Maestros and motor cars (4): Puccini got there first
UncategorizedPuccini bought his first car in 1901, a De Dion Buton.
He followed it with a Fiat 60, Isotta Franchini 14/22 and eventually a super Lambda.
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Puccini enjoyed showing off his motor cars to friends, including the composer Alberto Franchetti. When I met the latter’s son Arnold Franchetti in the 1970’s, he said that as a small boy he was perplexed that his father’s friend would visit “with different Signora Puccinis.”
Who cares? What’s next, the breakfast cereal he ate?
Well, probably quite a lot of people care, at least a little, but nobody is interested to know that you don’t.
This is the best reply ever.
Puccini’s Lancia Lambda, which he got in 1924 just before his death, can be seen here. There are tantalizing mentions in the literature about a custom off-road-capable vehicle that Puccini commissioned from Vincenzo Lancia, but photos, if any, are lost to history. https://www.prewarcar.com/did-anyone-ever-see-lancia-s-offroader
They look so funny now don’t they, these old cars and planes!! And yet it wasn’t so very long ago. 97 years since the first ‘talkie’ film, too. In the span of history that’s a heartbeat away.
Actually, there seems to be a consensus in the auto-historical community that this is not Puccini or his Lancia Lambda, but rather a car in Australia. However, Puccini’s Lambda, which he bought just a few months before his death, looked very similar to the pictured car.