How we love an anniversary or two. Or more. I know we shouldn’t need an excuse to feature great cars and people, but a birthday of some sort should always be reason to celebrate.
In this issue, we have a few: 40 years since the Porsche 959 first appeared at a motor show; 70 years since that racing great Alberto Ascari died; 70 years, too, since Moss and Jenks won the Mille Miglia; also 70 years since designer Virgil Exner created ‘The Forward Look’ for Chrysler (which itself celebrates its centenary this year); 100 years of the Rolls Royce Phantom; and 200 years of the Stelvio Pass, would you believe. There’s probably an anniversary of me writing about anniversaries in the Welcome page, but we won’t go there.
Of course, it’s a sad fact that very few people originally involved with any of the happenings listed will still be around, except for the Porsche – there are plenty of engineers and designers with us from the 959 days.
There’s also Georg Kacher, the now-legendary (and very tall) German motoring journali
