Hemmings Daily: Unrestored Abarth speed record car could command more than $1 million

Photos by Piotr Degler/Degler Studio, courtesy Gooding and Co. At first glance, the Abarth 1000 Bialbero record car known as "La Principessa" and the diamond-layout Pininfarina X appear to have nothing in common. One's a race car; the other's an attempt to build a family sedan with its four wheels jumbled about. One looks fast; the other looks just odd. Yet both arose from the same attempt to cheat the wind, and the faster of the two will soon head to auction. Battista "Pinin" Farina had experimented with stre

View in Browser | Subscribe Friday, July 8, 2016 Unrestored Abarth speed record car could command more than $1 million Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photos by Piotr Degler/Degler Studio, courtesy Gooding and Co. At first glance, the Abarth 1000 Bialbero record car known as "La Principessa" and the diamond-layout Pininfarina X appear to have nothing in common. One's a race car; the other's an attempt to build a family sedan with its four wheels jumbled about. One looks fast; the other looks just odd. Yet both arose from the same attempt to cheat the wind, and the faster of the two will soon head to auction. Battista "Pinin" Farina had experimented with stre... Read More Hemmings Find of the Day - 1968 Ford LTD Brougham Posted by Kurt Ernst - >From the seller's description: For sale 1968 FORD LTD BROUGHAM, two-door hard top that is all original. The engine is a 390 ci, 270 horsepower with a two-barrel carb, C-6 automatic transmission. It has power steering and power brakes with discs on front. Power seats and windows. Radio is the original AM. We are the original owners and we continue to drive it regularly. This has been a wonderful car and is very comfortable. The car was originally ordered for the owner of Chapman Ford in Bothell, WA Tom Chapman wa...Read More Legendary Indy team founder Carl Haas dies Posted by Jim Donnelly - Carl Haas (L), with Michael Andretti, Mario Andretti and Paul Newman in 1992. Image courtesy IMS. Carl Haas, a Chicago businessman who formed one of the most fearsome Indy car combinations in history, has died following a long illness, the website RACER.com and other sources have reported. He was 86. Although his death was not announced until yesterday, Haas passed away June 29 and was known to have been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Haas gained most of his celebrity from teaming up with the late Paul ...Read More The $5,000 Challenge, you don't see that every day edition part two Posted by Kurt Ernst - What makes a car rare? In some cases, it's low production numbers, while in other cases, it may be the number of survivors remaining intact. While none of the cars below qualify as low production (with the possible exception of the Toyota), the fact is you simply don't see too many examples on the road, or in the show field, these days. As with other installments of the $5,000 Challenge, some are clean enough to use as a second vehicle upon delivery, while others will require a bit of restorative work first. ...Read More Dont mess with success Posted by David Conwill - Jeremiah Thomas's 1929 Ford A/V8 is a veritable oldtimer in the East Coast traditional rodding scene. Photos by the author. You've probably seen this '29 Ford roadster with the Ford V-8 logo stenciled on the radiator before. After all, it's been running around the way you see it for nearly a decade. For a hot rod, especially one that has run at The Race of Gentlemen, that's an eternity. All-business interior includes an authentic aircraft seat for the driver and a '40 Ford steering wheel. It se...Read More Omaha, Nebraska, 1979 Posted by Daniel Strohl - Date: July 1979 Location: Sky-View Drive-In, N 72nd Street, Omaha, Nebraska Source: Jim Burnett, Omaha World-Herald What do you see here?...Read More THIS DAY IN AUTOMOTIVE HISTORY 7/8/1838: Ferdinand Von Zeppelin born, Kostantz, Germany 7/8/1907: George Romney born, Chihuahua, Mexico 7/8/1909: First Hudson automobile built UPCOMING EVENTS Cruise at Friendly's Restaurant July 15, 2016 - Dunmore, PA Friends Of Coal Auto Fair July 15, 2016 - Beckley / Beaver WV, WV BBC Motorcycle Show & Rally July 15, 2016 - Blue River, WI 2016 Knauz Cruise Nights - July July 15, 2016 - Lake Bluff, IL Culver Lake Fest: Classic Car & Antique Boat Show & Cruise Weekend July 15, 2016 - Culver, IN Willow Creek Cruise Night July 15, 2016 - South Barrington, IL See All Events FEATURED CLASSIFIEDS Sponsored By: 1983 Citroen 2CV $18,500 1968 AMC Javelin $9,500 1993 Dodge Daytona $3,000 2002 Pontiac Trans Am $22,500 1928 Lincoln 164 $45,000 1954 Ford Skyliner $20,000 1970 Plymouth Fury 3 $6,950 1968 Pontiac Bonneville $28,500 PROMOTED LISTING 1947 Ford Super Deluxe $25,000 PROMOTED LISTING 1953 Packard Auction Miniature Model A Ford Engine $16,000 