In a reveiw that appeared in Classic and Sportscars' managing editor, James Elliot, got it exactly right; "Make no mistake, this hi-tech CD-ROM is actually a book." James Elliot was writting about our CD-ROM Alfa Romeo: Veiw from the Mouth of the Dragon. In a world of CDs that are merely attaching the names of great Marques to the interactive medium, we at Velocity took the pains to create an entirely new form of literature to preserve the history of the automobile digitally. In transforming these histories to the interactive medium, a form of literature had to be developed that allowed the reader to navigate through the subject "at will", while still being told a story that was portrayed in a narrative and sequential manner. The result is Velocity's E-Lit (Enhanced Literature ) format, which transforms the traditional linear plot of print and broadcast into a multi-threaded plot; which provides the subject depth of print in concert with the motion, animation and sound of broadcast. On the following pages you will be able to examine in-depth the contents of the CD-ROM and the Book, and the response of the international automotive press. Over the next few months we will be releasing some new titles; Ferrari: The Kings Eyes (in both CD-ROM and Book) takes a detailed look at the man, the times, the cars, and the changing world of competition engineering which was so often fostered at Maranello; The Historics, an automotive art publication (Book) that single-lens-reflects the West Coast historic car movement. To give you a feel for the writing of the CD & Book, which David Katz in his Jan 2000 review in Sports Car International summed up this way, "The writing is not the usual technical or turgid prose one finds in such books, but absorbing prose.", here is an excerpt from "Alfa Romeo: View from the Mouth of the Dragon" by S. Scott Callan & Kip Crosby. Copyright 1997. All rights reserved : From the French Grand Prix, 1924 "August 3rd was a high summer day, and the enormous holiday crowd in the valley outside Lyon looked forward to a legendary race. With so many firms participating and such highly developed cars on the grid, the 1924 GP promised even to surpass the 1914 race in the annals of formula competition. Alfa brought four P2's to be driven by Ascari, Campari, Wagner and Ferrari, but Ferrari came down with influenza and was unable to drive. With only three Alfas on the starting line in the factory team's first competition outside Italy, the beautiful scarlet P2's were not considered much of a threat. Segrave's Sunbeam wore the number 1, in honor of his victory the year before, and the English team was capably rounded out by Guinness -- the brewery heir -- and Resta. The fearsome FIAT 805's were piloted by Bordino, by Pastore, and by Nazzaro, who had done so much to establish the FIAT name in Grand Prix racing. Delage, the home team, was solidly represented by Divo, Benoist, and Thomas. Ettore Bugatti arrived in Pur-Sang magnificence. Three railroad cars and two trucks with trailers transported thirty tons of supplies to the circuit. At the track site Bugatti had set up a tent city, rather a Hooverville but of Astor quality, offering accommodation for forty-five people, with showers and toilet facilities. Each tent had wooden floors, electricity and running water. The large cooks' tent and dining area had stoves, refrigerators and food for a month. Six Type 35's, prepared for the race, were driven to the circuit for a bit of running-in time, with Le Patron in the lead car. Driving for the team were Constantini, Chassagne and Friderich. Mercedes, alone among the great Marques, was absent; under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, German cars were forbidden to compete in France and Belgium. One entry was of particular note: The famous Count Lou Zborowski attended with one of Harry Miller's 122 cubic inch (2-liter) cars, a pure slender projectile with wide delicate axles, in the American speedway style of the time. Its engine was an advanced twin-cam straight-eight, remarkably beautiful and quite powerful, putting out 120hp at 5000rpm even without a supercharger. In 1923 Count Zborowski had raced a Type 30 Bugatti (Ettore's first straight-eight racing car) at Indianapolis and gone down to defeat, along with the Mercedes, Duesenbergs and Packards, while Tommy Milton won in a walk with a Miller 122. Zborowski had been so impressed by the Millers that he had one shipped to France to drive in this race. His riding mechanic was the automotive journalist Sidney "Sammy" Davis." This CD-ROM in the Velocity series of the Living History of the Automobile showcases the legendary Italian firm of Alfa Romeo and tells its story from the very beginning - from its roots in a business venture by the French impresario Darracq, who saw international success turn into Italian collapse; to the inspired collaboration of the audacious industrialist Romeo