A few years back, I wrote a piece for another website about my personal issues with “Concours D’Elegance” in America. What started life as an opportunity to see a bunch of cool cars has turned into a one-percenter-fest filled with cars that will never, ever — EVER — be used for their intended purpose ever again. Luciano Rupolo has cars that would be right at home on the lawn at Pebble Beach or Amelia Island. But he’s also a cool old dude who likes to drive his cars, and drive them he does in this great, 16-minute mini-documentary from Italy.

Luciano Rupolo is a fascinating character. He got his first race car from his father at the age of 16 before he even had a driver’s license, and started vintage racing cars in the 1970s, before vintage racing was a pursuit only entertained by the ultra-wealthy.

“I did not become a true collector in the 1990s or 2000s because it’s trendy now,” Rupolo says in the documentary. “I have bought cars throughout my life. I have preserved them and saved them. Everything is mixed up now.”

Over the years, he’s competed in 15 Mille Miglia events, and raced the Targa Florio as well. His car collection includes vintage racing Corvettes, a Ferrari 250GTE, a Mini Cooper, a Giannini 250 Sport.

He’s also the guy who located and restored the oldest Porsche known to exist, #004. There was no #001 or #002, and #003 was a car built in Gmund, Austria, and was registered in Switzerland in 1959, after the 1958 registration of Rupolo’s #004.

He bought the car as a wreck and had it restored, and Porsche came calling, in the form of Wolfgang Porsche, the last surviving member of the original family. He tried to purchase the car, but insisted on lowballing Rupolo, thinking he was just some schmuck without an understanding of the car’s value. Rupolo told Porsche “You keep your money. I keep your car.”

The coolest car in his collection, by far, is the Iso Grifo A3/C Competizione, a stunningly gorgeous Italian competitor powered by a 327-cu.in. Corvette V-8 topped with four Weber DCOE carbs.

Keep this in mind: Rupolo purchased the car — which had been crashed in Sebring in 1965 — as a rusted-out wreck, and restored with the help of none other than Giotto Bizzarrini. It’s one of TEN ever built. According to David Traver Adolphus writing for Road & Track about a later Bizzarrini 5300 — built out of spare bodies that Bizzarrini shall we say — liberated — from Iso Rivolta after leaving the company: “Fifteen years ago, they were $75,000 all day. By the year 2000, they’d jumped up to $300,000, then stayed there until about five years ago. Now, you’ll have to work to find one under half a million, thus the $550,000–$750,000 estimate on the one at RM Auctions in Monterey is an accurate wager.”

So, conservatively, a half million dollar car that could easily be on display at Pebble Beach, that took 10 to 15 years to restore WITH THE HELP OF THE GUY WHO BUILT IT, and this cool old dude is not only DRIVING it, but cranking out DONUTS with it, like the teenager he still thinks he is. AWESOME.

Even if Italian cars aren’t your thing, this is an awesome video, and in a nutshell, everything that’s wrong with straw-hat, blue-blazer “Concours-culture” in this country. Viva Italia.

Watch the 16-minute video below. If you’re only interested in seeing a half-million dollar donut, scroll forward to 9:50, but really, the whole thing is worth watching.