Three Friends Created An Italian Car Party For People Who Don’t Have A Warehouse Of Ferraris And It’s Bellissima

Every once in a while in life, we all have those utterly sublime moments that we attempt to completely burn into our memory with every sense we possess. The moment you see your spouse at the other end of the aisle or perhaps sitting on a shaded patio somewhere tropical, sipping a particularly good beverage as exotic birds chirp and your phone is nowhere near you. For car people, these moments of perfection can be a little different.

I recently experienced one so intense that I’ve hauled my fingers out of semi-retirement to dance across a keyboard once again. Rather unusually, it wasn’t anything to do with the shop, which is the typical source of my words here. Instead, I was briefly unchained from my desk and found myself in a shaded garden a thousand miles away in Los Angeles with an Aperol spritz in my hand, a Lamborghini Miura to my left, a Lancia Stratos to my right, and a Mille Miglia veteran Maserati behind me, burning the moment into my memory at an event called Macchinissima.

For the many unfamiliar with me as more than a service advisor turned occasional internet car advisor, my true, most undying passion is Italian cars. Specifically unusual Italian cars.

I’m typing this as I sip coffee from a Lancia mug (no, it does not leak) made in a Moka pot (which does leak slightly) and in fact there is an entire running and driving Lancia Scorpion under the same roof as me. When our Chief Autopian Car Goth, Adrian Clarke, can’t quite figure out what obscure orangish-red Italian wedge he’s looking at after a couple free beers in Germany, I’m the dark and spooky henchwoman who gets the message to assist in figuring it out. Bearing all of this in mind, you can see how a show devoted exclusively to uncommon Italian cars can lead to intense feelings of euphoria.

I first started hearing Instagram rumblings about a show in LA called Macchinissima a bit less than a year ago. While I attempted to reshuffle my schedule, as the debut event was a bit close to Christmas, I couldn’t quite make it happen. The photos and stories coming out of that show made for some of the most intense FOMO I’ve ever experienced. When I saw photos of a Fiat Panda 4×4 and a Fiat Shellette at that first event, I knew if there was to be a second one of these, nothing short of an asteroid hitting LA would be capable of keeping me from attending. As luck would have it, plans for a second “Macchi” were quickly announced and I prepared my entire summer schedule with the knowledge that any item planned could be instantly dropped if it conflicted.

Macchinissima was dreamed up by three Italian car enthusiasts; Bronson Page, Mike Baum, and Dorian Valenzuela. Each brought something a little different to the table between backgrounds in business, advertising and engineering; with a shared passion for a wide variety of cars, but Italians in particular. After a few years of attending concours events, they started to notice something was missing.

“There was almost no diversity at all–in the people, the cars, or in the experience,” as Bronson put it. For all the glitz and glamor, it felt a bit stuffy and pretentious, there was nothing to shake things up. On the other end, parking lot cars and coffee events were feeling “like CarMax with a better inventory.” Thus, one night over a bottle of wine, they hatched a plan; in Mike’s words, “throw a really good party that just happens to have insane cars.” As luck would have it, Dorian is known to have a knack for party planning when he’s not turning a wrench.

The goal was to take some of the most brilliant vintage Italian cars around and combine that sparkle with a little bit of grit. “A little Villa d’Este, a little punk rock, and a little Los Angeles car culture” became the recipe. The idea for the mix came to Bronson and Mike while attending a party during Monterey Car Week when they mused how cool it would be if the string quartet played something unexpected, like Bjork. As it turned out, they didn’t know any Icelandic alternative, but they did know some Pixies. “We were likely the only two at the party who noticed,” says Page, “but those little easter eggs are what make things special.” And while it may seem like an incredibly niche desire to stare at a Maserati Khamsin while listening to The Cure, as it turns out, Macchinissima sold out, with a thousand people showing up to do just that sort of thing.

