Owner Spotlight: 1000 Miglia & More
INTERVIEW with Stelios:
Hi Stelios, Welcome to BookAclassic!
Q. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your story and how the idea of your classic car fleet came about.
R. When I was young, I started the circuit races with motorbikes. I attended the races with many different types of motorbikes like Kawasaki 900, Yamaha 250 and 350 LC, but as motorbike racing driver I was not so good.
Then I started as a car racing driver attending some rallies and hill climbs but the results were not as good enough as I wanted, so I continued my career as rally co-driver and I immediately understood that I found my way.
I participated to lot of rallies in Greece, some in Turkey and Cyprus, with Toyota Starlet and the Toyota Corolla WRC, with very good results (in 1997 I won the Toyota Starlet Cup in category A5), then in 1998 I achieved to sign an official contract with Toyota Greece as rally crew Angelos Zivas-Stelios Fakalis, and we finished 3rd overall in the Greek rally championship.
After my experience as rally co-driver I started to work with all the official WRC Teams for which I organized all the development tests in Greece, from 1999 to 2013 and I emphasize that I have a lot of experience in this field until now. Then I collaborated with many rally drivers especially from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Greece which participated in the Italian Rally Championship for many years and then in the World Rally Championship from 2009 to 2011.
In 2010 I moved to Italy, and I opened the team named Tsunami, that attended the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia & Porsche Carrera Cup French and we won both of championships. Since 2013 I was the responsible of all the European tests of the rally driver Gryazin.
Finally in 2017, I started to work with our team for my new passion: the “Classic Car”, especially in the field of historic races such as 1000 Miglia, Gran Premio Nuvolari, Winter Marathon etc.
This year we plan to have more than four classic cars that will attend the 1000 Miglia. The target is to grow up our team and our fleet and, of course, to keep participating with great classic cars on these famous classic events like Goodwood, Le Mans Classic etc
Q. What are the cars you have in your fleet, and what is their history? Are they unique cars?
R. We have the following cars: Lotus Climax Le Mans 1956, that we directly bought from Classic Team Lotus: the car was certificated from Clive Chapman, the son of Colin Chapman, and attended the 1000 Miglia in 2020, 2021 and 2022. It has the body in aluminum and has the Climax engine. Veritas, a “barchetta” with BMW engine. Rally Automobiles, a pre-war car that was built in 1934. Porsche Speedster 356 built in 1956, Porsche 911, 2 liters built in 1976. Lancia Aurelia B20 GT built in 1953. BMW 2002, a rally car built in 1973.
Q. Which events do you attend, and what is the type of your customer?
R. I particularly pay attention to the big events like 1000 Miglia, Gran Premio Nuvolari, Modena Cento Ore, the events of Peter Auto like Tour Auto and Le Mans Classic, Gooodwood in UK and some races of the FIA European Historic Rally Championship.
Our customers are high level people that know these types of events, and they understand that we provide high level services and can pay for these.
Q. Which services do you provide to your customers, and how do you stand out?
R. We offer the package named “Arrive & Drive” which means that the customer/driver has
only to come and drive and enjoy the race.
We rent the cars and give to our customers the organization, the technical support before and during the events that they select. We also think about the accommodation, the hospitality etc. We stand out for the type of the technical support: for example, during the 1000 Miglia, unlike the other teams, that have some mechanics that support also twenty/thirty cars, we have two mechanics for each car that we rent. We give the same type of support also during the other events that we attend.
Q. What are your future goals? Are you looking at buying more cars?
R. Yes, we want to buy more cars, especially classic cars, and we want to grow up the team,
attending more important events and finding more high-level customers
Q. And last but not least, could you tell us what you think about BookAclassic, the classic car booking platform?
R. I think that BookAclassic is a very clever idea, with which I can promote our company, our cars and our services to everybody, and I hope I’ll have some rentals by your website.
