Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse” Part III: And Then Came the “Mouse”

Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse”

Part III: And Then Came the “Mouse”

And Then Came the “Mouse”

By 1981 or so many of my friends in the FOC were getting into this then still new activity called “vintage racing.” While the club ran a number of track day events in various locations, including the Virginia City Hillclimb and Riverside in conjunction with the Shelby Cobra Club, many members had cars which were really more suitable for race tracks than street driving, including makes other than Ferrari.

The Classic Sports Racing Group (CSRG) is one of the oldest vintage racing organizations in America. It was started in the 1960s by a group of California enthusiasts who owned old race cars and were looking for places to “exercise” them, starting with a now defunct track in Cotati. One of the founders of CSRG was David Love, an FOC member. It was thus not coincidental that the FOC members who were attracted to putting cars on track would look to CRSG, though by this time in the 70s the home track was Sears Point.

I convinced myself the Ferrari was too big, too heavy, and too expensive to fix to continue using it on FOC track days. So I began looking for a purpose-built 1950s racer which would address those concerns. Back then we were all looking at “real” race cars and not converted production models. Unless an MG or Austin Healey had significant and documented period racing history CSRG would not accept the car. But this early in the sport's development here in the US, real racers were available and relatively plentiful.

Once again I was after something “sexy.” I have always been concerned with how a car looks as much as how it performs. I just could not consider a car I thought ugly, no matter how quick it was or what history it had. I thus rejected an early Elva sports racer (which also seemed to have mechanical needs beyond my capabilities at the time) and another which was a lengthened mid-engined Formula Junior in white, which looked to me like a long refrigerator lying on its side with added wheels.

I also considered a gorgeous Alfa Romeo 1900 Super Sprint Zagato “double bubble' coupe in silver, owned by a fellow FOC member. I had already become friends with Ernie Mendicki and knew he was an expert on most of the automotive world and so approached him for his input.

Courtesy netcarshow blogpost

“Hell of a car,” he said, “but I don't think it's for you. It is very expensive to work on and has a lot of power for someone with limited experience. But I have an alternative you might consider...a Siata like mine.” 

I am not sure I knew Ernie owned a Siata at that point. I am positive I had no idea what a Siata was. But I then took note of Bob Graham's pure blue one (ST420) as well as Ernie's red car (ST428). They sure were pretty...and they sure were tiny!

Ernie taught me about the car. He said they were rare, exotic, all aluminum, nicknamed the “Baby Barchetta” for their resemblance to that early Ferrari body style, made all the right sounds and feel, and were inexpensive to buy and repair. He even let me pilot his for a short drive on his street and went so far as to push it so I could “bump start” it when it turned out the battery was flat.

The acceleration did make my head snap back, and the growl of the exhaust and feel of the car was indeed exhilarating. I was pretty impressed...and of course Ernie just happened to know where there was a partially restored one nearby and for sale. 

I don't even recall seeing the car at Dick McGovern's place, but I guess I must have. I later got two photos taken in Ernie's shop when he first got the car. Here is one of them:

Original Braje unfinned cam cover
Sorry state but all there
In bare metal including interior but all panes and upholstery usable as patterns

I never knew nor asked about the exact arrangement whereby that occurred, but he had acquired it from Chris Leydon in Pennsylvania, where except for an alleged stint in Europe sometime after its racing history ended, it had always been in residence. Chris in turn got it from Eugene Aucott as attested to by the Pennsylvania title Chris signed over to Ernie. Otto Linton said he was unaware Gene had ever owned the car, but clearly he had.

Chris also provided a packet of photos with the car...one print showing it from the front next to another almost identical car, and a contact sheet made from 35mm negatives with shots of the car looking unbelievably ugly with a huge convertible top and front and rear bumpers looking exactly like iron head and footboards from an old bed. At the time and for decades after neither I nor Ernie knew where and when either of these were taken, though I could identify my car in the front end photo, and knew the car next to it was Henry Wessels ST403.

Some 30 years on, during Mark Bean's re-restoration of 403, I learned from Otto that the front end shot had been taken behind his shop when both cars, along with 401, were delivered to their new owners. He also said this was in April, though the original bill of sales both Mark and I had on our cars had a June 1 date...Otto explained that the invoices were made out later, which was not uncommon back then.

My own examination of the contact sheet revealed the back end of a Ford pickup in the photos...and looking though the internet for photos of Ford trucks seems to confirm the shots could have been taken no earlier than about 1971. But the license plate is not readable and I do not know who owned it at that time, though I suspect it was Aucott.

Anyway, as the photo at Ernie' show, it seemed intact though scruffy when it got to California for Mike Cotsworth. Mike's mechanical abilities were both rudimentary and lackadaisical. Like me Mike just wanted to race, not wrench, and he also had ambitions for more power and glory than I thought prudent, either financially or in terms of my family situation. So the car quickly passed to Dick, who had Mike Tangney begin restoration work. 

Mike was a capable though “shade tree” worker. At the time he was racing a rarer John Tojiero special...the predecessor to the AC Ace. He redid the turtle deck which had been cut to accommodate the convertible top, and also cut off the iron bedstead bumpers, finishing the body and primering it. He also rebuilt the suspension and brakes and installed the steering. That was the car's status when Dick, who raced an AC, also lost interest and Ernie got me involved. 

