Class of 1950 – Driven To Write

Keeping death at bay.

Jean Marais in a still from Jean Cocteau’s Orphée from 1950. Image: Taste of Cinema

Death travels in a Rolls Royce landaulet accompanied by a pair of leather-clad motorcycle outriders. The portal between the living world and the afterlife is fluid and open. Reflections come fraught with risk. Death herself; beautiful, irresistible in her terrible inevitability is nonetheless prey to similar failings as us mortals. Reality pivots amid clever reverse projections and rippling looking glasses – Jean Cocteau’s visionary 1950 movie Orphée retells the myth of Orpheus and his journey into the underworld, set amid the landscape of post-war France.

The aftermath of hostilities was a desperate time across Europe; the old ways could no longer continue, given how the continent had been altered by war. For Alfa Romeo it marked something of an existential crisis. The coachbuilt cars they previously specialised in were no longer relevant, and with Portello being forced to Continue reading “Anniversary Waltz 1950 : Do Not Try To Understand, Just believe”

The Lancista’s Lancia turns 70.

1950 Lancia Aurelia B10 -(c) carstylecritic

If one was to carry out a poll amongst Lanciaphiles as to the quintessential model in the storied marque’s history, there is likely to be a certain amount of heated debate. While some might cleave to the innovative and undoubtedly influential Lambda of 1922, it’s probably more likely the Aurelia would garner the majority vote.

Borgo San Paolo’s 1950 entrant was Lancia’s first genuinely new product of the post-hostility period, replacing the emblematic Aprilia, which ceased production the previous year; the latter model itself a ground breaker in design terms mating fully independent suspension, a narrow-angle V4 engine and pillarless construction within an aerodynamically streamlined, stressed bodyshell.

The Aurelia was intended as a larger, more refined car, aimed at the affluent owner-driver. Italy was for the most part impoverished and war-torn from years of conflict by the close of the 1940s, with large swathes of the population who could only dream of car ownership, but there remained a base of professionals, wealthy industrialists and titled nobility who could Continue reading “The Aurelian Way”