Story by Sean Smith
Do the posters we hang on our walls as kids really influence us later in life? A poster featuring the design and beauty of a black Porsche Turbo inspired Mike Pinkus. Over the years, the poster may have disappeared, but the ideas of design and beauty lingered. After graduating from high school Mike was moving aimlessly from job to job. He was a busboy in a restaurant, he worked for a moving company, but he had no real direction. Then Mike discovered the concept of industrial design. It lit a fire in him. With this revelation, Mike immersed himself in a five-year program at Syracuse University and came away with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design in 1984.
Now a freshly minted graduate, he had to find a job. An uncle just happened to mention, “You know I just met this guy in Italy, in Parma. He’s starting up a racing car company and I think he is looking for some help. Would you be interested in going to Italy and checking out a guy who is starting a company like that?”
The answer must have been an emphatic yes, as Mike landed in Parma two weeks later. He was picked up by the daughters of his new employer, Gian Paolo Dallara. They traveled through storybook Italian countryside and upon their arrival late in the day they handed Mike a big iron key and pointed to a sixteenth century farmhouse with vineyards around it and said, “That’s where you will be staying.”
It was like stumbling into a fantasy world. He woke up the next morning and could see a race track from his window. Dallara’s father, a civil engineer, had built the track for his son close to the nearby village of Varano de’ Melegari.
Before going out on his own, Dallara worked for Enzo Ferrari, Maserati and then Ferruccio Lamborghini and was one of the masterminds behind the Miura. He followed that with designing race cars for Frank Williams, founder of the F1 team that bore his name. In 1972 Dallara founded Dallara Automobili.
This is where Mike, as a young designer, found himself. He wasn’t paid, but he was given room and board. He did drafting and various assignments and was exposed to the amazing world of motorsports. He went with Dallara to many tracks around Italy and got to see all the exceptional machines that arrived to do battle there. This was Mike’s first hardcore exposure to the world of the automobile.
Mike was tasked with drawing parts for the race cars. Engineers gave him rough dimensions as a starting point; Mike would start the drafting process, this would then go through a refinement process, and the next step was to see if it was machinable and makeable.
Because his design studies were so fresh in his mind, Mike would add details to the piece he was working on; maybe a soft radius or something else to make the piece aesthetically pleasing; it was just his sensibility.
Dallara came over to him, put his hand on his shoulder and spoke to him while taking out his watch. “Mike, what’s important about race cars is lap times. The piece has to work very well and be light, but it does not have to be pretty. Don’t waste your time on aesthetics.”
This was totally against Mike’s training, but he got it; and when he saw the car perform on the track, it drove the point home.
After his time at Dallara, Mike went to Milan and worked for a product design firm called Memphis, a very fashion-driven outfit. One of his projects was designing a teapot. Mike was agonizing over the angle of the spout, so when you poured it wouldn’t dribble back and make a mess. He wanted it to pour properly. His boss came to him and told him, “we want this piece to look cool, we could care less how it works.” Polar opposites. But this was the beauty of design in Italy. But this was the irony of design in Italy. They cared so much; there was intense focus on what they wanted to achieve, whether it be form or function. Mike tapped into both extremes.
Mike continued on with his design work, finally returning to the U.S., living and working in New York City. From there Mike and his family moved to the very design-centric enclave of Usonia in Westchester County in 1993. This deserves a closer look. According to a 2003 article in the New York Times by Fred A. Bernstein, the community of Usonia was named by architect Frank Lloyd Wright to suggest a United States utopia. The neighborhood has three houses designed by the great architect. Bernstein reported that Mike and his wife were looking for a place to raise a family. It was a stretch for a first house but they made it work and found the money to buy one of the three Frank Lloyd Wright houses. “…Mr. Pinkus keeps a motorcycle — a bright yellow 1973 Ducati 750 Sport — in a corner of the stone-and-wood living room.” Mike said it was “for contrast.” That was in 2003. Now, a bright red Abarth Monomille provide the contrast. But we are getting ahead of our story….
The pull of Italian design was still very much with Mike. Naturally he came under the gravity of Dominick European car repair and the influence of brothers Santo and Frank Spadaro.
For many years Mike would stop by the shop on Saturdays to share his dreams with the brothers, and talk about all the cars he was lusting after. Santo put Mike together with another customer and a short time after that Mike had an Italian beauty; a Euro-spec 246 Dino. Mike’s next step was buying the Gilera motorcycle that had belonged to Dominick Spadaro.
Santo saw Mike as the perfect candidate for the VSCCA. He rode bikes, he had been to the Skip Barber driver’s school. So Santo sent Mike a letter telling him, “You need two letters of recommendation to get in the VSCCA, here’s one. Get involved, do this thing.”
Only one problem – no VSCCA eligible car. The search was on. A lot of people get involved with the club driving Alfas and the like, but Mike wanted something special, something unique. Mike went to the Bonhams 2018 Greenwich auction and saw the perfect car, a 1963 Monomille Abarth, upgraded to Bialbero specification. And there was Santo with his head in the engine compartment having a look see. Mike was on him in an instant. “Santo you have to give me a read on this car, is it legit, is it correct, is it maintained?”
Santo’s answer was not good.
“Dude, I’m checking it out for someone else.”
When Mike learned who the someone else was, Elad Shraga, he knew there was no point in bidding against him. So he watched the car go to Elad.
