SuperFinds in the press

SuperFinds: Automobilen Schätzen auf der Spur

​Welcher Auto-Fan träumt nicht davon? Er sperrt die knarrende Tür einer verlassenen Scheune auf, betritt das modrige Halbdunkel und – findet unter einer verstaubten Plane einen Oldtimer, einen SuperFind.

Für die meisten von uns wird es bei diesem Traum bleiben. Aber auf der ganzen Welt schlummern automobile Schätze vor sich her, um wie Dornröschen wachgeküsst zu werden. Von unfassbaren Funden (nicht nur in Scheunen) handelt das Buch in diesem Herbst erschienene Buch «SuperFinds», das ohne zwei autobegeisterte Männer nicht entstanden wäre.

Der eine ist der Deutsche Michael Kliebenstein, ins Auto verliebt seit seinem ersten Matchbox-Modellfahrzeug. Er hat sich zu einem der renommiertesten Experten der Branche entwickelt, ein Sammler, Restaurator, Rennfahrer, Auto, Fotograf, Ratgeber und Marketing-Fachmann in Personalunion.

Im Rahmen einer nie endenden Suche ist Kliebenstein auf den Italiener Corrado Cupellini gestossen, einem Bruder im Geiste, auch er in frühen Jahren der Faszination Auto rettungslos verfallen. Cupellini fand in den 50er Jahren einen alten Fiat, damit war ein Hunger nach automobilen Raritäten geweckt, der ihn ein Leben lang begleiten sollte.

Der Italiener reiste um die ganze Welt, wie ein Spürhund auf der Fährte. Was er – zu einem verblüffend grossen Teil in Südamerika – ans Tageslicht beförderte, lässt das Herz jedes Autofreunds schneller schlagen, denn hier reden wir von der Champions League unter den Oldtimern: Autos wie ein Bugatti 57C, wie ein Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, wie ein Flügeltürer von Mercedes.

Dieses Buch handelt weitgehend von den Reisen und den Funden Cupellinis, die er mit einer schlichten Taschen-Minolta fotografierte. Er rettete unzählige Fahrzeuge vor Schrottpressen und Schmelzöfen, er päppelte Autos aus jämmerlichem Zustand zu altem Glanz auf. Er ist zu einem der Wegbereiter geworden für den Markt historischer Fahrzeuge, der sich zur Milliarden-Branche entwickelt hat.

SuperFinds ist das fotografische Vermächtnis von Cupellinis unstillbarer Neugier nach Strassenfahrzeugen, Rennwagen und Ersatzteilen aller Art. Er spürte Autos auf, nach welchen sich Sammler auf der ganzen Welt die Finger lecken.

Michael Kliebenstein fand in einer alten Werkstatt in Bergamo rund 4000 Negative, in Kartonschachteln. Und schnell wusste er: Daraus musste unbedingt ein Buch entstehen. Cupellini wollte die Wagen so zeigen, wie sie vorgefunden werden. Als die Fotos geschossen wurden, stand nicht der künstlerische Gedanke im Mittelpunkt, sondern die Dokumentation. Doch genau dieses Unbeschönigte vieler Aufnahmen ist teilweise von einer entwaffnenden Poesie.

Es gibt schlicht kein Buch wie dieses, mit jeder der 400 Seiten kommen neue Bilder und Geschichten zum Vorschein, die uns in Staunen versetzen.

Michael Kliebenstein hat mit Hilfe eines weiteren Sammlers, Thomas Sommer, dem Scheunenfind ein Denkmal gesetzt und nährt die Hoffnung jedes Oldtimer-Fans, dass vielleicht auch er vielleicht einmal das grosse Los zieht, als Jäger des nur scheinbar verlorenen Schatzes.

SuperFinds ist kein Schnäppchen. Aber wer Freude an alten Autos hat, ob für die Strasse oder für die Rennstrecke, und wer spannende Anekdoten zu schätzen weiss, der kann sich stundenlang in diesem fabelhaften Buch verlieren.

Artikel von Mathias Brunner

Original-Rezension in Speedweek

Parigi, Rétromobile. È inizio febbraio, sono allo stand di Michael Kliebenstein, noto agli appassionati per esporre meravigliosi gioielli anteguerra nei principali salotti heritage contemporanei.

The book SuperFinds was selected Book of the Year 2020 by Milano AUTOCLASSICA Classic Car Show in Milano, Saturday 26. September 2020. Michael Kliebenstein (left) is given the award by Andrea Martini (right), President of Milano AUTOCLASSICA.

