I love Tag Heuer/Heuer watches, however I do know that they now have a bazillion versions of the same watch in the Monaco. It’s a watch I love, and aspire to own a version of someday—-although I will admit that the watch has become a bit of a cliche within the watch world. Do i really care? No, not really. I still really want that black dialed Monaco McQueen edition they had made a few years ago with the Gulf colours—–however i am really digging the progressive look of these new versions.
Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates on the IEDEI Blog lately—-i have been battling a lack of time attributed to my job (i do have another job y’know!), but have no fear—-there is plenty of content waiting to unfold here with due time. I still owe you all a big Petit Le Mans report—-which is still being curated.
The BMW M1 was specifically created for racing—–and it has to be one of the coolest production race cars built. It’s unfortunate BMW strayed from this path, and has yet to produce anything to even remotely put up a show against the mighty Audi R8. Hopefully one of these days, they’ll come to their senses—-and build ‘another’ M1 or something of the same caliber.
Meanwhile, here are some grand photos of the mighty BMW M1 in racing glory
A new feature on IEDEI, i’m just gonna pick a random year and find different cars from different marques—to compare how differently companies were moving with their directions…many of these were designs these brands had JUST introduced. From the ugly Alfa Romeo Giulia to the progressive BMW E12 and Saab 99 to the bizarrely futuristic NSU Ro80—-1972 was full of ‘interesting’ european sedans.
By now you’ve probably heard all sorts of ‘hype’ surrounding the release of “DRIVE” to the cinemas. Besides the over-ambitious title, and the blatant Steve McQueen-like imitations of Ryan Gosling in the photos and trailers leading up to the release of the film—–I feel it would be appropriate for a petrolhead perspective on the film.
For the first 15 minutes of this film, I sat in my seat in awe—–thinking that this may join the ranks of one of the greatest car films/films ever made. My mind slowly changed over the course of the next 1 hour and 25 minutes as “Drive” entertained the hell out of me, but fell into the trap of uber-violence, as american films generally tend to do. That being said, the classic Steve McQueen-isms and the slightly over-acted role of Ryan Gosling actually work pretty damn well. The degree of straight up violence in this film is pretty heavy, so don’t think that watching a V8 being dismantled is what’s around the corner. You are in for some gore.
From the perspective of actual driving and automobile references in the film—-i think there are many references to the love of actually driving, rather than the love of automobiles. The Dodge Charger Chrysler 300c (thanks Anon) vs. Ford Mustang chase in here, which only lasts a minute or so—-is a good one, but a blatant tribute to one of the most famous car scenes ever put onto film from “Bullitt”. Other than that, there are some decent car scenes, but i am pleased they were not drenched in absurd special effects like other hollywood car films tend to be. The guy loves to drive though, and he’s got perforated driving gloves to back it up! Those driving gloves (see picture) are a nice touch. I’m not sure why they gave him an old grey Chevy Malibu to drive in the rest of the film, however the car is obviously ‘modded’ (interior and exterior).
All in all, this film is the perfect combination of “Bullitt”, “Taxi Driver” and the utterly fantastic TV series “Dexter”. It is violent, interesting, and very well made. The soundtrack is cool, the cinematography is cool, and the acting is good. I enjoyed the film very much, although I think it could have been EVEN better with a bit less violence, and some better cars.
I started a new job towards the end of last week—-and my time has been quite consumed over the past week. Apologies for little to no IEDEI updates. To make it up to you, here is a megapost with plenty of things which have been consuming my daydreams all week.
I’ve always hugely admired the (rare) Lancia 2000 Coupes (and here)…The 70s were full of some decent coupes….but none arguably nicer than the superbly underrated Lancia 2000 HF Coupe——hell i think this may be one of THE classiest and prettiest coupes made in the 70s. Sure it was an ‘evolved’ Flavia, and it wasn’t accompanied by the rally pedigree of its smaller Fulvia HF counterpart—-but as a cruiser with elegance, i’d choose this over most everything else from that era.
As you probably realise, my ‘holy grail’ dream car (in ANY price range) is the Alpine-Renault A110 1600s. This has been the case for approximately the last 5-6 years. However in that 5-6 years I have watched the selling price of the A110 start to soar from about $40-$50k back then to ranging from $80k to well over $150k for excellent 1600s examples these days. I’ve been told the market for A110s really soared a couple of years ago when the Japanese started buying them up and taking them back to Japan. Sure there are cheaper versions like the 1300s which can be had for less, and the 1100s which can be had for even less—-but it is getting harder and harder to find good A110s on sale, and i’m just hoping that by the time i get in the market for one (i hope this DOES happen), that prices haven’t soared to even more rocketing avenues. The ‘other market’ versions of the A110 such as the mexican-built Dinalpines have also kept the market value down, as many have been unearthed and sold outside of Mexico in recent years—-adding to the total # of A110s in circulation.
My mostly ignorant, non-professional estimate is that the prices have now ‘capped’ for the A110 for the time being. I don’t think “Alpine-Renault” rings a bell with the collector market the way “Ferrari” or “Maserati” or “Porsche” does, so i really can’t see these moving too much further upmarket. Here’s hoping they stay in this range, or even start falling a bit when the nostalgic rally fan from the 60s starts giving up their cars.
my friend Bradley over at Automobiliac recently went to the Pebble Beach Concours and Monterey Historic races—-and took some great livery-only photographs.
click on the ‘full gallery’ in his post to see all the pics:
I love automotive logos, and the following is the original sketch sheet of logo proposals for the Lancia marque. As you can see, the 1st one in the 2nd row is closest to the current logo, however until at least 1929, the 2nd one in the 1st row was used as the logo. This original sketch sheet was drawn by Count Biscaretti of Ruffia, who was involved with early Lancias and Vincenzo Lancia
To me, bar none, the greatest 911 in history if the 911R. No other 911 even comes close. The “pretender” to the throne is the Carrera RS—-so here’s a beautiful picture with a 911R in the foreground, and a Carrera RS (edit: I actually think that is an RS-R, not an RS) in the background.
The driver is Tomas Liedl, driving the Slovakia Ring in a DTM-spec Audi TT-R. I am guessing this is one of the original DTM TT-Rs that used to race in the DTM Series, having their careers continue…..this is what it looks like now, as opposed to the older Red/Silver Sport livery OR the Yellow Playstation livery. There was also the blue Red Bull livery back in the day. This race is from 08/21/2011.
IEDEI 