Car in Peterson's Shop
Body finished and in primer
Suspension and brakes hung

And the rest, as the (modified) saying goes, “is (my) history! It was the first car and motor I “built,” as detailed elsewhere in this blog. I have been its loving custodian for 36 years and have never regretted a moment of that. It remains tiny, fun to drive, rare and exotic, and achingly beautiful.

Loade up for delivery to me
Hard to see but I also got the plate from Dick's 57 "tow car"
"52 SIATA"

Spring of 2109
Newly Painted
Sand Rollbar
As Raced at Laguna Seca HMSA in March

Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse” Part II: The Ferrari Came Next

Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse”

Part II: The Ferrari Came Next

The Ferrari Came Next

If I marveled at owning a Porsche, these seven letters were something I never even had the nerve to do more than daydream about. I first got caught up in the mystique, like many youths, through the pages of Road & Track.This was about the same time as I discovered sports cars in general, somewhere around my transition from high school to college in the early 1960s at the age of 18 or 19. By sometime in my 21^styear I owned my first Austin Healey Sprite, a small and modestly powered and fairly crude roadster complete with side curtains and a “snap the dot” folding top. I loved the car but that did not prevent me reading about and dreaming of more powerful machinery. And by then the pinnacle of that world were the cars bearing the Prancing Horse emblem, led by the fantastic 250TR GTO. That this same basic three liter V12 motor also powered other more arguably “streetable” models such as the 250 Coupe, Cabriolet, 2+2, and Lusso only made me more certain that, given my relative lack of knowledge, “Ferrari” was synonymous with “front engined 3 liter V12.” This would blind me to any other alternative when, many years on, I actually believed I could acquire one of these magnificent beasts.

"Detuned" to 240HP
Note Plug Wires Leading to Dual Distributors
You Time it Like Two Separate Stright Sixes
Three 2 Barrel Carbs and SOHC Per Bank

In earlier posts I have reminisced about how I first got involved with Ferraris, through John Lewis and the “Ferrari Owners Club:Bay Area Region” in the early 1970s. It was people as much as the cars which brought me directly in physical contact with these wonderful machines. Bill and Judy Morton with their 330GTC, Tom and Tish Thinessen and Rob and Teresa Jones as well as Tommy and Verna Griffiths, all with 246GTs, and of course John with his own cars...the 330GTC and then the Daytona, 275GTS, and "Queen Mother" 365 GT 2+2. . Through them Sherri and I began to join in on runs to Riverside and to spectate at Monterey and other events.

It was only a matter of time before I convinced myself I really could become at least a temporary custodian for a car bearing that iconic “Cavallino Rampante.” This was not totally delusional as by then I had been somewhat “educated' regarding prices of 60s vintage models and while most were more than I could begin to manage there did seem to be some that were, at a stretch, almost within reach.

Of course I thought I wanted one of the sexy, two passenger models. To me the most attractive was the 275GTB, even though it used an enlargement of the iconic 3 liter V12 I wanted...but even the two cam variant was way out of my financial league. So too was the lovely and understated 250 “Lusso.”

250 GT/L "Lusso"
Note front end treatment
Duplicates that of the earlier 250 GT 2+2 Series III
Courtesy Wikipedia

That left a variety of late version 250s...the short and long wheelbase “California” cabriolets, the so-called “SWB,” as well as the standard version cab and the very conservative looking coupe. Alas these were all selling for $20,000 or more, as was the even sexier 246GTS...a car I did not seriously look at because I really did not understand nor appreciate the “Dino” badging nor the V6 powering it. This obviously also eliminated even the newer 308 series in either GT4 or GTS guise.

That pretty much left me with only one option I thought I could push the financial envelope for, though I still was not sure exactly how. 2+2 Ferraris were then, and still are, the subject of a distinct lack of respect by the snobs who cluster within parts of both the Ferrari and Porsche worlds. While much less true today than in the late 1970s these cars are still, like the 914, undervalued relative to any performance or aesthetic standard.

The 250GT Pininfarina Coupe 2+2 was no exception. In 1979 it was priced at half that of any other Ferrari of the era. And I'm sure my first reaction to the fact that affording even this “less desirable” model was mild disappointment. Like the coupe it was an outgrowth of the styling was quite mild and conservative...or at least it looked that way until you regarded it more carefully.

Taken in the Back Yoard in Jackson
Just Before I Supidly Sold It

Then you began gradually to see that the Devil really was in the details. The car was made in three series and the first two were externally almost identical and not quite as handsome, with fog lights behind the grill and three piece “bullet” taillights, as the third.

Series III Improved Taillight Configuration
And Practical Turnk Space

Though this run added chrome headlight rims where the earlier cars had “Frenched” lights with no brightwork surrounding them, it more than made up for what I thought was an unfortunate change by moving the fog lights out to the fenders...in what became commonly called the “Lusso” front end when that car appeared a year later. The taillights were changed to what I still feel was a much better looking and integrated look with single piece units, even though these were identical to and likely sourced from Fiat models. The series fortunately retained the inset rear window, a sensation when it appeared in 1961.

