Some beautiful classic racing cars managed to make their way onto the car manufacturers’ stands at Geneva.

At Alfa Romeo, where Alfa was displaying its new, fast Alfa MiTo GTA model – a hot version of the new MiTo hatchback – there was also a beautiful Alfa GTA Junior saloon car racer.

I’ve driven one of these before (a road-going version, not the racer!). It was a colleague’s while I was at What Car?
magazine. It belonged to Peter Nunn, who has now gone to live in Japan.

But I was amazed at how lovely and easy it was to drive. (I was in an Alfa 75 at the time which had an amazingly baulky gearchange.) But with the Alfa Junior the gearshift was so sweet. And the rasp from the engine…oh, just fabulous. Let’s hope the MiTo GTA is as good to drive as it looks.

Over on the Audi
stand, there was the glorious Auto Union Type C streamliner from 1937. This is a unique and authentic replica of the car in which Bernd Rosemeyer attempted to break the world speed record in 1937, reaching over 400 km/h on an ordinary road: that’s nearly 250mph. In 1937! The car looks fast just standing still.

Classic racing cars