and the tenacious engineer Merosi; to the unique contributions of the Italo-Hungarian artist and scientist Vittorio Jano, who put a stamp on Italian automotive engineering that has lasted to this day. Here, too, is Enzo Ferrari in his youth as the taskmaster of one of the most successful racing teams ever created. Our backdrop is the broad sweep of the European automobile industry, from the inventors and innovators of La Belle +poque to the captains of industry, courageous drivers, and fabulously beautiful cars of the Golden Age. CD-ROM Description: Interactively follow the exploits of this legendary Italian manufacturer as it develops the engineering that put it in the Avant Garde of the early European Automobile industry. Examine the evolution of the racing car from the side-valve, to the T-head, to the supercharged twin cams of Grand's Prix Golden Age. Digitally step back in time to navigate through the stories of the personalities, drivers, races, cars, and socio-economic times that shaped the Great Marques of the period between the Wars. Through photo's and film attend the great races of the 20's and 30's; the French Grand Prix, Monza, the Targa Florio, The Mille Miglia, The Irish TT, Spa, Le Mans. There are 540 "electric pages" to this interactive book; some pages contain up to a dozen timed animations. All pages are in full color, over 500 photos in all; modern photo's are in color and archive in B&W. Real film footage of the races of the Golden Age. From the Author: To tell the history of the automobile on CD-ROM, we had first to develop a new form of literature that transformed the traditional linear plot of print and broadcast into a multi-threaded plot. We were not interested in publishing mere electronic encyclopedias, with control-laden screens that led to statistical subfiles. It was our intent to create a new participatory experience by elaborating the tradition of the printed word with color, animation, film and sound. "View" tells the story of Alfa Romeo by placing it in the landscape of the early years of the European automobile industry. Through its narrative compositional structure we examine in depth the personalities, engineering, cars, drivers, races and socio-economic influences of the period as they impacted Alfa and its competition, on and off the track. Let's take a look at what's inside. The core story of this first in a series on the Milanese Marque starts with the resurrection of ALFA as Alfa Romeo after the First World War as part of the Romeo Industrial Combine and ends in the mid 1930's. It is a story of the many intriguing personalities who came together, with the events of their time, to create a Marque of a very distinct character; Nicola Romeo, Giuseppe Merosi, Vittorio Jano, Enzo Ferrari, Giuseppe Campari, Antonio Ascari, to name but a few. THE SUBFILES UGO STELLA; the man who started ALFA (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili - Joint stock company of Lombardy for the manufacture of automobiles) from the remains of Darracq's failed French car company at the Portello factory. FRENCH INFLUENCES, LOMBARDY RESULTS; this covers the inventors (Benz, Daimler, de Dion-Bouton) and the impresario Alexandre Darracq, his company, his cars and his failed move into the Italian market. The Post World War One FINANCIAL CRISIS. This covers the financial crisis in Italy following the War that very nearly prevented Nicola Romeo's restarting of the old ALFA car company. NICOLA ROMEO: a biography of the Neapolitan industrialist that reflects the individuals responsible for the belated industrialization of Italy. GIUSEPPE MEROSI: a biography of Alfa's first director of engineering, and an examination of his pre-War cars and their competition histories (before and after the W.W.I.). 24HP 40-60HP 1914 Grand Prix car Romeo series L, RL RL Sport & Super Sport RL Corsa (RLTF)-1923-1924 Gran Premio 1 (P1) THE GOLDEN AGE OF GRAND PRIX Tragedy at Monza (1923), The French Grand Prix at Lyon (1924), Monza (1924), The 1925 World Championship Season, The return to Grand Prix (1931). The image at right is a freeze frame from an archive film sequence. For this CD we developed the technology to take analog film directly digital; totally eliminate the poor image quality of video. The film runs at full frame (24fps) and, as can be appreciated from the 800 x 600 screen image, they are quite large. SUPERCHARGING Development of the different types of supercharging from its first automotive application on the Great Chadwick Six of 1906, to its post W.W.I. experiments and application by Daimler at Mercedes, FIAT in Grand Prix, and its general application there after. ROAD RACING IN ITAY The Targa Florio, The establishment of the Mille Miglia, and the challenging Italian road races, whose high speed dirt circuits attracted the best of Europe. THE COMPETITION BUGATTI Ettore's eight-cylinder cars that established the reputation of the cars