DER HEILIGE GRAL

TEXT: Jürgen Lewandowski

Ja, wir träumen alle von der Halle, in der ein 300 SL-Flügeltürer – natürlich einer der 29 mit Aluminium-Karosserie –, ein Maserati 250 F oder der legendäre, längst verschollene Bugatti Typ 57 Aerolithe zu finden sind. Und die Jäger des verlorenen Schatzes haben in den vergangenen Jahren ja auch von einigen spektakulären Funden berichten können.

Und ich habe nun auch über den Autor Michael Kliebenstein die Geschichte von Corrado Cupellini kennengelernt, der bereits als junger Mann alten Fahrzeugen verfallen war – er entdeckte als erstes in den 50er Jahren einen Fiat Ballila Coppa d’Oro aus den 30er Jahren, fuhr ihn und begann sich verstärkt für historische Renn- und Sportwagen zu interessieren. Es kam, wie es kommen musste – Corrado Cupellini startete Reisen in die weite Welt auf der Suche nach Raritäten. In Lima entdeckte er einen Ferrari 250 GT SWB – einen Ex-Werkswagen. In Venezuela kaufte er einem Schrottarbeiter einen Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa von 1957 ab, die Liste der automobilen Juwelen, die bei ihm in Bergamo landeten, wurde immer länger: Der O.S.C.A. 4500 mit seinem V12-Motor, Maserati „Birdcage“, Ferrari 330P, California Spyder und, und, und

Und Cupellini fotografierte mit seiner Minolta alles, was er sah: Container voller Kurbelwellen von Rennmotoren, die bei Ferrari an Schrotthändler versteigert wurden eingeschmolzen werden sollten. Dabei auch Zylinderköpfe, Getriebe, Vergaser. Cupellini ersteigerte die Container für sich. Im Laufe der Jahre kamen immer mehr Marken dazu: Porsche RSK-Spyder, Bugatti Typ 57C, Matra-Le Mans Rennwagen, die Vielzahl der Modelle sprengt die Seiten. In Argentinien fand sich ein Ferrari 375 Plus MM Pinin Farina Berlinetta – in Dakar ein Porsche 906 und in Schottland der legendäre Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 B Le Mans Speciale, der 1938 nur wenige Runden vor Schluss in Le Mans in Führung gelegen hatte.

Eine unfassbare Anhäufung von Autos und Bildern, die es in dieser Form noch nie gegeben hat –

dank der bis heute anhaltenden Neugierde von Corrado Cupellini, seiner Lust, alles zu dokumentieren. Und dank dem Sammler, Restaurator, Rennfahrer, Autor und Advisor Michael Kliebenstein, der Cupellini überzeugen konnte, dass dieser Bilder-Schatz in Buchform gegossen werden sollte. Das Ergebnis ist ein 400 Seiten umfassender und schwerer Band, dem der Aston Martin-Specialist Keith Riddington aus England konstatiert: „This is in fact the true beginning of the classic car world.“
Ein wunderbarer Band, der seine Existenz aber nicht nur Corrado Cupellini und Michael Kliebenstein verdankt, sondern hinter dem auch der Sammler Thomas Sommer steht, der mit seinem Enthusiasmus dazu beitrug, dieses Projekt mit Leben zu erfüllen.

Der Band SuperFinds ist bei Porter Press International in England erschienen. ISBN 978-1-907085-89-5. Preis: 99,99 Euro.

SUPERFINDS – A TRULY UNIQUE SELECTION OF PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN PHOTOGRAPHS OF IMPORTANT HISTORIC CARS AS FOUND IN THE 1960S AND 1970S : Buy now via Retro-Speed to receive a special discount

Click HERE – At the Checkout enter Discount code RETRO10

BOOK REVIEW  By Peter Baker 

SuperFinds –
A truly unique selection of previously unseen photographs of important historic cars as found in the 1960s and 1970s 


Books, generally, are becoming so big and heavy one has to attend regular fitness classes just to pick them up. This publication for example, complied by Michael Kliebenstein and published by Porter Press International, runs to 400 pages and some 900 images that together weigh a full half-stone. Not that I’m complaining. Except, to say, it’s too big and heavy to keep by the bedside.

So, after all that, we’ve conclusively established that SuperFinds belongs at the very least, on a coffee table, which is fine by me. But let’s not waste any more time over waffle because this is really a very good book.

