Tuscany 2011

Just back from our annual trip to Tuscany for a week.  This year we had the pleasure of catching up with some old friends from Melbourne – Phoebe and Santo – who by happenstance were staying in Creti, Val di Chiana no more than 30 miles away.  So we were able to spend some time with them at their villa:

We had a wonderful day in Pienza for lunch and later in Bagno Vignoni, the Medici spa town:

All in all a great week!

Relaxing by Lake Como

A fortnight ago we spent a terrific week at Carate Urio on Lake Como with our Australian friends Christine and John whom we have known for years.  They are spending time in Europe and invited us to join them for a week on Lake Como.  So it was with great anticipation we flew out to Milano and met them the following day at Stazione Centrale in Milano and travelled to our appertment in Urio by train and bus.

We spent the next few days touring the lake by ferry, including a day in Como, and on the final day we crossed into Switzerland and visited Lake Lugano and its town.

Had a terrific time needless to say and it was great to see Christine and John once more.

We took plenty of photos of Milano, Lake Como and Lake Lugano.

458 Challenge debuts at Maranello

Ferrari debuts the 458 Italia Challenge, a sort of souped up version.  And doesn't it look great!

458 Challenge debuts at Maranello: "Maranello – The 458 Challenge has made its world premiere debut in Maranello during the Annual Dealer Meeting, a traditional event that brings together the representatives of Ferrari’s international sales network."

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Bella Tuscany

We recently spent a week in Tuscany.  We go every year to Borgo di Vagli, our place in the Tuscan hills overlooking the Val di Pierle.  On our side Tuscany: on the other side of the valley Umbria.  What could be more enchanting!
Each year we try to revisit old haunts and go somewhere new.  This year we went back to the beautiful  Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, a Benedictine monastery dating from the Fifteenth Century, and containing Signorelli's wonderful fresco cycle of the life of St Benedict.

New for us was the wonderful hill town of Montepulciano, overlooking on one side the Val di Chiana and on the other the Val d'Orcia.  Below the town walls is one of the most perfect of all small Renaissance churches - Sant'Agnese - built by Antonio da Sangello the Elder.


And of course we went back to Cortona and for the first time visited the exquisite Church of Saint Niccolo.

To see all of my photos of our stay go to Flickr

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SEMA 2009: 427-powered Fiat 500 is the stuff dreams are made of

Cinque cento diventare settemila.  Bravo!  Stupendo!

SEMA 2009: 427-powered Fiat 500 is the stuff dreams are made of: "
Filed under: Aftermarket, Motorsports, SEMA Show, Classics, Coupe, Performance, Fiat, Specialty

1959 Fiat 500 Funny Car by Legacy Innovations - Click above for high-res image gallery

Okay, this is so awesome it hurts. The guys at Legacy Innovations took a perfectly lovely but woefully underpowered 1959 Fiat 500 and turned it into a Fiat 7,000. The Fiat 500 is an iconic car, one with tremendous nostalgic charm, but it was never really much good as a car until they redid it a few years ago. So although we might love the little 500, it doesn't provide a very good platform for what the Legacy Innovations guys had in mind for it - namely drag racing.

Easy fix though. They broke out the torches and gutted it. They basically removed all of the weak stuff and replaced it with a full-on 4130 chrome molly tube chassis, hinged the body in true Funny Car fashion and dropped in a 725-HP 427 small block. The body was kept relatively stock, save for the hood cutout, but they still managed to mount a pair of Hoosier slicks in back and still had room for wheelie bars that extend out far enough to effectively double the length of their little 500.

No word on how quick this baby is in the quarter, but we bet it's quick enough to embarrass just about anything else coming out of Italy. It's cars like this that make the trip to SEMA totally worthwhile.

Gallery: SEMA 2009: 1959 Fiat 500 by Legacy Innovations

Photos copyright (C)2009 Frank Filipponio/Weblogs, Inc.

SEMA 2009: 427-powered Fiat 500 is the stuff dreams are made of originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Arezzo - A little bit of Firenze and a little bit of Cortona?