Once I had the car I learned more about it. It was nicknamed, though never called that by the factory, the “GTE” though no one is positive why. The most likely explanation is that the chassis, which I believe was numbered 508, had an “E” suffix, probably to differentiate it from the 150 coupe version from which it was derived. Of course it was lengthened to accommodate the rear seats, and perhaps (too lazy to look it up) the wheelbase was also increased. Certainly the motor mounts were moved forward as was the engine, which resulted in more understeer than for other early 60s models, though this only became significant enough to be bothersome on a race track, for which the car was never intended.

In terms of handling and performance the car was beyond anything I had ever owned or, at that time, driven. This is not a light car, at 3200 pounds, yet 0-60 still came in an impressive seven seconds. But the car only seemed to get stronger and faster after that, right up to when wind resistance finally stopped it at 145...beyond or equal to almost anything around even in 1979. The four wheel disc brakes were fantastic. While easy to modulate from the most gentle touch to full on threshold stops, the car would haul down from any speed in an absolute straight line. No car I've owned was as good, to this day.

I managed to secure Road & Track reprints of many 1960s Ferraris including the 2+2, and unlike the 914, they were very complimentary about it. In fact, it became Ferrari's largest production run to date, with 954 cars being built across the three series from 1961 to 1963. This large run was, at least until fairly recently, one of the things which held its price down.

As I grew familiar with the car I learned some more interesting tidbits about it. It was the first Ferrari to be tested in a wind tunnel. The first prototype was revealed at LeMans, where it was used as a Marshall's car. It was the only Ferrari Enzo ever owned and drove. It is one of the models whose painting adorned the walls of the factory showroom (I would kill to own that, but I do have a picture of it in a magazine Ferrari once sent to all owners called “Rosso”). And I found out the next car behind it on the assembly line was one of those fantastic 250GTOs.

Quite Comfotable in Front

Not So Much In Back
That's All the Leg Room There Is

My car was not show quality. It was mechanically sound but was far from cosmetically pristine. The paint was a bit worn and after a couple of years actually was worn partly through in a couple of places. There was rust bubbles at the bottom of the doors which also appeared during the time I owned it. The windshield had a crack at the top of the passenger side. Some of the chrome bits, while not rusted, needed redoing. In the interior the leather was in good shape but the door panels fit poorly and the stuffing and stitching of the front seats had both deteriorated and left the seats sagging. The carpeting did not fit well.

The car had electric power windows. I have only seen one other with these. The engineering was not well thought out, as it used a cable mechanism which wound off and on the same drum as the window rose or lowered and was forever coming off the drum. It seemed like I was inside those doors every couple of months.

The only mechanical weakness, at least as far as I was aware, was the exhaust system. The car had four mufflers, resonators, and tips, and I had patched the mufflers with JB Weld in so many places there was very little metal left to attach the stuff to. I did buy new tips which, oddly, I still have on the shelf in my shop.

But the biggest issue was actually structural. At some point the floor pan had rusted through, including a square cross tube. The owner once removed had fabricated a new floor out of fiberglass, but did not fix the rotted tube. Not sure how or if it affected handling.

As I looked back at these comments I realized they made the car seem scruffy...and that is not at all accurate. It's appearance was good enough that I was asked to show it at the first “Concours Italiano” as part of the “Monterey Weekend” in one of the early years of the historic races there. It is more that the car deserved more loving refreshing that I could financially justify.

My car was not originally sold in the US, but came from Italy, though I do not know the history or timing. It not only had metric gauges (and Sherri figured out quickly that 160 equaled 100MPH+ and told me to “cut it out” on a trip on Highway 1), but they were labeled in Italian.

But Dear, the Spedometer is Metric...
Yeah, but 160 = 100MPH
Cut it out!

I kept the car for 25 years and to this day regret, to a degree, having sold it. But it needed a clutch as well as the other things mentioned above, and though I would not have been “upside down” putting the money into bringing it back to where it deserved to be, that only matters when you sell, and I simply could not justify laying out a minimum of $50,000 to “put it right,” since once I did there was no way I would have parted with it. So I sold it to Bruce Trenery at Fantasy Junction. In turn it went to LA and the new custodian did a great job of restoring it.

And then, since I am on their mailing list, I got an e mail from Bruce listing a 2+2 for sale. I was stunned when I read the ad and realized it was 4217...my car...for sale at more than ten times what I sold it for.

OMG...It's "MY" Car
Someone put maybe $50K in it
And Bruce wanted $395 for it!!!

Refined from any angle

Still, I have no regrets. Though I only really drove it for the first few years I owned it, it went everywhere with the FOC including on three race tracks (Laguna, Sears, and Riverside) and I have nothing but great memories of the club events with it.

The "Lusso" Front End
Used on the 2+2 a year in 1963
The Year Before the Lusso Appeared

Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse” Part I: The 914 Came First

Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse”

Part I: The 914 Came First

The automotive giants in my life are, of course, Porsche and Ferrari. The “Little Mouse?” That is the Siata, much of whose underlying mechanical bits came from the famous 500cc Fiat called the “Topolino,” and “Topo” is Italian for “mouse” and adding a “lino” ending to a noun makes it a diminutive.

