Elf Scan 15: Jean Vinatier and his Alpine A110

Note the driving mocassins!

Purity, Restraint, and Brute Power - TVR Griffith 500

On the subject of 90s cars with pleasing lines, I couldn't help but think of the TVR Griffith 500. When I first saw a photo of this handmade British roadster in Road & Track as a teenager, I was bowled over by it. I think the ultra-clean design still looks fresh and pleasing today. The front end evokes a classic 1960s sports car, and the tidy rear end is unhindered by such frivolities as bumpers. The rump of the Griffith almost is vaguely reminiscent of the Ferrari 250GT SWB, but with parts-bin tail lamps!

Don't let the sleek lines fool you though! The Griffith was a true beast. With a Rover-sourced 340hp 5.0L V8 in its peak form and a svelte 2336lb curb weight, the roadster could hustle from 0-60 in 4.1 seconds.

Ferrari 456 - Il Cavallino's last great Gran Turismo

Every time I look at the new FF, I think how Ferrari's design standards have fallen from the peak of taste and restraint they reached in the mid 1990s.  After the excesses of the 308/328 and Testarossa era (aka the 1980s), Ferrari offered the more refined, if less exciting 348, and finally some superb designs like the 456 and the F355.  The 456 in particular oozed desirability and exclusivity, but had a particularly Italian sense of purity and restraint that enhanced its exoticism rather than detracted from it. 

You look at a 456 and can't help but picture a wealthy Milanese gentleman clad in cashmere sweater and his elegant wife stepping out of it at their Lake Garda weekend home.  Today's Ferraris...well, can you picture anyone other than a douchebag getting out of one? The interior of a 1990s Ferrari is also far more sober and clean-lined than the more elaborate confections being dreamed up today--it emphasizes the luxury of the materials used, rather than the styling.  But that brings me to my real questions here: Has Ferrari's taste atrophied? Or is their current design direction just a response to a shifting customer base in new markets? Were the 456 and F355 anomalies, or do they represent the last vestiges of the true spirit of the marque?

Spring Weekend Moment of Zen

Hope many of your are tinkering in the garage today!

Hat tip to Off Camber!

Elf Scan 14: Formule France

Close your eyes and try to list as many French F1 drivers as you can from the early 60s.  Pretty hard, huh?  After Jean Behra died in 1959, it was basically the aging Maurice Trintignant who represented France on the Grand Prix circuit until the mid 60s.  As a result of this dearth of young talent, the French motor racing industry created a driver development program, starting with the Renault Gordini cup.  As a next rung, they created Formule France in 1968, which was a single seater formula using the same engine and gearbox as the Renault 8 Gordini.  It was essentially the equivalent of the Skip Barber Formula series in today's terms. If you close your eyes again, and try to list French drivers from after 1968, and into the 70s, it becomes a heck of a lot easier!  Thanks to increased investment from Elf, Matra, Renault, and other motorsport players of the era, French driving talent finally began to blossom again in Grand Prix racing for the first time since before the Second World War when drivers like Dreyfus and Chiron were in their prime.