Mike wrote Shraga a letter congratulating him on getting such a great car and other pleasantries and told him if he ever wanted to move on let him know. That happened very quickly and Mike got the call. The car was his.
The Abarth spoke to him on many levels. The mechanical and aesthetic design drew him in.
Now that he had the car, he went through the VSCCA driving school. The next step was to participate in a wheel-to-wheel event and not screw up, and he would have the blessing of the board.
Taking the drivers school in his new Abarth was a fantastic experience.
The previous owner of the car for close to 30 years was VSCCA member Mahlon Craft. A true enthusiast for the car who kept obsessively meticulous records over the decades of his ownership. Five boxes of spare parts and original take-offs got passed along to Mike with the car. There were instructions to take care of every aspect of the car.
Mahlon even came down to Westchester to see the new home and garage for his beloved Abarth. It was similar to a home check, when someone is going to adopt a dog.
When Mahlon learned Mike would be registering the car for the road he sent multiple emails encouraging Mike against this. The car hesitates off the line, it’s not very visible, other motorists wouldn’t be aware of it and there would be a danger to the car and driver (I believe in Mahlon’s mind, mostly the car).
Even with that transgression, Mahlon, whose knowledge of Abarths is unparalleled, wrote a letter to the VSCCA board saying the car had changed hands and he felt the new caretaker was a worthy one.
Scott Marshall says
I saw this car at Lime Rock when Mahlon owned it. It has all the right stuff, it’s how an Abarth should look. With the bialbero motor it is a bit of a hot rod, but that makes it all the better. These cars are all about the details and there are only a few people around who know what details make the cars special, especially the mechanicals. I restored and sold a Monomille roundtail not long ago and still have my hands in the Abarth hobby with other cars, Editor: would love if you could give my e-mail address and ask Mike to contact me about Abarths in general.
Scott
Peter Linsky says
A rare and lovely gem. I was happy to read about Mahlon, who was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Abarth Register. I wish Mike many years of enjoyable driving.
David Cherrick says
Tell us more about the mechanicals. Is it Fiat based or Simca? Is the aluminum head something like a one-off? Is the transmission from Getrag, ZF, or Fiat or Simca. Excuse my ignorance but would like to know more about the mechanicals. Thanks
Nicolas Zart says
More please, more. I love etceterini. If I could, I’d have a garage full of Abarth, Gordini, Sciata, OSCA, etc. Those cars were drop-dead beautiful with the right amount of performance.
greg schmidt says
Would this be the car that ran in the Monterey Historics in about 1985? That year there were about 10 Abarths in the small bore production race. I was battling with David Silver for the lead but we both had problems & failed to finish. That left Mahlon with the win in his Bialbero……
toly arutunoff says
somewhere I have a pic or two of the Abarth display at the Torino alone in the early ’70s–or maybe earlier. 2 or 3 coupes of varying displacements, a periscope maybe, and some small-displacement open sports racers, also of varying displacements. wish I still had my 2000sp and 3000p…as they say, ‘join the club.’
Jaime I Del Valle says
Please, drive and drive. Congratulations! Jaime I
adrian walmsley says
Great article and photos. Good to see the pic of Mahlon, who is a great bloke.
Scott Marshall says
The engine block is a special casting that Fiat made for Abarth. It is identified by the letters AH cast into the side of the block. It made the increase in bore to bring the engine to 1000cc from the previous 850cc, possible. The head is all Abarth. Abarth engines had many in-house made parts. Con rods are one example. So were crankshafts, which were numbered. They are quite beautiful. My Monomille camshaft had roller bearing at each end, and there were parts like distributor drive gears that were made only for the Abarth engines. Gearboxes were Fiat based, but had hardened gears. In this case, Abarth took the 4 speed Fiat gearbox and added a fifth gear to the end of the box.
Later cars such as the Abarth Simca 2MILA had all Abarth built engines, and modified Simca chassis.
Scott
Mahlon F. Craft says
Yup. This was my Monomille, found in an ad in Hemmings or maybe Autoweek in the early 1980’s. The body was stripped to bare aluminum, straightened and repainted in the original color. I ran the car with a pushrod engine for many years till I found the parts to convert it to Bialbero. There is nothing on the car that I did’nt personally restore or replace with my own hands. By this time the only cylinder head I could find was from a 750cc Bialbero which had identical dimensions to the 1000 cc, but without some minor improvements Abarth added when it built the 1000 cc versions. The Abarth pushrod block was identical to Bialbero, needing only minor modifications to accept the new cylinderhead.I also added a 5-speed All Abarth transaxle. First time out in a major event was Sebring 1986. During my ownership I strived to keep the car original in all other respects, including keeping the original interior unrestored, including the original Wilton carpets. All these years I followed the first rule of preservation “Do no harm.” Here’s where I add little dig to new owner Michael Pinkus who (as near as I could tell) glued the carpet to the floor–at least on the right side foot-well. Otherwise It was a really great thing to see that he drove it so well at the VSCCA Fall Finale at Lime Rock, doing 1:18’s, something I only did towards the end of my ownership. Take good care of her Michael! Very best, Mahlon
pete says
Mahlon,
Good to hear from you! It is very heartening to see a younger generation take over our old cars…Mike in the case of your Abarth, and Ralph in the case of the Alfa 2600 Zagato (though not the particular one I owned). Both the cars and the owners are in good company.
Pete