[alfa] Watcherettes??

[Will Owen <nashwill912@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Manley asked:

"I was watching some of the Victory by Design shows
and the host used a term I've never heard. He used it when
referring to both cars and race events I think. My guess at
the spelling would be "watcherette" or "vocherette" maybe.
Anyone out there have a de Cadenet to Mark translator?"

That would be "voiturette," which is simply French for "small car." It
was first widely applied (ca. 1901) to a class of racing cars of smaller
capacity and lighter build than the usual pre-WW1 behemoths. There was a
series of races sponsored by a French magazine, the Coupe de L'Auto,
from 1905 through 1913, the last several running concurrently with the
French Grand Prix. By then the lighter, quicker voiturettes were
regularly beating up on the big cars, and "for 1914 Grand Prix cars had
become virtual voiturettes, with a capacity limit of 4.5 litres." (World
of Automobiles, Vol. 21)

Some years ago I had a pipe dream of a modern voiturette road-racing
class, cars designed to look like the sports-racers of the '40s and
'50s, and based on a chassis and drivetrain similar to the little
Legends cars. Of course, I'm not really in any position to do much more
than daydream about things like this, but I enjoyed wasting a lot of
time at my drawing board with the idea.

Will Owen
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