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Villa d’Este Style 2012 – Report and Photos

Alberto Novelli
Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Villa d\'Este . Cernobbio (CO)10 Giugno 2012. Villa d\'Este Style

The inaugural Villa d’Este Style was held 10 June 2012 at the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este in Cernobbio, Italy.

Over the years, the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este has established an enviable reputation for organising events devised to celebrate Italian excellence: art, design, culture and style. It was in the context of this vision that Villa d’Este recently promoted and hosted the first reunion of the rare remaining models of the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS “Villa d’Este Coupe”, the first one to be held since 1949, when the car was first built and officially unveiled at the Competition for Elegance.

One of the masterpieces of twentieth-century automobile design, the Alfa Romeo is one of the few motorcars so influential as actually to change automobile coachwork design in the period just after the war, heralding a veritable revolution in Italian car styling, which from that moment on featured new, more modern and functional lines.

The June 2012 event was a celebration of the Italian lifestyle, long awaited by the owners of the seven models attending, who had an opportunity to compare the precious distinctive details that make each and every model of the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Villa d’Este Coupe unique.

Some 25 models of the 6C 2500 SS Villa d’Este Coupe were built between 1949 and 1952, so great was the enthusiasm generated by the original when it was unveiled at the Villa d’Este Competition of Elegance in 1949, where it won the Grand Referendum Prize. The model was the result of the dedication and spirit of initiative of its creator, Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni, at the time the owner of the Touring Coachworks: “It was the first project that my father conducted from start to finish,” as his son Alberto Bianchi Anderloni recalled in an emotional commemoration during the June event.

No less than seven of the approximately 15 models still in existence converged on Lake Como – from Italy, but also from abroad – to make up the unique automobile exhibition held in the framework of the Villa d’Este Style event, including the one that belongs to the Grand Hotel itself: bought in 2011, it was the twentieth to be built by the Touring Coachworks and was delivered to a customer from Rome in 1951.

“Our aim with ‘Villa d’Este Style’ is to provide the opportunity for the owners of these masterpieces of Italian automobile design to meet in the unparalleled, significant setting where the motorcar was first unveiled. It offers them a chance to compare their experiences and their personal bonds with this work of art on four wheels,” commented Marco Makaus, the initiative’s project leader. “Our top priority was to conduct a census of all the Villa d’Este Coupe models that still exist today and to make a statement about their value as collectors’ items.”

Giuseppe Fontana, Vice-President of Villa d’Este SpA, commented, “Villa d’Este has stood by the lake for hundreds of years and houses a collection of furnishings and art that testify to its history. Our aim in acquiring one of the remaining models of the ‘Villa d’Este Coupe’ was to ensure our ownership of a work that provides a tangible link to the finest achievements of the second half of the twentieth century, an authentic jewel, while at the same time underlining our close bond with the automobile styling and design based on that inimitable blend of elegance, lifestyle and exclusiveness that is known the world over as the ‘Villa d’Este Style’ and has always been at the root of the Hotel’s international success. Our involvement constitutes further confirmation of Villa d’Este’s unflagging commitment to keep playing a leading role in the development and enhancement of Italian Style: we hope that today’s success means that it will be possible to repeat the event in future.”

For more information about Villa d’Este Style, visit www.villadestestyle.com.

Villa d’Este Style 2012 – Photo Gallery (click image for larger picture and description)

[Source: Villa d’Este Style]