The 914 Came First

I began gravitating towards smaller, more nimble sports machinery right after high school, as I read about MG, Austin Healey, Porsche, and Ferrari in “Road and Track” and “Car and Driver”. And as I have written in earlier articles, this resulted in my move into this world first with my gold Corvair, thorugh my years with Austin Healey “Spridgets,” and finally to the 914 (“From A Blue Condor to Sports Cars...I and II” and “BRG and the Five Speed Brown Bag.” In reality, up until the initial stories about the new mid-engined Porsche appeared in late 1969 I thought those seven letters were highly unlikely to appear on anything I would be able to own.

So a Porsche priced at $3600 would get my attention no matter what else it might have promised. While that was a stretch, the next nearest model, the 911, might as well have had the price tag of a Saturn V in terms of my ability to afford it.

But it was more than that. Though to this day the term “peculiar” gets applied to the car's looks, I found it refined and handsome. I was already aware of how difficult styling a mid-engined car was, especially in terms of daily practicality and rear visibility. Once I actually knew more about this configuration I also appreciated, though I still don't know how they did it, the total absence of annoying engine noise levels in the cockpit.

The press reviews were not kind to the car. After calling it “compact but spacious” and “a well conceived machine” Car and Driver went on to say “That is the outer boundary of its excellence. The name Porsche is automatically associated with performance, mechanical refinement and quality workmanship – all assets of which the 914 is conspicuously bankrupt. It's about half the cost of a 911S – and about half as good as a 911 S.” 

Of course comparing a car priced at under $4000 with one selling for over $8000 is dirty pool, and note there is no comment about handling. Nor did I know, at that point, that detail build quality of the interior was indeed less than stellar. That would come later as both the padded tops of the door panels and the “waffle weave” dash upholstery kept peeling no matter how many times it was “repaired” under warranty and, later, by me. And it took many more years before the top began to squeak, the dash to develop a crack, and the odometer to fail. However, it also would take that same length of time to learn that the same year 911, at least in the comparable Targa body style, had all those defects and more...body rattles far beyond anything my 914 evidences, even after one major and one minor collision.

Nor did I know (or care, back then) that this was not the “weird” departure from the rear engined design Porsche snobs thought was one of the defining identifying characteristics of a “true” Porsche. I doubt I even cared that the car was build by Karmann with an engine created for VW...and was considered by all and sundry to be just that...a Volkswagen, though as it turns out much of the suspension as well as the transmission are identical with the components used in the contemporary 911 and were not VW units at all!

What I did know was that not even the only other road going mid-engined car of the day...a true exotic selling for over four times the price, came with all the features of the 914. While that car did have four wheel disc brakes and a five speed gearbox, it had neither two fully usable trunks nor a removable Tagra top which stored in one of those trunks without detracting from its usability or capacity.

From Wikipedia
The Lmborghine Miura of 1966
Believed to be the first rear-mid engined sports car

The five speed in the 914 is identical to the one used in the 911 except that it mounts behind the engine rather than in front of it, and the ring and pinion is mounted on the other side of the box (otherwise you would have five speeds in reverse and only one “wall climber” going forward). Ffth is a .71:1 overdrive this results in a (for the times) relaxed sub 2800RPM at 55 MPH while still maintaining an ability to hold that speed on an 8% grade. Fourth is .93:1 rather than being direct, which provides a lot more “grunt” for acceleration on those grades (which are typical here in the Sierra foothills) while still allowing you to maintain speeds on grades as steep as 12%. Clever...and practical. I never found myself unable to hold the speed I wanted in the mountains...and of course the superb handling meant this exceeded what most other contemporary cars could manage safely.

The biggest criticism of the car by the experts, after lack of power, was vague shifting. It is true that the early “tail shift” linkage was not exactly precise, but this may be said of any early mid-engined design. The shift rods (or cables in some, mainly much later, versions) have to run from the cockpit all the way past the engine, and connect to the box at the very rear. Particularly as bushings wear, the shifting gets less and less precise. On later cars, and in my case with a swap during the 2012-2015 “refresh” pf the car, the design was modified so the connection to the box was shorter, the so-called “side shift” modification.

Postion of the shifter on a "side shift" transmission
A "tail shifter" would have the linkage enter the box byond the top of the photo,
a linkage more than a foot longer

This helps quite a bit, but a 914 is not a car you can just “slam” from gear to gear. Given that I have always double clutched both up and down shifting in order to save the syncros this has never bothered me (and because it is so sexy and “race-driver-like” from the days when transmissions were “crash boxes”).

I couldn't even drive nor look at the car in person...the local dealers simply did not have one they could afford to leave on the showroom floor as the cars sold as quickly as they came off the boat. In fact, when I went in to plunk down my deposit at DeMaria Porsche-Audi in Coral Gables all I got in return was my name on a waiting list and a sales brochure showing, oddly as it turned out, the same white color I did not order but did wind up taking when my name came to the top of the list.

The inside of the brochure from which I ordered my car
It is now well worn after spending months pinned to my cubicle wall at work
waiting for my name to come to the top of the order list

Time has been kind to the 914. It remains the best selling car in Porsche's history, and as experience actually driving the model has spread the word that the handling is nothing short of amazing. Enthusiasts today, helped in no small measure by the internet, are much more sophisticated and better informed. They really do realize that the history of Porsche and VW have always been intertwined even to the literal level of family as well as shared parts, marketing, and engineering. In fact, without Volkswagen there is some doubt Porsche as a company would exist.

