spyder but was rebodied as a Coupé by Scaglietti and painted silver.

And you can see how the Coupé format works perfectly for those Northern European winters (Rossellini spent a lot of time in Paris). Notice those wonderfully scalped flanks similar to those on the 250TR, the pinched rear end that was such an inspiration for the E-Type, and of course that wonderfully long, elegently scooped nose.

Whoever restred this beauty showed real attention to detail, as you can see from the beautifully rendered interior. And though you’d have to sell a small family’s worth of kidneys to afford even those wire wheels, there’s something of that spartan, post WW2 Italian aesthetic that’s reflected in its incredible presence.

The perfect car for the perfect creator. We’re in love.

I always thought the 512 BB was a really under rated Ferrari.

In my opinion, in fact it’s one of the prettiest Ferraris ever.

There was something wonderfully understated about those Pininfarina lines. As a kid in the seventies it seemed the cooler, more elegant opposition to Lamborghini’s outrageous Countach.

It probably stemmed from the time I came up close and personal with one.

As a kid (I must have been 9 or Ten years old), me and my mate Keith Curwood would cycle down to the junction of the A12 and sit there and spot cars. Sad but true.

Every now and then, when the main lights turned red, a real gem would turn up. It’s a bit of weird ‘confession of an urban kid of the seventies’ thing to admit, but this was the only sort of geeky sport I was interested in.

I would of course pretend by Raleigh Grifter was a Moto Guzzi Le Mans too, and tug the flappy mud guard end to scrap along across the knobbly tires so it made a noise that approximated the sound of an Italian V-Twin.

This was all included in my mass of pre-teen dreams of exotic power and freedom a nice precursor to that flowering of auto-eroticism that came once we went to big school.

The 512 BB that pulled up was, I remember as if it was yesterday, an incredible powder blue, and it had cream leather interior and an even more incredible blond siren sitting in the passenger seat, wearing a hugely furry white fur coat.

This was bling before bling was bling, a Boogie Nights style spangled up deliciousness of a scenario.

It must have been 1976 or something. And it stayed with me for the rest of my life.

The 523 BB had 12 cyclinders arranged in a boxer engine, and prefigured cars like the 308, 328 and the Testarossa.

So, even if it stood in the Countach’s shadow from the moment it was born in 1974, it will always represent to me much more than the Lambo’s slightly staid cousin.

Last summer at the Silverstone Classic we were lucky enough to get up close and personal with a race prepped 250 LM. It was, predictably, an erotic experience we won’t quickly forget.

But when we stumbled across this SS version we were blown away and had to share.

The rear three quarter profile brings out the heartbreaking lines, set off by that Scuderia style strip, the wire wheels and the dashingly gauche interior. But this thing would be as agressively dynamic as it is pretty.

The 250 LM made its official debut at the 1963 Paris Motorshow. The racing evolution of the hugely successful 250 series used a bored out 3.3 litre version of the GTO derived engine.

The homologation authorities at the time didn’t believe that Ferrari would be able to produce the required 100 cars for homologation, so the 250 LM was only eligible to race in the prototype class.

And the little racer did very well indeed. In fact in 1964 ten victories were scored out of 35 entries and no less than five 250 LMs were entered in the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans by privateers.

Almost too pretty for words, we’re sure you’ll agree and as immaculate as any car you’ll be lucky enough to encounter, anywhere.

We were going to tag this post as one of regular ‘car crush’ offerings. But, on reflection we think it deserves the tage Lust over ‘Crush’.

Without getting into a dodgy pseudo-philosphical rant about the nature of love, desire and passion, we’ll just say this. We’re not in love with this car. We just WANT it.

The LM derivative of the eighties Ferrari supercar was built in extremely limited numbers for Ferrari’s highly favoured and honoured clienti.

This coterie of silver foxes and oligarchs of various hue were treated to a car that was developed for competition by Michelotto of Padova on behalf of the factory.

