This is the last weekend of the 1st quarter of 2013. As such, this olelongrooffan thought I would post up some scattered images of cars I captured this past quarter with the intent of sharing them with my fellow Hoons but for one reason or another have yet to have done just that.

As soon this olelongrooffan will be moving on from a computer lifelong use of Bill Gates provided products to the ones that Adam and Eve were so tempted with in the next couple weeks, I have been taking what spare time I do have to catalog the nearly 6,000 automotive images I have scattered between three different laptops so as to make that transition and my ability to quickly locate an image much more convenient.

Anyway, the first grouping of images are a trio of rare open top cars the Mad_Hungarian and this olelongrooffan spotted at the Amelia Island Concours de’Elegance a whiles back. As my fellow Hoons will most likely note, the above image is of a Fiat Abarth. Yeah, I know there are thousands of Abarths out there but this one is just a bit unique. However, my fellow Hoons will have to make the jump to see why this one is so cool.

As I understand it, Carlo Abarth was an extremely successful motorcycle racer in the 1930’s winning five European Championships. Upon leaving motorcycle racing and with the help of long time friend Ferry Porsche, Abarth was named a director at Cistalia although that company appears to have folded by the early 1950’s.  Abarth branched out on his own, primarily selling tuner kits for other marques of GT cars, especially the exhaust systems. Yeah, and I always thought tuner kits were a fairly recent happening.

Apparently Abarth then set off to design a totally custom series of automobile prototypes, and later limited production runs of sports cars, based on Fiat 1100 steel chassis. From what this olelongrooffan can ascertain, most sports cars of the day were built on space frame chassis’.

While this custom two off is similar to the Boano 207A the esteemed Alex Kierstein featured way back when the Hooniverse was in its infancy, this one is slightly different, perhaps the non competition version. I believe it is a 208A but don’t hold me to that. There isn’t alot on google these days about obscure one off Fiat based prototypes from the mid 1950’s.

This particular derivative of Carlo Abarth’s is similar to the nearly mass produced (ten in total) Boano Spyder 207A that was competition based. That one had a tunnel behind the driver’s head, similar to John Fitch’s early Corvette race cars. This one is one of two built for the 1955 Milan, Paris and New York Auto Shows and was found stored in a barn in Maine in 2000.

Once again, this olelongrooffan must state that I am extremely embarrassed to have seen a whole damn bunch of rare and unusual automobiles such as this one, that day and I didn’t even know what it was nor the significance of it. Hell just check out the background of these images and take in all the coolness that was there that day and is there every year.

And as I am doing what I call a “Hemmings”, that is checking out the history of a vehicle, some three or so weeks later, I am even more mortified. I mean hell, that 207A Alex told us all about a few years ago? It is almost commonplace as there were ten of those competition models built. This one?  Two.

Yeah, mortified is too modest of a word for my emotions at this moment.

Now my fellow Hoons, this is exactly what this olelongrooffan is talking about. See the beautiful classic car in the fuzzy ass above image?

Well, this olelongrooffan was attracted to this car enough to gather a few images of it and to take a moment to bask in its beauty but other than to note it is an Aprile Lavona, I didn’t gather any additional information about it.

Not even one of the placard out front. And now? No freakin’ amount of google search, hemmings search, or even ameliaconcours.org search is showing up one damn thing about it. It’s frustrating to this olelongrooffan as I was within spitting distance of it and missed that chance. Any of my fellow Hoons able to help out this olelongrooffan on the ID of this one?

Finally, a roadster this olelongrooffan can identify. This, of course, is the BMW 507. Now if my fellow Hoons don’t know much about this car except for the fact that Elvis owned one, you may be expelled from the Hooniverse. But a reprieve may be granted so long as my fellow Hoons know who Max Hoffman is then that reprieve will be granted. Should you not know who Max Hoffman is, this olelongrooffan might suggest you check this out. Stat.

A few posts back I mentioned how the M1 was one of my favorite BMW’s ever built. This one would be the other. Although red is not the most flattering color on it, the lines can be appreciated from any angle and in any color. If I remember correctly there were only 250 or so of these beauties built and they are rather pricey these days. I believe one sold recently for over a million dollars at auction (including fees). Not to shabby for a car this is 60 years old and costs around $10K new. Although $10K in the mid 50’s was enough to torpedo further refinement of this car and production halted in 1959. I know the final year for some unknown reason.

But this olelongrooffan does have this to say about that. The lines on this 507 just jump out at me and seem to want to draw me in for a soothing drive. I can only imagine being a kid in 1955 and seeing one of these versus a, then restyled but mundane, 1955 Chevy Belair post.

Anyway, thanks for letting me cleanse my soul concerning the lack of identification of vehicles I spot while out and about in the future this olelongrooffan will be more diligent about that identification. At least until the excitement of the moment overtakes me.

Stick around for some more shit I found while moving out the window and into the mac.

Image Copyright Hooniverse 2013/longrooffan