Following the emergence of some dry weather for the August 2012 Ace Cafe Italian Night, we all wondered if it was too much to hope for a repeat in September. Fortunately our luck was in and the day was warm and sunny from daybreak, which led to expectations of a good turnout of all sorts of Italian machinery. Although the forecourt in front of the Cafe was never quite full, in fact quite a lot of the late arrivers parked up on the street, easing the challenge for anyone who wanted to leave early, and there ended up being a good number of cars to see and plenty to people to talk to, making for a very agreeable evening. Pictorial highlights include the following:
ABARTH
As ever, Abarth dominated the event, numbers swelled a bit by the fact that the central London dealer had come along, with three new models, including a 695 Tributo.
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Plenty of variety among the ranks of Alfa, though nothing particularly unusual. Kai Kan, one of the Abarthisti had brought his 147 GTA as a change from his Punto Evo, and it did look good. I can see why the Abarth was an addition to his fleet rather than a replacement.
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Not a Ferrari in sight this month
FIAT
Again, nothing particularly unusual, as the little 850 Spider has become quite a frequent star of these events, but a nice variety of Fiat from the Cinquecento and Seicento through a number of Coupes to a Uno SX which arrived after dark fell (hence no pics). The X1/9 at the event was not a car I can recall seeing present before.
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A couple of Integrales were this month’s Lancia representatives and very nice they both were.
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When I arrived there were more Maserati than anything else, but no further cars arrived during the evening, and most of them left (late) in convoy.
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So, the driver was asked to park out on the road. He said that he just wanted to pop in for a bite to eat, so taking the 3 litre Bentley must have seemed like the obvious thing to do! It was a splendid machine.
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