Story and photos by Graham Gauld
As regular readers know, I always look forward to the Silverstone Classic in late August, but for me this year was a rush as I had to get back fast before going on a brief visit to Malaga in Spain (coming up), so only now can I sit back and reflect on an event which always churns up interesting cars and people.
Take Peter Fenichel, for example, who was racing a Stanguellini Formula Junior that interested me, as anything to do with Stanguellini does since I have known the family for over sixty years. Peter is an American retired financial man with a passion for racing and a cheerful demeanor.
His Stanguellini was one of three ordered by Briggs Cunningham when Formula Junior went international in 1959 and a race for those cars was planned to support the 1959 Sebring 12 Hour sports car race on December 12.
As it turned out no fewer than eleven Stanguellini’s were entered for that race, two of them by Briggs Cunningham to be driven by Cunningham and Walt Hansgen. These were the first two of the three Cunningham orders with chassis 00139 for Hansgen and 00162 for Cunningham.
With only a couple of Elva 1100’s, a Taraschi and a modified Elva Junior built by Ray Heppenstall called the Scorpion and powered by a three-cylinder two-stroke DKW engine, the Stanguellinis had a field day and finished in the first ten places led by Walt Hansgen ahead of Brazilian Firtz D’Orey with Briggs Cunningham fourth. Little were we to know at the time but exactly thirteen days later, at Brands Hatch in England, a new rear engined car appeared in Formula Junior driven by Alan Stacey and entered by a certain Colin Chapman, the Lotus 18, that was to later destroy Stanguellini’s supremacy in Formula Junior.
Cunningham’s third Stanguellini was delivered later in 1960 and was chassis 00176.
The car that Peter Fenichel was driving was chassis 00139 which eventually turned out to be the Sebring winning Hansgen car, but not before a lot of confusion. In the Argetsinger-Harman biography of Walt Hansgen the chassis number of Hansgen’s car at Sebring is quoted as chassis 00176, however after some deep research at the REVS Institute which was launched by Miles Collier, a close friend of Cunningham and custodian of Cunningham’s archives, showed that Stanguellini chassis 00176 had not yet been delivered to Cunningham at the time of the Sebring race and that the actual chassis of the winning car was 00139: the car you can see below finished in Cunningham blue.
Why is it that I always seem to find mysteries that are difficult to resolve at historic meetings? Here is another one to get you thinking.
To me one of the truly classic sports racing cars is the T120 Talbot-Lago Tourist Trophy Sports, of which two replicas were built. This 3 liter six-cylinder has great style.
The T129 was launched in 1939 with three cars, two for Frenchmen Rene Le Begue and Philippe Etancelin and the third being given to Englishman Raymond Mays, who was making a name for himself racing E.R.A.’s in Grand Prix racing and later the ill-fated 1.5 liter 16 cylinder B.R.M. Grand Prix car of 1949/50.
Mays was duly entered for the French Grand Prix of 1939 in the car, where he retired. However Tony Lago gave him a Talbot-Lago T120 Coupe, which Mays brought back to England and road registered it TL8749. The car has been very successful and holds class records at various hill climbs. The full story can be read here: https://motorsportshowroom.com/specialist-cars/1939-talbot-lago-t120-1638
So what is the mystery?
The clue is in the badge attached to the grille that is a badge produced by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the organizers of the Le Mans 24 Hour race and dated “Driver 1939”.
Firstly, I have never seen one of those badges before which would appear to indicate that the Club went to the trouble of producing individual name badges, presumably for every competitor. However, I went through the list of every new competitor to compete at Le Mans right up to 1939 and it would appear Raymond Mays, though one of Britain’s leading racing drivers, was never entered or raced at Le Mans.
I then thought that the badge might have related to Mays driving the Talbot-Lago in the French Grand Prix, but that was held at Reims in 1939 and was not organized by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. So can any Veloce reader solve my riddle with a plausible explanation?
Peter Swords says
Have a copy of May’s book Split Seconds and cannot recall any mention of le Mans