Aniruddha's Blog

The Matra Djet is a French sports car originally designed by René Bonnet, he was a French engineer and race car driver who had created his own company called ‘Automobiles René Bonnet’ in 1961. The car started as a René Bonnet Djet in the year 1962, the car was named ‘Djet’ as the French could not pronounce ‘Jet’. The company Matra was well known for its presence in formula 1, 2 and 3 and they were even successful in Le Mans. Matra entered F1 in the year 1968, the same year Jackie Stewart was a serious contender, and the car’s most innovative feature was perhaps its aviation inspired fuel cell. It was unfortunately banned, they always used Cosworth and Ford engines. Coming back to the Djet, the Djet has distinction of being the first mid-engine sports car, even before the De Tomaso.   The first ever cars were called CRB1 and CRB2, for Competition René Bonnet . It even had disc brakes on all corners.     De Tomaso's Ford-powered Vallelunga was the seco...

The amazing Bizzarrini Giotto Bizzarrini was born on 6 th June 1926 in Livorno province Italy and in 1953 he graduated from an engineering college in Italy. He first was working for Alfa Romeo when Ferrari noticed his skill and appointed him as the Chief engineer for Ferrari’s race team. Bizzarrini was known in Alfa Romeo for developing the Giulietta’s chassis. He left Alfa in 1957, and joined Ferrari, he played a major role in the development of the 3L V12 engine in the Testa Rossa, his master piece however was the 250 GTO and the 250 SWB (short wheel base Berlinetta). The 250 GTO was a solution to the problem that the 250 SWB had created, that being the reduced top speed due to drag. The interior of the strada version Bizzarrini was one of the important people who left Ferrari as part of the palace revolt, which saw the entire Ferrari race team leave.   This revolt lead to the formation of ATS (Automobili Turismo Sportin) 1961. Soon Bizzarri...

The Alfa Romeo Giulietta sprint was launched in 1954, it had various configurations but the particular one that this write up will be looking at is the 2+2 sprint. The Giulietta was available as a Berlina, sprint, sprint veloce, sprint speciale, a spider and even a station wagon.   The Giulietta was first launched in 1954 and was available only as a 2+2 coupe. It was designed by Franco Scaglione who was then working at Bertone. He was born in Florence on 26 th September 1916. He served the Italian army during the second world war, in the year 1951 he moved to Turin as all the large design firms were present there. His talent landed him in the famous design firm Bertone. One of his first few designs was the Fiat 1100. He was a very talented coach builder. When the Giulietta was first launched it had a very advanced twin camshaft and was a very high revving motor constructed using aluminum alloy, the gearbox was manufactured using same material. Th...

Dauer 962 Lm  An un-heard of car that could out perform a McLaren F1, as it was built on the Porsche 962 Le mans car.   This car had such outstanding performance as it took a different approach when compared to the other early hyper cars, it was a Le Mans car built for the road. To understand the success of the Dauer 962 one must note the success of Porsche 962 in group C class in Le Mans and all the other endurance races along with its  predecessor the 965 were well renowned in the endurance race scene. Porsche built 150 962’s and sold it to other privet racing teams and certain individual customers, knowing the amount of strain an endurance car goes through Porsche built a parts supply that would suffice all the racing teams. One of the most famous teams that used the parts or chassis from the 962 was the Schuppan motor sports who later on produced 5 Schuppan 962 cr. amongst these teams even Dauer was one such team.  The Daure 962 was sh...

The lost BMW Garmisch an interesting story behind a vanilla sedan, the famous Italian designer Marcello Gandini had designed a small 4 door BMW sedan in the year 1970, the car was supposed to be a concept. This concept showcased what the future sedans were going to be. But what happened later makes this car more interesting. About the designer Marcello Gandini was born on 26 th august 1938 in Turin, Gandini approached Bertone group of design for a job but was denied. Gandini’s design extends beyond cars as he is also an industrial designer and a home accessories. He was the head designer until 1980 in Bertone, after this changed his path to become a freelance designer.   BMW has had a long history with Italian design houses such as the BMW 328 mille miglia designed by Peter Szymanowski The BMW Garmisch was an idea that originally came from Nuccio Bertone himself who wanted to showcase this car as a surprise car at the Geneva motor show to mark t...

The beginning The Renault R5 turbo was a beast, a rally car that dominated the tight tarmac circuits in the World Rally Championship (WRC). The small footprint and big power allowed it to slide around like nobody’s business, the R5 turbo was a replacement for the Alpine A1 that was outdated and being beaten by the Ferrari powered Lancia Stratos. The R5 Turbo would leave fans unsettled and in disbelieve about the cars handling and performance, the R5 would leave the each sharp turn with a loud bang from the exhaust and would shoot flames in the straight stretches, the flames and pops pushed the crowd behind the tape. The little hatchback borrowed turbo charging technology from formula one, the engine was a 1.4L engine as if it was a 1.5L then it would have been put into a class above where it would have been the weakest of the lot. The small French hatch could not have handled the massive 300 bhp from the 4L engine in the year 1972. In 1984 the car would sit on a brand new ch...