Also many now know that the first cars bearing those seven letters were actually mid and not rear engined...the first machines built in Gmund after the war, as well as the massive 12 and 16 cylinder Auto Union pre-WWII racers. The 914 shares its engineering theory with these as well as with the 904 race car, arguably one of the most beautiful cars ever built.

Most of us who now respect the model would agree with Motor Trendthat “the car is so stable, so flat in cornering, that you want to go quicker and quicker each time until you either exceed the machine's limit or your own, and usually the latter occurs first.” Or as Fred Garretson, part of one of the most famous and successful racing and performance Porsche organizations of the 60s ans 70s is quoted in “Porsche: The Classic Era” by Dennis Adler, “Garretson believes the standard four-cylinder 914 was one of the most underrated cars ever put on the road. 'Granted, it wasn't a powerhouse, but it was probably one of the best handling automobiles you could drive.” 

I had a motorcycle which would win most “stop light drag races.” And now I had a car bearing those legendary seven letters. I loved it then, and I still do...including its “peculiar” looks.

Just after finishing the 2012-2015 "Refresh"
Complete with no "hockey puck" lights, Pedrini wheels, and "Eruro" lenses

Driving in Italy Part II

Driving in Italy Part II

Driving in Italy can be...intense. You are expected to pay attention and not “zone out” as many (most?) Americans seem to do for most of their time in a car. Driving there is, as it should be everywhere, serious business and a car is a way to get from place to place with you piloting it...it is not primarily a means just to entertain you. 

And driving anywhere near Napoli steps up that intensity substantially. The southern part of the country, called the “Mezzogiorno” or “mid-day” for it's sunniness, is much poorer than Tuscany and the roads and signs are pretty neglected and derelict. It is no wonder that most Italian/Americans emigrated from this land of “little to no opportunity,” as did Sherri's Italian ancestors. On one trip I thought it would be fun to take her back to the “village” most of them came from and see if we could find any traces of them...a place called San Giuseppe sul Vesuviano”...”sul” being Italian for “on the” or “belonging to”...on the far eastern slopes of that dangerous volcano.

It is good that, by then, I had extensive experience with Italy, its roads and its drivers, as the signage was terrible, the roads broken up, and the driving so “assertive” it made Tuscans look like they were asleep at the wheel. Sherri was navigating and it seemed that, no matter which way we turned, we kept coming back to the same intersection, which had us laughing but was also frustrating.

Finally we stopped to ask directions at a gas station. A vital word to know in Italian is “dritta” for “straight” as, invariably, that is what you will likely be told in such cases. It also was a bit freaky when the attendant yelled at us to stop as we tried to pull out, but he only wanted to give us a pen as a gift...another charming trait of many Italian retailers.

While the map made it look like the area was filled with little towns separated by open land, the reality was that we were pretty much in what had become suburban Naples. The traffic was...chaotic. At one point I had motorcycles and scooters alongside and passing me , in my lane, on both sides of the car, in both directions. If I took my eyes off the car in front of me for a nanosecond somehow another car would have stuffed its way in between. And yet somehow it all just continued to flow without road rage or collisions. 

Our hotel was in a town called Nola, which after a short walk I decided stood for “Nothing Lovely At All” as it was scruffy and run down. Still, the people were as friendly as elsewhere in Italy, though I doubt they see very many Americans, and we did not hesitate to stop into a little bakery for the flaky filled pastries Sherri's family has always called “Shrividell” but is really pronounced “Sfoliatelly” though it is spelled “sfogliatelli.” 

From Pinterest
I don't care what you call it
It's delicious!

Parking at the hotel was like one of those puzzles you played with as a kid, made up of a frame with tiles you had to move around to get into a specific order. I could not enter the garage until registering and getting the combination to its gate, and the lot for this was full with cars owned by businesspeople who had just ended a lunchtime meeting inside. It was an exercise of “if you move here I can temporarily move over there so she can move back where I am now and he can get his car out.” Of course all of this with laughter, hand gestures, my bad Italian, and good humor.

That reminded me of the time I circled Todi late at night when all available spaces were filled. I kept winding up going down a very steep, straight road which took me out of the Centro Storico, whreupon I had to circle the entire town to re-enter and try my search again (yes, likely following those “Tutti le Direzione” signs...see Part I for an explanation).

Then I spotted one of the modern Fiat 500s obviously on the same quest. I guessed it might be driven by a local so I decided to follow him...right into a blind, dead end alley halfway down the hill. The driver was indeed Italian, and after getting over our laughter he directed me to help me back up into that very steep street, where I then blocked it until he could extricate his own car. I finally parked outside the city walls and got enough exercise to need a cold beer by the time I climbed back to the central piazza and our hotel.

Humor seems to permeate the driving experience all over the country. Once I needed to return a rental car to the garage in Piazzale Roma on Venice (you can drive TO Venice but not ON Venice). First I had to convince a construction worker to allow me to make a prohibited turn in order to get into the garage (not the only time I had to get permission to go “wrong way”). And then there were no spots on the first floor in the spaces reserved for rentals...I wound up taking the only space in the entire complex...on the roof! When I explained this to the agent when I turned in the keys, he simply smiled and gave the “Italian salute”...a shrug.

