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Gallery: Gino Macaluso’s Italian rally heroes

11th July 2021

Adam Wilkins

Gino Macaluso built a career in watch-making, but had a life-long passion for motorsport. The Fondazione Gino Macaluso Per L’Auto Storica (the foundation for historic cars) was established in 2018 by his family to keep his passion alive, taking a collection of cars amassed over two decades to events around the world. Nine cars are at the 2021 Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard.

Macaluso was a co-driver throughout the 1960s and, the following decade, became a navigator for the works Fiat rally team which was set up to rival Lancia. In 1972, Macaluso and driver Emanuele Pinto won European Rally Championship and Mitripo Cup aboard a Fiat 124 Spider. A similar Abarth tuned is among the nine cars the Foundation has brought to the Festival.

Many of the cars here are Martini liveries Lancia rally cars, but it’s not all gravel-ready machinery. The white with blue and red stripes livery is also shared by LC1 and LC2 sports cars. Even they struggle to steal the limelight from the spotlight-festooned Lancia 037 rally car. Or how about a Stratos in Alitalia colours? It’s hard to know where to look first.

The collection was kickstarted when Macaluso found the Fiat X1/9 Prototipo that, as project manager, he was instrumental in developing. It was found in a barn in 1987 in need of restoration, a process that began as soon as the original bodywork was tracked down. Macaluso spent the next decade collecting as many ex-works rally cars from the 1950s to 1990s as he could.

Gino Macaluso once said, “I have a special relationship with cars – it’s not just a passion, it’s part of my DNA, as well as that of my family.” That much is evident from the cars his family have brought to the Festival.

Photography by Pete Summers.