Italy. A country of great food, great culture, and great driving. Well okay, two out of three isn’t so bad. In the five days I spent in Tuscany I fell in love with the country that gave us gelato, bolognese sauce, and of course, some of the best dream cars ever made.
For decades, the most extreme cars you could buy from Italy came from two companies: Ferrari and Lamborghini. And they’re still incredible, no doubt. But these days one upstart automaker makes cars so insane they make the old guard look like they’re cranking out economy cars. Welcome to a rally for Pagani owners.
There are faster roads. There are more famous roads. But I don’t think there are outright cooler roads than this one, the Strada della Forra, so very close to fame.
Rome, Italy is as much of a “car city” as New York- it’s a real pain to park and the roads are rough, but there are a few diehards with sweet rides crammed into back corners of cobblestone streets. Also, every little econobox from Europe looks fresh and exotic if you’re used to American traffic!
No longer are mere cities banning Uber (hi Austin!), now the entire country of Italy has banned the ride-sharing app following a court ruling that it constituted unfair competition to the country’s existing taxi associations.
There’s not much I can give in the way of context for this video. The excited announcer is commentating in Italian, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the race was in Italy. There are no races worth filming happening in Italy right now, and also it’s winter, so this grainy footage is probably old.
The lone Abarth at Tokyo Auto Salon proudly displays its Italian loyalty.
To help understand just how destructive earthquakes can be, researchers could spend years examining the aftermath. But displaced residents need to begin cleanup, and return to their homes, as soon as possible. So researchers at Brigham Young University came up with a way to preserve the destruction caused by an…
A big mean cruise ship physically crushed a sweet and fine marina of lil’ boats in Messina, Italy recently, totally sweeping it over with its propeller wash alone.
A magnitude 6.2 earthquake hit Norcia in central Italy early this morning, followed by some 40 more aftershocks over the course of three hours. The quakes affected towns throughout the Umbria, Lazio, and Marche regions. Italian wire service ANSA is currently reporting 73 dead.
Agusta Westland’s AW-609 tilt-rotor crashed in northern Italy
today, killing both pilots onboard. The crash occurred about 30 miles from the company’s airfield in Cascina Costa. The cause of the crash remains unknown at this time. The aircraft involved was the second AW-609 prototype built back in the early 2000s.
For years, there was a rumor that Volkswagen wanted to buy Alfa Romeo from Fiat after acquiring Lamborghini in 1998. That didn’t happen, but it seems like they managed to turn their Spanish brand Seat brand into something sexy enough for Italians. Even the Carabinieri.
After yesterday’s Catalina catastrophe, I began to wonder what the biggest floatplane ever built was. Not a flying boat, where the aircraft’s fuselage also serves as a monohull with pontoons providing sea-keeping stability, but literally a plane attached to floats. Then I came across the obscure Italian-built CANT…
I’m hoping you’re not getting sick of me talking about my Mille Miglia trip to Italy, because there’s still some really important stuff you need to know about: like how the port-potties at the finish line of the Mille Miglia have shifters.
Recently, I was in Italy to take part in the Mille Miglia, and, of course, I was surrounded by some of the most amazing cars I’d ever seen. That’s why it was so important for me to get out and cleanse my palate with some really awful shitboxes, and, thankfully, Rome did not disappoint.
Of course, you visit and participate in the Mille Miglia because you love cars. But there is much more to Italy than great driving roads and history—and don’t tell us you were planning on finding your meals in between fuel additives at the closest gas station.
Mille Miglia! Never two words ever sounded so daring and evocative when put together. People always seem to take a moment to pronounce them with the right amount of emphasis, just if they want to stress how important this event is. As a matter of fact, the Mille Miglia has always been a sensation, a race followed…
There’s a place in this world where cars have a holiday dedicated to them. And it’s a genuine holiday. Not the lame-ass British ‘holiday’ that’s just a jaunt to some tepid seashore, but holiday as in people stop all the normal rules of life and celebrate. The place is Italy, and the holiday is the Mille Miglia.
Before the Mille Miglia race actually begins tomorrow, the cars all have to go through a process of scrutineering, which is basically just making sure they’re actually road legal. It’s like going to the DMV. Actually, since going to the DMV is like a little jaunt to hell, the Mille Miglia is like the DMV in heaven: no…
Recently our friends at Jalopnik, specifically the talented Michael Ballaban, wrote an insightful piece on the seeming insanity of driving in Italy. Ballaban's experience as an American driving for the first time in Italy are spot on, but it did compel me to share a different perspective on Italian driving.