From an archive containing over 4,000 negatives the chosen pictures tell the story of one man, in this case Corrado Cupellini, and his four-decade journey around the world seeking out and rescuing many important and valuable cars, running into hundreds. His first gem being an ex-works Ferrari 250 GT SWB found in Lima, Peru. Other finds include a 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa, rescued from a scrapyard in Venezuela, a Bugatti Type 13 Brescia, a Porsche 911 3.0 RSR, even a 1955 Lister Jaguar raced by Jim Clark, and an Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, one of three that Cupellini has owned so far during his lifetime

Although mainly a collector, Corrado was also a successful competitor, competing on Rallye Monte Carlo, and twice, in 1984 and 1988, winning the European Historic Racing Champion, driving his own Dino Monoposto 246.

This is a book of many layers with a story that slowly unfolds through its myriad early black and white and full-colour photos, and will give the reader many months, probably years, of seductive satisfaction. Therefore, even at £75 it can be considered good value.One more thing worth bearing in mind, nobody can easily steal it.

Recommended and given a rare five stars.

Reviewed by Kieron Fennelly

This sumptuous book is a compilation of the roving photography of Corrado Cupellini, a pioneering classic car collector who travelled extensively in the Americas and North Africa as well as his native Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Fifty years ago, cars such as BMW 328s, today million-pound classics, could be found languishing in backyards in Britain, selling if they were offered for perhaps a thousand pounds. Cupellini made the same kind of discovery in Italy and his pictures shown any number of Ferrari 166s, the immediate post-war equivalent of the BMW, in barns or back gardens mouldering and forgotten. His travels take him to Morocco (Ferrari 166) to Sicily where he finds Alain Delon’s old BMW 507, Budapest, Dakar where he spots a couple of retired competition cars, a Porsche 904 and a Mini Cooper S in a garage and numerous Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis, mostly in Italy.

Black and white photographs of finds, half under dust sheets, sometimes partly dismantled, are truly atmospheric, while other fascinating shots show shabby exotics evidently still in use in the period.

Many of the pictures demand several minutes study, so much is there to take in.

A perceptive enthusiast, Cupellini was also astute, jumping at the opportunity to acquire an Aston Martin Zagato, the only one built with upright headlights, as soon as a pal reported he had seen it by chance. The photograph is undated, but the $5,000 price which Cupellini paid would certainly require three more zeroes today.

Compiler Michael Kliebenstein, a collector and expert himself has captioned many of the photographs, though frustratingly Cupellini did not apparently always note when and where he found some cars, so captioning can only identify what they are. Pictures of engines and parts, again largely in black and white, are also intriguing and Kliebenstein recounts that Ferrari used to auction off parts, usually viewed as scrap, as containerised lots. With his eye on the future, the presumably well-heeled Cupellini would simply buy up everything on offer.

SuperFinds

By Michael Kliebenstein, porterpress.co.uk, ISBN 978 1 907085 89 5

This hefty, large-scale 420-page hardback may be light on written detail, but the many photographs that pack its glossy and indulgent pages speak volumes.

In SuperFinds, writer Michael Kliebenstein brings to our attention the photographic record of Corrado Cupellini, barn-finder extraordinaire.

Cupellini may be considered one of the founders of the classic car movement, and throughout the Sixties and Seventies he tracked down some incredible machines that in many cases had been discarded by their owners. We see ex-works Ferraris in scrapyards, a Mercedes 300SL Gullwing with fewer than 1000km on the clock abandoned in a mechanic’s yard, and a dismantled Porsche 917 left behind after the filming of Le Mans and more. Every time, after Cupellini had scaled a barbed-wire fence or negotiated with a scrap merchant, he whipped out his trusty instamatic to capture the moment – and almost 900 of those moments are here.

Many of these rusty wrecks now headline concours and historic race events. We owe that to Cupellini – this book is worth it for that alone.

BOOK REVIEWS by David Tremayne
A UNIQUE COMPENDIUM

Once upon a time the world was full of wonderful abandoned cars that nobody seemed to want.
But one man loved finding and recording them… I guess we’ve all had those near misses with cars we didn’t buy that were ‘cheap’ and later became worth a fortune. Mine were an old Triumph Roadster whose engine had broken, which the guy across the road owned and disposed of when I was a 12 year-old kid with nowhere to have put it had I been able to persuade my folks to buy it for me. The other was the Facel Vega HK500 that was for sale in Harrow in 1973 for £495. That was my entire budget for the Jaguar MKII 3.8 that I had saved for so assiduously over two working summers, to include purchase price, new XJ6 tyres and the dreaded insurance. That was definitely not cheap when you were 19 years old and a student, and had, naturally, gone specifically for the largest capacity version of the favourite bank robbers’ car… It was tempting even if it meant waiting longer to afford what would be an even steeper premium, but the Facel also came with bald tyres. I eventually decided I didn’t want to wait another summer before driving the car I really wanted and went for the MkII. Many years later, having put it into storage in 1979, I sold it for restoration for £5000 to finance the purchase of a hydroplane. I hate to think what a decent HK500 would be worth now.