As I walked down the driveway into the L.A. River Center, the array of Italian beauties laid out before me briefly took my breath away. After over a decade of perpetually feeling a little lonely as a Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo owner with few others near me, here were dozens of other Fiats, Lancias, and Alfas, plus Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, DeTomasos, and Isos. That’s not to mention the motorcycles and bicycles with which I’m not nearly so familiar. Everywhere I looked, there was a car that would have made me gasp with pure delight if I happened to see it in any other context, but inevitably there was something just as delightful within my field of view that made it difficult to stop and admire just one thing at a time. By the end of the day, I’d probably made three or four full passes through the event just so I could adequately eyeball everything.

Part of the magical feeling of the event was the beautiful setting. Housed in the former offices of the Lawry’s seasoning company and built in the ’50s, the L.A. River Center is hidden away from the surrounding area behind ivy-covered walls, with a Mission-style villa, home to impressive gardens and a massive ficus tree at the bottom of the entrance.

The site was first noticed years ago by Dorian while walking through the area, “I remember how majestic it was and how it was a little hidden paradise, the place never left me,” Aside from the occasionally heard noise of the nearby train tracks, it was incredibly easy to forget you were in the middle of a major city and right behind a Home Depot instead of at some glamorous villa on the Mediterranean. It was just as easy to imagine you were at Villa Agnelli on the Ligurian Sea, with Gianni Agnelli charming his way through guests at a party.

Every single person I spoke with as I wandered around had a similar amount of interest in a Fiat X1/9 as a Ferrari 308. I felt I may have disappointed a couple of people when I shared that I had a Scorpion but it was two states away. The stereotypical snobbiness of Italian exotics was nowhere to be found in the very mixed crowd of young and old, gay and straight, the achingly fashionable and the Target polo-shirted. Add in a rather efficiently tended bar slinging tasty drinks, freshly made pizza, and gelato all available in a shady courtyard and it made for a rather jovial crowd. When the sun got to be a bit much, an air conditioned indoor lounge open to all made for a nice escape. I noted I wasn’t the only one in all black occasionally diving in for a respite from the heat. But even this area was neatly decorated with some of the smallest cars of the bunch, essentially what could squeeze in through the double doors. One of the tiniest gems was to be found here, a perfectly petite Fiat 126; a car that would raise little more than a curious eyebrow anywhere else, but was surrounded by constant love here.

One of the most special things about Macchinissima was that while there were plenty of cars that would make eyes pop at any event, the cars that drew the most attention were not always those. I watched several people walk directly past a full cocaine-spec white on white Countach complete with car phone and a riotously orange Sterrato to check out a Diablo roadster and an Espada. The Alfa Giulia Sprint from the latest Fast and Furious was in attendance, but if anything, it seemed to get less attention than the GTV6 parked 50 feet away.

Each car was thoughtfully arranged with plenty of space to circle around it and often with thought as to what was nearby. An Alfa Romeo RZ paid an angular and somewhat brutalist visual compliment to a Lamborghini Jarama while a pair of light blue Fiat/Abarth Zagatos were elegantly framed by the teal tiles of a doorway with an incredible Maserati Ghibli SS in a similar shade sitting in the courtyard below, showing off one of Giorgetto Giugiaro’s designs from his brief stay at Ghia. It felt as much like a well curated sculpture garden as a car show, leading to wonderful conversations such as “has any carrozzeria put out a higher concentration of bangers than Zagato?”

If this sounds like your kind of shindig, and I certainly hope it does, all three of the Macchi boys confirmed their intention to throw more of these really fantastic car parties. While the second Macchinissima was about five times bigger than the first, they’re not particularly concerned about growth, but more focused on letting it develop organically.

“From the vibe, to the music, to the car selection and how they’re shown, it’s all just a flood from our collective psyche, and when the ideas clash it feels even better,” says Page. While they’re taking a well-earned breather, the trio remain focused on making it an annual event, possibly with some pop-up smaller events thrown in. If you are like me and want to tailor your summer plans to highly-concentrated Italian excellence, or you just want to look at some really fantastic cars, I definitely recommend following @Macchinissima on Instagram.