Mark A Cella and the Ferrari 250 cc Grand Touring Sport Coupe for Competition

Before the Berlinetta or Sport Coupe, is the Ferrari 250 GTO. What made the GTOs strong were the record braking V12 GT racing engines. GTO, or Gran Turismo Omologato, translated from Italian, meaning Grand Touring Homologated, and homologated is Official Agreement. 250 is the measurement of cubic centimeters inside each cylinder.

Mark A Cella’s Official Agreement is the 250 is all Race

The car was built by Ferrari from 1953 to 1964 becoming Ferrari’s most successful line of cars to date. It was the first Ferrari to receive four disc brakes. Versions of it were the first four seater. Having a lightweight V12, 260-275bhp, 4 gear trans., competition engine launched its success at winning so many races recounting in detail would be endless, so here’s a few:

The first four places in its class at the 1960 Le Mans 24 hour race, leaving Chevy and Aston Martin far in its dust. With three consecutive Tour de France wins, taking the first three places at the 1960 Tour de France, 5500 km race. Later that season the SWB won outright, at Goodwood when Sterling Moss lapped the entire field in it, making it the second consecutive win. Then in England, Monza in Italy, Spa, Nurburgring, and Monthlery.

The car weighs only 2,314 pounds which equates to a very high power to weight ratio. Its top speed reached 152 and it hit 60 from a dead stop in 6.2 seconds. All of these figures were superb in 1960.

Mark A Cella Officially Agrees One of the Greatest Ferraris of all Time

Enthusiasts envied the fact that owners of this car could show up, unpack and race in the same unmodified car, occasionally changing tires. The only thing necessary was to paste on numbers. The competition models were lighter and had 30-40 more horsepower, regardless of which one you were in other manufacturers didn’t stand a chance.

Sports Car Intl placed it as their 7th Top Sports Car of the 60′s. Motor Trend voted it 5th on their top ten Greatest Ferraris of all time and Mark A Cella rated it first place on his list of top Muscle Cars of the 60′s. It leads over his 67 Corvette Sting Ray and 3rd place 68 Chevrolet Camaro.

Learn more about Mark A Cella automobiles. And check out the latest Mark A Cella art.

The second book in a new Western series by Clive Cussler, “one of the greatest adventure novelists of our time” (imdb), The Wrecker represents the continuation of Cussler’s entry into the classic American genre of Wild West fiction. Who knows, maybe it will turn into his most popular series yet.

A detective by the name of Isaac Bell represents the main character in The Wrecker. Bell is as athletic and fearless as James Bond and as intellectually brilliant as Sherlock Holmes.

As an independently wealthy heir to a Boston banking family, Isaac Bell pursues his detective investigations with a fury born out of an obsession and passion for justice rather than the need to make a living.

Isaac Bell gets hired by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to find and stop a saboteur known as “The Wrecker,” who has targeted Southern Pacific construction sites throughout the West. If the sabotage continues in the midst of pressing deadlines to finish work on a major new track, it could cost Southern Pacific its good standing with its lenders, and rapidly lead to bankruptcy.

The villain known as The Wrecker may be every bit as brilliant as Isaac Bell himself, reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes’ arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty. Up until the end of the novel, The Wrecker hides in plain sight within the circles of Southern Pacific Railroad president Osgood Hennessy.

The agenda of the Wrecker is to seize control of the Southern Pacific Railroad through various dummy corporations he has put in place, which will help him capture the fallout from Southern Pacific’s impending bankruptcy. Not only that but it appears he plans to eventually to control the entire United States railroad system, the greatest source of billionaire wealth in America at the turn of the last century.

Notorious as an avid automobile enthusiast, one reason why Clive Cussler may have picked the early 1900′s as the setting for his new series may well have been to give him an opportunity to write about car chases in classic automobiles from the turn of the last century.

Automobiles featured in The Wrecker include a Packard Grey Wolf, the 1907 Model 35 Thomas Flyer, winner of the New York to Paris race of 1908, Isaac Bell’s classic Locomobile, and a Bugatti Type 41 Royale.

Clive Cussler is a man of many passions, one of the best known and most obvious being his love of the ocean, as evidenced by his countless action novels revolving in and around water. But the fact that he has chosen to live in Colorado, far from the any great body of water, suggests that he also loves the rugged, arid and mountainous landscapes of the American West.

This “second” love of Clive Cussler shines through in his new Isaac Bell series in a way that will likely reinvigorate many old Wild West enthusiasts as well as give birth to a whole new generation of Western lovers. The book is a highly recommended read.

Mrs. Hellman resides in Western North Carolina with her spouse and three sons, where she works as a professional copywriter. She writes book review as a hobby. Visit her site to order The Wrecker by Clive Cussler, or the most recent Dirk Pitt adventure, Arctic Drift, Clive Cussler.

Spartan Gold is the first in a new series by New York Times bestseller Clive Cussler in cooperation with action novel writer Grant Blackwood.

The new series is referred to as “Fargo Adventures,” based on its action heroes, a married couple named Sam and Remi Fargo.

Having fulfilled the American dream early in life to become independently wealthy, the Fargos now devote themselves to archeological treasure hunting; and they let nothing stand in their way of finding what they search for.

While the Fargo Adventures feature a new cast of characters and a slightly different action venue – treasure hunting – the telltale hallmarks of a true Cussler-novel that we have all come to love and expect still remain: Exotic cars, foods and drinks, as well as lots of excitement on, in and around water.

In Spartan Gold, Sam and Remi Fargo pursue a trail of clues left on the labels of twelve wine bottles from the lost wine cellar of Napoleon Bonaparte, written in a code they must first decipher.

Naturally, their quest to unravel this mystery does not go unimpeded. Relentlessly on their heels are the hired ruffians of Bondaruk, a former Soviet freedom fighter from an ethnic minority group, who has since turned into a ruthless mafia billionaire.

The treasure at the end of the trail consists of two ancient Greek statues of pure gold which were stolen and hauled off by Persian ruler Xerxes the Great, to be stashed away and forgotten at a hitherto unknown location. Bondaruk believes himself to be a direct descendant of Xerxes and the rightful heir to this lost and forgotten treasure.

The riddles on the wine-bottles lead the Fargos and their adversaries from a WWII German submarine in the Great Pocomoke Swamp of Maryland to the Bahamas and through much of Europe including Monaco, Croatia, Italy, Germany, and Ukraine: not necessarily in that sequence.

Spartan Gold is a solid, action-filled treasure hunting novel in the spirit of The Da Vinci Code. It is also distinctly a Clive Cussler novel with all of what that entails. Another guaranteed New York Times bestseller, in other words.

Britt Hellman resides in North Carolina with her spouse and three children, operating her own copywriting business from home. Clive Cussler is a long time favorite author. Visit her dedicated Cussler site to order the Spartan Gold novel or read her review of the latest Dirk Pitt novel, Arctic Drift by Clive Cussler.