Ferrari cars are downright expensive, may it be brand new or vintage, and the price is astronomical.  This year, the most expensive car ever sold at an auction was a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder previously owned by actor James Coburn.  Last May, it was sold at US$10,894,400.00 at the Ferrari Leggenda e Passione Auction held at Maranello, Italy.

The making of this legendary car was a collaboration by the very best there is in the industry of automobile making: Pininfarina, Scaglietti and Ferrari.

This 1961 Ferrari has a chassis number 2377 GT and is included on the limited edition of only 56 which were built during that time.  The car was finished in March of 1961 then was sold to Fredy Damman in Brussels then in 1964, actor James Coburn bought it after filming the movie Great Escape and from then on would continue buying more Ferraris because he said that a ”Ferrari cures boredom.”

Photo Credit: RM

From 1927-1957, an famed race ran from Brescia to Rome, and back to Brescia. This well known Italian race was known as the Mille Miglia.

To commemorate the race, Bella Farrow, 93 years old,  chaired the California Mille which was held on top of Nob Hill, outside the Fairmont Hotel.

Photo by Jason Steinberg © 2008

77 drivers are participating this year, more than for any other year. The actual race was held on Monday, and took off from Nob Hill. A raffle was also held for the Fairmont Hotels worldwide. The tickets were $5 each.

The event was meant as a fundraiser to keep the nearby park clean. Among other entrants to the race, are 15 Jaguars, 11 Alfa Romeos, and 9 Mercedez Benz’s. The oldest vehicle is a 1926 Bentley. The California Mille waived off with the Italian Flag at 9:00 am precisely. The route was 1000 miles.

After an event filled 4 day race, the Mille will drive towards a secret destination. Organizer Martin Swig said that they would be the first guests at a new lodge, with stunning views, and world class accommodation.

The Fairmont Hotel, Blancpain Watches, Lodi Wine growers, British Motors Jaguar, and KSFO AM Radio are some of the sponsors.

“Ferrari: legend and passion” Auction will be held this year from the 16th to the 18th of May 2008 at the Ferrari  Spa in Italy. It is held to be the most important auction for classic car lovers.

RM Auctions, in association with Sotheby’s, will be hosting their second historic Ferrari: Leggenda e Passione event. “Our upcoming Ferrari Leggenda e Passione auction is set to be a truly historic and international event, highlighting over 50 years of Ferrari history,” said Max Girardo, Managing Director of RM’s European Operations.

1971 Ferrari GTS/4 Daytona Spyder

The auction in May will auction off some of the greatest cars in Ferrari past that have made history. Among others, will be the 212 Inter Coupè Pininfarina, a car manufactured in 1951 and used for many years by the director Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman wife .

There will also be the Ghia Coupè America 340, only 340 of which were manufactured. In addition, the Ferrari Francorchamps Collection will be auctioned, consisting of over 120 items belongin to the former Ferrari Race car driver Jacques Swaters.

“After building one of the world’s finest Ferrari memorabilia collections, we are honored Mr. Swaters has obtained the services of RM to present his magnificent collection at auction,” says Max Girardo, Managing Director of RM’s European Operations.

To participate in the event, one must purchase an official auction catalog available for €70. You can visit The Website for more information.

t’s a fine example, of a technology growing out of classic cars, that rises up to help us in a strictly modern age crisis. The company called Global Emissions Systems Inc. (GESI) of Whitby, Ont. grew out of a need to make classic cars from the early 1960s more emission friendly, down to the standards of this day.

Eric Latino’s company has a division called Redline Performance which restores and rebuilds these cars. To solve the emission problem, he worked with Ron Krentz who is an industrial chemist having done some work in chemical plants with regard to controlling emissions.

Naturally, John Morand, who is the COE of GESI is recalcitrant about what makes his product differ from other catalytic converters, but he says that the results are far better than any others that exist.

Starting in 2001, the company began to actively market it’s products in 2007. The device comes in different sizes for different uses. The one for a vehicle meaures 15.25 cm x 20 cm. The vehicle converter can cost between $1000 and $1200.

Morand is keen to get the product into common use. To this end, he is dealing with atuutomotive companies, hoping to make it standard in production. He seems to have achieved some success with the company’s first international dealer.

What do you do when there’s not enough of a good thing to go around? You make more of them! And indeed, nothing is more true than this in the case of the Porsche 550 Spyder.

Whole companies have sprung up around this business, and have build almost exact replicas of this famous car, right upto the spaceframes from the original Porsche blueprints. Boulder Speedster, Chuck Beck Motorsports, Automotive Legends, Chamonix do Brasil, Thunder Ranch, and Vintage Spyders, are some of the comanies that do this. Other cars that are reproduced extensively, are the Shelby Cobra and Lotus Seven.

So why is this car so much replicated? One look at the picture, and you will know. Simply put, it’s gorgeous! It was created by Walter Glöckler in 1951. Notice how low to the ground it is. That’s because it was designed to be efficient for racing, lowering the centre of Gravity. Hans Herrmann, the famous F1 racer, has riden it under a closed railroad crossing gate.

It also most well known, as the car in which James Dean died. Known as the Spyder or RS, it gave Porsche it’s first overall win at the 1956 Targa Florio.

