Parking Lot Photo Shoot: Porsche 959

Move along, nothing to see here...

Okay, so I cheated a little. This Porsche 959 - more specifically, Bruce Canepa of Canepa Design's modified, street-legal 959 - was in a parking lot just outside of the Danville d'Elegance car show a couple years ago. But dammit, it was in a parking lot and not a car show! And be honest, where else do you think you're going to see a Porsche 959 in the United States? Most are only allowed here as "show and display" cars and can't be enjoyed fully. Canepa builds these cars to go, and go legally right up into second gear at which point you can get into as much trouble as your right foot wants. Canepa's website describes this car as producing 640 horsepower and 570 lb feet of torque and handling better than stock - and it will pass a California smog test.

Oh, how I wish the lighting and positioning were different. This beast deserved better pictures than these.

The Valet Stand: Ferrari 456M GT

Welcome to The Valet Stand, where we look at some of the best cars I've found parked in front of the lobby at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. Today's feature is a Ferrari 456M GT, photographed in late winter 2011.

The 456 was a family car among Ferraris, a 4-seat grand tourer with a V12 in the front. The 456 enjoyed a long production run from 1992 to 2003. I've always seen it as a more relaxed Ferrari, available with either a six-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. Yes, a Ferrari available with a full automatic transmission. And that same Ferrari could do 188 mph so quit whining. Think about the fact that this was the last Ferrari ever to use pop-up headlights, a feature no longer available on anything. This is a 456M, the post-1998 refresh of the 456 line. Despite being made for another five years, only 1,338 456Ms were built, of which 688 were manual GTs and another 650 were automatic GTAs.

Dealership Photo Shoot: 1997 Ferrari F355 Spider

Photographed at Specialty Sales in Pleasanton, CA.

Curiosity: Custom Widebody 1986 Porsche 928

I found this unusual modified 928 outside of a local d'elegance car show in Danville, CA in 2007. Any readers have information about it?

American Muscle, Italian Style: Iso-Rivolta Grifo

Early Grifo at speed, pic from Wikimedia Commons

In the early 1960s, Iso-Rivolta SpA of Bresso, Italy was already famous for its sleek, Chevrolet Corvette-powered IR300 grand tourer, and company founder/president Renzo Rivolta wanted a followup to the IR300. The sleek fastback Grand Tourer that resulted was the work of famous automotive engineer Giotto Bizzarrini, late of Ferrari, and young hotshot designer Giorgetto Giugiaro at Carrozzeria Bertone. Also powered by a Chevrolet Corvette V8, and having a clean-sheet chassis design, this was an elegant yet potent exotic car that was mostly built by hand and received rave reviews. 17 targa-top versions were built, with the remainder of the 413 Grifos produced from 1963-74 being coupes.

The car developed 390 horsepower (290 kilowatts) in its stock form, and was not a small car at its length of 174.4 inches (4,430 millimeters). Transmission availability included 4-speed Muncie and 5-speed ZF manuals, or 3-speed automatic on special order. Over the years, engine availability included the Chevrolet Corvette 5.4-liter V8, Ford "Cleveland"5.7-liter V8, and 7-liter and 7.4-liter Chevrolet V8s, all sourced in the US but totally reworked and blueprinted at the factory.

The Grifo's interior featured incredible luxury and comfort along with style, and build quality was top-notch. Variations of the Grifo chassis were used under the Fidia sedan and Lele 2+2 coupe, offering spirited handling and a comfortable ride.

In 1970, the Grifo lost some of its elegant style and cachet with a then-stylish droop snoot nose and hideaway headlights, and got an execrable bonnet scoop, then went away in 1974 with the remainder of Iso-Rivolta's car range.

Lesney-Matchbox produced a UK-market Grifo in small-scale in the late 60s, which was a staple in toyboxes worldwide for years, and the one in the author's collection has some wear and tear plus some detailing.

End Of The Glory Days: 1961-68 Alfa Romeo 2600 Coachbuilt Variants

Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider, pic from Wikimedia Commons

With the shift toward only economy car production after World War II at an end and economy car production shifted toward the Giulietta range, fabled Italian marque Alfa Romeo, once known for its grand 6C and 8C luxury and racing cars but then making a handful of variants of one basic design, needed a new flagship. They started with a factory-designed/built sedan, Bertone coupe and Touring Superleggera spider, based on the decade-old 1900 sedan underpinnings, but quickly realized that those were unsuited to moving the heavy bodies and the passengers along autostradas and Alpine roads swiftly. This article focuses on the coachbuilt models: the Touring spider, Bertone Sprint and Zagato coupes, and the OSI Berlina deLuxe.

In 1961, Alfa Romeo restyled the cars, mainly with bonnet scoop changes and trim changes, but most significantly as far as cosmetics go, an extended nose. The biggest change was in the alloy-block, 2600cc twincam straight-six, which harkened back to the good old days of the 6C2500, and offered decent performance considering the weight and aged chassis of the cars, but negatively affected stability.

All coachbuilt 2600s featured triple sidedraft carburetors, 5-speed manual transmissions, VDO windshield washers, tachometers and other things typical of an exotic car in the 60s as standard equipment, but where the Touring Spider shared many elements and some parts with the Maserati and Lancia coupes whose bodies were being assembled in the same factory, the 2600 Sprint shared a great deal with the concurrent BMW 3200GT and Iso-Rivolta GT, but looked like an enlarged Giulia Sprint GT. The 2600SZ (Sprint Zagato) and OSI Berlina deLuxe looked like no other car on the global market in the 1960s.

Eventually high costs of coachbuilding, aging tooling and designs, and the rather frumpy factory-bodied sedan's low sales, led to the 2600's discontinuation. The bankruptcies of OSI and Touring Superleggera at roughly the same time couldn't have helped much either. Its belated replacement, the Alfa 6, was a controversial extended-wheelbase Alfetta sedan that was neither attractive nor popular.

Today, as collector cars, the 2600 Spider, Berlina deLuxe and 2600SZ are increasingly popular, with the spider bearing as much cachet and image as a contemporary Ferrari roadster at a fraction of the price, the 2600SZ being valuable but controversial as all Zagato creations are, and the Berlina deLuxe remaining undervalued and undersupported on the restoration-parts front. The 2600 Sprint is worth somewhat less, and most 2600 sedans have been stripped for parts and junked long ago.

2600 Sprint in silver with factory Borrani wire wheels, photo from Wikimedia Commons

The elegant and thoroughly modern OSI Berlina deLuxe. Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Stunning black 2600SZ

And here is the nicely crafted, affordable 1/24 scale diecast model by Welly.