Petrolicious

For some, the dedication and passion invested into their vintage car approaches fanatical levels, much like those who push their limits in the ocean. Whether racing from Molokai to Oahu or paddle-boarding for miles and miles off California's coast, being in the ocean can become an obsession. For Mr. Casey Annis, Vintage Racecar editor, his 1962 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider Veloce 1600 allows him to bridge the gap between his two pastimes—classic cars and the ocean.

Had the James Bond series been set in Italy, this would be his car. Instead, this Lancia Flaminia Super Sport Zagato belongs to Mr. Robert Giaimo and is simply about style. Simply being the operative word because the shape is so pure and unadorned. The Lancia was blessed with taut lines, classic proportions, and is mercifully devoid of any extraneous details.

Yesterday, we asked you which Japanese cars helped improve Americans’ opinions. But perhaps it wasn’t the cars as much as the people who bought them. At the young age of fourteen, Mr. Christopher Hoffman helped convince his mother to buy a ’77 Honda Civic wagon. That was just a small, first step in what would become a life-long infatuation with Hondas.

Starting any classic car is special. There is the sensation that something distinct and superior is taking place because of the rituals observed and details you notice. On this 1956 Porsche 356A T1 Speedster for example the windscreen is removable, the seats have a thin fiberglass shell and the steering wheel is elegant and spartan. There is little concession to comfort and virtually none to safety. When new, this was the least expensive Porsche available and had a 'less is more' philosophy behind it. Indeed, the car was intended to be taken to the track and be a legitimate club-racing contender. It seems that that's precisely how this 356 spent a large portion of its early life. Raced around Connecticut, the car racked up trophies and actually won the E-Production Championship in 1963. The majority of this car's first 50,000 miles were racked up on the track. It wasn't designed to coddle. Although it only makes about 60hp, it causes an adrenaline rush as you're close to the road, the instruments, and there isn't a lot surrounding you. There's immediacy about the car. And according to the owner, Mr. Jon Warshawsky, "It feels like a racing machine." When driving on B-roads, "you feel like you should be on the track." There is an intimate mechanical interaction because the power-band is narrow; both you and the car have to agree that the next shift is appropriate otherwise there might be bogging or might over-rev the engine. The feeling that something great is happening is due to this constant dialogue between you and the car.

Mr. Bob Gough's family moved to France for a few years when he was thirteen years-old and thus he grew up idolizing European sports cars and looking down on American muscle. That was until he discovered the 1967 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S. The ‘Cuda Formula S was upgraded in-house by Plymouth with suspension and brakes, allowing it to keep pace with Europe's best.

Some people might consider Mr. Brian Bent's lifestyle extreme, an anachronism perhaps. But we have a feeling that he'd be OK with that. You see, when Brian purchased this 1927 Oakland he built the clutch pack himself. He also makes his own 1920s and '30s style surfboards and his own period-correct clothing. Brian applies "Drive Tastefully" to his entire life, making sure that all the pieces fit him.

We're all affected differently. Some people fall in love because their dad or uncle had one. Others fall in love out of necessity, constant breakdowns requiring them to work on their car. For Mr. Frank Mandarano a tour through the Maserati factory in 1971 was enough for him to be smitten. He bought his first Maserati a few years later, a red 3500GT, which promptly broke the day after he bought it.

Winston Dabbs is a product of his time. As a young man in 1970s Compton, California, he was swept up in the local enthusiasm for British sports cars, status symbols among young black men of the time. Dabbs's own entry into the world of British cars was modest -- a Bugeye Sprite which he bought from a friend for $75 -- but it sparked a passion that has stayed with him to the present day, a passion that led to a career in automotive restoration. In the late 1990s, however, that passion ebbed when the demands of business and life prompted Dabbs to park his 1955 Jaguar XK140, purchased some ten years earlier, in the back of his garage and throw a cover over it. There the car collected dust for fifteen years until one day a few years back, Dabbs decided to pull it out, dust it off, and take it for a drive in the California sun. The Jag, now fully restored, hasn't had much rest since then, and what rest it does get is thanks to the XK120 that Dabbs brought into his garage in 2012.

The average American driver puts 13,500 miles per year on their car. Mr. Scott Fisher of Las Vegas, Nevada, added that many to the odometer of his 1967 Datsun Roadster in just the first three months of a recently-completed road trip that ultimately took him to forty-eight U.S. states and seven Canadian provinces. By the time Scott pulled into his garage in Las Vegas for the first time in eight months, he had covered 37,850 miles of the North American countryside. Deciding that an extended road trip was the best way to unwind after sixteen years of business stress, Scott briefly considered a modern ride but opted instead to entrust his travels to a 46 year-old Datsun that he would come to call "The Optimist."

