Much more than a weekend (was: Weekend in Milan)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bernie Bennett asks (my edited version)"Is the Museo dell'Automobile Carlo
Biscaretti da Ruffia  well interpreted in English / multilingually so that the
auto / Alfa lover would be able to glean the relationships without a
knowledgeable human guide?  This relates to how one experiences of any
collection, piece of literature, work of art. The viewer's experience,
knowledge, what he/she brings to the experience adds that much to it. A well
read in automotive history viewer might recognize and be excited by something
which for the museum tourer/viewer relatively new/inexperienced to/in the
items collected,  presentation is the big issue. So as you recall it, does the
MCBR just collect and label or is there much explanatory material accessible
to us generally mono-lingual US residents?"

Which I might boil down to "is the presentation didactic?" Unfortunately, no,
and it would hardly be possible. Much - the make, model, year, displacement -
is well presented on the labels, and would not require translation. Much of
the rest would require a book about a make which might be represented by one
car. Who has heard of Itala, for instance? Probably hardly anybody. Itala
(like Alfa) ran into financial difficulties in the late twenties and (again
like Alfa) was taken over by the government's I.R.I. and eventually folded
into Fiat in 1935, so there is no PR apparatus leading us to ask "When will
Itala return?".

Before the first A.L.F.A. was built in 1910 Itala had won the Coppa Florio in
1905, took first, second, fourth and fifth overall (and first through fourth
in class) in the 1906 Targa Florio, first in the 1907 Peking to Paris race
(across mountains, the Gobi Desert, Outer Mongolia and Siberia, without roads,
gas stations, or so much as a blacksmith for most of the distance) and had a
list of owners ranging from Queen Margherita (with five cars) through the
Pope, including nine members of the British House of Lords, who chose them
over such lesser cars as Rolls Royce.

At about the same time that Vittorio Jano left Fiat to join Alfa another
engineer named Giulio Cesare Cappa left Fiat to join Itala where he designed
the Tipo 161, a two liter six cylinder car with aluminum block and pistons, a
seven main bearing crankshaft, pushrod overhead valves, 65 x 100 mm bore and
stroke, four speed gearbox, four wheel servo brakes, light and sensitive
steering, and very neat-appearing machinery. Two of them ran at Le Mans in
1928, one finishing a very respectable eighth place; one took fourteenth in
the 1931 Mille Miglia, it and two O.M.s being the only non-Alfa Romeos among
the first fifteen finishers that year. Alfa, O.M. and Itala were all in
financial trouble in the depression and Fiat wanted to take over all three,
but Benito Mussolini liked Alfas, kept it separate as a military supplier, and
gave the others to Fiat. Which is at least a part of why O.M. and Itala are
unremembered.

On Carlo Biscaretti da Ruffia, the man for whom the Museo dell'Automobile is
named, I'm running on fumes so my dimly remembered 'facts' may be mostly close
but frequently wrong. He was among, if not first among, Italy's earliest
automobile enthusiasts, first car owner, founder and leader of the Turin and
national clubs, a good part of the money behind Fiat's beginnings, and well
connected with the upper levels of Italian society. At a certain level people
don't sell, trade, or junk cars when they buy new ones, they just stick the
ones they aren't using any more in a barn on one of their properties. So
Biscaretti da Ruffia knew, or knew people who knew, the location of probably
virtually every one-owner, unrestored, unmolested old car in Italy. He got
Fiat behind the idea of a museum, he and Fiat got Turin behind the idea, and
he got the cars he thought important donated by his friends. Which is a large
part of what makes the museum so unique: it is a choice and well-informed
cross-section, uncompromised by later-owner modifications and later
restorations.

On Bernie's core question, there isn't any easy answer. Pomeroy's "The Grand
Prix Car" is a gold-mine of information on the evolution of performance cars
in the early years; "Lost Causes of Motoring", by Lord Montague of Beaulieu,
is a fascinating work on all of the disappeared makes which get slighted by
the survivors. Add some healthy skepticism about anything sponsored by a
survivor who (like Fiat and Alfa) has a vested interest in promoting its own
reputation, and you are off to a start. Henry Ford (who did NOT say "Whenever
I see an Alfa Romeo I tip my hat" DID say "History is Bunk", and most of it
is. Sorting the truths from the fictions, the significances from the
impressive insignificances, can be very rewarding.

Enjoy the chase,

John H.
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