Want to feel ancient? Well, consider this. Temporally speaking, the launch of the E31 BMW 8 Series was closer to the first televised appearance of Elvis Presley than it is to today. But then the 8 Series is a car that has a rare ability to catch you off guard. Despite none finding customers during the ’80s, it’s viewed by many as a quintessentially ’80s BMW yet the technology that underpinned this car was anything but a throwback.
They are two Ferraris at the turn of the last millennium, two grand tourers for an audience that can't do without twelve cylinders. And yet, they are so different! The Testarossa successor, the 512 TR, is a result of racing evolution, while the successor 550 Maranello follows in the lineage of the elegant 365 GTB/4 Daytona.
If there's a cliché of the typical Italian, it's Renzo Rivolta. Spirited, impatient, full of ideas and enterprising. The businessman had become rich with refrigerators, got into the booming two-wheeler production after the end of the war and started the car company Iso Autoveicoli SpA in the early 1950s with the Isetta from his company in Bresso. With BMW taking over the license, the Italian smooch ball became a successful Bavarian model, but Rivolta wanted more.
In the early 1970s, a racing enthusiast in possession of an accident-damaged 910 decided to transform the Porsche into a no-excuses sports car for the road. Calling in leading experts, he succeeded in creating an automobile of rare sculptural excellence…
Profile of Italy’s little-known design genius. Shy and modest but brilliantly talented, Federico Formenti was Touring’s golden child. We tell the story of one of the world’s greatest car designers you’ve probably never heard of.
