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– under UNESCO patronage of FIVA World Motoring Heritage Year
The second FIVA preservation award for 2016 – presented at top historic car events around the world – was given to Corrado Lopresto at Villa d’Este (20-22 May) for his spectacular ‘half-and-half’ Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Zagato. The pictures tell it all: half the car is cleaned but not restored, while the other is in as-found condition.
Corrado Lopresto treated the car – the Coda Tronca prototype, jointly developed by Elio Zagato and Ercole Spada – as a work of art, saving as much as possible of the amazingly well-preserved original. But he also drew on archaeological techniques, in that he decided to clean only half the car, leaving the other half frozen in time. In the uncleaned half, Lopresto preserved everything (including the dust) under a thin layer of transparent matt lacquer.
The FIVA awards are one of the ways in which FIVA (the Fédération Internationale des Véhicules Anciens or international federation of historic vehicles) is marking World Motoring Heritage Year 2016 – a FIVA initiative to which UNESCO has granted its official patronage.
At Villa d’Este, the award was presented by Dr Khalil Karam, Lebanese Ambassador to UNESCO, who congratulated FIVA on its 50th anniversary in 2016 “which will be celebrated in Paris at UNESCO on 17 November, under the patronage of UNESCO”, adding that “We are very much inspired by what is being done by FIVA as a protector of world motoring heritage.”
FIVA established the preservation awards to recognise vehicles that retain such a high degree of their original components, materials and finishes that they can be seen as important cultural artefacts. The awards will be followed by an end-of-year invitation for the winning cars to assemble in Paris. The plan is then to put the cars on display at UNESCO’s international headquarters in the heart of the French Capital.
The next FIVA preservation award will be presented at the Le Mans Classic, 8-10 July 2016.
1) The ‘half-and-half’ unrestored Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Zagato
2) (L to R) Simon Kidston, Dominik Fischlin of FIVA, Dr Khalil Karam of UNESCO, CorradoLopresto and son (pic courtesy of BMW)
