Tag Archives: automobile

The Craziest Abarth Cinquecento I’ve Ever Seen

When I was a small kid, we owned a Fiat 126.  My friend’s mum had a Fiat 500.  It was the old car compared to our “newer” one.  A tiny little vehicle but a cute one.  Of course, as with everything these days, the 500 made a reappearance more recently as it got a makeover.  It also spawned a range of derivatives taking it well away from the original concept.  I had never considered the original car to be too sporty so was in for a surprise.

Exotics@RTC had this amazing vehicle on display.  An Abarth Cinquecento, this thing is seriously souped up.  Forget a back seat.  Don’t expect much in the way of creature comforts.  Probably come up with a plan of how to get yourself in and out of it for that matter.  This thing is quite unlike any old Cinquecento I have ever seen.  It looked amazing.  The back end of it seemed unable to hold what was included so it was just open to let everything hang loose.  What a contrast to everything else that was on display.  That is what makes Exotics@RTC so cool.  You get these really unusual vehicles showing up.

Can You Make Your Mini Look Retro?

I had no idea what this car was when I saw it.  There was something familiar about it, but it was still a mystery to me.  Then I overheard a conversation from someone, and they explained that the underlying car was a Mini and it had a body kit added to it to result in this outcome.  I have no idea why that seemed like a good plan to the owner, but I guess they like it.  Once you know it, you center of the vehicle is definitely recognizable as a Mini.

Well This is Saving the Planet!

In the outer area of Exotics@RTC I saw this EV Hummer.  The move towards electric vehicles is a positive step to reducing our emissions and trying to address the climate change challenges we have but there was something about this behemoth that made me feel that we are missing the point.  Sure, an EV Hummer is less polluting than the original Hummer, but this thing is huge and is surely not a good idea.  Finding a way to have the most inefficient EV you can is kind of missing the point.

Is a Bugatti 57 Valuable?

Only my second visit of the year to Exotics@RTC and it was another special day.  This time it was Classics which seems to be a rather generic term but does provide for a bunch of older cars or all sorts of origins to be included – particularly stuff that wouldn’t normally have its own day!  A star of the show was this Bugatti 57.  I had got there early to try and get some shots before the crowds built up and it arrived while I was walking around.  I got some shots of it driving up and then once it was parked.

It rapidly got a lot of attention.  Later on, when I was trying to get some shots of it from above, I realized that there was always such a throng of people in the vicinity that my usual technique of blending multiple shots would not work.  I was glad to have been there early!  I don’t know how these cars get valued.  I looked up sale prices for these vehicles and there were some that went in the millions and others that were in the hundreds of thousands.  Where this one sits in relation to all of those, I have no idea.  I do know the owner was very happy to let people sit in it and have their picture taken which is the great thing about events like this.

Do You Really Need Four Wheels?

Another feature of English Day for Exotics@RTC is the occasional Morgan showing up.  If a Morgan three-wheeler makes an appearance, it is guaranteed to garner a lot of attention and this event was not different.

Another feature of English Day for Exotics@RTC is the occasional Morgan showing up.  If a Morgan three-wheeler makes an appearance, it is guaranteed to garner a lot of attention and this event was no different.  We actually got several of them.  Trying to get some clean shots of them was tricky given the number of people that were checking them out.  I am not a massive fan of Morgans per se but they are still something different to see amongst a sea of modern McLarens.

Plenty of Minis

English Day at Exotics@RTC means there will be some Minis.  I mean the original Minis – none of the BMW type (I say none but there might be a few although they aren’t getting prime spots).  They take me back to my childhood as the car I learned to drive in.  These examples are in better condition and are far better performers than our 850cc example was, but they still look much the same.

One of them had a wooden dash which reminded me of my friend Sam.  She had a mini with a wooden dash and she put in in a place for some work and, when she got it back, the dash wears gone.  They denied it had ever been there and she was absolutely gutted.  If you are reading this Sam, I hope that isn’t too painful a memory.  If you haven’t ever driven on old Mini, my memory of it was that they were like a go kart.  I haven’t driven one for decades and wonder how they would seem after years of driving modern vehicles.  I hope it would still be fun.

English Day at Exotics@RTC

I didn’t get to Exotics@RTC this year as much as I would have liked.  Sometimes the weather conspired against them and sometimes I couldn’t make it anyway.  I did mange to make some of the special days, though, and one of these was the English Day.  This tends to have more of a vintage feel to it than some of the other special days.  Yes, there are plenty of McLarens and Aston Martins but a lot of older stuff to mix it up a bit.

You get the Bentleys and Rolls (not sure how well they qualify as English anymore) and there are Jags all over the place but there are plenty of less common types and definitely a few of the ones that probably keep mechanics busy.  You have no idea how many jokes about Lucas electrical systems you can hear in the space of an hour.  Aside from these shots, I also took a little video to share with my sister on the day and have edited that down a bit to include below.

Italian Day At Exotics Again

The schedule for Exotics@RTC has been erratic this year.  They have had to scrub a bunch of events as a result of the poor weather.  However, with summer finally arriving in the Pacific Northwest, they have had a run of successful gatherings.  One of these was their Italian Day.  I have been to this before and it is always a fun event with a lot of interesting vehicles.  It was going to worth going again.

The center of the venue was packed as usual.  Plenty of Ferraris and Lamborghinis to look at.  Not as much variety in the Ferraris as in some previous events but still a lot of good looking cars.  These are nice to see but it is perhaps more fun to spot the oddities that show up.  I was interested in how many Alfa Romeo Spiders were in attendance and just have different they could be.  I guess the Spider stayed in production for a long time and the design evolved a lot over that time.  Annoyingly, I didn’t seem to get any good shots of them.  There were plenty of other Alfas, though as well as some older Ferraris. These shots are a sample of what was on display.

McLaren Elva

This car was at the opening weekend of Exotics@RTC and I have to admit I had no idea what it was at the time.  A couple of days later, I saw a YouTube video about it and realized that it was what I had seen.  The McLaren Elva is a strange vehicle.  No roof and not even a windshield.  Apparently, it is strange enough that they are not selling so well and the production run has been reduced.  I guess the best part of two million dollars is too much for a car that requires you to wear googles and probably a helmet!

Citroen Style

I must not be a typical Brit because I seem to have an affinity for things French.  This is something I have acquired over the years (and may be the reason I was driven from the UK!).  The French do things their own way and it results in some really interesting stuff.  The Citroen DS is just such an interesting thing.  I first noticed one when traveling on a ferry and was fascinated when it started up and the suspension inflated.  I had never seen something like that before.

The looks didn’t appeal to me then because I was used to the more familiar vehicles of the time.  Now I have come to appreciate it for being a stylish looking vehicle.  Sure, it has quirks that might make it a nuisance to own but it certainly looks very swish.  One was on display at Exotics@RTC and I was drawn to it.  It certainly didn’t hurt that the owner had applied hubcaps that looked like some sort of hypnosis device.  What a fantastic addition to the day.