József Erdősi was an exchange student at the University of Bologna, following in the footsteps of Dante Alighieri and Nicolaus Copernicus. Unlike the millennium-old university’s famous earlier alumni, he was not studying to be a poet or an astronomer: József’s future lay in agricultural engineering. He spent some of his practice time at Lamborghini Trattori, the tractormaking giant founded in post-war Italy by the man who would go on to give Enzo Ferrari bad dreams.

Through the right connections with the right people, József was allowed to transfer for a few weeks to Lamborghini’s other factory—Automobili Lamborghini—in the village of Sant’Agata Bolognese, a hamlet in Emilia-Romagna province between Bologna and Modena. It was here that Ferruccio Lamborghini had founded his sports car manufacture in 1963 to take on Ferrari in neighboring Maranello.

As an engineering student, József spent his days in the brake and engine assembly areas. He was also granted access to the room where Miuras received their scheduled maintenance.

It was not all work and no play for Mr. Erdősi. One day, an enigmatic question came his way about his cardiovascular health. Upon replying in the positive, he found out what it was all about. The young future engineer was about to receive a ride in the fastest road car of its day: a Lamborghini Miura.

“The seat was extremely low. I buckled up with a four-point racing harness. Then, as we rolled out of the factory, the test driver floored it. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. He switched to second gear at 90 MPH, third gear at 125 MPH, fourth at 140 MPH and went all the way to fifth gear at an astonishing 160 MPH,” he recalled in a recent conversation. “A field then approached at great speed. I was bracing myself for the inevitable ride through rows of corn when the driver flicked the wheel and took a corner at an unlikely speed. This went on for another forty minutes.”

By József’s recollections, the test driver he rode with that day had been the racing mechanic for Lorenzo Bandini—Ferrari’s Formula One and sports car driver—until Bandini’s fiery demise at the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix.

An avid photographer, József took a number of pictures on black and white Ilford film. His photos offer a unique glimpse into a nascent Lamborghini factory in its 60s heydays. Four years later, Ferruccio Lamborghini would be gone as the factory’s owner and car manufacturers everywhere would be face to face with the incompatibility of monster V12’s with the 1973 oil crisis.

Lamborghini would survive this all in the coming decades until it came to rest as a subsidiary of a German giant, producing fabulous modern cars in a brand-new Audi-built factory on the same spot.

The Miura production line in all its high-tech 1969 glory.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

Parallel to the Miura was built the four-seater Espada, both Marcello Gandini designs using the same 4-liter Giotto Bizzarrini V12 engine.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

Another shot of the Espada line shows a distinct Espada feature: the huge pane of glass on the rear hatch.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

This is a Miura S in for regular checkup. It had been shipped to Italy from California.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

A Miura being serviced, with the engine cover taken clear off.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

A finished Espada with old-school Italian license plates. In the background, you can see the open door of a Miura, which, when viewed from front, resembles a bull’s horn.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

A Lamborghini V12 engine on the test bench, with twelve polished velocity trumpets capping its Webers.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

Another shot of the V12 in the test chamber.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

This is a complete engine-transmission assembly. You can see from its longitudinal setup that it’s meant for the Espada: in the Miura, the same engine is mounted transversely behind the cabin.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

A Miura stripped down to the bare chassis as it is being serviced. For the sake of everyday usability, the velocity trumpets are replaced with common air boxes.

Photo Credit: József Erdősi

This Ezno, S/N 132658, submitted itself as an example for why we need our "Save the Enzos" campaign during a heated lap last March on a cold day at the Magny Cours circuit. The Enzo's tires hadn't properly heated up to a velcro-like state, so when the over-zealous driver misjudged a corner, he ended up in this precarious position on top of the tire wall.

With two Enzos down this year, are we going to need to reprint t-shirts again? [via FerrariChat]
Images via Flickr, Imageshack, Arthomobiles

Stirling Moss: 1955, 1957

It took the Brits six tries to crack their home grand prix and it took their greatest driver and the car the Germans came back to Formula One with. Held at Aintree, it was the only race of the season where Moss managed to beat his teammate Juan Manuel Fangio, who went on to claim his third world title. As his win came after a pass at the last corner, Moss wondered whether Fangio had let him win, but the Argentine would always say: “No. You were just better than me that day.” British-Argentine relations would, in a few decades, take a turn for the worse.