Then there was the time I was in total frustration trying to find my way into the Mestre parking garage. This was on yet another trip to Venice. Through my travel forum I was advised that the least expensive way to park overnight while visiting that lovely place (the garage on the island charged 30€a night) was to park on the mainland for 8€ and take the train across for another Euro each. 

But the garage was on the “other side” of the extensive rail yard from where we left the autostrada, the roads were under construction, and there were no signs indicating an alternate route to the train station. Once again I wound up on one street over and over again, circling downtown Mestre.

In frustration I saw what I at first thought was a road through a tunnel which seemed to lead where we needed, though entry to it was from the opposite direction. However, I figured our Fiat could be threaded between the stanchions alongside rather than trying to figure out how to get back to the entry.

It was only after doing this and proceeding for a hundred feet or so that I was the bicycle images stenciled on the pavement...and a cyclist waiting patiently at the other end of the tunnel.

Sherri commented that he was probably wondering “what those damned fool Americans are doing” in a bike tunnel but I asserted that, based on things I had seen such as a guy driving and parking on the sidewalk in Rome in front of a cop (who just shrugged and shook his head in resignation), it was more likely the cyclist was thinking “what are those damned fool Italians doing?”

To this day I have no idea how we finally got to the garage, as the bicycle path led us back to the same road with which we were already far too familiar. But when I asked the garage attendant for directions back to the autostrada the next day, of course the answer was “dritta..”which indeed got us there with no fuss.

My final anecdote is only funny looking back on it. Among other things it cost me over 100€ but it also could have been a major disaster. It brought home once again that, no matter how convenient and good gps software is...you cannot simply follow it blindly. A good map is always of great value. Context and knowing where you are rather than just following a blue line on a screen not only increases interest in your surroundings, it can also prevent you from driving off a cliff where the gps thinks there is a road, which in reality does not exist. 

I was looking for the Scrovigni Chapel in Padova, where we had reservations for a specific time. I did not realize it was located in what is now the heart of this rather large city, surrounded by high rise office buildings. As for the gps, it took me down a one way street towards the chapel in order to get me as close as possible. Following it blindly I missed the fact that I was illegally entering one of the restricted travel zones almost all Italian cities of any size have (ZTL zones).

ZTL Sign
Just try and pick this out while navigating city traffic amidst the clutter
From davlynmitaly blogspot

The one I missed was also monitored by cameras, but of more immediate concern was it was that the street was a dead end...though there was a top to the “T” it was a pedestrian only street, also common in Italy town centers.

So now what was I supposed to do? To turn around I had to swing into the pedestrian road and crowd, who were not at all pleased with me, and then motor back to the next crossing...going the wrong way!

And of course, halfway down that passage stood two metro cops. All I could do was lower the window and tell them “Ho perso” (I'm lost) and ask for their help exiting the area. They directed me out and did not write a citation, so I thought I was home free...until a copy of the fine notice from the city was forwarded to me six months later by the car rental agency. Though it took another six months before I got the “official” notice from the city, I did pay even though many “experts” thought the fine could safely be ignored. Not worth chancing any sort of bureaucratic confrontation in a foreign country, in my opinion.

Did I mention the area was under camera monitoring?

Driving in Italy: Part I

Driving in Italy

Of course I had heard for decades that Italian drivers were all crazy and thought they were Mario Andretti. So naturally I was intimidated. Just the fact that my Italian language skills in 2007,were either non-existent or, at best, very rudimentary and likely not up to reading road signs which are internationally consistent but not comparable to those in the US, would be enough to cause trepidation.

Our first trip to the country was on a bus tour, and I was in sensory overload and  had very little insight to what was happening on the road beside me, only having a limited view out my window, with lots of internal distraction provided by the passengers, our guide, and the people we were traveling with.

Besides, even in a place with supposedly crazy drivers, who was going to argue with a 45 foot long bus?

My first rental was not, by US standards, a big car. The Alfa Romeo 159 I needed to accommodate us plus some friends who joined us on this trip, seemed to be about the size of our G35 Infiniti. But for ancient European cities this was a big vehicle, adding to my concerns. And this was not exactly assuaged by the challenge of getting out of the Rome airport parking garage.

Six speed diesel elegance
from Wikipedia

 

Best I recall the rental car parking area is on at least the fourth level of the garage. The parking spaces for the cars are, without exaggeration, perhaps a foot wider than the car at best. Getting in without dinging the doors of the cars beside ours was the first challenge. This was followed by a down ramp which was like driving on a spiral staircase...all I could see over the hood was the wall of the ramp...which was yet another exercise in keeping off something that seemed to be about six inches from the side of the Alfa.

With more than a bit of discomfort and sweat we made it out and followed what were fairly clear signs to the connector autostrada to the GRA...the huge freeway which circles metro Rome and connects to the main N-S route to Florence in the North and Naples in the South...the A1.

My first surprise was a reassuring one. There was no craziness on this multi-lane highway, and within a few miles I was almost as relaxed and confident as I would be driving at home...except for trying to decipher the signs and figure out which lane I needed to be in.