View All Classifieds FEATURED IN THE BLOG Spooky 1969 Olds literature: Dr. Oldsmobile creates a W-Machine. Or two. On collecting automotive-themed postcards See All Featured Blog Posts FOLLOW US: View Newsletter Archives WEEK IN REVIEW Thursday, July 7, 2016 Architects take a swing at re-imagining Detroit's Packard plant for international exhibition Posted by Daniel Strohl - Greg Lynn's "Center for Fulfillment, Knowledge, and Innovation." Image via Greg Lynn FORM. While a Peruvian developer cleans up the former Packard plant in Detroit and readies it for its next iteration, a handful of architects half the globe away have put their own ideas for the future of the plant on display. For this year's entry in the Venice Biennale, an every-other-year international architecture exposition in the Italian city, the U.S. Department of State chose to focus on the city of Detroit by entrusti...Read More Hemmings Find of the Day - 1974 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super Posted by Kurt Ernst - >From the seller's description: 1974 Alfa Romeo Giulia Nuova Super (Currently registered in California) Clear Title in hand, in great condition inside and out. Only 47,000 miles. Body: no rust, no dents. Absolutely straight and with no signs of accident damage. Glass in excellent shape. All floors are original. Paint: hyper glossy white paint. Paint looks very good and extremely shinny all around; Vehicle has been repainted in Italy 6 years ago with premium paint and clear coat and then wet sanded and polished...Read More Wills Sainte Claire enthusiast reunited with his old Wills on 100th birthday Posted by Hemmings contributor - Photos courtesy Terry Ernest. Long time Wills Sainte Claire Museum member Bill Mason's son, Rick, emailed me earlier this year and asked if I could attend and represent the Wills Museum at his father's 100th birthday party in Lansing, Michigan, about a two-hour drive from the Wills Museum in Marysville. Of course I said yes. As director of the Wills Museum, how could I possibly turn down a request for such an important event. Bill Mason has been a member of the Wills Sainte Claire Club since it began in 19...Read More Open Diff: When it comes to tires, how old is too old? Posted by Kurt Ernst - Jeff Yost's 1976 Corvette. Those tires were manufactured in March of 1993, 23 years ago. Photos by Jeff Yost, unless otherwise noted. Last week, Hemmings reader Jeff Yost and I were discussing the subject of tires and collector cars. When Jeff purchased his 1976 Chevrolet Corvette through a Hemmings ad in April of 2016, he thought it would be a good idea to check the age of the tires on the car, a set of pristine B.F. Goodrich Radial T/As. Since they were manufactured prior to 2000, decoding the date required the...Read More The Tenth Decade: 1988 Oldsmobile full line brochure Posted by Mark J. McCourt - Images are from the brochure collection of Hemmings Motor News Oldsmobile's 1988 model year lineup showcasedthis GM division's past and future, all sharing space on dealership lots. The veteran rear-wheel drive, three-row seating, V-8-powered Custom Cruiser station wagon represented the old guard, along with the final-yearG-body Cutlass Supreme "Classic," a car notably absent from this 32-page full line brochure. Representing the latest and greatest GM had to offer was thefront wheel-drive, aero-styled Cutl...Read More Paris, 1950s Posted by Daniel Strohl - Date: late 1950s Location: Cour de l'Arrivee, Gare d'Austerlitz, Paris, France Source: via Ran When Parked What do you see here?...Read More Wednesday, July 6, 2016 The Shelby Cobra that began the legacy, CSX2000, heads to auction in Monterey Posted by Kurt Ernst - CSX2000, the Shelby Cobra prototype. Photos by Darin Schnabel, courtesy RM Sotheby's. Before there was a Shelby Cobra, there was an A.C. Ace, a British sports roadster powered by a six-cylinder engine sourced from airplane manufacturer Bristol. When Bristol stopped production of the engine in 1961, it looked like the end of the road for the Ace, but then Carroll Shelby and Ford entered the picture, and the rest is motorsport history. Just one Shelby Cobra prototype was ever built, and it has been owned by Carroll...Read More Hemmings Find of the Day - 1954 Volvo PT21 Sugga Posted by Kurt Ernst - >From the seller's description: Volvo Sugga PT21 1954. Volvo build only 720 models of this Military off road radio commander vehicle between 1953 and 1958. There is probably less than 6 existing in the US which make it one of the rarest SUV in the world. Beautifully restored as close as possible to original. Original engine fully restored as well, 90 HP 3,7 liter in line 6 cc mated to Volvo E9 gearbox. Find more Volvos for sale on Hemmings.com....Read More 2016 Forest Grove Concours d'Elegance to feature 22-mile 1964 Volkswagen Beetle Posted by Kurt Ernst - The 22-mile 