Mr. Glenn Roberts was born to Australian parents who spent their youth driving an eclectic mix of cars around Sydney and Hong Kong and who thus saw no reason to change their habits when they settled in Florida in the 1950s. In 1967, they special-ordered a silver Saab Sonett II from a Florida dealer and, as a result, Glenn spent his childhood riding to school not in Detroit's muscle cars of the 1960s and '70s but in a 1500-pound Swedish sports car with a 70 horsepower, two-stroke engine.

Mr. James Chen has spent his much of his life immersed in the automotive world, first as a teenager racing compact imports in the Los Angeles area and, later, as the founder and CEO of Axis Sports Tuning, where he elevates autos to their full potential. Put simply, this man knows cars and he's a favorite here at Petrolicious. We followed along as he lit up the nighttime streets of Los Angeles in his Ferrari 250 GT Lusso, and we piled into the passenger seat of his Lamborghini Countach for a ride through the hills of Orange County, California.

Rolling through the streets of Los Angeles in his 1941 Tatra T87, Mr. Paul Greenstein might as well be invisible. Other drivers speed past his Czech oddity without a second glance, seemingly oblivious to the car's dorsal fin and triple headlights. But as Paul swings the Tatra into a parking space in front of a favorite local bistro, it's as if he has brought the black teardrop to a stop in the middle of a Hollywood spotlight that immediately attracts the attention of every passerby. Here come the second glances, the puzzled questions. "What in the world is that?" "Is that a...a Citroen? A Volkswagen? An, uh....I mean, what is it?"

As a youngster pumping high-octane gasoline for local muscle car owners in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley during the 1960s, Mark Lundquist could only dream of owning a 1965 Chevrolet Malibu Super Sport (SS). As if to make up for lost time, however, Mark now has four Chevy SS cars (as well as a beastly "standard" 1968 Camaro) of varying vintages parked in a Joshua Tree, California, garage that inspires envy in every guest who drops in. And yes, this collection includes a '65 Malibu SS.

Using hyperbole to describe the 1964 Ferrari 250 GTO is unnecessary. The car speaks for itself. It is one of the last (of thirty-six) Ferrari GTOs ever built. This particular one, chassis #5571, was the first of the Series II bodies. The 3.0L V-12 produces about 300 horsepower and it completed multiple endurance races, winning its class in the Daytona Continental 2000km (this car's first race), Sebring 12 hour, and Nassau TT. The driver is Mr. Derek Hill, who won the Ferrari Challenge International Championship in 1995 and the Formula Dodge West Coast in 1996, and raced a Bugatti EB110 at Le Mans. Additionally, he has a special attachment to this car as it was his dad, Fomula One Champ Phil Hill, that raced it in Daytona and Nassau

After expressing an interest in racing, saying it "looked like fun," Mr. Jack Griffin found himself strapped to a race car contesting the 12 Hours of Sebring. Sure it was his first time sitting in a proper race car, but he had four days of training in a Nissan 280ZX at Bondurant a week or so earlier. In spite of his ample

This is the Winningest Ferrari Ever Would you care to guess what the most winning Ferrari chassis (in period) in history is? It's not an ex-Formula One car and it isn't an Indy racer. It is chassis number #0672, this 625/250 TRC. Ordered new from Ferrari in 1957 by Mr. John von Neumann, an accomplished racer in his own right, along with another 625 TRC both fitted with 2.5L ex-Le Mans four-cylinders. John's assistant was Mr. Richie Ginther, who ran John's stable of race cars and also competed along with John, effectively creating a very winning race team.

"Fine, we'll do it ourselves." If this isn't stamped somewhere on the BMW M1, it surely should be. The car was originally conceived as a joint Lamborghini-BMW project that would produce a race car with enough street units to meet homologation rules for Group 4 racing. Trouble was, Lamborghini found itself in financial straits and the fellows up in Munich were thus left to finish the M1 on their own. What resulted was a Giugiaro-designed, mid-engined marvel that ended up being the fastest production car of its time.

As a kid growing up near Detroit, Mr. Hans Abrahams was surrounded by American muscle cars. His father, however, hailed from Britain and introduced young Hans to the wonderful world of 1960s European Rally Championships. When Hans was old enough to begin buying and working on cars of his own, he quickly discovered that his car tastes had a theme. "I love the idea of a car that, basically stock off the showroom floor, was taken to the great roads of Europe and thrashed to the end of its life," says Hans of his automotive proclivities. Hans's cars now include a Canadian-built 1967 Volvo 123 GT, a 1966 Sunbeam Tiger Mark I-A, and a 1965 MG B. And when Hans cranks the ignition on these cars, you'll abandon just about every notion you have about staid Volvo family-haulers and dowdy British sports cars. It was Volvo, after all, that won back-to-back European Rally Championships in 1963 and 1964, and an MG B that carried Stirling Moss through multiple Monte Carlo Historic Rallies.

