Fratelli Auriana Enters One of Three Known Models as the Team Goes After
                          Second Consecutive Title

    NEW YORK, May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Sports car racing team Fratelli
Auriana has entered a very rare Stanguellini Delfino Formula Junior, made
in 1962, in the 2006 Grand Prix de Monaco Historique, which will be held on
May 21 following practice sessions on May 20, the weekend before the
Formula One Grand Prix de Monaco. Team Fratelli Auriana won the biennial
Grand Prix Historique in 2004.
    The biennial event is a retrospective of the golden age of car racing.
It takes place on the famous street circuit throughout Monaco that has
hardly changed since the first grand prix race in Monaco on April 14, 1929.
The event is organized by the Automobile Club of Monaco and is conducted
under the auspices of HRH Prince Albert II.
    The Grand Prix Historique is one of the world's premiere Formula Junior
events. The Formula Junior class came to life thanks to the charismatic
Italian count, gentleman-driver and enthusiastic journalist Giovannino
"Johnny" Lurani. It was the first international Formula conceived to offer
young aspiring Grand Prix drivers an economic single seater which used the
mechanics of mass produced cars.
    The first two years of this new series, 1958 and 1959, saw the
domination of the Italian Stanguellini single seaters. They were
front-engined and used Fiat components, for which the manufacturer
Stanguellini was also the official dealer in Modena. The Stanguellini's
were displaced in the winners circle by the British Cooper, Lola and Lotus
single seaters with rear mid-engined configuration: these manufacturers had
greater experience with this layout, which they themselves had brought to
Formula one. In fact the 1961 season demonstrated without a shadow of a
doubt that this rear mid-engined format was the required path to success.
Thus, at the end of 1961, Stanguellini found himself with no choice but to
tackle this technical challenge and set to work on a rear mid-engined car
into which he poured all his experience and considerable capital. A noted
feature of the rear of the Delfino -- the name comes from its
characteristic nose shape -- was its high exhaust.
    Only three Stanguellini Delfino Formula Juniors were built. One is
exhibited at the Stanguellini museum in Modena. Fratelli Auriana's historic
car consultants in 2005 hunted down a second Delfino, which for years had
been forlorn and forgotten in a Florence garage, where they found it
covered in dust. It has been completely dismantled and reassembled with
exacting attention to detail. On Sunday, May 21, the red Italian single
seater will make its roaring return to the track in the hopes of
challenging, hopefully with success this time, its British-built
contemporaries.
    Fratelli Auriana is owned by Lawrence Auriana, co-founder and portfolio
manager of the Federated Kaufmann Fund. He is also Chairman of Columbus
Citizens Foundation, which in 2004 honored Mario Andretti as Grand Marshal
of New York City's Columbus Day Parade. During the past four years the
Parade has featured vintage cars of Italian design from the Fratelli
Auriana collection. Mr. Auriana is of Italian ancestry and is a passionate
collector of 20th century Italian movie posters and Italian race cars.
    In 2004 his Stanguellini Formula Junior won the prestigious Grand Prix
Historique du Monaco, then restricted to front-engined cars in the hands of
Joe Colasacco, who thus followed in the virtual footsteps of Michael May
the winner there in 1959 in an identical Stanguellini Formula Junior.
Knowing that the 2006 edition, due to take place next Sunday on the
tortuous streets of the Principality, would be open to all Formula juniors
built until the end of 1963, including this time the rear mid-engined cars,
Mr. Auriana decided he would attempt to be present this year with a
Stanguellini Delfino, a car he had never seen but which had struck his
imagination with its aerodynamic and elegant lines.
    Press contacts:
    In Italy: Adolfo Orsi, historica.selecta@libero.it, 39 33 531 1148
    In the US: Andrew Decker, Andrew.Decker@att.net, 212 222 4688

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