Fabrizio and I had taken off from Quail Lodge and motored briskly east up Carmel Valley. We got to the intersection of Los Laureles grade, made the left, and nailed it up hill. I was driving as Fabrizio filled me in on what he had wanted to achieve with this compound curve carbon fiber research project. This Nazca M12 was Fabrizio’s first personally directed design and engineering project to come from his Dad’s firm ItalDesign.
The conversation evolved from the goals set forth, and seemly achieved from where I was sitting, to his Dad, and how he was doing.
With its featherweight body and lusty BMW V-12 mounted amidships it was no slouch up this empty weekday mountain road. As we were reaching the crest of Los Laureles, Fabrizio turned in his seat, and gave a probing look behind us through the silvered glass copula.
“I think we’ve lost the rest of the crew. Perhaps we should pull over and wait for them.”
“Good idea. Wouldn’t serve any purpose to get too far ahead of them.”
The crew in this case were the PR team from Ital and the second of the prototypes we were running today, the Alfa based Scighera, piloted by my journalist friend Jon Rosner and a member of the Ital team.
As we climbed out of the seats we were reminiscing about my last trip to Turin. Leaning onto the front fender, road side of the car, we were going back and forth about the Lexus prototype they had just finished that day and were taking out that evening, when we suddenly became aware of the sound of an engine approaching at particularly high pitch and speed.
We both turned to look south, down the grade, when a CHP car appeared and almost simultaneously crested the hill right in front of us. We both made eye contact with the CHP behind the wheel for a millisecond and he was gone in a rush of dust. Fabrizio and I stared silently after his wake of still swirling filtered sun light. Then turned to each other and started laughing from deep down below our lungs, somewhere around our stomachs, just there by our souls.
Lifting his sunglasses and wiping a tear fallen from smiling eyes he said, “I guess we were going faster than we thought.”
“Who knew?” I said catching my breath, shrugging my shoulders innocently, still smiling volubly.
“Oh…” I said, pointing.
“Here they come.” Fabrizio finished the thought.
Still chuckling we got back into the car, turned as they went by and waved. Each had a strange and curious look on their face.
I ignited the M12 part of the name and fell in line behind, in a much more passive roll than previously.
The conversation evolved from the goals set forth, and seemly achieved from where I was sitting, to his Dad, and how he was doing.
With its featherweight body and lusty BMW V-12 mounted amidships it was no slouch up this empty weekday mountain road. As we were reaching the crest of Los Laureles, Fabrizio turned in his seat, and gave a probing look behind us through the silvered glass copula.
“I think we’ve lost the rest of the crew. Perhaps we should pull over and wait for them.”
“Good idea. Wouldn’t serve any purpose to get too far ahead of them.”
The crew in this case were the PR team from Ital and the second of the prototypes we were running today, the Alfa based Scighera, piloted by my journalist friend Jon Rosner and a member of the Ital team.
As we climbed out of the seats we were reminiscing about my last trip to Turin. Leaning onto the front fender, road side of the car, we were going back and forth about the Lexus prototype they had just finished that day and were taking out that evening, when we suddenly became aware of the sound of an engine approaching at particularly high pitch and speed.
We both turned to look south, down the grade, when a CHP car appeared and almost simultaneously crested the hill right in front of us. We both made eye contact with the CHP behind the wheel for a millisecond and he was gone in a rush of dust. Fabrizio and I stared silently after his wake of still swirling filtered sun light. Then turned to each other and started laughing from deep down below our lungs, somewhere around our stomachs, just there by our souls.
Lifting his sunglasses and wiping a tear fallen from smiling eyes he said, “I guess we were going faster than we thought.”
“Who knew?” I said catching my breath, shrugging my shoulders innocently, still smiling volubly.
“Oh…” I said, pointing.
“Here they come.” Fabrizio finished the thought.
Still chuckling we got back into the car, turned as they went by and waved. Each had a strange and curious look on their face.
I ignited the M12 part of the name and fell in line behind, in a much more passive roll than previously.
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Story, photography and art direction by S. Scott Callan