Cars

Quality in the capital

Love of a lady

Video: Counterpart GmbH

Arresting. Having spent considerable time scratching our heads and poring through the dictionary in search for an adjective that hasn’t been used before to describe the Alfa Tipo 33 Stradale, we think it’s a word that encapsulates the quasi-road car beautifully. The Stradale does more than simply catch your eye — it seizes your total attention and holds it ransom from reality. It causes jaws to drop, incomprehensible noises to utter hopelessly from mouths, and the odd eye to well up. But isn’t that everything a proper Alfa should do?

Bee in your bonnet?

Of course, the Fulvia springs to mind when thinking of the lovely Lancia, with its effervescent engine and delicate styling lending itself perfectly to proper use, and currently, it’s sitting somewhat behind the comparable Alfa Romeo GT Junior in the value stakes, but let’s not forget the other gems in the classic Lancia line-up. Towards the higher end, the B20 Aurelia’s Mille Mile eligibility and pretty-yet-practical attributes see them popping up in more and more auctions, while the boxy Beta and Monte Carlo offer 1980s thrills for reasonable pricing (at the moment).

A corner of paradise

For this year’s affair, Lord March and his team laid on a mouth-watering spread of machinery to attack the circuit, including screaming 3.0-litre sports prototypes from the early 1970s, snarling 1990s GT1 cars, and not one but two batches of multi-coloured Group A saloons, many of which were reunited with the legends who drove the wheels off them in the 1980s and ’90s.