1st Concours d'élégance Paleis Het Loo 1999

Ferrari is probably one of the most appealing marques in the world. This Italian manufacturer has always specialized in sport and racing cars, and very successful too. The first Ferrari produced for normal road use was the type 166. Like most Ferraris it was equally at home on the racing track as on the highway.
The 166 appeared in 1948 and became available in a number of flavors. It featured bodywork by Ghia, Touring or Pinin Farina. The 1995 cc V12 engine could be had as the standard 89 hp Sport version, the 108 hp Inter version, the 140 hp Mille Miglia competition version and ultimately as the 155 hp Formula 2 version.
The picture shows an elegant Touring bodied model 166 from 1949 with an Inter engine, good for a top speed of about 170 kph. Only 39 models 166 have been made during the production run from 1948 till 1950.

The car that established Ferrari as a sports car manufacturer was the 250 GT. First introduced in 1953 as the production version of the 1952 250 Mille Miglia, it developed into the embodiment of the ultimate sports car. It was produced in a wide variety of shapes and forms, some pure as luxury sports cars and some solely for competition. The most revered of all was (and still is) the 250 GTO, the extremely powerful, long-nosed road racer with classic coupé bodywork by Pininfarina.
A slightly less known 250 GT version is the "Tour de France" like you see here. It was a purpose built competition sports car for the Tour de France road race and attracted enough customers to see a small series produced between 1955 and 1959. The sharp looking aluminum body was styled by Pininfarina but built by Scaglietti. Power came from an illustrious 2953 cc V12 engine developing some 280 hp @ 7000 rpm. This car could easily cross the 250 kph barrier. Only 84 have been produced.

The 250 GT Tour de France was succeeded in 1959 by the Ferrari 250 (GT Berlinetta) SWB, another all-round sports car. The SWB abbreviation stood for Short Wheel Base, meaning that the chassis of the 250 GT TdF had been shortened for this model. It resulted in one of the best looking and best balanced 250 GT designs.
The car had the same 3-litre V12 engine as the 250 GT TdF but was more nimble. The first editions were pure race bred and had top speeds of over 270 kph. Later versions like this C-revision were slightly de-tuned to make them more fit for normal road use, resulting in 250 hp and 240 kph. The body was designed and built by Pininfarina and featured both steel and aluminum parts.
The last of the 175 Ferraris 250 SWB left the factory around 1963, 82 of them were built as pure competition cars. Current value of these cars is sky-high, only surpassed by that of the rare 250 GTO, the racing car that replaced the track version of the 250 SWB in 1960.

Quite a contrast to the Ferraris is this veteran Fiat Tipo 5 from 1909. Fiat was one of Italy's pioneer car manufacturers. The first Fiat car was introduced in 1899, but it took until 1912 before Fiat established itself as a successful manufacturer with the type Zero.
Before the Zero Fiat produced a diverse range of luxury and racing cars. The luxury cars were usually categorized as Tipo 1 for the smaller cars, Tipo 3 for the middle class cars and Tipo 5 for the top end of the range.
This big Tipo 5 had a huge 9,017 cc 4 cylinder in-line engine. The impressive "Roi des Belges" style bodywork (equivalent to Tourer or Phaeton coachwork) was made by the French Rothschild company, a famous name in the early years of motoring. Really a car for the very wealthy of that time.

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