Mucking around on the Internets as I do, I often will come across some truly incredible sites that no one seems to know about. At least I think that must be the case, because no one is telling me about them. In the interest of getting to bed at a decent hour and giving you something to do when you should really be collating I’ll give you five of my favorite places on the web to waste an hour or three while expanding my horizons. If you make it to the end of the column without getting sucked off into one of these powerful vortexes, leave a comment with a link to a couple of your favorites. Together we can lower the productivity of the country this week!

Gnarly Maps

If you don’t know about Radical Cartography and you even spent one day as a kid making a treasure map or a diagram of your neighborhood with secret hideouts and the like, you’re missing out. The site has everything: a Flash-animated map showing the development of area codes in the US, a map comparing the various mass-transit systems of North America, a cool overlay map illustrating the relative sizes of Europe and the US (I always thought Wisconsin was about the size of Germany; looks like I was wrong), and a map of the world from a New Yorker’s perspective. There are more cool ones, but I’ll let you discover them on your own.

My Old Kentucky Virginia Home

You know how some people are nostalgic about the old family farm? The owners of Enon Hall are rightly crazy about their property. Enon Hall, located in Lancaster County, Virginia, was the ancestral Hathaway homestead from 1762 - 1939. The present owners, themselves Hathaway descendants, bought the homestead in 1999 without even having toured the entire house. What has followed is a labor of love in restoring the home and the grounds, documented in a journal and aided by an extensive collection of historical documents. I just discovered this treasure this past weekend and have read up through November of 1999. I plan on reading the entire journal and then continuing to check back each month as the owners continue to rebuild a significant part of their family history.

Bullet Trains

I’ve held forth at length here in the past on the subject of high speed rail connections in this country. The MHSRA has crammed more information into one place than I can possibly link to, so you’ll have to do the exploring on your own. Worth looking at no matter if you’re a railroad buff, a proponent of sound civil engineering, or just curious about why high speed rail is such a no-brainer for the Midwest.

It’s like hacking, only with buildings!

I link to Action Squad in the sidebar, but if you haven’t checked it out yet, you really should, especially if you’re from the Twin Cities or you liked sneaking around like a favorite spy character as a tot. Whether crawling through the ruins of a state mental hospital, messing around in an abandoned bowling alley, or infiltrating the abandoned mines beneath Ford’s assembly plant in St. Paul, Action Squad leaves you wanting to do a little urban exploration of your own.

Ghost Towns, Junkyards, and the Salton Sea
If I ever have an office to myself again, I think I would like to decorate it exclusively with prints of Troy Paiva’s work, showcased at his Lost America website. Eerily beautiful, haunting, and just plain cool. And no Photoshop - just plain old lens mastery and long exposures. Brilliant.

Share the love with links in the comments!

Inspired by a close encounter with some rare machinery today (and because my original post remains in the development process), today I’m going to present a new feature of the blog - the “Top Five _____ You’ve Never Heard Of.” Today’s installment: the Top Five Italian Cars You’ve Never Heard Of (Illustrated).

Number Five: Lancia Aurelia

Produced for six years (1950 - 1956), the Aurelia was a luxury car available in a variety of configurations, from sedan to sports car. With little over than 18,000 built the Aurelia is a somewhat rare beast, especially the left-hand drive US models, which were only imported starting in 1954. Given the quality of steel and questionable building practices of the Italian auto industry at the time, even fewer Aurelias survive today.

The Aurelia was named after the Via Aurelia. The Aurelia was Lancia’s crown jewel and featured many Lancia-developed innovations. A major technological force in the automobile industry, Lancia introduced the world’s first V6 engine in 1950. Originally available in the Aurelia, the first incarnation of the Lancia V6 was produced for 20 years, gaining over a liter in displacement (from 1754 cc to 2775 cc) and 96 horsepower (56 to 152) over that time.

Aurelias were some of the most beautiful and desirable cars of the Fifties, perfect for long drives and vacationing.

Number Four: Lamborghini Jarama

Marcello Gandini would draw prettier Lamborghinis (the Miura and the Espada), more intimidating Lamborghinis (the Countach and Diablo), and even an uglier Lamborghini (the Urraco) but he never did top the funkiness of the Jarama.

