Don Giaccobi
If you want an experience in life, make it happen. We take a look at Peter Giaccobi’s lifelong love for the Ferrari 250 Testarossa experience.
“Avanti!” [“Let’s go!”] Spinning the Dunlop Racing bias-plys, at 80 mph on a tiny road with 400 Italian cavallina-powers roaring away, Peter Giaccobi distilled a 65 year passion for cars in a single word- “sempre” [“always”].
A fellow Jay Leno’s garage alumni, and at his core, a believer in a “if you want a certain experience bad enough in life, you’ve got to go after it” mindset, Peter has a cheeky sparkle in his eye primarily for 60’s Italian cars. He has raced an Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider for over 35 years, and restored another Spider Veloce to concours condition. Though he says his passion was first kindled with MGs, the gateway sportscar: “I had a fake CSCC (California Sports Car Club) racing license. At Torrey Pines, Ken Miles used to come past me in his Shingle [a custom racecar built by Miles based on the MG TD], he was probably thinking what the hell is this!? I was seventeen, racing a stock TF [MG], I didn’t know what I was doing.” After interjecting to speak to his wife in Italian, he goes on, “then I started modifying the Alfas and they were good…”
I pull up some video taken of a friend’s collection of 8mm film shot at Torrey Pines Road Racing Circuit in 1957, to reveal a green MG TF, car number 164 going across the frame, all on its own. “Could be me,” he smiles. Standing in Peter’s garage, its hard not to notice the orangey-red slice of car parked behind the Alfas. It’s a 1 of 1, the ‘Sinthesis’. He produces a book. In it are newspaper articles, drawings, build photos, and more importantly- photos of the car on its stand at the 1970 Turin Motor Show, complete with 60’s Italian showgirls. “That’s my wife,” he points to the page.
I’ll bet it is. How could it not be. It’s 1970 in Turin, you’re young, you’ve got a sharp suit on, a crisp new Mechanical Engineering degree from Cornell, an idea to make a beautiful car, and you’re surrounded by some of the most talented craftsmen to have graced the Earth. You’re living and breathing an Italian attitude to cars in the late 60’s, early 70’s, you have those sunglasses, and that haircut- of course it was his wife. There they were at the Turin Motor Show. Stunning.
They were there because Peter co-engineered the Sinthesis with designer Tom Tjaarda (who went on to pen the Pantera). It had a Lancia flat 4 breathed on by Nardi, mounted in the middle, a tubular frame, and doors that came down low enough such that you no cumbersome and wide lower sill to get in the way of your white trousers and black barbanera boots.
It has a greenhouse-like array of glass that lets you peer into the car from all angles, and makes you wonder where they hid all the… car parts. It is an incredibly roomy package in an aerodynamic shape. Peter lifts the carpeted engine cover to reveal the “Lancia” insignia on the valve covers. “How do you even get the engine in?” (the rear glass is fixed). “From below,” he smirks, pointing to his stil sharp engineering melon. The shape still looks modern today, owing largely to the skill of the Torinese craftsmen of the time Peter explains. “The craftsmen were incredible. I watched a man turn a flat piece of aluminum into a sphere using a tree stump, a bag of lead, and a hammer… he came back in forty-five minutes and said, ‘sorry I couldn’t close it up,’ pointing to a pin hole at the top.” He explains the high design requirements of the Sinthesis’ concept, “We wanted an aerodynamic, timeless shape with a mid-engined design.” Giaccobi and Tjaarda certainly succeeded, as their efforts caught the attention of some key individuals at DeLorean. They brought Peter on, who then worked on designing the DeLorean’s unique stainless-steel composite skin-sandwich. Describing the layers, he said it was very strong, but due to a poor decision to fund the company through a prolific illegal drug deal, we all know how the DeLorean story ended.
Oddly enough, illustrious racing and design career is not what brought me here. I came
