I feel the “Adria wave” is gone far enough and it's fading away, but something else has still to be said and more pictures have to be seen!
A racing event is always a good moment to catch some rare or expensive cars in the paddock, as usually drivers, especially GT drivers, are also enthusiasts with a soft spot for fast toys even outside the track. It's also a good occasion for manufacturers to show off their new babies and try to attract new customers and fans.
All the Lamborghinis present at the event have already received a large coverage, but they weren't the only thing to be seen and admired.
Unfortunately both Maserati and Ferrari didn't bring some official representatives, not even the recent GranTurismo MC GT4.
To pair up with that, a couple of already sold and delivered Californias were present, courtesy of respectively BMS Scuderia Italia and Matech Engineering.
I'd like to have as much to say about it as I did for other cars, but regardless of it being good or bad looking, it just isn't special enough.
It's a Ferrari, it's fast, it's technically advanced and whatever you may want to add, but it's “just” a car, a product, the answer to a question a lot of people could have and had asked.
So even if I really like the shape of the car when the top isn't stored in the boot, or the line which starts in the air vents behind the front wheels and ends with the main rear lights, I can't really bother to talk about it right now.
It's bound to be the most popular Ferrari among the current line-up, and so to be one of the more common on the road too, time will tell if its presence it's up to its evocative name.
A nice and somehow pleasant sighting were the Fornasari RR600 and Gruppo B Concept.
Don't get me wrong, you know how much I hate SUVs and pointless cars, aside from ego-compensating. It's just that these cars are designed and assembled near my home town (in Veneto, not Modena), and considering in Italy there are only two or three places were cars are created basically, Turin, Modena, and Milan (not anymore), I always had a soft spot for this brand.
They used to sell also Callaway's tuned Corvettes, but I now they focused on their own products, which are large and insanely fast off-roaders with GM engines to be sold where oils and water have opposed roles than what we are used to.
They also race them in the Italian Tout Terrain championship, Baja world championship and other races with some good results too.
At the moment quite of line-up expansion is planned, adding to the RR450 and RR600 the Gruppo B, the more SUV-ish RR99 and a more adventurous model called the Racing Buggy.
At the moment the Gruppo B is a running prototype as you can see, while the RR99 is just a mock up. The Racing Buggy is just a photoshop-based being.
As you can notice, the RR99 is a collage of parts from a lot of modern and well known cars, mainly "borrowed" features are the headlights from the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, the bonnet which is a mixture of a Viper and of the same V8 Vantage, side windows from the Jaguar XF, rear lights from the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 and exhausts from the Lexus IS-F.
What actually surprised me is that they managed to create the mock up without the original cars' brands complaining at all.
It could be a good competitor for the ever-upcoming Spyker D-Series, which incidentally I happen to like, for some reason.
Thanks to their revived interest and involvement in motorsports, Alpina and Morgan have been a warmly welcomed addition to the usual line up.
While Alpina is carrying a sort of seventies' atmosphere to the events with their presence and the very B6 GT3 somehow styled after the famous 3.0 CSL racing cars, Morgan is the proof even a small but passionate car maker can enter the competition with good results as well, as the victories in the first two races at Silverstone this year can demonstrate.
While the Alpinas are “just” BMWs in fancy clothes, one could say, a Morgan is something truly British, and definitely very old school.
I couldn't get close enough to any of them, but I think I could have seen the rear subframe made of wood in the race car as it is in the road going ones.
And what a sound...
Surely an unusual sight was the small army of Donkevoorts, following their racing counterpart in the GT4 championship. There wasn't a D8 GT, apart from those racing, and I'm not really a fan of the Seven's replicas generally, but I definitely like the existence of such kind of companies, being so loyal to their own philosophy, understanding it's what can keep them different from so many other car makers.
Another peculiar entry were the Wiesmann, which were present as official safety cars, so unfortunately I didn't managed to pay enough attention to them
I surely didn't like the plastic (or carbon fiber, doesn't matter) inside of the car tinted with the same color of the outside, but the cars has enough drama and appearance to catch your eye for a while without thinking of the interior.
The MF5 is a bit too much as a road car, while the black wasn't the best color for the more “subtle” MF4, since it hides its curvaceous body and all the minor lines and details that can make the difference.
Some more candid shots of other cars: Ferrari 430 Scuderia, Porsche GT3 RS, BMW M3 E30 and Z4 E89, Audi R8.
Enjoy the report and the images!
All images Copyright: Damiano garro
Except: Fornsari RR99 Concept (erroneously linked trough the RR600 page) and Fornasari Racing Buggy
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