Autodromo - Instruments for Motoring

I've long been a fan of vintage watches and --as this website attests-- a connoisseur of classic cars, so about 2 years I decided it was time to combine those passions, using my professional skills as a designer and branding consultant. The result is the birth of a new driving-oriented brand : Autodromo.

Our launch collection consists of 3 models, inspired by tachometers found in Italian sports cars of the late 60s.  We did our best to bring you the finest quality materials and swiss movements at an attainable pricepoint of $425.

More information can be found on our online shop: Autodromo.com

We also encourage Automobiliac readers to like us on Facebook!

For other bloggers out there, the digital press kit can be downloaded HERE, with tons of luscious images.More images can be found in our Autodromo Gallery HERE

Object of Desire: Seiko SpeedTimer "Bullhead" Chronograph

I love vintage racing chronographs, and this one is actually for sale by yours truly. It's a Seiko Speed Timer, produced in Japan around 1976. This automatic mechanical chronograph works perfectly and features a choice of English or Japanese day indicator. I personally like using the Japanese setting.

The case style is known as a "Bullhead" due to the position of the pushers at the top rather than side of the case. In actual sports usage, I have found this position is far easier to manipulate than a side-mounted configuration. It's also perfect if you take the watch off and hold it in your hand like a stopwatch.

I don't have any banners on this site, so please pardon this shamless plug for my own ebay auction! Sorry about the hairy wrists...

Monterey Historics 2011 Gallery and Video

The first installment from my trip (by popular demand) is my photoset from the Monterey Historic Races at Laguna Seca. Over the next week or so, I'll keep adding more and more content from the eventful week I spent at Pebble Beach and Monterey! The track is legendary so it was really a special treat for me to visit the place for the first time. I found it to be much like Road America in scale, and like Elkhart Lake, to see the whole circuit required a fair amount of hiking up and down hilly terrain.  I must say the corkscrew really blew my mind. After seeing hundreds of photos of the corner, I was unprepared for how steep the thing really is! And what impressed me even more is how incredibly step the downhill section of track is that immediately follows the corkscrew. On TV and video, you really can't see the extent of the incline. I gained new respect for the skill and bravery it takes to get around Laguna Seca watching these guys!After a lot of walking, we found a really excellent vantage point on the outside of turn 6. Here, you can look down on the cars, but are still quite close, and you can watch them fly through the turn and power their way all the way up the hill towards the corkscrew at full throttle. The sound was incredible. I hope you all enjoy the videos. The cars got progressively faster and louder as the day went on!

CLICK HERE or on any of the photos for the full glorious photo gallery!

Of course, one of the highlights was listening to the magnificent sounds of the field of Ferrari GTOs. Make sure you crank up your speakers for that one, folks!

Porsche: In Detail

Photographer, designer, and friend Max Schlachter was kind enough to share with us some really cool photos he took recently at an exhibiton organized by a local exotic car dealer in his hometown. He got some really great detail shots of some vintage Porsches! Click the pics below to see the entire gallery.

Objects of Desire: Car Books of the 1970s

There's something I just love about car books of the 1970s.  They are often just packed so densely with archival photos and detailed history, plus the layout design is often really cool. They usually have a great old-book smell, too.  I think the 70s was the golden age of car publishing, when printing technology was good enough to make affordable books with tons of high quality photos (many 1960's books have lousy printing quality, especially in color), and when the market really was open -for whatever reason- to geeky books about automotive arcania.  The historians of the 70s took their job seriously, and fortunately for us, the protagonists of the 20 century's motoring history tended to still be alive and accessible in that era, providing a lot of great first-hand accounts of racing and automotive history which are increasingly hard to obtain today now that folks are dying off, or just tired of being interviewed.

In today's landscape of auto books, things have increasingly polarized.  At one end are the high-end glossy art books with stellar photography, beautiful layout and mind-blowing printing quality, but often light on substance. Then there are the car geek books full of B/W photos and chassis numbers, but these usually are written by passionate amateurs and hobbyists for small imprints, and have low standards of layout and printing. Many of the color photos will be taken by the author at historic racing meets, and aren't of high artistic quality. It's rare in today's book market to see a book like those from the 70s that combines all the best of historical rigor and depth, great photography and layout, all in a beautiful and satisfying package.  Fortunately for all of us, such special books are still being produced from time to time, and we'll have a review of one next week! Stay tuned!