The Ferrari 312PB (officially known as the 312P, but appended with the 'B' by the media to differentiate it from the '69 312P) marked the end of an era. It was Ferrari's last new car developed specifically for sports prototype racing. In the hands of drivers like Mr. Mario Andretti it was a world-beater helping to cement his reputation. The thing is, that as great a racer as he was, other Scuderia Ferrari drivers were similarly successful with the Group 5 car. Drivers Brian Redman and Arturo Merzario each drove the car and combined to win three of the eleven races of the 1972 championship-winning season, a season that saw Ferrari win every race except the 24 Hours of Le Mans (which they sat out due to reliability questions related to the Formula One-derived twelve cylinder).

Still smarting from losing the Constructor's International Sports Prototype Championship to Ford in 1965 and 1966 -- and, in 1966, watching a trio of Ford GT40s finish 1-2-3 at Le Mans -- Enzo Ferrari turned to his chief engineer, Mauro Forghieri, with a simple instruction: win. In world then dominated by Carroll Shelby and Ford's formidable 7-liter engines, this would be no easy undertaking. What resulted from Forghieri's mandate was the 330 P4, arguably the greatest Ferrari endurance race car of all time. Based on the 330 P3 -- and almost identical cosmetically -- the 330 P4 represented a significant mechanical upgrade from anything Ferrari had run previously and, in 1967, it would return Ferrari to the pinnacle of sports prototype racing.

When Paul Cressey hits the track at Laguna Seca for the Monterey Historic races in his 1959 Peerless GT, he faces plenty of tough competition. For Paul, however, that competition is especially person, including as it does his father, Ron, who is known for running his own 1959 Corvette in the same race. When the two find themselves back at their home garage, it's thus hardly surprising that the conversation quickly turns to who ran the fastest and most consistent lap times. Paul was but a few years old when Ron, a longtime VARA racing instructor, spotted a Peerless GT atop an open transporter. That Ron even knew what he was looking at it is a testament to his car knowledge: Peerless, after all, existed for a mere three years in the late 1950s before going kaput. After persuading the owner to part with the car, Ron took the next five years to restore it -- and its Triumph TR3 internals -- to its current condition, hoping all the while that young Paul would one day race it.

As a car photographer who shoots for many of the big auction houses, Mr. Pawel Litwinski is no stranger to the world of vintage Bugattis, Ferraris, and Porsches–cars defined by their elegant lines and frightening top speeds. On any given day, Pav can be found shooting anything from a 1932 Daimler Double-Six in one corner of the United States to a Jaguar D-Type on the opposite side of the continent. If he’s at home in California, however, odds are you’ll find Pav in the seat of a ride defined by its simplicity: his 1973 Land Rover Series III.

There are certain cars that define a place and time. Cars that are so part of the culture that they helped to define it. The Mini is one of them. But why is that? Well, as Mr. Sumner Norman explains, it's because the Mini was ubiquitous–everyone bought one, be it moms shopping for groceries or international recording stars like the Beatles who recognized its universal appeal. And just like Beetles (the VWs mind you, not the boys from Liverpool) and Ford Model Ts, people began modifying Minis for racing almost as soon as they hit the marketplace. Sumner's 1971 Morris Mini was not immune to this trend as it sports the Cooper's 1275cc engine along with its disc brakes. But the Mini was never really about horsepower, it's more about the handling and according to Sumner, the bends are where the Mini really comes alive for you courtesy of its rubber cone suspension. And raising your spirits is what the Mini is really all about.

Imagine yourself in Lancia’s position in the early 1980s. Your Stratos has recently won three consecutive World Rally Championships (1974-76) but you can see the writing on the wall, writing which reads “all-wheel-drive.” How do you build on this past success and continue to be competitive in the new decade? For Lancia, the answer was the 037, which would ultimately become, in 1983, the last rear-wheel-drive car to win the WRC Manufacturers' Championship before AWD competitors like the Audi Quattro and Peugeot 205 T16 completely changed the sport forever.

In the late 1970s, Audi engineers started toying with the idea of pairing a turbocharged engine with the Volkswagen Group’s four-wheel-drive platform. The result, in 1980, was the Ur-Quattro (Ur being German for “original”), a car that would ultimately change Group B rally racing and, in time, the way sports cars were prepared. Around this time, a young Group B fanatic named Manuel Leon Minassian was growing up in Beirut, Lebanon, where his heroes were rally drivers like Hannu Mikkola, Stig Blomqvist, and a tall Bavarian named Walter Röhrl. These men were among the first to race Audi Quattros to Group B glory shortly after regulations permitting all-wheel-drive were introduced in 1979, with Mikkola and Blomqvist taking drivers’ titles in 1983 and 1984 and Audi winning constructors’ titles in 1982 and 1984. For a kid like Minassian, these men were superheroes and the Quattro a supercar.

