Automotive Masterpieces' Project

A cultural catalyst to promote the collective enjoyment of the heritage of the motor vehicle and historical research for pleasure, learning or work. AUTOMOTIVE MASTERPIECES exhibitions lab® is a facilitator of innovation and change. The goal is to trace the history of all specific chassis numbers through a dedicated website. What really makes a difference is that it’s possible to focus on cars that still exist, not simply a dry list of cars that have often disappeared, but a true living group made up of real AUTOMOTIVE MASTERPIECES. With the websites and the survey completed, to celebrate specific themes and anniversaries through dedicated books, book series, exhibitions, virtual exhibitions and summits.
The future: What will happen to these Automotive Masterpieces in fifty, a hundred, a thousand years? What about the heritage of the motor vehicle and the world around it? It’s important to begin now to work on a real dialogue between museums and collections. It is important to start thinking not territorially but focusing on the goal. Creating and sharing a vision of the future is of the utmost importance. Not protectionism, therefore, but greater attention to the cars that represent the countries that produced them.

The name of the cars

The website is filled with very special and carefully selected cars and you are about to get to know them.
How to define them? What is their correct name? It’s not easy, when it comes to accurately identifying a car, to choose among many different elements.
As these cars have often had a long history, sometimes full of changes, the first thing to clarify is that the identification you’ll find refers to the car in its current state.

We decided to follow this policy to give them an exact “definition”:

• The year of the first assembly of the car on that chassis.
• The name of the builder/s. Sometimes it’s easy to discover who was the builder, sometimes not, especially if there are more authors for the same car. The first choice is the brand in the original badge on the car. When the original badge is missing, if it can’t be identified from historical pictures or records then together with it, we use the vehicle’s description in advertising and brochures of the era. And, of course, the chronological excerpt. These rules apply also to identify the model.
• The chassis builder.
• The engine builder.
• The name of the model (with possible displacement, preferably the original one, and sub-model or type).
• The name of the specialists who worked on the car.

Then:

• The name of the coachbuilder of the last (and current) bodywork. You’ll find one coachbuilder name if the car had no changes to the bodywork or if the bodywork was completely replaced by a second coachbuilder. You’ll find two coachbuilders names if the car was partially redone and you have both parts of the first and the second body on the car. You’ll find two coachbuilders names if the car was built contemporarily by two coachbuilders.
• The chassis number.

The historical chassis number and present today on the car.
If the car had a second chassis number in its history, this appears after the first one and the ">" sign. If the car had another number, no more punched in the chassis, this last number appears between brackets.

• The current engine number.

Objects that teach us to look at history in a new way and with a renewed language, man made objects that have made or been part of history.

Eligible Categories:

1. Concept and show cars
2. Prototypes
3. One-off models
4. Remaining cars from extremely limited production runs
5. Historic event cars: cars made famous by taking part in historic rallies, competitions, races, concourse, motor shows, etc.
6. Cars owned by famous people: cars belonging to famous drivers, actors, industrialists, politicians, aristocrats, sportsmen, artists, etc.
7. Team cars
8. Works cars
9. Press cars
10. Movie cars: cars that have appeared in films or TV series
11. Famous chassis’ cars: cars with the first or last chassis number and/or the earliest surviving or most recently built example remaining of a particular model
12. Limited edition cars: less than 300 units built or remaining