1964 Volkswagen Beetle. Photos courtesy Forest Grove Concours d'Elegance. Volkswagen Beetles were inexpensive, utilitarian transportation, generally driven by a series of owners until the cost of repair far exceeded the value of the car. Few were preserved, let alone enshrined, but this year's Forest Grove Concours d'Elegance, taking place on Sunday, July 17 in Forest Grove, Oregon, will debut its Vintage Volkswagen class with a never-registered 1964 Beetle displaying just 22 miles on the odometer. ...Read More Midweek Matinee: Get Going, 1936 Posted by Ed Heys - All photos are frame grabs from video below. What do a cartoon-turned-real-life locomotive, a balding man, cue ball, squirrel, white-tail deer, moose, bullet, baseball, bowling ball and what appears to be a Gee Bee Model R all have in common? We offer no spoilers. Once it gains momentum, this action-packed film also includes kids on a sled, plus compelling thoughts by Galileo Galilei and Sir Issac Newton. And: motivating clips of a motorcycle, race cars and a 1936 Chevrolet Master De Luxe Sport ...Read More Homebuilt pickups and trailer hitches: How underage teens skirt the law to drive in Sweden Posted by Hemmings contributor - Photos by the author. Some of the most interesting cars that Sweden has to offer are hiding in small, rural towns, not in museums. That's because 15-year-olds are allowed to drive virtually any type of car if it's been converted into a two-seater pickup, and modified to top out at about 20 MPH. These home-made pickups are considered tractors by Swedish law, and they've been around for nearly a century. In the early days, real tractors were expensive and difficult to come by, so skilled DIYers began c...Read More West Hartford, Connecticut, 1960s, part 3 Posted by Daniel Strohl - Locations for the previous two West Hartford posts based on photos from the collection that Joe Sokola sent us were fairly simple to determine based on buildings in the photos that remain standing today. This grouping, featuring the Forest Building and what was presumably a well-established restaurant, Ollie's Steak House, isn't so easy to pinpoint. However, at the very far right of the last group of West Hartford photos we see a four-story building with details very similar to the one at the very far left of this g...Read More Tuesday, July 5, 2016 2016 Great Race recap - Run away and join the traveling circus (and maybe win $50,000) Posted by Jim O'Clair - The Hemmings Motor News 1932 Ford speedster. Photos courtesy The Great Race. The 2016 Hemmings Motor News Great Race presented by Hagerty concluded on Sunday, June 26, in Moline, Illinois with a dead heat. The eventual winners, G.R. Pike and Bobby Hadskey, had the exact same time to the tenth of a second as the second place team of Dave Reeder and Sawyer Stone, however, they were given the victory based on a better finish in the initial Trophy Run competition that took place on the day before the official start....Read More Hemmings Find of the Day - trio of 1965+ Chevrolet Corvair convertibles Posted by Kurt Ernst - A common complaint of those looking to get into the collector car hobby is the high cost of entry. Cars that were largely overlooked a decade or so back are, in some cases, now priced beyond the means of the average hobbyist, but for those willing to think outside the box, bargains can still be found. Take this trio of mid-1960s Chevrolet Corvair convertibles, for sale as a single lot on Hemmings.com, by way of example. Combining the bits and pieces from all three cars will likely come close to producing a single dr...Read More Upcoming Simeone Museum Demo Day focuses on Aerodynamics - Going Faster! Posted by Kurt Ernst - The Simeone Collection's "Hippie Car," a 1970 Porsche 917LH. Photos by Andrew Taylor, courtesy Simeone Museum. In the early days of racing, a powerful engine was the primary component in achieving victory. Later, reducing weight became the main obsession of engineers, and later still, shaping a wind-cheating, aerodynamic body grew in importance. On July 9, the Simeone Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will host a Demonstration Day devoted to aerodynamics in racing, featuring the collection's 1936 Bugatti Type ...Read More Can you help identify this circa-1971 motorhome? Posted by Kurt Ernst - The mystery motorhome. Photos courtesy Geoff Hacker. When we have a question on an obscure fiberglass-bodied car from the 1950s to the 1970s, Geoff Hacker, founder of Forgotten Fiberglass and Undiscovered Classics, is the first person we call. Recently, Geoff came across this unknown (and unusual) motorhome from the 1970s on a friend's Florida property, and he's asked for the help of Hemmings readers in identifying it. There isn't much to go on. Built upon a Ford commercial chassis, it likely started life ...Read More Building a King, a