Stanguellini Colibrì

There are few things in the motoring world more joyful than flying around in a light car. 

Moreover, there are few cars nicer to look at than the Italian ones, especially when it’s a paired back land speed record car.

I feature many of them here, because in relation to vehicles on our roads (that mostly have speed limits), they tend to be intensely odd.

Enter the Stanguellini Colibrì, in several ways the exact opposite of 99.99999% of all cars made since.

Why it’s so different could be because Stanguellini was founded in an incredibly unique place before it was known for building cars, or as a main hub within the industrial powerhouse that is ‘Motor Valley’: Modena, Italy.

The first F.I.A.T. car owned in Modena was distributed through the dealership that Francesco Stanguellini founded. His father, Celso, had marched to the beat of his own drum by manufacturing instruments— timpani.

Things hit their stride when Francesco’s son Vittorio took the wheel in 1932 after his father’s early death. By 1937, Squadra Corsa Stanguellini had won the Targa Florio. Vittorio was 24 or 25 at the time.

Stanguellini followed it up in 1938 by winning the Mille Miglia, criss-crossing a similar route to that of later years but at a slower pace.