The Californian connection

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People who know me, know that I have a love for Lancia cars. Someone asked me if I had seen the 1928 Lancia Lambda Spider Casaro  for sale in California. No, I did not. So, a few days later I went to the Bay Area, bought the car and hooked up with some Lancisti, Paul Tullius and Jeff Hill being the principal ones. Jet-lag, beer and talking cars did the rest. Memories are vague. I had entered another world, the world of endless opportunities, the world of people racing their Maserati A6G, Cobra, Lightweights, Lancia’s; people living life like no other.

Bruce Trenery from Fantasy junction is such a person, the typical American. At a young age selling his Lancia B24 Spider for 1500 USD to finance a trip to Mali to start a protein farm. Driving to New York in a 6-year old Cadillac, shipping her to Morocco and hoping to sell her. Moroccans do not like Cadillacs, nor do the Spanish, the French and so on. In The Nederlands, a contact told him these cars are only for pimps. So they found a pimp willing to pay 1600 USD and a bag of weed. The pimp never showed up. On their last savings, they filled the car up and drove to Antwerp, finally selling the car to an undertaker. With his proceeds, Bruce could just make it home, one illusion and one Lancia B24 Spider poorer.

Bruce was born at the right moment as another colourful character, whom I was going to meet: Ivan Zaremba. As Bruce, Ivan started life racing, racing cars which now would fetch multi-millions but which were then just fast cars from Italy with the right pedigree. I met Ivan in a nondescript building. Inside it took a while before I realised what was going on, three Hispano Suiza’s accompany a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, a Maserati Frua Spider, a 1914 Model 35J ”Raceabout” the first American racer, an original entrant to the 1931 and 1932 Mille Miglia, and from the ceiling – hanging - the shell of a formula car from Nikki Lauda to name a few. Restoration is taken incredibly seriously, spending a day at reproducing the right kind of conic spring for the auto vac of a 6C. Doing thorough research to find the only picture from a one-off Hispano Suiza. Sixty Cosworth engines are being taken care off and rebuild after so many races. And a 917 engine sits on a spit solving problems Porsche Classic cannot.

This wonderland goes back to times when you could pick up a GTO for $10.000, - when Phil Reilly, the founder, was working on cars for famous Californian racers. Now the shop is owned by Brian Madden but still retains Reilly’s name. Ivan calls himself merely the ambassador. To me, it feels like calling the conductor of the philharmonic “merely the ambassador”.

In his early years, Ivan was presented with a Maserati Bird Cage, sawn in two in an attempt to fit an American V8. The car was restored at the best of his knowledge at the time and was campaigned for many years in the UK. It was the basis for 4 recreations. When the car recently came back, Ivan had the chance to consult original drawings making some minor modifications to his earlier restoration. Now it is easy to see the difference between the original and the replicas. The consistency I could discover in this workshop is the effort being put into each detail. The complete dedication to perfection and authenticity. I left with a feeling that if you have to ask for the price (of a restoration) you cannot afford it. California has enough rich people who want the best, do not take “no” for an answer and who know where to find Ivan.

Not being able to afford his services I am left with a question. Who does have original pictures of one of the three 1928 Lancia Lambda Spider Casaro’s built for the Mille Miglia and who knows if it ever had a hood? And how was it fixed?

Words and pictures by Bart Kleyn.

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