from Molshiem. DELAGE Planchon's amazing 2LCV (twelve cylinder 2-liter Grand Prix car) of 1924. FIAT 804 & 805 These were the cars that set the standard for Grand Prix cars after W.W.I; the 804 for handling; the 805 for power-the first supercharged GP car... and the reason behind FIAT's departure from Grand Prix racing that forever shaped the future of high performance Italian engines. MASERATI The powerful but fragile 8C 1500, 8C 2500, 8C 3000 and the infamous sixteen cylinder V4. MERCEDES Paul Daimler's 28/95 and supercharged 28/95, 4-cylinder twin cam 1500cc road racer, Dr. Porsche's S, SS, SSK, SSKL and 8-cylinder two liter Grand Prix car. MILLER Harry Miller's amazing straight-eight twin cams prepared for Grand Prix racing in Europe. SUNBEAM The advanced Grand Prix cars that came from this British company that were designed by two men from FIAT's advanced engineering division and had a supercharging setup designed by two British military men that was to set the pattern for all who came after. THE DRIVERS Franchini, Campari, Ascari, Ferrari, Sivocci, Count Masetti, Sailer, Goux, Baroness d'Avanzo, Maserati, Guinness, Resta, Segrave, Consantini, Chassagne, Friedrich, Count Lou Zborowski, Sidney " Sammy" Davis, Bordino, Nazzaro, Pastore Divo, Benoist, Thomas, Nuvolari, Vazi, Ramponi, Lord Howe and the other cast of characters who challenged themselves, the circuits and each other during this great period of competition. Vittorio Jano: The man and his cars. From his position as racing's first team director at Fiat, and a valued member of the Turinese company's "brain trust" of engineers, Jano was tempted by the young Milanese firm to, as Enzo Ferrari outlined it "create cars from the track to the road". Relocating to Milan, Jano set about to develop some of the most dramatically potent cars of the Golden Age before the Second World War. The cars he created for Alfa reflected the most contemporary aviation engineering available through Romeo's multi-divisional industrial combine. His road cars were but "competition cars in evening clothes". Gran Premio 2 (P2) 6C 1500 Normale 6C 1500 Sport, Super Sport Compressore (supercharged) 6C 1500 Super Sport "Testa Fissa" (fixed head racing car) 6C 1750 Tourismo, Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo Compressore 6C 1750 Sport, Super Sport, Super Sport Compressore SS Testa Fissa, Gran Sport, GS Testa Fissa Type A (Monoposto) 8C 2300 Corto, Lungo, Corsa Spider, Le Mans, Monza Tipo B (P3) Alfa Romeo: View from the mouth of the Dragon was composed using the Velocity Media's E-Lit (Enhanced Electronic Literature) technology. Enhanced Electronic Literature - the first true synergy of automotive history and computing power - brings you a most comprehensive examination of a young European Auto industry from the cockpit of Alfa Romeo's early history. 540 "electric pages," all in full color, contain up to a dozen animations each. Over 400 photos, in color and B&W, with engineering animations and real film footage of the races of the Golden Age. Written by S. Scott Callan & Kip Crosby for the Velocity Media Interactive Automotive Library. - Where we bring the pages of the past alive. Minimum System Requirements System Compatibly: 486DX/50 or Greater Minimum of 16 MB RAM, 32 or better is recommended 85 MB free disk space Minimum 2X CD-ROM drive, 4X or better recommended Sound Blaster-compatible sound card and headphones or speakers. 800x600-capable SVGA monitor and video card (This CD has been tested with S3 and Cirrus Logic video coprocessors. We cannot guarantee compatibility. Your mileage may vary.) Microsoft Windows 3.1 or greater operating system. (Not compatible with Windows NT and Macintosh OS.) MS Mouse or compatible pointing device. Jack Becronis' 6C 1500 Sport Zagato was photographed by John Kent, all other photo's by S. Scott Callan. Archive images are courtesy of Alfa Romeo. All technologies embedded in Alfa Romeo: View from the mouth of the Dragon (E-lit, Digital Library, Museo-Intranet, & Digi-Cine) were developed by, and are the sole property of, Tom Ellis & S. Scott Callan. A special note of gratitude is due G. Patrick Stack, whose assistance has been, and continues to be, invaluable. This CD is dedicated to Karen & Miles In memory of Howard Jackson. To purchase your copy of ALFA ROMEO: VIEW FROM THE MOUTH OF THE DRAGON send $50.00 USD plus shipping & handling TO: VELOCITY GROUP P.O.Box 791, Pleasanton California 94566 USA If you have any questions you can call 925.485.9796 between 9:00 and 5:00 PST or e-mail Shipping & handling is $5.00 USD for: Continental United States and Europe Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Bitain (all), Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands. Pacific Rim Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam. North America Canada Shipping and handling costs for all countries not listed can be provided by contacting us directly