The Best Sports Cars

One of the last stops in Europe will be the wonderful land of Italy! Here there are more of the best sports cars than you can shake a stick at or just wave a broom. From much the same as England and Germany, they come in all shapes and sizes, while here in the US we are most familiar with the exotics and such top sports cars as Ferrari and Lamborghini, the rest of the world, namely, Europe and Asia, get to see some of the fun sport compacts that have not yet made their way stateside.

So how did we get here? The origins of the best sports cars from Italy go back a ways and as far as Ferrari and Lamborghini go, their origins preceded the cars that made them famous. In fact much as we’ve come to see in Italian culture there is one renowned brand: FIAT. Dating back to 1899, Fiat has added a little flair to the sports car market themselves, however, unbeknownst to some, today the Fiat group consists of another one of Italy’s oldest brands, Alfa Romeo and of course Ferrari and Maserati.

Not to be left out, we have the tractor manufacturer, turned exotic car extraordinaire- Lamborghini, in fact, these cars were made for the road first, the track second unlike Ferrari who took their racing heritage and brought it to the road. Both companies are also relatively young in comparison to some of the other Italian or even European brands with Ferrari hitting the scene in the late 40’s and Lamborghini following suit in the 60’s.

Maserati, often associated with Ferrari, due to their co-operation through Fiat, dates back to 1915 although in the US we have not been fortunate enough to have a strong Maserati prescence since Joe Walsh famously sung the line “My Maserati does 185…” until recently. Which much like Fiat and Alfa themselves, went M.I.A. for most of the 80’s and 90’s with a few offerings making their way stateside.

Other brands of top sports cars from Italy who believe in co-operation, this time, on a global level are Zagato(with England’s Aston Martin) and De Tomaso(with USA’s Ford). In addition, the famed Italian design studio of Pininfarina as well as world renowned designer Giorgetto Giugiaro and his family have designed many of the best sports cars the world over, in addition to some of Italy’s best!

Yes, you could definitely write a book about all the best sports cars from Italy, but for time’s sake we will wrap this up soon with where we are today and what the future holds. First off, this would not be an article on Italian sports cars without one of the latest contestants, the Pagani Zonda(c/o JaseMen from Flickr):

And on to today, where it seems like the 80’s was the battle of the 400+ hp offerings such as the legendary Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari F40 to the 90’s battle of 500+ with Diablo 6.0 versus F50 and the current decade and the 600+ contenders in the Murcielago LP640 and the Enzo(picture below was taken by me in 2007 at the Ferrari Museum in Maranello):

So it is only natural that the next decade will mean 700 is the new 600 and that we can expect the more “pedestrian” models such as the Gallardos and F430’s who currently put out 500+ to have their heir apparents churning out the 600+ that their current big brothers offer.

With that I say “arrivederci” to Italy for now, but please come back as future articles will not only go more in-depth, but as promised in the opening article will offer tips on how to enjoy these beautiful machines in person such as tips for buying used sports cars from Italy as well as some cool sports car wallpaper to stick up on your desktop, much like the above Enzo photo which has resided on mine.