Moss’s second win came two years later in a Vanwall VW5 shared with Tony Brooks, who is also credited with the victory.

Photo Credit: Daimler Global Media. Moss is driving his Mercedes-Benz W196 to victory at Aintree.

Tony Brooks: 1957

Dr. Brooks—he was a dentist by training—was the first Brit to drive a British car to grand prix victory after World War Two, winning a non-championship race in Syracuse. His win, shared with Stirling Moss, was his first of six victories in Formula One.

Photo Credit: Terry Whalebone. This is the Vanwall VW5 before the start of the 1957 British Grand Prix at Aintree.

Peter Collins: 1958

Collins was an up-and-coming driver at Ferrari, much liked by il Commendatore himself, whom Juan Manuel Fangio passed on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 1957 to take his last win.

In 1958, driving the Ferrari 246 F1, he took his third and last victory in front of his home crowd at Silverstone. Two weeks later, he returned to the scene of his great battle with Fangio. On lap 11 of the 1958 German Grand Prix, he went over the embankment and hit a tree with his head, dying later that afternoon.

John F. Burns of The New York Times, who saw Collins drive to his last win, has written a heartbreaking report on the fair-haired young man, one of many casualties of the brutal 1958 season.

Collins is shown at the 1957 German Grand Prix in his Ferrari.

Jimmy Clark: 1962–1965, 1967

He was the fastest sheep farmer who has ever lived, the very humble soulmate of Lotus founder Colin Chapman, the man who could not put his head around the fact that everyone else was slower on the track. Chapman had a philosophy of building his Loti light enough to last only the duration of the race but not a second more. When the cars held together, Clark would usually win. When not, he would lose out on races—and championships. He dominated his home grand prix like no other Brit, winning a total of five times at Aintree, Silverstone and Brands Hatch.

Three months before he could defend his 1967 win with the dominant Lotus 49B, he lost control of his car at a Formula Two race at the Hockenheimring, crashed into a tree and died from his injuries.

Photo Credit: Allsport Hulton/Archive. Bette Hill throws her husband Graham a party to celebrate his homecoming from America where he won the Indianapolis 500 in a Ford-Lola. Graham and his son Damon Hill—who would become a British Grand Prix winner, unlike his dad—push reigning World Formula 1 Champion Jim Clark around on a toy tractor.

Jackie Stewart: 1969, 1971

The man who taught James May how to drive fast won his home grand prix twice—both times in cars which were either French or built with French money. Not that it troubled the cool Scot, who would go on to extend both of his home wins into world championships.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images. Stewart is at the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix with fellow Brit Ozzy Osbourne. No pigeons were harmed in the taking of this photo.

James Hunt: 1977

A Silverstone race, it was a battle between party boy Hunt and his Austrian archnemesis Niki Lauda, who returned phoenix-like from the ashes of his fiery crash on the Nürburgring at the 1976 German Grand Prix.

While Hunt held off Lauda by over 18 seconds in front of his home crowd, he had no chance to defend his 1976 world title, which Lauda would win by a wide margin over Jody Scheckter.

This race also marked the Formula One debut of the turbocharged engine, at this point a comically inept device campaigned by Renault, which would over a few short years come to rule the sport.

Photo Credit: Allsport UK/ALLSPORT. All smiles is Mrs. Hunt, three years before James’s home win. Note Hunt’s totally rock and roll breast patch.

John Watson: 1981

Watson was an F1 driver who later became a sports car racer and a broadcast commentator. His win at Silverstone was the second one of his career. He would win three more GP's before moving on to sports cars.

It was the car he drove which marks this race for history: Watson’s McLaren MP4/1 was the first F1 racer made of carbon fiber. Watson drove the plastic tub to its first victory. The material would take over aluminum for the construction of racing cars in a few months.

