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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 04:15 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 8 comment(s)
I'm sure a lot of you folks collect die-casts of varying forms and would be interested to take a quick tour of a model shop located in Maranello, Italy no? "Warm-Up" is located right across the parking lot from the Ferrari Museum, some 200 odd meters from the factory. Maranello appears to be a bit of a holy pilgrimage for hardcore Ferrari fans so it only makes sense a shop like this exists in the town. One of the first things you'll notice on walking up to the shop are these two...
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 01:43 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 22 comment(s)
Ok let's get straight in to part two of our visit to the Galleria Ferrari , with a tour of the next display area. So we start our tour with the Enzo, Ferrari's current top level supercar. What do you think of this car? Is it ultimate Ferrari supercar ever?...
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Posted
Jun 26 2009, 01:30 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 9 comment(s)
I'm sitting here working on these Ferrari Museum photos, but am finding I'm suffering from a bit of writers' block. Perhaps it's the distraction from the media wave surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, or perhaps it's the fact that by time Dino and I arrived at the Galleria Ferrari, we were both pretty frazzled by a long day of Speedhunting in the Modena area. Check the day's agenda: 07:00 breakfast in the lobby of our Bologna hotel. 08:00 depart for the Modena area....
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Posted
Jun 25 2009, 11:20 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
Forging a career as a Professional Creative-Person is not an easy manuever. You need to have several things working for you to achieve this. Firstly, you need to be able to excite people about what you do. They need to believe in your creativity so you better have some kind of skill in presenting yourself and your creative work. Secondly, you have to have a strong belief in yourself as an artist and your art, whatever that may be. You will inevitably face barren periods in your career, so you better...
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Posted
Jun 25 2009, 10:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 22 comment(s)
As someone who spends most of his time working with different types of creative people, I do enjoy getting involved with young, talented artists in order to help them get their careers going. I'm in the unique position of being to help creative people from time to time and see this as an opportunity to give back to the world and pay off some karmic debts, if that makes sense. So last month, the option came up for us to take drift film-maker Will Roegge to a FIA GT Race in Italy. I was pretty...
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Posted
Jun 24 2009, 09:40 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 18 comment(s)
The more I look at these photos, the more I'm convinced that I've never been to Italy in my life, let alone had the run of a supercar factory. It's just too good to be true isn't it? I'm sure that Dino found these photos on the internet somewhere and posted them to his FTP site for me to edit. Then I had a dream that I actually was inside these photos... but I'm sure it didn't happen in real life... So perhaps what I'll do for this story is describe the contents of...
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Posted
Jun 23 2009, 02:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 37 comment(s)
It's just over a month ago now that Dino and I parted ways in Italy to return to our respective countries. In relative terms, it wasn't that long ago, but for me it seems like a lifetime away. A lot has happened since then... So it's a bit strange now to be staring at these photos of the Pagani factory, trying to bring myself back to the immediate experience of the place....Hmmm... perhaps I didn't get enough sleep last night... blech... Anyway... let's get this story going.....
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 05:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 16 comment(s)
During our visit to the old Monza banking last month, Rod and I were met by a couple of friends of mine who were kind enough to bring their prized possessions along. Seeing Skyline GT-R's in Italy is one of those things that just doesn't happen. As far as I know there are only a handful of them, so actually seeing two BNR34s together is simply unheard of. The UK-spec Bayside Blue above belongs to Carlo, who has owned it for a few years now and has just gone tuning-crazy with it. On top of...
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Posted
Jun 15 2009, 12:15 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 25 comment(s)
I don't know about you but I find international travel can, at times, be a bit disorienting. I don't think our bodies are necessarily designed to transport themselves from one side of the globe to the other in the matter of a day or so. I find that it usually takes a little bit of time for the rest of me to catch up to wherever it is that my Speedhunting duties take me. So you can imagine with all the travel that I've been doing recently, I've started to get a little bit "ungrounded"...
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Posted
Jun 12 2009, 09:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 9 comment(s)
While we were at Adria last month for the FIA GT it wasn't only the race cars I was interested in. The car park was swarming with sports cars and this Maserati GranTurismo was one of the best around. You may notice that all the chrome detailing and badges have been painted black... ...as well as the wheels. This car is actually owned by Andrea Bertolini, the co-driver of the Number 1 Maserati MC12. Andrea's GranTurismo is decked out with the full Maserati Corse package which will be available...