Typical Autostrada Direction Sign
What about Roma West?
If the GRA goes to Firenze and Napoli why does the right sign indicate Napoli?
What does the blue "Rieti" indicate?
No clue

I was happy for Sherri's observations and help in looking for anything on these white on green overheads which said “Firenze.” 

Traffic was fairly heavy and speeds were kept to the legal limit which, best I recall, was well below the 130kph on the A1, for which I was grateful. I did not relish the idea of 80+ while adjusting to the driving culture and looking for where I needed to be at the same time. The Italian Auto Club atlas we had was a big help as it had schematics of all the autostrade in the country with mileage markers, exits, and service plazas graphically represented so we could tell where we were, where the next exit was, and where we needed to be.

Section of A1 Autostrada Schematic
Atlante (Atlas) Stradale d'Italia (Centro)
Touring Club Italiano

We easily made the merge into the A1 itself, annoyed only by an overly aggressive move by an Audi...something I gradually learned to expect as the norm for many people who own them. Though the reason is unknown I began to suspect these folks had some sort of inferiority complex and had to “prove” they were as good and as fast as, say, a Mercedes. In the words from a recent movie: “Four zeros in the grill and another behind the wheel.” Nasty but, at least in this case, true.

Driving on the A1 was even more pleasant. Once out of metro Rome the road had only two lanes in each direction, but virtually no one clogged up the left lane. It was easy to observe that protocol and courtesy demanded driving in the right lane until you came up to pass a slower moving vehicle. At which point you signal, move over the left, accelerate til well past, and then move back to the right. There were exceptions...usually a car moving much faster than the legal 130 (a bit over 80MPH) and flashing its lights as it roared past at well over this pace...not surprisingly, more often than not...an Audi.

Our late arrival in Rome made it unwise to go straight to Montepulciano but instead we stayed at some halfway point overnight... Spoleto. Everything on the A1 went fine, even stopping for a meal at one of the best “fast food” places on any limited access road I have driven...Autogrill, where “fast food” could and did mean fresh pasta cooked on the spot, along with very tasty side dishes and salads, and clean rest rooms.

Then things got a bit more tense, as we departed the autostrada for a provincial or regional two lane. Again, I have to say, nothing “crazy” happened, but I was concerned that might be because we were trapped behind some slow moving commercial trucks, as was everyone else, so perhaps this was keeping the anticipated lunacy down?

I stopped on the outskirts of Spoleto to see if I could get directions to our hotel. But I was too shy to try Italian and the folks in the station spoke no English so...on into town I trundled. And here things got much more “dry mouth dicey”.

Spoleto
From bedandbreakfast.it

The hotel was in the center of the city...in every Italian town I know of the direction signs for this area show a sort of bullseye symbol and either “Centro” or “Centro Storico” (historic center). You can see this in the earlier picture on the righthand sign on the Autostrada. Many towns also have some manner of ring road which allows you to skirt the town without actually driving into it...for good reason. Most are hundreds if not thousands of years old, and the streets in the central area were designed for a horse or small buggy, not modern autos. They are always narrow...never more than the width of perhaps a single freeway lane in the US, often steep, and always with no sidewalks and buildings which come right to the edge of them, often blocking view for more than a couple of dozen feet. 

So naturally I wound up on a One Way “Mirror Scraper” which was perhaps two feet wider than the car at best...facing what I could clearly see looked like a building at the end of the street.Things were so closed in that a way out was not obvious. There was no place to pull off the street until we came to a tiny gravel parking lot, perhaps big enough for three cars but occupied by four or more, attached to what looked like a small hotel. Since there was no room to park without blocking the other cars all I could do was send Sherri in to ask for directions. She came back out, said no one inside spoke English but with hand signs made it clear we could only continue in the direction we were headed.

My photo of a "Mirror Scraping" Street in Spoleto
Ending at a "T" with similar buildings on the cross street
After dark no less

When we got to the T at the end there was indeed a cross street, but it was clear to me that I could not turn into it in a single move, nor could I see around the buildings to determine if anyone was driving down it. I have learned since to be confident that anyone coming down a street in that kind of situation is savvy enough to be doing only about 10MPH and will also be alert and aware enough to be on the lookout for cars hidden by buildings at the crossings. But without that later learning, all I could do was make Sherri get out and stand in the cross street to (hopefully) halt oncoming cars while I executed a three point left...the only possible way the Alfa could make the turn.

Needless to say, once I found our hotel and its pocket sized garage we left the car there and walked everywhere until ready to leave town...after I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and stopped shaking, that is.

It was a relief to get back on even a country two lane compared to the “alley no lanes” in the center of one of these old towns. That feeling persisted until entry into Montepulciano, when the “Dry Mouth Blues” set in again, partly augmented by the fact that our landlord's instructions were not updated to note that the gas station he told us to turn at had gone defunct and was now nothing more than a commercial storage building with no sign of its previous life.

I quickly observed that there were indeed driving patterns which were characteristic of Italy, and by watching carefully I found they were anything but crazy and, in fact, constituted the most rational and competent I have experienced other than on a race track. But I think it is their very rapid decisiveness which unnerves Americans. I quickly learned that Italians will “telegraph” quite clearly what their intentions are, and then act on those intentions just as quickly. If their eyes indicate they are going to turn, a fraction of a second later they indeed will, and they expect you to react and let them. You never have to wonder what exactly they are thinking or are gong to do.

