La Collezione Italiana
Everyday aspects of La Dolce Vita – in their two, three and four wheel glory.
Wheels of memory: Italy’s everyday classics
La Collezione Italiana showcases vehicles spanning Italy’s age of industrial marvels. A delightful feature at Borgo Pignano Volterra Tuscany is its assortment of vintage Italian cars, motorcycles, and bicycles.
These aren’t the record-setting Ferraris and Lamborghinis but the vehicles that ushered Italians into the modern era, transforming a nation that once relied on railways, horses, and donkeys.
Post-World War II, numerous entrepreneurs founded manufacturers producing the “people’s cars,” filling Italy’s roads. While some brands like FIAT, Alfa Romeo, and Vespa are globally recognized, others are known mainly to collectors. Visitors leave La Collezione Italiana with smiles, grandparents sharing tales of their family’s first car, motorcycle enthusiasts marveling at early Moto Guzzi designs, and young children drawing parallels to characters from Pixar’s Cars movies.
These vehicles evoke a bygone era, imagining families cramming into a Fiat 500 for vacations or teenagers arriving at dates on shiny Vespas.
The nostalgia extends to the challenges of unreliable engines and perpetually punctured tires, reminiscent of a sepia-toned world with Gina Lollobrigida and Marcello Mastroianni.