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Posted
Jun 11 2009, 02:30 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 14 comment(s)
After having taken a look at the history of Lamborghini its now time to concentrate on more modern cars that have come out of Sant'Agata's factory over the last decade or so, not to mention the future of the brand. Lamborghini was heavily involved in off-shore racing, building these monster 8 and 9 L V12 marine engines. Just look at that carbon scoop that feeds the airbox! I would love to hear this thing at full rpm, those exhausts are just wild. There are some rumors that Lamborghini also...
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Posted
Jun 07 2009, 03:30 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 16 comment(s)
As you can see from the opening picture, it's at the second floor of the Lamborghini Museum where things become truly interesting. But first it's time to finish off our look at the models that helped Lamborghini shape its unmistakably unique take on sports cars. The pointy Urraco pictured here was to Lamborghini what the Dino was for Ferrari. In the early 70's Ferruccio wanted to create a more affordable sports car, and the Urraco was his vision. It was the first V8-powered car to wear...
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Posted
Jun 04 2009, 05:35 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 13 comment(s)
What better way to open this "Exotics & Luxury" themed month with a detailed view at one of Italy's most evocative manufacturers. I am of course referring to Lamborghini, a latecomer into the world of supercars with its founder Ferruccio Lamborghini producing his very first car, the 350GT above, in 1964. Lamborghini was a successful businessman who made his wealth building tractors. He quickly began enjoying sports cars of the era, including some Ferraris, one of which was a 250GT...
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Posted
Jun 03 2009, 04:31 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 25 comment(s)
While I was at the Lamborghini Museum the other week, I got rather transfixed by the Reventon... I have never, ever seen a car which works with light and surface the way this design does (those of you who've seen the Reventon in person will know what I'm talking about). So I thought I'd shoot a group of photos which allows you to experience this car in some fashion too. It's really worth a closer look. Much in the way that the original 1974 Lamborghini Countach made all previous cars...
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Posted
May 28 2009, 11:10 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 7 comment(s)
For the final installment from Adria I've prepared some of my favorite images from the night race. Within the first few laps from the rolling start the already low sun quickly set behind the horizon, and the circuit's illumination was flicked on. It didn't take long for the GT1 cars to pull away from the slightly slower GT2 class, leaving a second tightly packed group fighting fiercely for the lead. Here is the GT2 class doing their own thing... ...while Andrea was pulling away from everyone...
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Posted
May 27 2009, 02:30 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 6 comment(s)
As the sun began to set on race day at Adria the FIA GT cars started to line up on the grid. You could feel the tension in the air as the drivers were getting ready and the mechanics doing final checks on the cars. It would have been rude not to take a few snaps of the pit girls which were loving the attention from the cameras. Take a look at the BMW V10 powered Wiesmann GT MF5 safety car, sounded amazing out on track and looked very nice in the evening sun with its yellow on black motif. It's...
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Posted
May 26 2009, 06:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 5 comment(s)
On race day at the FIA GT in Adria it was the GT4 guys that got their racing on first, and what a battle we witnessed! GT4 is open to production cars, which have been prepared for competition. Performance is equalized by various measures (air restrictors and so on) to make sure that all the cars perform roughly the same. However, I couldn't help feel that the Ginetta was a tad more extreme, as it's hardly a proper production car. It was even running a straight cut gearbox, you could hear...
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Posted
May 25 2009, 08:21 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 21 comment(s)
I though it would be good to take a brake from all the drifting in Odaiba and head back to Italy to see some more action from the FIA GT week-end. As you may remember the idea of holding the race at Adria was to take advantage of the excellent illumination and to hold most of the action at night. For the start of the first practice session Rod and I headed to the top of the control tower where we got an amazing view down on to the whole track, in particular the final corner before the main straight...
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Posted
May 20 2009, 02:17 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
I don’t really like it when people refer to Speedhunters as an “American” website…. Sure, the mothership, Electronic Arts' head office is in San Francisco, but we manage the project from the Need for Speed office in Vancouver, Canada and we have blogger/photographers contributing to the site from across Europe, North America and Japan…. So I like to think of Speedhunters as a pure, internet-based project… and to my warped brain that means it exists in no...
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Posted
May 20 2009, 11:54 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 7 comment(s)
The race organizers made sure it was an action packed week-end at Adria with the Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo, sponsored by Blanpain, keeping the spectators happy in between the FIA GT and the GT3 races. On Rod's first Speedhunting in Italy post you may recall we saw a Gallardo race car zoom by as I was shooting the outside of the museum building. Well, unsurprisingly, we saw it a few days later in Adria. Here it is during a pit stop and driver change. Based on the LP 560-4 these track going...
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