This week, the C&SC team is furiously putting to bed a very special issue of the magazine. The April edition will come with a free supplement, 35 extra pages celebrating 100 years of Maserati. Yippee!
All this focus on the Trident marque has made me think very seriously about my relationship with Italian cars.
Why? Because I adore them, but I don't seem to ever buy them.
To be absolutely honest, I am mystified by this, and especially the lack of Maseratis in the Elliott scrapbook, because it has always been my favourite Italian marque, followed jointly by Ferrari and Lancia and then Alfa Romeo.
My devotion is such that, if you browse my old "obsessions" blogs (a series I really must get around to reviving), no fewer than four of the eight I have written are about Italian cars.
Yet, to date, I have owned only one… and that was a relatively modern company car (my Lancia Delta Integrale) because I didn't have the guts to buy it (or more importantly, service it) with my own cash.
So where has it all gone wrong? After all, I may have only ever owned one Italian car, but I have set out to buy loads of the buggers. The 308GT4s alone that I have been but a signature away from acquiring are in double figures.