AUTO ITALIA CANBERRA RALLY 2021
By Todd Gilmore
While it's fresh in our minds the 2021 National Maserati Club connection was positively received.
On the day the Italian Ambassador to Australia Her Excellency Francesca Tardioli’s favourite section of the entire event was the 37 car Maserati lineup. Well done team. All will agree that it was the car tetris super skills of Bruce Lott that made the Masers fit and look fantastic. Placement of the John McGrath Maserati Canberra dealership new cars in the centre of the display with Maserati flags waving was very impressive. Bruce is a top Maserati member with a positive club attitude, always lends a hand and may have the best mirror finish in the club on his gleaming red Maserati. The Maserati display was definitely “best on ground” as relayed by the Auto Italia chairman Tony Hanrahan.
Both the Victorian and NSW clubs were fortunate to host Tony Hanrahan and the whole Auto Italia committee at the previous night National Maserati Club dinner 2021. The accolades received from the committee about bringing the clubs together has instilled ideas and direction for Auto Italia for 2022 and beyond. They truly enjoyed seeing the camaraderie, mate ship and ease that everyone had. A comment on how gender equal the whole group was and just how great that was to see everyone participating in the conversations. Old and new friends with a common interest coming together over good food and drinks. What more screams Italian style!
At the national Maserati dinner, the previous head chef of the Hyatt served Italian canapes through to desert, in a timely fashion, with an abundantly plentiful selection. I liked the duck ragu, but others made glowing remarks about the hearty soup or the 14hr slow roasted lamb. Thank you to Sweet pea catering for hosting us. Thank you to the aMBUSH gallery for having us in their stylish space. Thank you, Andrew at Lerida Estate winery, for keeping us refreshed and donating limited edition bottles of reds to Maserati Club presidents John Gove and Stephen Wells, for all their work they do throughout the year.
The cars. Best Maserati on the day was Fred Baudzus and his Maserati Ghibli SS 4.9 yellow with tobacco interior. With just over 400 produced it’s a special car to see. Elegance in Concours d’ elegance denotes the subjective fashion. I can see us all looking at bright shades of yellow this season as it captures warmth and fun in all the automobiles we lust after. The runner ups were John Gove in his Mistral spider (same colour combination as the winner) and the Granturismo of Paul Carrusso. The Best of show was an Australian delivered blue Lamborghini Miura RHD that the paint had just dried on a fresh restoration; with the runner up in a rare red ISO Grifo that would have made Bizzarrini proud.
In a general grouping, many of the NSW members come from the Sydney region or approximately 3.5 hours from the ACT. The NSW club overall would like to thank the Victorian club members, as they are double that duration and sometimes not in brand new cars. They all show true Italian style with a lot of Australian spirit. We hope they continue the tradition for a long time to come. Top effort, viva Maserati!
Photos provided by B Lott.
