It was back in 1956 that the late Gianni Mazzocchi founded Quattroruote - the most-read automotive magazine in Italy - and being a passionate petrol-head, his car collection bears the same name. It is this collection that RM-Sotheby's will sell on Saturday May 14th at Le Sporting Monte-Carlo in Monaco.
Predictably, Italian origins runs through many of them but we rather fell in love with the 1930 Hispano-Suiza H6B Coupé Limousine with coachwork by Henri Binder. A French car built in Spain and the Swiss half of its name is a salute to Mark Birkigt, the brilliant designer responsible for the straight six SOHC engine of 6.5 litres with flat line torque permitting smooth acceleration from 0 to 85 mph in top gear.
If your bank balance or garage won't stretch to the whole car, you can buy an H6B engine alone and perhaps ask permission to display it in the sitting room ;-)
From Germany, the 1914 Benz 8/20 HP Tourer has an engine capacity of just 1.9 litres to avoid tax put on large-engined cars. This made it popular with taxi drivers and it kept the company afloat until it merged with Daimler in 1926.
Mazzocchi had good taste and we see the Gangloff-bodied Bugatti 57 from the 1939 Geneva car Show which later became factory demonstrator, and British cars include a 1931 Austin 7 tourer and a 1929 Rolls Royce Phantom II with red velvet upholstery.
And so to Italy and we find 1914 SCAT Tipo 14-1 with original Torpedo coachwork by Solaro of Turin. The first authentic SCAT to become available for public sale in many years, but let us finish with one of the most significant cars in the collection. Bought in 1962 from the famous Sword collection in UK where it was misidentified as a 1927 model, Mazzocchi recognised it as one of the earliest known first series Lancia Lambdas from 1922 and has been cared for in the Quattroruote collection for the last 55 years.
Text Robin Batchelor, pictures courtesy RM-Sothebys.