In the read it and weep stakes, however, neither of these near misses come close to the automotive jewels in Michael Kliebenstein’s book, the latest offering from the super-prolific Porter Press. This features more than 900 images of delectable and rare machines, often as they were found in derelict condition Italian Corrado Cupellini was a pioneer in the developing old car movement in the 1960s and ’70s. And he had a mission: to explore, discover and rescue cars of merit before it was too late. German-based author Michael Kliebenstein, a hyper-enthusiast who has “been playing with cars since he was old enough to first hold a Matchbox model car,” is a collector, restorer, racer, writer, photographer, advisor and marketing expert, with a passion for collectors’ cars in their untouched original condition and form.

Kliebenstein’s mission was to compile as many of Cupellini’s evocative photographs as he could in this celebratory record of the Italian’s astounding journey of discovery. Within its 420 pages you will find any number of Ferraris, Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, Isos, Bugattis, Mercedes and Porsches. Not all are wrecks. Some are cars Cupellini spotted in the street, others are in museums, private collections and garages. There are even the odd Ferrari- and Maserati-engined, three-point hydroplanes, and there are sections on engines and cockpits, too. But the most intriguing are the horror stories, such as the abandoned 1961 Ferrari 250GT SWB Competizione in Lima, the Mercedes Gullwing with 100 kms on the clock, abandoned outside in Caracas for 10 years; or the Porsche 917, chassis #032, left in France by Solar Productions, Steve McQueen’s company that made his film, Le Mans. If you want something to keep the car enthusiast in your household out of mischief over Christmas, look no further. This wonderful tome was voted Book of the Year by the Milano AUTOCLASSICO Classic Car Show. I’m not remotely surprised.

SUPERFINDS
A truly unique selection of previously unseen photographs of important historic cars as found in the 1960 and 1970s
By Michael Kliebenstein
Published by Porter Press International
Hilltop Farm Knighton-on-Teme
Tenbury Wells Worcestershire WR15 8LY
www.porterpress.co.uk
ISBN 978-1-907085-89-5

Download VSCC Bulletin book review as pdf

SuperFinds

A truly unique selction of previously unseen photographs of important historic cars as found in the 1960s and 1970s

This book is unique. It is a compendium of wonderful automotive treasure, as discovered. With the passage of time all cars became worthless and unloved, no matter how eminent. Racing cars inevitably became uncompetitive and redundant. Many vehicles passed into scrapyards, the motoring equivalent of a cemetery, or simply rotted away.

Today, of course, we value, covet and preserve the work of great designers, engineers and coachbuilders, and their creations give enormous pleasure to many, whether it be in ownership, driving, competing or simply as historic objects to be admired when on display. All will have a story – sometimes sad, sometimes heroic. Many of the more esoteric car companies produced machines that were not only engineering masterpieces but also great works of art.

Italian Corrado Cupellini was a pioneer in the developing old car movement in the 1960s and ’70s. He had a mission: to explore, discover and rescue motor cars of merit before it was too late. He roved the world following his passion and this extraordinary book is a photographic record of his astounding journey of discovery. Famous coachbuilders featured include Pinin Farina, Zagato, Touring, Vignale, Saoutchik and Bertone. Grand Prix cars, sports racers, Formula 2 cars, CanAm cars, Formula Junior single-seaters and more.Legendary racers including several ‘Birdcage’ Maseratis, a Matra Le Mans car, Ferrari Testa Rossa…Cars formerly owned by Nuvolari, Chiron and Fangio.
Porsche racers including examples of 917, 906, 718 RSK ‘Mittellenker’, 910, 904, 550 RSK Spyder, 911 RS, 910/8 ‘Bergspyder’, RS 60…Unique cars, prototypes, specials and unidentified vehicles, race team transporters, crashed cars and pedal cars.


This book is published by Porter Press International – now available at amazon.

Go to book review at PolitCommerce

Michael Kliebenstein in un’intervista al canale Instagram: libreriabocca1775 sul suo libro SuperFinds.

Libreria Bocca dal 1775, Locale e Bottega Storica d’Italia. Medaglia d’Oro della CC di Milano.