Visiting Palermo, Sicily,  a few years ago, while I was nosing round the old harbor area, I hit the jackpot stumbling across a specialty garage.  Outside that garage, when I told the garage owner that I was from Texas and wanted to take a look inside, he gruffly turned away in apparent disgust.  I stood at the entrance a few moments, looking at all the cars inside just out of my reach, but finally asked another mechanic if I could take a few pictures.  Shockingly, I was given full access.  Here is one of seven cars I photographed there.  That mechanic even uncovered this car for me!

It took me a few years to identify it as a 1949 Fiat 1500 6C Sport Lanzarone Trasformazione with a Mille Miglia decal.  Turns out that the Falanga Tommaso garage is well-know.  This was one of my greatest discoveries, SCORE!!

I stumbled upon this beautiful Fiat Trasformazione Stanguellini race car in a garage near the docks in Palermo. The garage owner gruffly dismissed me with a wave of his hand when I said I was from Texas. I was crestfallen that I would not be able get into his garage, but after a few moments, I meekly asked a mechanic if I could take a few pictures and he invited me inside. This car was completely covered and when I asked what was under the cover, the mechanic readily lifted the cover. I’d love to learn more about this car. Stanguellinis were highly engineered race cars that notched considerable racing successes. There is a Stanguellini museum in Modena, Italy.