process that involves switching from gas to diesel Posted by Daniel Strohl - As if we couldn't tell from previous scratchbuilt trucks built by the brothers Read, Cliff and Larry, they have a fairly masterful knowledge of trucking history, down to the small but significant details that differentiate one model from the next and one era of trucking from another. That knowledge - along with their skills in scratchbuilding all those tiny details for their modified models - is on full display with this Fifties White 3400 TD and its accompanying trailer. Larry writes: The White Motor Company intro...Read More Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, 1960s Posted by Daniel Strohl - Date: 1960s Location: Dartmouth Shopping Centre, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Source: Nova Scotia Archives What do you see here?...Read More Sunday, July 3, 2016 Four-Links - roundtheworldrallyOlds, Macauley's speedster, Yanks in the Netherlands, Teague Posted by Daniel Strohl - Erik Andersen over on the H.A.M.B. has a plan. He's bought an Olds 88, intends to prep it as a rally racer, and then wants to drive it around the world by entering it into as many rallies as he can. Here's hoping he succeeds. * While we briefly mentioned the Macauley Packard speedster in this week's story on the Saunders Packard speedster, The Old Motor has more on the former, a striking car in its own right. * It's a little strange seeing the photos of big American cars on the roads of the Netherlands...Read More Hemmings Find of the Day - 1969 Chevrolet Impala Posted by Daniel Strohl - >From the seller's description: 1968 Chevrolet Impala 9 passenger station wagon. Special order-396 engine, turbo hydra-matic transmission; all-original except new 4-barrel carb; 91,368 highway miles; Ziebart undercoat; plus over 50 spare parts valued in excess of $4,000. About 90 percent of the 91,000 odometer (highway) miles were registered before 1985. From 1985 to present-day fewer than 100 miles were added each year. Most oil and filter changes occurred with less than 100 miles of use resulting in an engine t...Read More Hemmings Sunday Cinema - Leno Under Glass, Checkers in Finland, Piedone lo sbirro Posted by Daniel Strohl - Sure, it's a bit sensational to show Jay Leno in the famed Hemi Under Glass wheelstander as it takes a tumble for Jay's show, but it's also a part of the car's history now, something to be noted whenever people discuss the car from here on out. Besides, nobody was hurt, and Riggle said he'll rebuild. * The Finnish Checker hoard might not be much to look at, as we see in this 2012 video documenting the cars, but they still make for an interesting story. * Finally, we knew there had to be some inseguimento out t...Read More Hemmings Find of the Day - 1954 Meteor Rideau Skyliner Posted by Mike McNessor - Most American car enthusiasts do a double take at the sight of a Meteor: It's definitely a Ford, just not one that was ever sold in the U.S. Meteors were offered in Canada from 1949 until 1976 and basically just had different paint schemes, badges and trim to differentiate them from U.S. Fords. This 1954-vintage Meteor is interesting because U.S.-market Fords and Mercurys were powered by the new overhead valve Y-block V-8 in '54, while Canadian-market Meteors stuck with the Mercury-issue 255-cu.in. flathead V-...Read More LAST WEEK'S MOST READ One-off hot rod combined Packard, Auburn, and Marmon parts; put the "speed" in speedster Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photo by David Newhardt, courtesy Mecum Auctions. Dick Saunders likely didn't care a lick about labels like Full Classic or particulars like which class he'd park with on the show field. Rather, he probably cared more about how fast he got to the show field in his amalgam of Packard, Auburn, and other old car parts that added up to a boattail speedster that will hit the auction block later this summer. Saunders, of Rensselaer, New York, who had worked for a Packard distributor in Albany, reportedly had a habit...Read More LAST WEEK'S BEST DISCUSSION GMC van bearing Banksy mural art estimated to bring up to $400,000 at auction Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photos courtesy Bonhams. The choice of the van was intentional. The pseudononymous street artist Banksy has claimed many a run-in with the police and made authoritarianism a common motif in his artwork, so what better canvas for him than a slab-sided GMC step van that once allegedly served SWAT duty? This week that van and its murals will head to a contemporary art auction in London, where it's expected to become the most expensive step van sold at auction. Banksy, known for his stencil-based graffiti about as...Read More Hemmings Motor News will not sell or share your e-mail address with other companies. 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