Saturday, May 09, 2009

A shapely Italian


Hot blooded, at rest
Laval, QC, August 2008


With Chrysler's merger with Fiat all but a done deal, this yellow Ferrari Testarossa that lives in the parking garage of my parents' building somehow springs to mind. Fiat also owns Ferrari, so it's not much of a stretch to envision future Sebring drivers - assuming there are any left - mimicking Goggles Paisano as they pull on open-knuckled leather driving gloves to shuttle the kids to karate practice.

Maybe not. But the geneology is neat. As is the geometry of the body of this car. Truth be told, this particular vehicle hasn't aged well. The owner deserves a spanking for letting it deteriorate. Light lenses are cracked, pieces of moulding are askew and stretches of paint would barely pass muster on a Yugo let alone a car that sold for the equivalent of an average house mortgage.

Yet despite its relatively sad condition, it's still easy to find angles that play to this car's strengths (see earlier blog entries here and here.) Say what you want about stratospheric purchase costs, laughable practicality and criminally pathetic reliability, but there's no denying these cars were penned by artists who understood to the base of their souls how to translate design into timeless emotion.

Your turn: We're still playing with yellow as part of this week's Thematic Photographic theme. Head here to get started.

7 comments:

Martha said...

Now that's a beauty! Glad you had a nice birthday :-)

David Edward said...

yes, its getting tough even for ferrari owners.... and why exactly does fiat want more of CHrysler? I don't see how they benefit.

I am back from sailing, and have a few pictures up and on the web albums

invisible said...

Like Sophia Loren wearing a bright yellow wrap dress on a summer day.
She may show a few years,but the beauty and curves are still in all the right places.

P.S. you are never too old for a Flintstones reference.

Wendy said...

Well your title had me thinking along different lines. Did not think you were talking about a car! LOL!

Mojo said...

I remember a different view of this beauty from a while back. I forget the theme, but I remember the car. Marvelous angle!

My newest Yellow entries are far more prosaic.
Thematic Photographic 48: Yellow v.3.0Thematic Photographic 48: Yellow v.4.0

Cloudia said...

Belisima!!
Aloha

momemts in time said...

Italians design great cars absolutly no question about it... but ...having owned one of the beautiful Bertone designed 'shapely' Alfa GTV's 30+ years ago I realise that you need to have an Italian car for looks and style with a German one for those frequent days when the Italian one becomes tempremental...

'Top Gear', one of our highly entertaining motoring programmes on BBC1 / Dave channels here in the UK set their presenters the task of buying an Italian supercar for under £10,000 and then undertaking a series of motoring tests... the conclusion was that you could buy one .... but don't expect it to be reliable ~ they all broke down / wrecked engines & electrics being the common faults if you igniored the bodywork!