Re: [alfa] Re: Voiturettes and Russian steel

["Dean" <tessiedog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The latest edition of Auto Italia has a test drive of a
158(chassis)/159(engine) which is very interesting. It discusses how the
Italians hid the race cars away from the Germans. Apparently they where
stored at not one location, but at many of the factories owned by this
company. They also had wear houses under the banking at Monza. Lots of great
history.
Cheers,
Dean.
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Graves" <gmgraves@domain.elided>
To: <alfa@domain.elided>
Cc: <thebaylys@domain.elided>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 8:37 AM
Subject: [alfa] Re: Voiturettes and Russian steel


> I'm not sure of the chicken-and-egg relationship here, but in Alfa's
> case, the 158 "Alfetta" definitely started life in Scuderia Ferrari's
> Modena shop as a Voiturette racer in the waning days before WWII. When
> the war was over, the FIA (or their then equivalent) was anxious to
> start-up racing again. Now, did they settle upon 1500cc's blown and
> 3-liters unblown for the formula arbitrarily or because several
> Alfettas survived the war to form a nucleus around which to rebuild the
> sport? This I don't know.
>
> BTW, the story about how the 158s survived the war is as fascinating as
> the 158's themselves. It seems that literally as the German Gestapo was
> walking up the front steps of the Alfa Romeo works at Monza park
> outside of Milan, Wilfredo Ricart (a brilliant and somewhat eccentric
> Spanish engineer who would, after WWII, be responsible for the fabulous
> Spanish Pegaso automobiles) and Gioacchino Columbo (who would go on to
> design the Famous Ferrari V-12) were driving vans loaded with 158's and
> spares out of the back of the factory. They made their way to the
> lovely town of Melzo to the north and east of the city where Ricart had
> arranged to store the cars and their spares in a disused part of a
> cheese factory. The cars and parts were walled-into one end of a large
> building which had no windows on that wall. The fresh wall made the
> building 'appear' considerably smaller on the inside than it was on the
> outside, but when the Germans, on a tip, searched the cheese factory
> premises, they failed to notice. After the war, the cars were
> un-walled, taken back to the now bombed-out (by the US 484th Bomber
> Group) Monza works and readied for the first tentative races. Thus it
> was that Alfa was just about the only major European manufacturer ready
> to go racing again when hostilities ceased.
>
> George Graves
> '86 GTV-6
>
>
> On Jan 11, 2004, at 8:58 AM, alfa-digest wrote:
>
> >
> > Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:03:15 +0930
> > From: "Paul Bayly" <thebaylys@domain.elided>
> > Subject: Re: [alfa] Re: alfa-digest V9 #1070  Voiturettes and Russian
> > steel
> >
> > George,  I believe the vehicle types used in 'Voiturette' classes pre
> > 1950
> > eventually evolved into F1/GP cars.  Or more correctly, the GP formula
> > changed over the decade so as to end up similar to the earlier
> > 'Voiturette'
> > formula.  Manufacturers having successful voiturette cars needed less
> > development time to become competitive in GP racing, with the
> > dinosaurs for
> > the most part being left behind.  The change to Avgas fuels and rear
> > engines
> > of course changed GP racing forever.
> >
> > Beatle
> > Oz
> --
> to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
> or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided