Best of France and Italy 2008

The Best of France and Italy car show takes place annually in Woodley Park, a well shaded green strip of park in Van Nuys.  If pictures are to be believed, previous years turnouts were heavy among both spectators and exhibitors but a threat of rain seemed to keep many of each away this year.  Alfa Romeo participation was particularly strong at this show, probably making up half the field, but FIAT, Citroen, Renault, ISO and others were well represented.

Below are some photographs I took and many more can be found on my Events page.

What can I say, I’m a sucker for an SS, especially when it’s a Giulietta and one of the nicest in existence.  That guy with the bushy blonde mustache from that TV show and his crew were all over this car when I showed up. 

This is the FIAT 125S, the snobby upper-crust sibling of our 124 Sedan Special.  I didn’t test the doors to see if it was stamped from a more confidence inspiring gauge of sheet steel, but the level of trim and finish was certainly nice.  I love the color too!

Okay, you heard it here first, my new interest is small bore FIAT specials and while not a Record Monza or an Abarth Zagato double-bubble, this little Abarth is pretty spectacular.

Brad Baum’s elegant 750 Sprint.  This car is VERY clean.

This is my second favorite Lancia, just behind the Aurelia coupe. 

Innocenti is primarily known in this country for the Lambretta scooter but they also made some neat cars.  I had never seen one of these before.

This might be the first time I’ve seen a Deutsch Bonnet in person.  It’s a little bigger than I thought it would be, and way more spectacular.  (Yes I’m aware that there are not grades of Spectacularity!)

Otas FIAT 850 based boy racer.  This is probably the only small bore special FIAT I can afford.  I’m off to the internet car sellers pages when this blog post is done!

There you have it, the crowd was polite, somewhat quirky and definitely enthusiastic as were the cars (well, the cars enthusiasm was tough to measure).  It was good to see the humble and auspicious sharing the lawn much like the Alameda All-Italian day, with the crowds seeming to prefer the obscure to the expensive though pedestrian.  If I could take one home it would have to be the Bonnet or one of the FIAT 8V’s.  I don’t know that I will be keen to drive down to Southern California and back in the same day again to spend an hour and a half at a car show, but one never knows.