more less-is-more, plus various-

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

The word-picture which Nick Koleszar draws of the Kei Jidosha class of vehicle
in Japan - one circa 660cc, 4wd, 5 valve per cylinder, turbocharged truck-car
of mini-scale, another which a Finnish rally driver would rate as the most fun
he had ever driven, sounds like a totally different take on the possibilities
of a "Sport Utility Vehicle" - particularly given what Honda has shown it can
do with small engines. It wouldn't satisfy the urges which fill our grocery
parking lots with Expeditions and Excursions, but it is nice to know there
were such things.

George Graves and I continued a partially off-digest dialogue on the Ferrari
156 business; of course he knew about the Ferrari 156, and was just mixing
contexts from different threads, which can happen easily enough. He did not
know of a 156 V-12, which I don't either. Email exchanges unfortunately do not
always encourage a contemplative approach. It is the most frustrating thing to
me about the digest; it would often be nice to take an extra day, or week, to
reread prior contributions, check facts, and sort out thoughts before
committing a response to paper, but that world seems to be gone.

Nick is also correct that he "may have eras and models muddled" in remembering
Bandini's fatal crash at Monaco as having been in a sharknose. Bandini joined
the Ferrari team in 1962, drove a flat 12 to second at Monaco in '65, then a
2.5 liter V-6 Ferrari to second place in '66, and died in a 3 liter V12 in
1967. Road & Track used to be one of the few consumer magazines which
published an annual index, which they did from 1959 to 1990; they are neither
consistent nor as well organized as they might be, but they can be fairly
useful, and I photocopied all of them for looseleaf notebooks and a later
database. Perhaps a google search would have matched the dates and cars of
Bandini's career even more quickly, but then I would have missed the context
of what the magazine, the cars, drivers, events, and writers of the period
were; nothing takes the place of Henry Manney, or of any of the rest of it,
for me. If that makes me obsolete as a hardcopy person in a cyberworld, so be
it.

Four of the core books in my non-Alfa car library are the two volumes of
Laurence Pomeroy's "The Grand Prix Car", L.J.K.Setright's "The Grand Prix Car
1954-1966" which is a serious and useful attempt to pick up where Pomeroy left
off, and Griffith Borgeson's "The Golden Age of the American Racing Car." They
are now joined by two others: Karl Ludvigssen has written "Classic Grand Prix
Cars: the Front-Engined Formula 1 Era 1906-1960" and "Classic Racing Engines",
each a bit over 200 pages and each with a very respectable index; the 'Cars'
volume has a brief but useful bibliography, the 'Engines' volume has a
glossary which a dedicated gearhead might consider superficial, but which
should be useful for many others. The 'Engines' volume treats fifty engines
one engine at a time, in chronological (and technological) sequence, and
includes the Alfa tipo B, 159, and 3-liter flat 12, along with Jano's Lancia
D-50, the Porsche-designed Cisitalia 1.5 flat 12, three Maseratis and six
Ferraris. The 'Cars' volume has a necessarily more open structure. Neither
book will be completely beyond criticism, but they both go a long way in
placing our favorite Alfa (and other Italian) topics in an international and
historic context. It is relatively easy to know a great deal about Alfa, or
Ferrari, or Porsche, or any other topic, without having a clue about the
contexts. If you are not already familiar with them these two may be worth a
look.

Enjoy,

John H.
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