FCA Georgia pleasure drive to Savoy Auto Museum:

This month's drive started at the OK Cafe and headed north to the new Savoy Automobile Museum on the north side of Cartersville, the latest addition to what is becoming Georgia's "Museum City".

I drove directly there, but I was a late arrival at about 11:30 since I had elected to watch F1 qualifying first (Ferrari 1st and 3rd on the grid!). My car made 11 cavallini parked there, though I was told that a few people had already left.

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As I expected, as I arrived, the rest were done with the museum. But instead of continuing to the Barnsley Resort (as originally planned), the group elected to eat in the museum's cafe, so I joined them. The food is mainly sandwiches and salads, but the selection has increased since the museum opened in December, and the quality was fine. Their dessert of the day was an excellent key lime tart!

Then I went inside. Having visited fairly recently (I'm an annual member), I concentrated on the new exhibit commemorating Pirelli's 150th anniversary. (Their plant in Rome is only 30 miles west.) On display was the generic 2022 F1 mockup that the F1 establishment created last year to give everyone a look at what the all-new F1 cars would look like. Looking at the integral and seamless front and rear wings, it is obvious that this is just a mockup, but it did the job it was intended to do.

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Some photos of the lovely cars in the main Pirelli exhibition coming up later!

 

The interesting thing about the exhibition is that it featured one car from each manufacturer. Also notice the panels on the wall, which combined Pirelli's history with examples of their advertising. The first trio were all loaned by Ivan Ruiz. We think of him mainly as a Maserati collector, so it's no surprise that the Ghibli Spyder is his. The other cars are a Lancia Flaminia GT and an Iso Grifo, which, as you can see, has a 327 cubic inch Chevy engine. (I think of it as the "Italian Corvette".)

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The other cars included a late-model Lamborghini Countach, a Ferrari F40 and an Alfa Romeo 8C 2500.

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And as a look at the future, also on display was a Rivian electric pickup, which may eventually be built here in Georgia, and was also Pirelli-shod.

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If you haven't yet been to the Savoy, I urge everyone reading this to give it a look. Since exhibits change regularly throughout the year, the $55 annual membership is a pretty good deal, and I believe that it's also good at the other Cartersville museums. The Pirelli exhibition should be there through probably late July, but the F1 car is leaving after June 4, to be replaced by another F1 car (maybe a real one this time) from 2016.