The LM benefited from a reinforced chassis as well as a deeper front air dam and larger, cockpit adjustable rear wing. It had even more of a stripped down, racing oriented cabon than the factory model too, along with stiffer suspension, up-rated brakes and running gear.

The specially-prepared engine produces between 850-900bhp — quite a handful if you were ever thinking of taking one out onto a busy English street.

It’s not particularly likely that you’ll ever do this — or even see one — apart from at Goodwood and other classic/historic racing events. There were after all only 17 of these cars produced.

But no matter how rare this brutal beauty may be, it’ll always appear in our racing dreams.

There’s something about the great American road. It’s always been an arena of mythic adventures, tortured mishaps and, if you’re lucky, hilarious comedy.

And the comedy doesn’t get much more hilarious than that dreamt up by Chevy Chase. His National Lampoons series of movies always manage to hit the comedic spot : and there’s often a lovely bit of kooky, on-period automotive action involved too.

Here, the great man and archetypal American dad, styles out his road trip whilst trying to impress eighties bomsbhell and ‘uptown girl’ Christie Brinkley as she shadows their wagon in her targa-topped Ferrari 308.. Which, it has to be said, look tantalisingly accessible these days. Especially without a supermodel at the helm.

Stay tuned for more Chevy action.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week we’re contemplating sixty odd years of aesthetic and technology

Innovation ebbs and flows. Technical solutions sweep all before them, until they too are made obsolete by the passage of time.

Ferrari’s FF, the newly released 12 cylinder, four wheel drive shooting brake, has as much cutting edge technology crammed into its intelligent insides as the average human brain. And the exactitude of its electronic nervous system reaches to the furthest extent of its delightful sinews.

The Alfa C 2500 Competizione from 1948, on the other hand, has none of these things. This beauty was motored by good old valves and carbs and hammered out by Italian craftsmen amid the wreckage of the second world war.

You couldn’t ostensibly find two vehicles farther apart in terms of their way of being-in-the-world.

But of course, they are remarkably close in essence. Gentlemanly in their conception and beautiful in their execution, they are separated by half a century of human ingenuity — yet they share the same balance of form and beauty.

We’re in love with both of them, but for completely different reasons.

Fiat Abarth 750 Zagato
Give a tiny Fiat chassis the Zagato bodywork treatment and a tuned engine and tweaked running gear from Mr Abarth. What more could you want from a pocket rocket for the fifties? Post war Italian austerity gets a shot in the arm, If you couldn’t afford Ferrari’s 250 TR – this was the bargain basement racer of its time.

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Ferrari 250 TR
With a body by Scagietti and Ferrari’s race-focussed engineering, the TR was dominant in its various arenas and remains unassailable in its aesthetic appeal. This was the car that announced the true arrival of the prancing horse as a global force. Not surprising, then that the few on the market command as much dinero as a prime Picasso.

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Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé
Benz’s head of motorsport Rudolph Uhlenhaut bespoke two of these enclosed, gull-winged versions of the W 196 SLR for road use. Reputedly the fastest car on the planet in 1955, the coupé version of Moss’s recordbreaking Mille Miglia winning car invokes the Ride of the Valkyries with a Gene Vincent backbeat. Scarily teutonic.

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Maserati Tipo 61 ‘Birdcage’.
Unveiled with Stirling Moss at the helm in 1959, the Tipo 61 got its moniker because of its cage-like space-frame chassis — which was lighter and stiffer than its competitors at the time. We like it, though, because of its arachnid styling and the way its design exemplifies that moment when the fifties with its make-and-do feel of the ancien regime gave way to the self conscious modernism of the relatively affluent sixties. Lecture on social history over. Just look at it!

