GEORGE CONSTANTINESCU—SCIENTIST, ENGINEER, INVENTOR, AUTOMAKER PART 2
WHEN WE left Romanian-British polymath George Constantinescu, in yesterday’s SimanaitisSays, he had already received plaudits for designing the C.C. synchronization gear used on allied fighter planes in World War I. … Continue reading
OPERATIC CARS PART 2
WHO WOULD have guessed the closeness of automobiles and opera? We move from yesterday’s Wagner Ring Cycle links to those involving Verdi, Gounod, Berg, and back to Wagner again. A … Continue reading
OPERATIC CARS PART 1
I’M LISTENING to Richard Wagner’s Siegfried, the third opera of his epic Ring Cycle. Early on, in Scene 2, the Wanderer (actually top god Wotan in disguise) tells an interminable … Continue reading
THE KURTIS SPORTS CAR
THE TRUISM “racing improves the breed” was more than justified by Frank Kurtis and his sports cars. Indeed, Frank first displayed his expertise fabricating bodies for race cars in the … Continue reading
AN OCTAGONAL MOVIE STAR
TO CAR enthusiasts, the name MG conjures up an image of a classic two-seat English roadster. The MG TC was the sports car that American servicemen brought home after World … Continue reading
WHAT WOULD $5300 BUY AN AUTO ENTHUSIAST IN 1953?
IN ITALIAN sports cars, $5300 would buy a 1953 Bertone-bodied 208 S Siata, as in Societa Italiana Auto Trasformazioni Accessorri. And, as R&T wrote in November, 1953, a “Sensational New … Continue reading
SPORTS CAR RACING—THANKS TO UNCLE SAM
U.S. AIR FORCE General Curtis E. LeMay was a sports car enthusiast, as well as the inspiration for the deranged General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Dr. Strangelove … Continue reading
ELEMENTAL RACE CARS
FOR BETTER or worse, race cars today are replete with aerospace engineering. But it wasn’t always this way. Immediately after World War II, British motor enthusiasts wanted to race cars—surely … Continue reading
“AN AMERICAN CAR WITH THE EUROPEAN LOOK”
R&T MAGAZINE nailed it with this headline announcing its road test of the Studebaker Commander Coupe in the September 1953 issue. Early in the road test, they wrote, “Although not … Continue reading
FERRARI 4.1 VIGNALE COUPE
“THE FABULOUS Ferrari,” R&T wrote in a September 1953 road test, “lives up to all the thousands of words which have been written about it.” This particular road test subject … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 