This is especially noticeable at the numerous roundabouts that I find so much more efficient than traffic signals and stop signs, and which most Americans find so terrifying. You simply watch the driver's eyes and you will know what they intend. They are not crazy or stupid and they assume neither are you. Dangerous in the US but it works all over Italy, including the chaos of Naples.

Italians will sometimes literally “step over the lines,” though. It is not totally uncommon for someone coming towards you on a two lane country road to, in violation of the rule, cut out to pass a slower vehicle over a solid white line, with too little space and time to make the pass safely without cooperation from both the vehicle being passed and you. The only safe solution does not include cursing or screaming, which simply wastes time. You ease as far towards the shoulder as possible, the passed vehicle does the same, and the passer simply straddles the white line and goes between the two of you. While a bit shocking the first couple of times it does show a trust in people we are not used to here...it also helps that Italians, unlike Americans, know exactly, to the millimeter, how wide their vehicles are and where they end.

I have much more experience now with somewhere around nine months and several thousand miles of driving all over Italy, from Puglia to the Veneto, from the Piemonte to the suburbs of Napoli and the Amalfi Coast. I also have spent much time in major urban cities including Rome, just observing, and have even driven through Florence. In all that time I have only seen evidence of four accidents. Two were minor fender benders at the same blind and acute angled blind intersection in Montepulciano. One was a wrecked big rig in a rest stop along the A1 Autostrada which had not yet been towed away, and the fourth was a downed motorcycle in the Piazza Venezia roundabout, 

Typical chaos in Piazza Venezia
From doovi.com

one of the busiest in Europe. I also recently learned that the fatality rate per 100,000 population in Italy is half that of the US, where I can't go from Jackson to Redwood City, a distance of 135 miles, without seeing at least one crash on our much better roads and freeways.

Speaking of Piazza Venezia, Sherri and I once had to cross it after dark to get to a restaurant which was a long walk further along Corso Vittorio Emanuelle. I took her hand and warned her to not look right or left or to pull back as I made eye contact with drivers about four cars back and stepped into the melee with determination as we waded through buses, trucks, other pedestrians, and motorcycles. As I said, Italians expect and respect firm decisions and clearly telegraphed intentions and we made it through in a total “non event.”

In all that driving in Italy (France too, by the way) I have only had two “close calls” and only one of these was truly unnerving. The more minor was on one trip from the airport to the A1 when a woman in a Fiat Panda failed the “what's around me” test, decided that two cars could occupy the same place at the same time, and tried to move into my lane without looking. That was an easy one as years of racing and motorcycle riding taught me to always be aware of potential threats and escape routes from them. I simply eased over into the next lane, which I had been monitoring all along and knew was clear.

But the second could have ended in real tragedy. We were returning to Montepulciano on the road from Cortona...one of the most beautiful routes I have ever experienced, through rolling hills of plowed fields with great visibility, when an Alfa 147 came hurtling at us around a sweeping bend two feet over the center line, at a speed Michael Schumaker could not have held successfully. 

Yes, this really is a typical road in Tuscany
from sutffandthings.co.uk

The 147 is now, in slightly updated form, called the “Giulietta” as a tribute to an earlier famous Alfa model, but is not imported into the US. It is fairly small, perhaps a bit tinier than the Punto we were probably driving. Still, a head on is about the most dangerous crash imaginable, as the impact speed is the combined speed of each of the vehicles involved. 

Lovely 147 Pinterest Photo

I had about ¼ second to decide whether to throw our car into a broad slide with my door pointed at the Alfa, in the hope that at least Sherri might have a better chance of surviving what I feared would be the inevitable impact. Fortunately the Alfa driver managed to collect it and eased back into his own lane as he flashed past. With all the good things I can say about Italian drivers and driving in that country, it is indeed odd that this, one of the closest calls I have experienced, occurred there.

Italian is a very compact language. While English has well over a million words, Italians make do with only about 150,000, though something like 15 tenses and complex conjugations add considerably to the linguistic “density.” Still, you cannot simply do a word by word translation and come out with anything meaningful. Context and evaluation of the implied rather than the explicit is a must when trying to figure out what is meant in a conversation...or a road sign. And here is the perfect example, my favorite road sign ever, which you will encounter multiple times in any Italian town:

Literally this means “every” (tutti) “the” (le) “direction” (direzione)...which makes absolutely no sense at all. And the arrow adds even more confusion, since you will likely learn the hard way that it does not mean “One Way.” That sign, by the way, is another exercise in not taking it literally, as the wording is “Senso Unico”, where among its multiple meanings “senso” means “direction” and “unico” would mean “single.”

But with “tutti le direzione,” if you only expect cars to be coming from the “tail” of the arrow you might be in for a very unpleasant surprise when you get hit by a car coming the opposite way. This sign has nothing to do with direction limitation. It simply means to can get everywhere in the area, including a way out of town, by following these signs. It means the route will take you “in every direction.”

As will my next post, Part II of Driving in Italy