In 1950, Mexico completed its stretch of the Pan-American Highway. To celebrate, the government organized La Carrera Panamericana, a race running south to north along the new stretch of road–and a race which quickly established itself as the most dangerous race of any kind in the world. For five years, drivers like Juan Manuel Fangio, Bobby Unser, and Felice Bonetto competed in the race until it was shut down due to safety concerns following the disastrous crash at Le Mans in 1955. Revived in 1988, today’s Carrera Panamericana is still dangerous, fast, grueling, and addictive, as driver Conrad Stevenson can attest. Stevenson got his first taste of the race in a friend’s Studebaker in 2001. After a couple more years of participating in friends’ cars, Stevenson decided it was time to build a car of his own, in this case a 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale.

When the Sunoco Ferrari 512 M first appeared at Daytona in 1971 it was a revelation. Manned by a dream team that included owner Roger Penske, chief mechanic John “Woody” Woodard, and drivers Mark Donohue and David Hobbs, the car combined Ferrari’s pedigree with Penske’s legendary attention to detail in everything from his crew’s uniforms to the polished wheels. Slated to run at Daytona, Sebring, Le Mans, and Watkins Glen, this 512 M was the odds-on favorite every time the Penske team rolled it onto the starting grid.

f you’ve ever rescued an abused animal, nursing it back to health and vicariously experiencing its suffering as the two of you build a lasting bond, then you’ll know how Gene Ondrusek feels about his 1975 Lamborghini Urraco. Ondrusek first spotted the Urraco for sale in a Dallas Morning News classified advertisement in 1987. The listing described the car as a solid runner with a mere 40,000 miles, and while the interior was, to put it mildly, in rough shape, Ondrusek figured that the market for classic Italian cars was such that he could foot the bill for a cosmetic restoration and still come out ahead. Originally intended as “the workingman’s Lamborghini,” the Urraco’s 1975 price tag of $22,500 (approximately $98,000 in 2014 dollars) meant that the cars often ended up in the hands of people who could afford to buy them but couldn't keep up with the maintenance costs of an Italian exotic. Ondrusek would soon learn this firsthand.

The only thing rarer than the sight of a Datsun 240Z in the English countryside is the sight of two 240Zs in the English countryside. Spend enough time on the backroads of Kent, however, and chances are Mel Streek and his son, Ollie, will scream past you in their pair of Z cars. Rest assured, you’ll have no trouble telling the two cars apart. The “Ratsun”–so nicknamed for its rough exterior–belongs to Mel, though after purchasing it he quickly found that he was seldom able to drive it because Ollie was always in it. This sent Ollie on a quest for a 240Z of his own, and he found it, in Copenhagen, in the form of a pristine 1973 model. This automotive odd couple can now be found barreling through the country lanes in tandem.

Start with the Lexus LFA and trace your way back through Toyota’s sports car lineage, pausing along the way to admire the Supra, the MR2, the AE86, the Celica, and the 2000GT. But don’t stop there: follow the Japanese carmaker’s family tree to the very root of its sports cars and you’ll find the Sports 800, known to its legions of fans as “Yota-hachi.” Little-known in the United States due its low export numbers, the Sports 800 is a true “hero car” in Japan, where it is one of only two cars ever to be inducted into the Japanese Automotive Hall of Fame (an institution that honors the people behind cars more than the cars themselves). The car earned this honor both for its innovative design (which owes much to engineer Tetsuo Hasegawa’s aerospace background) and for its immediate success on the race track, where it went head-to-head with Honda’s high-revving S800s in the great Japanese endurance races of the day.

As an enthusiast who has run the modern Mille Miglia five times, Carl Gustav Magnusson didn’t have to think long about which car he wanted when he began planning his sixth run. In his previous five races, each driven with a different family member by his side, Magnusson had piloted a Fiat Abarth Zagato 750 GT Corsa, a car that more than makes up for its small stature by packing a whollop of pedigree, performance, and noise. Magnusson thus went looking for, and found, his current “double bubble” which, like its predecessor, has served as a passport to the golden age of road racing. For three decades and twenty-four races, the Mille Miglia was among the most grueling races anywhere on the planet. From 1927 to 1957, racers from around the world tore across a thousand Roman miles of Northern Italy, drawing millions of spectators and making GT sports cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Maserati, and Alfa Romeo–among other marques–famous