As you know we are back from Italy but I haven't really said anything about the time spent there.  We have been going to Italy for some years and each time we go we try to see something new.  This year it was Arezzo which, somewhat surprisingly given its location between Firenze and Cortona, we have not visited before.
Situated overlooking the Val di Chiana Arezzo is, like Cortona, a hill town but a much larger and more important one.  In fact it is the regional seat.  The town consists of a new town and an upper old town.  Getting to Arezzo from Borgo di Vagli is best done by driving to Terontola and then getting the train.  I once tried to drive there a couple of years ago but it was hopeless.
The old town is quite charming with some wonderful architecture and churches including the Duomo:

and the Piazza Grande:

and the stunning Pieve di S. Maria, one of the most perfect Medieval churches in Tuscany:

You can see these and other pictures of Arezzo on Flickr 

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Back from Italy

Back now from Italy.  Had a great time in the land that invented modern Europe and is the source of all beauty in the West.  Good bits are the architecture, art, cities, trains, food, coffee and plumbing.  Bad bits are the autostradi, drivers, signposting, steep hills and parking in towns.
Took lots of photos which you can see on flickr.

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A Week in Tuscany: Chasing Beauty

Off for a week in Tuscany to get my yearly dose of high culture.  We are staying in a Fourteenth Century restored borgo, Borgo di Vagli, on the Tuscan - Umbrian border in the mountains behind Cortona.  It's within fairly easy distance of Florence (by train), Siena, Arrezzo, Orvieto, Perugia and Assisi.  What more could you want!  Will post more when I get back next week.

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New Wine in Old Barrels?

I see that Alenia is planning to sell more re-furbished G.222s to countries such as Peru and Libya above and beyond the current sales to Afghanistan.
The G.222 (originally built by FIAT) first flew in 1970 and was brought into Italian service as a medium transport.  The US selected it also as the C-27 Spartan for in-theatre work.  Powered by two RR Tyne engines it had plenty of poke and excellent STOL performance.
So where is Alenia getting its airframes for refurbishment?  I don't know but I do know that for years there were lots and lots of Regia Aeronautica G.222s mouldering away at Galileo Galilei Airport, Pisa.  Dispersed all over the airport  they made an incongruous sight for incoming tourists anxious to enjoy the Tuscan scenery. 

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The Greatest Road Ferrari?

What is the greatest road Ferrari of them all?  What a question!  Before you can answer a question like that you need to define what "greatest" means.  Fastest?  Most Successful?  Best looking?  Most valuable? Purest (whatever that means)? or some mystical combination of all or some of these with some other qualities thrown in for good measure.  I like to think greatest means that car which is closest to what we think Enzo was aiming for but how can you retrospectively discern what Il Commendatore was thinking about!

In the beginning he wanted to make racing cars but needed to fund his habit.  The best way to do that was to sell road cars and use the proceeds to make racing cars.  So he started making racing cars that could be used on the road such as the 159S etc.  But there were limitations to using racing cars on the road - uncomfortable, beasts to drive, rock-hard suspensions, peaky engines etc.  So next came the road cars that could be raced such as the 250 series. But it was not enough to race you had to win and win they did with cars like the 375M, 250TDF, 250GT, 250GTO, 250LM and 750 Monza, to name but a few.  These cars were so desirable because they had that indefinable blend of performance, drop dead good looks and race success.

I suppose most afficionados, if asked my question would unhesitatingly say the 250GTO and it would be hard to disagree.  But like all of these matters it's personal taste in the end that makes one choose.  And although I see the force of the argument I don't choose the 250GTO.  For me there is only one.

The 250GT SWB Berlinetta.  The last of the true front-engined road/race cars which you could drive every day and beat anyone on Sunday (except of course Moss in Rob Walker's 250GT - no-one could do that).
It is utterly gorgeous and embodies what the French would call le pur sang of what Enzo was thinking.  And then the rot set in.

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Ahhh...Venice

My daughter is staying with me, just back from a year in Vienna. She described her trip to Venice this Spring and it brought back wonderful memories of my trip to Venice last year. Venice is truly a magic city and a photographers dream with stunning light and visual complexity. This is one of my favourite shots of Piazza San Marco in the late afternoon on a greyish day. The architecture is as always - brilliant - and provides a frame for the mundaneness of life as the tourists, hawkers and stall owners intermingle on perhaps the most famous urban space on Earth:

Beautiful Car

As you can see from my profile I love classic Italian sports cars. None more beautiful than the Ferrari 225S Vignale Spyder of 1952. I guess one would cost me more than £1m.