Fuelfed car show - 10/27/2019 - Part 2

Here are the rest of the photos from the Fuelfed car show from last Sunday, 10/27/19 in Winnetka, Illinois.

Early in the show, I was framing up a Jaguar, trying to fit the whole car in the frame, when a car rolled through my shot. I immediately shat myself, because it was unmistakably a Lancia Delta Integrale: the legendary rally champion, in Martini livery no less. Lancias are rare in the U.S. They were briefly sold here under the Fiat brand, but you basically never ever see them, no matter how many vintage events you go to.

The Delta Integrale's dash.

The only thing that could me more trouser-moisteningly great than seeing a Delta Integrale in the flesh would be a Lancia Stratos. The Delta was based on the Delta consumer model, but the Stratos was Lancia's purpose-built rally car that looks like a spaceship. It is the coolest looking thing ever created by humans.

It was once the case that headlights were a single, replaceable unit. These were called "sealed beam" headlights, and they were generally round or square. The look of a round light recessed into an elliptical (or nearly so) housing is hard to improve upon. With the development of hallogen, LED or other just-replace-the-bulb modern headlights, the housing itself is intended to be permanent, and is worked into the shape of the grille or whatever. They can be any random, arbitrary shape, and the car manufacturers have taken advantage of this fact by making headlights any crazy, random shape they can think of. This is just one way in which the majority of current cars are overstyled and visually cluttered. By way of example, go look at a 2019 Honda Civic Si, and then look at this Dino. Grace and balance has been abandoned for hyperactive aggression for its own sake. This is awful.

The Ferrari Dino that makes stout-hearted men swoon.

It's hard to stop shooting a Dino. Every angle is basically a work of art.

This photo makes clear the poor quality of the 1985 Tokina lens I was shooting with. The highlight the the lower left explodes into a soft bloom of pale orange light. If your objective is to capture reality as your eye sees it, this is terrible. But, your phone's camera can do that. Every inexpensive kit lens can do that, too. This filthy old Tokina, which, technically speaking, could use a good thirty-year cleaning, adds goldness and pinkness, and exaggerates bright light in a trippy, dreamy way. It's my current favorite.

A De Tomaso Pantera is an Italian chassis with a  Ford V8 in the back.

The engine compartment of a Pantera is pretty weird. Huge V8, with the transmission behind it, but now drive shaft exiting the trans where it normally would. Instead, there are two half shafts going out the sides to drive the wheels. There is a surprising amount of room in the engine bay, because the bulk of the motor is just in front of the wheels. I imagine everything other than the most basic service is an engine-out procedure, which, by the looks of it, would be easier than in your average car.

I hadn't seen those wheels before. On a 911, they look great, properly dished under the huge RSR-style fender flares. The owner and his wife were debating swapping them back to OEM. I did my best to reassure them there were enough bone-stock 911s rolling around already.

The Volvo P1800 is up there with the Ferrari Dino at the top of the this-design-will-always-look-good Olympic podium. They're also mechanically simple and relatively easy to maintain. These can still be found for less than twenty thousand dollars... for now.

I'm not an off-road guy, but I'm pretty sure this is a Land Rover Defender, in its naturaly state of "kinda dirty".

A 1974 Jensen Interceptor. I'm pretty sure this car has a 7.2 liter V8. Even if it's "only" the 5.9 or 6.3 version, they always sound amazing.

You're right, badge. It is.

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Mercedes 300SL. This one should be one of the later, non-gullwing '57-'63 roadster models. Don't care. Still pretty. Actually, the gullwing versions are said to be too warm inside. The gullwing doors are to blame for that. As with any gullwing door, it's difficult to engineer them with a proper roll-down window mechanism. This little niggle is easily enough addressed by just taking the top off entirely. More affordable, too.

Porsche 356. Visually, this car pretty clearly bridges the gap between the VW Karmann-Ghia and the Porsche 911.

You don't see grille badges much any more, except on vintage cars. That's a shame.

This is the same Lamborghini Countach that I saw two weeks previously at the Then & Now show in Lake Forest. So, only one shot of it here. Unlike at the Lake Forest show, the doors were open, because there was no threat of rain.

Love this color. I don't know the factory paint designation for the color, but it person it was more apple green than lime green. The yellow fog light covers really looked good against it. If I ever were to get a car painted, making a change from a factory color, it'd be something like this.