Photo Credit: Tony Duffy/Getty Image

Nigel Mansell: 1986, 1987, 1991, 1992

While Colin Chapman watched Jim Clark die, it was the other way around with the mustachioed Mansell: it was only at his third year in F1 when Chapman dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 54. His relationship with Lotus’s new management soured after that and he moved on to Williams, then Ferrari—where he witnessed Enzo Ferrari die after selecting him as his last driver, in a motorsports career which spanned six decades.

Mansell would return to Williams to drive their high-tech active-everything cars. He won his fourth and last British Grand Prix with the Williams FW14B, one of the best F1 cars ever made, with which he claimed his only world championship.

Photo Credit: DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images. The other guys pictured here having a killer time at the 1986 Portugese Grand Prix are Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet.

Damon Hill: 1994

His father Graham may be the more famous of the Hills, with his dapper mustache, his six wins at Monaco, his three Formula One world championships and his victories at the Indianapolis 500 and at Le Mans, but he never won the British Grand Prix.

Unlike his son Graham, who won at Silverstone and was then rammed by Michael Schumacher at the last race of the season, denying him the world championship.

Photo Credit: Pascal Rondeau/Allsport. Hill is in his Williams Renault before the Pacific Grand Prix at the TI circuit in Aida, Japan.

Johnny Herbert: 1995

Who’s Johnny Herbert? Why, he raced for a decade in Formula One and won three races, one of them at Silverstone, where duelling championship leaders Schumacher and Hill knocked each other out, allowing the Brit in his Benetton to slip by and claim victory.

Herbert was also on the team which drove the Mazda 787B at Le Mans in 1991, a shrikeing Day-Glo quad-rotor Wankel racer, which still holds the only Le Mans title for Felix Wankel’s wacky invention.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images. The person you are looking at instead of Johnny Herbert is British model Keeley Hazell.

David Coulthard: 1999, 2000

The man who is to jawbones what Jay Leno is to chins may not be remembered as much of a grand prix winner over his grand total of 15 years in Formula One, but he’s managed to take both Monaco and Silverstone twice. In both of his wins, he was sitting pretty in the sister car to Mika Häkkinen’s championship-winning McLaren.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images. Coulthard is showing his incredible mandible at the 2004 San Marino Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton: 2008

Last year’s race was a rain-soaked wacky waltz, notable for Felipe Massa’s numerous 360’s, a high speed track bunny and a beautiful, composed drive by McLaren’s Hamilton, who was yet to face what it’s like to race in an uncompetitive car.

The race was also a sign of things to come with Ross Brawn back in the game: in a snap decision, he outflanked the field on tire tactics to propel Rubens Barrichello to third place in that utter crap Honda My Earth Dream car—notable for always bringing up the rear—which they had already given up development on.

A year later, the tables have turned: Honda is out of Formula One, their 2009 car is powered by a Mercedes-Benz engine and is absolutely pulverizing the opposition. It is the clear favorite to win this year’s race, the last at Silverstone, with Barrichello’s teammate Jenson Button set to become the thirteenth Brit to win at home.

And there may never be a fourteenth, of course.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images. Hamilton is at a press conference before this year’s British Grand Prix, with Jenson Button looking on.

Why Can't We Take This To LeMons?



Bonus Shot Since We Love Ya:



Matt Farah with Garage 419 checks out the Cavallino Classic Ferrari Track Day in Palm Beach, Florida and checks out the Ferrari FXX here.

[arthomobiles.fr via carlounge]

Welcome to Jalopnik, the car blog. If you enjoyed these pictures, here's some of our more recent stories and features you may enjoy:

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Ah, Jim Glickenhaus. Ah, to be Jim Glickenhaus, the only man ever to produce a Basket Case movie and have Pininfarina scan his body for a perfect fit in a custom Enzo-based car. We met him briefly in Paris last fall and he turned out to be a very nice, personable dude, always willing and ready to drop some science. Here he tells the story of the battle of wills contested between two titans of the automotive world: Hank The Deuce and Enzo Ferrari. Part I above, click the link for part II. We can practically guarantee you'll learn something you didn't know. [Thanks to Haller for the tip] – Davey G. Johnson

The Ford/Ferrari Wars, Part II [Cirkitvision]

Related:
Foyt On Indy [Internal]