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Jaguar XK SS
Contender for sexiest car of all time, let alone the fifties — this was the road-going version of the all conquering D Type racer – with a passenger seat, a door and a proper windscreen. Unseemingly curvaceous and rare – due to a fire at the Jag plant – it remains a totemic road-going piece of British automotive craftsmanship. Steve McQueen and his XKSS were, apparently the focus of a free donut bonus scheme by the LAPD. The Coolest Man in the Universe and his ride would tool around the Hollywood Hills on the limit it seems…

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Maserati A6 G
We’re repeating ourselves here a bit but we couldn’t leave this beauty out. The curved proportions of the coachwork combined with its laid-​​back, hunkered down poise get us in the back of the throat. Those tiny rear headlamps. The huge Maserati trident on the grille. The minimal brushed steel bumpers and the pertly curved boot! Those Webers! Those wire wheels! We’re STILL in love.

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BMW 507
Originally intended for export to the US to compete with sporty and succesful Mercs and MGs, the 507’s pretty roadster lines live on in the Z-series of roadster. Never selling in numbers due to high costs they now fetch silly money. There’s only 200 or so in existence — and we doubt you can name a prettier German car.

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Click images and click top right to go huge!

With the great weekend at la Circuit La Sarthe almost upon us there’s little we’d love to do more than pull up the deep buttoned man– chair up close to the ‘tube, stack a case of fine claret and some fruits of the delicatessen, and gorge on the ultimate endurance event of motorsport.

Problem is, as with most forms of top-level racing, designs and sponsorship liveries have tended to meld into one colourful mass — and it has become more and more tricky to I-D your Astons from your Audis, your Porsches from your prancing horses. Especially at night. Especially eighteen hours into your marathon endurance armchair session.

So the kind folk from Nissan have offered these spotter’s guides to make life a little easier — and if you are like us nerdish about things graphic and car-shaped, we think you’ll agree that they look pretty beautiful in an aesthetic kind of way, even if you stripped away the use value.

Let’s raise a toast to the most famous single motor race on the planet!

All photos Thomas McAvoy for LIFE magazine.

Came across today a beautiful photo essay for LIFE magazine by photographer Thomas McAvoy via one of our constant sources of inspiration The Selvedge Yard.

The essay documents the men, women and machinery of Scuderia Ferrari between the Silverstone race of 1956 and the Monaco Grand Prix. At the time the Scuderia included not only the totemic Juan Miguel Fangio (his first and only year with the team) — but talented English driver Peter Collins and Italian playboy racer Eugenio Castellotti.

What’s so fascinating about these images is that they capture a time of true artisan craftsmanship in motor racing — a kind of hand-wrought humanity that digital technology has ushered away (at least at the upper echelons of the sport).

But it’s impossible not to be captivated by the style and obvious dedication of the craftsmen at work in the Ferrari factory. Even the oiliest of rags carry themselves with certain kind of panache that make the garish indulgence of Red Bull Racing’s infrastructure appear vomit-inducing.

In the mid fifties post war technology had begun to raise the stakes greatly in motorsport. Speeds and lap times where accelerating rapidly — though there was little or no simultaneous increase in the introduction of safety measures. Against the backdrop to fifties austerity this lent these guys a truly deathly kind of glamour.

Castellotti perished in 1957 during testing at Modena autodrome and Englishman Collins died at the Nüburgring in 1958. And this also at a time when Enzo Ferrari himself was deep in mourning for the death of his son Dino. That any of these guys maintained motivation for this lifestyle in the face of so much danger is a strange kind of miracle — but indicative surely of the powerful passion racing generated.

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It’s either a crime of passion or a passionate work of automotive art — it depends of course on your perspective.

But whichever way you look at it this re-imagining of a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona as a sleek shooting brake is something special.

Built in 1975 by Surrey based imagineers Panther Westwinds, (the people responsible for the six wheeled Panther 6), there is luscious wood panelling and an acreage of light tan hide to go with the extended rear end.

And despite its relatively unusual provenance Bonhams raised a princely US$300,000 for the car at their Dubai auction last year.

We would personally of course, have an unmolested Daytona. But if we were wealthy gentlemen of outdoor pursuits there couldn’t be a better buy.