Ferruccio Lamborghini, the Italian farm implement and air conditioner magnate, was a Taurus. His company’s insignia was a raging bull, and many of his cars would be named after areas famous for producing impressive bovine specimens. The Jarama was christened after a district in Spain which produced fighting bulls. Powered by the big Lambo V12, the Jarama could hit 152 mph in standard (350 horsepower) form and 162 mph in GTS (365 hp) trim.

Though it was built for six years, only 327 Jarama’s were produced, making it one of the most rare Lamborghinis. The rarest of all Jaramas was the Rally S that Bob Wallace, Lamborghini’s chief test driver, built as a rolling showcase of Lambo know-how. Tossing out anything not conducive to speed, Wallace cut out portions of the floor and replaced the steel with aluminum. Glass was tossed in favor of plastic. In all, Wallace saved 660 pounds by trimming the fat out of the car. Getting the car down to 2574 lbs (less than a modern Honda Civic), the crazy New Zealander turned his attention to the engine, wringing 380 horsepower from the V12. The car could exceed 165 mph, but its limits were never tested thoroughly, most likely because it would have been insane to do so.

Number Three: Qvale Mangusta

When Alejandro de Tomaso’s company was hijacked by his American partner, Bruce Qvale (”koo-va-lay”), the company had only one product, the Mangusta. de Tomaso had partnerships with a variety of companies throughout his career, including Maserati and Ford, but when hard times came he had been forced to take on an investor, Qvale. After a falling out Qvale took over the de Tomaso factory and continued producing Mangustas. In all, between 270 and 272 were built. Most were imported to the US.

Designed by Marcello Gandini (the man responsible for the well-known Lamborghini Countach and Diablo), the Mangusta sported the same V8 engine as the Ford Mustang. With the kooky Rototop (a semi-mechanical top which gave the car the ability to switch from coupe-targa-full convertible), pedestrian performance for an Italian exotic, and a base price just a few Franklins away from $70,000, Qvale was in trouble. The Mangusta lasted two years and became a footnote in history.

Number Two: Ferrari 308 GT4

Of course, everyone knows about the Ferrari 308. That is, at least everyone over the age of twenty who have ever seen one episode of Magnum, P.I. For most people, that 308 is likely what the word “Ferrari” conjures in their mind - a mustachioed Tom Selleck in a campy Hawaiian shirt and a Detroit Tigers cap, evading dobermans and cracking wise with his buddies at the expense of a unfortunate Englishman. Nothing wrong with that 308 - it’s a gorgeous car - but it wasn’t the first Ferrari with that designation.

The 308 GT4 was designed by Bertone, perhaps the most famous of the Italian coachbuilders. This was Bertone’s first ever design for Ferrari, who were in the habit of using Pininfarnia for body design. For this reason the 308 GT4 is often implied to be a Ferrari in name only, but the fact that the chassis and engine in the GT4 is the same as the components found in Magnum’s car attest to the purebred (if inbred-looking) nature of this car.

The 308 GT4 was also the first (production, as opposed to racing) Ferrari with a V8 mounted amidships, setting a precedent that exists even today. The engine originally displaced three liters and gave 265 horsepower. A later version, the 208 GT4, would be produced for consumption in Europe. At 1991 cc (1.991 liters), this V8 is the smallest ever produced and lost 95 horsepower in the process.

A bonus for potential Ferarri buyers - the GT4 was a four-seater, meaning that the driver can bring three close friends along for a spin. Additionally, as it’s a less desirable model, the GT4 commands prices about ten grand south of a comparable Magnum-style 308.

Number One: Maserati Khamsin

Produced for nine years during some of the darkest days at Maserati, the Khamsin is nevertheless one of the most well-engineered Italian cars ever. Maserati was, at the time of the development of the Khamsin, owned by Citroen, the famously innovated French auto manufacturer. As such, the Khamsin features the fabulous Citroen DIRAVI (”Direction à rappel asservi” - steering with controlled return) power-operated hydraulic steering system, mated to Citroen’s hydraulic suspension and insane high-pressure (2500 psi) braking setup.

The Khamsin, named after a very hot, cyclonic wind in Egypt, was the successor to the Maserati Ghibli, and was styled at Bertone by Marcello Gandini (sound familiar?). The car was propelled by a 4.9 liter V8 developing 320 stampeding Italian horses. The Khamsin could exceed 140 mph, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend doing that in a thirty year old car.