Like last week's Bugatti Veyron, this week's Fantasy Garage nominee should be a no brainer. You will also note for the first time I'm including a video, not merely a static image. Why? It's the legendary Ford GT Super Bowl commercial. I find it noteworthy because it was America's first peek at modern car porn. Sure, the Brits have had Top Gear for what? 90 seasons? But in the US of A, we had nothing of the sort, at least until Tom Brady bested Jake Delhomme. And while most of the country was in a tizzy over Janet Jackson's boob, pistonheads were worked up over a sexier exposure. I still recall vividly a slack jaw and my tongue unrolling, cartoon wolf-style. Since that day, I've watched roughly 10 million hours of smoking cars drifting sideways on YouTube, but the Ford GT spot is better than all of them, combined. Of course, no car makes it into our garage on a slick corporate ad alone.

Assuming for a moment you're from Venus, here's the back-story. In the early 1960s Ford was all set to buy Ferrari. The son of Henry Ford wanted to get into racing in a big way and Ferrari was having severe financial troubles. It seemed, to the American at least, to be a match made in automotive heaven. However, rumor has it old Enzo would have rather worn a tie-dyed suit than let his beloved Prancing Stallions fall into grubby American hands. However, despite his dubiousness and, uh, difficult personality, Enzo was no dummy. He knew that allowing Ford to put money on the table, it would raise the bid of Fiat, which bought 50% of Ferrari in 1965. Henry Ford II's offer of $18 million was rejected.

Hank the Second was furious. He vowed to beat Enzo at what had become his own, personal game. Ford wanted to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the most grueling, challenging and brutal race of them all. A race, by the way, Ferrari had won six years in a row (1960 through1965). So angry was Ford that he had lapel buttons made up that proclaimed, "Ford Wins Le Mans in '66" and threatened to fire any employee not on board with his decision. The resulting racecar is pure legend. The Ford GT40 ("Grand Touring and 40 inches high") is possibly the most storied racer of all time. The cars utterly devastated Ferrari, putting the smackdown on Enzo four years straight, until the car was banned from competing in 1970. Most remarkably, GT40s finished 1-2-3 in 1967.

The year 2003 marked Ford's 100th anniversary. In commemoration, Hank's great-grandson, Bill Ford Jr., initiated a series of prototype neo-GT40s to be built for the 2002 auto show season. The show cars were styled and designed Camilo Pardo under the watchful, retro-futuristic eye of J Mays. The story goes, these mid-engined (longitudinally mounted) beauties were never meant to be anything but flashy design exercises. But the results were just too staggering. One hundred times better looking than Ford's new Mustang and one thousand times sexier than the reborn Thunderbird (not to mention a billion trillion times cooler than the New Beetle), the GT40 concepts burned up their auto show competitors in 2002, prompting Motor Trend to start a shameless "Give Us Our Ford GT" campaign. In the end, Ford decided to build them. Since they no longer owned the name (and since they balked at Safir Engineering's $8 to $60 million asking price, depending on who you believe), Ford needed a new one. (GT43, which represented the car's actual height, is silly.) Plain old GT it was.

Ford GT40 Prototype. Ford was allowed to use GT40 for the concept cars

But build it with what? All supercars begin with their engines (though the GT had the added advantage of ultra-hot bodywork) and end with their engines. The closest thing Ford had to a hot motor was the 4.6-liter modular V8 out of the Mustang, and that simply would not cut it. Instead, they recast the 5.4-liter V8 from the F-Series pickup in aluminum and bolted on a Lysholm screw-type supercharger. The aluminum heads were lifted from the Mustang Cobra R (and Australian Boss 290) and the whole enchilada is dry sumped to keep oil flowing on hard corners. This setup allowed for 550 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque. In other words, plenty. But, as our dear friend Jezza is quick to point out, America has a fine and long tradition of building straight-line monsters. Ford wanted this car to go both left and right as well.

