Amelia Island Concours will Celebrate Sergio Scaglietti March 5-8, 2020
Jacksonville, Fla. – The cars of Sergio Scaglietti will be featured at the Amelia Island Concours 2020, scheduled for March 5-8 in Amelia Island, Florida. The 25th annual event will celebrate Scaglietti’s renowned cars on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Scaglietti’s bodies were usually found on racing cars. Racing was Ferrari’s passion during the 1950s and sixties. The most famous racer hammered to life by Scaglietti’s artisans was the 1962 update of Ferrari’s renowned 250 GT. At first it was named the “250 GT Comp/62 Berlinetta”, an ungainly yet accurate handle for the car that became known as the 250 GTO.
Ferrari even gave Scaglietti its commercial identity linking it to his hometown. Early in their relationship Ferrari produced a design of a new Scaglietti insignia that would adorn every Ferrari Mondial body: a vertical rectangle, yellow background wearing a stylized “S” above a blue field announcing “SCAGLIETTI & C. MODENA.” It seemed a blood relation of Ferrari’s own cavallino rampante insignia.
Scaglietti never did a drawing or even a sketch, reverting to his pre-war practice of erecting a lattice of metal tubes to determine the shape over which he hammered the metal panels. The din inside Scaglietti & C. must have been earsplitting.
The shapes Scaglietti created were often glamourous. Scaglietti’s silhouettes gave immortal form to the Ferrari legend with the 500 Mondial, 118/121 LM, 500 TR, 500 TRC, 625 LM, 250 TDF, 290 MM, the 315 and 335 S, 375MM, the iconic pontoon-fendered Testa Rossa — Scaglietti’s favorite — and the 250 GT California during the Modena carrozzeria’s opening rounds.
Scaglietti often built bodies to the designs of others. He even re-bodied a trio of Corvettes for American Chevy dealer Gary Laughlin in 1959. Jim Hall and Carroll Shelby each got one.
Scaglietti’s relationship with Ferrari’s son Dino Ferrari made him a de facto member of the Ferrari family. The bond was forged when Dino and Scaglietti fashioned headrests for a 4.5 liter V-12. Ferrari Senior was displeased with the result and told Scaglietti so in blunt language. It was originally Dino’s idea but Scaglietti took the blame and removed the headrests. Son confronted father. Dino asked his father what had happened to his headrests. The headrests were restored. For the rest of the era nearly every Ferrari sports/racer wore headrests.
At the end of Ferrari’s life Sergio Scaglietti became a daily presence in his routine. They would share old times and often a glass of Dom Perignon, Ferrari’s preferred Champagne. On August 13, 1988 Scaglietti spent most of the night with his old friend. When his phone rang the next morning Scaglietti was told of Ferrari’s passing, even before word reached second son Piero Lardi Ferrari.
Ferrari honored the special relationship between Scaglietti and Ferrari — the companies and the men — in 2004. Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo named the new Ferrari 612 2+2 after Sergio Scaglietti, a unique honor.
“He had a refined sense of proportion. Scaglietti’s bodies look like Ferrari’s engines sound,” said Bill Warner, founder and Chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. “They’re the kind of voluptuous shapes boys are trying to draw when they sketch racing cars during study hall … instead of doing their homework.”
About The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance
THE AMELIA is held March 5-8, 2020 at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island and The Golf Club of Amelia Island. The show’s Foundation has donated over $3.5 million to Community Hospice & Palliative Care, Spina Bifida of Jacksonville and other local and national charities since 1996. To learn more about the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, visit www.ameliaconcours.org .
The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance| 904-636-0027 | E-mail | Website
[Source: Amelia Island Concours]
Historic Festival 37
Norwalk CT – America’s first mass-produced 300-horsepower car was the legendary 1955 Chrysler C-300 coupe, which many consider America’s first high-performance auto for the general public. Only the limited-production, custom-body 1930s Duesenberg, built for the very wealthy, had provided such power. It’s difficult today to realize what a sensation a 300-horsepower auto was in 1955.
At $4,110, the new 300 was the second most costly Chrysler brand auto. Only the big $4,209 Town & Country station wagon cost more. The price, alone, signaled that this was no car for kids. It was a hot rod luxury model for generally older affluent folks who liked fast cars. Veteran national auto writer Tom McCahill said the new 300 was a “hardboiled, magnificent piece of semi-competition transportation, built for the real automotive connoisseur.”
Anyone interested in showing a car at the Father’s Day Car Show may pre-register online at the
Subaru’s first vehicles were sold in America 50 years ago, but you could say the brand really just arrived here in the past decade. The first car – the Subaru 360 – was small and plain, a far cry from the automaker’s current models. Their first ads conceded that “Cheap and ugly does it.” True to that first car’s name, the Japanese company sold only 332 cars in 1968.
Norwalk, Conn. – New England Auto Museum has announced that the Garavel Auto Group of Norwalk, Garavel Subaru and Garavel Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram will be the Presenting Sponsor of the 5rd Annual Father’s Day Car Show to be held Sunday June 16th from 10AM to 3PM at Mathews Park in Norwalk.
Garavel Auto Group