Prof. Dr. Ing h.c. Ferdinand Porsche was one of the most brilliant Austrian automotive Engineers. He received an award in 1937 by Adolf Hitler for his work on German Tank Designs, with the German National Prize for Art and Science. This award was hardly ever given out in the Third Reich.

But some say his greatest contribution was the Mercedez - Benz SSK. ‘SSK’ was short for ‘Super Sport Kurz’. Kurz means ’short’. This was a reference to the fact that it was based on the earlier Mercedez-Benz SS, but was 19 inches shorter to make it more suitable for racing.

1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK “Count Trossi”

Manufactured from 1928 to 1932, it was one of the most impressive, and respected sports car of it’s generation. It could achieve a top speed of 190 kmph, and had won several competitions. It was one  of the nominees in the penultimate round of voting by the public on the Internet in 1999.

Less than 40 cars were made, of which, half were sold as racing cars. It’s list of won races was long, and included the 1929 500 Miles of Argentina, the 1929 and 1930 Cordoba Grands Prix, the 1931 Argentinean Grand Prix, and the 1929 British Tourish Trophy race.

Only 4 or five original cars remain, and therefore, are extremely sought after. In 2004, a 1929 model was auctioned for US$ 7.4 Million, taking it to the second highest automobile ever sold.

Designed by Jean Bugatti, son of the founder Ettore Bugatti, the Type 57 was built from 1934 to 1940. It was an entirely new design from the company that, while it lasted, was notable for it’s advanced technology in building cars, epitomized by it’s success in early Grand Prix motor racing.

1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic

The car was built in two flavors - The original Type 57, and the lowered Type 57, which required significant work, and had a near independent suspension in front.. The lowered Type 57 is one of the most well known Bugatti cars. Jean Bugatti died while driving a lowered Type 57S, while trying to avoid a bicycle, after winning the ‘Le Mans’ race in 1939.

There was a special type of lowered Type 57, called the ‘Atlantic Body’ car. It had flowing coupe lines, with a dorsal seam running from frong to back, and was based on the ‘Aerolithe’ concept car of  1935.

Only three were ever made in production using plain aluminium. Dr. Peter Williamson who won it in the 2003 Pebble Beach Car Show, and Ralph Lauren own two of them. No one knows what has happened to the third.

One wonders whether to look at it’s curves, or to admire it’s performance. Either way, it’s a stunning sight. The Ferrari 250 GT is widely considered to be the greatest Ferrari of all time.

In the 1960s, ‘Sports Car International’ named the 250 GT as one of the eight top sports cars of all time. ‘250′ denotes the displacement in cubic centimetres, of each cylinder in the engine. The groovy curves of the car were designed by Bizzarini and Scaglietti. Unlike other cars, no single individual or company can take the major part of the responsibility for this beast.

The Ferrari 250 GT

Phil Hill who was world driving champion at the time, first drove it in 12 Hours of Sebring in 1962. It was so impressive, that it won the World Manufacturer’s Championship for three consecutive years from 1962-1964.

Only 36 cars were produced, and this allowed Ferrari to be selective about who the owners could be. If one was lucky, he could purchase the Ferrari for $18,000 in 1960. In 1988, a Ferrari 250 GT, was sold for $2 million, and was still an excellent investment. The last 250 GT, was sold at the World Classic Auctions in Las Vegas in 1991 for $5.5 Million! In the new Millenium, the price of this beauty is still very high.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone thinking evil of this gorgeous car. One look at it’s lines and shape, and you want to eat it and posess it.

However, the Mercedes-Benz 300SL, also called the ‘Widowmaker’, has the sinister repuation of being one of the most deadly cars in history, owning the number of Male Drivers who died crashing it.

Introduced in the New Yord Auto show in 1954, it is most well know for it’s butterfly doors or gullwing doors, as well as it’s being the first gasoline powered car, whose fuel was injected directly into the combustion chamber. The 300 in it’s name, stands of the engine displacement, which in this case, was 3 liters.

Since it was orginally designed solely for racing, the tubular shape was a necessity given that it needed to be as light as possible. In 1924, it won overall in the 24 hour of Le Mans. It was able to do this primarily because of the low weight, and low aerodynamic drag. It was responsible for changing the company’s image in America, which till that time had been looked at as manufacturing stable, but plain looking cars.

Nowadays, the 300SL is one of the most sought after Mercedez-Benz models of all time. In can easily fetch over US$400,000. This one is sure to set your pulse racing.

Several Antique Australian cars that were icons in their own right will now never be seen by the public again. The Fremantly Museum which housed the car used to set the land speed record of 802.6 kmh in 1994 by Rosco McGlashan is going to close down to make way for retail and office space.

It’s another example of commercialisation, as Mr. Peter Briggs claimed the Fremantle Ports went back on a verbal agreement, to either allow the museum to stay, or to move into a new shed after the short term lease expired. Mr. Briggs also claims that the car museum has been used to prop up the ‘Struggling Maritime Museum’

Other notable cars in the museum include the first car used by a woman in the Bathurst 1000. Chris Leatt-Hayter, who is the Chief Executive of Fremantle ports says that it was always understood that the lease was for upto three years only.

However, Arts and Culture Minister Sheila McHale says that the government has been trying to find a replacement venue for Mr. Briggs, but he has rejected all of them including the the Midland Railway workshops and Whiteman Park.

Today, at 5 pm, the Museum will shut it’s doors for the last time.