Ford's SVT engineers worked closely with aluminum experts Hydro Aluminum North America to develop what was at the time the most sophisticated extruded aluminum space frame in the world. The frame consists of 35 extrusions, 30 of which were developed just for the GT. The chassis also features several stamped panels (floorboards), five complex castings and four semi-solid formed castings. The four latter castings serve as mounting points for the double-wishbone suspension at all corners. Both the unequal-length control arms and the coil-over spring-damper units are made of extruded aluminum.

The engine assembly is also, you guessed it, made from extruded aluminum, as is the rear sport bar. And you should see how beautifully that stonkin' "Powered by Ford" engine fits into its cradle. Of course, all the body panels are also made from lightweight aluminum. The GT sports a front splitter, a rear diffuser, a sealed underbody and a through-vehicle venture tunnel that provides 300 lbs. of downforce at 130 mph. The shape is also one of the most aerodynamic production cars ever. Bored yet? Me too. Suffice to say, the GT handles better than your car, pulling 1.00 G on the skidpad in either direction with ease.

Forget the history and the looks and the significance for a moment. What most impresses me about the Ford GT – and what I most want to impress upon you as you weigh your vote – it the sucker's performance. Like very few cars in the world, the GT's actual numbers are much better than those the factory advertised. For their part, Ford claimed a zero-to-60 mph dash of just under four seconds and a top speed of about 200 mph. Awesome numbers, no doubt. But guess what? Car & Driver knocked off 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and top speed is in the neighborhood of 212 mph. Just as incredible is the GT's quarter-mile time of 11.6 seconds at 128 mph. For some perspective on these numbers, the Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale reached 60 mph in four seconds and ran the quarter-mile in 12.4 seconds at 113 mph. And the Stradale's top speed is a mere 186 mph. And don't think that because the 360 is last year's Ferrari that the GT is currently outclassed. F430s get to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds and run the quarter in 12 flat at 120 mph.

Ford GT Heritage Edition

This level of performance is even more impressive, when combined with the low weight and über-stiff chassis. How impressive? Octane magazine ran a Ford GT around the 'Ring in 7:42. That is fast — world-beating fast. Everybody's favorite American supercar, the C6 Z06 is 300-pounds lighter and one second slower. The ten-times more expensive Veyron bests the GT by just two seconds, as does the McMerc SLR. Part of the explanation for these freaky good numbers is that the GT does not make its advertised 550 hp and 500 lbs. ft. of torque. No, the GT makes much more than that. Just as the Shelby GT500 comes from the factory with its gumption underrated, the GT makes its advertised numbers at the wheels! Actual horsepower is likely in the 615- 630 range. Dang.

Ford initially planned a run of 4,500 GTs. But, as the company was (and is) hemorrhaging billions of dollars per quarter, production of the GT totaled just 4,068 cars, while the Wixom plant that built it (and the Lincoln LS and the Thunderbird) will be shuttering its doors in a week (May 31, 2007). Despite the sad ending, there is no doubt in my mind that the GT is the greatest car Ford has ever built. Even better than the RS200, Davey. In fact, the only argument I can think of against its inclusion in the Fantasy Garage is that it is not the original GT40. But I'm claiming that the new car is better.

First of all, the OG GT40s are twitchy, stinky racecars, whereas the GT has AC and power windows. True, there was a street version of the GT40 you could buy (the Mk. III) but it was ugly and slow. Second, the successor GT is much faster than the originals ever were. And, in keeping with the spirit of the GT40s, the modern Ford supercar smacked the teeth out of the competition from Ferrari. Oh, and just to pad your votes a bit, Jeff Zwart, who has an unfortunate last name directed the Super Bowl ad, claims that the GT not only outran the helicopter that was filming it, but that the spot was the first time he didn't have to speed up the film to make the car in question look good. I trust you will do the right thing. – Jonny Lieberman

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[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. Sometimes. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our Fantasy Farage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. Would you like to nominate a car for the Fantasy Garage? Write tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "Fantasy."]

The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage, So Far:
· RUF RT12
· Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT
· 1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage
· Honda 1300 Coupe 9
· 1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe
· Ferrari 288 GTO
· Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
· 1970 Buick GSX 455
· First Generation BMW M Coupe
· Bugatti Veyron 16.4

Related:
Bugatti Veyron 16.4; Edo Competition Ford GT [Internal]