Lancia Dagrada Restoration

Review by Pete Vack
Photos courtesy Leo Schildkamp

In October of 2004, Leo Schildkamp became the owner of a Lancia Dagrada Formula Junior, chassis #001. It had been in an incident at Goodwood in 2003 and had been significantly damaged.

Schildkamp would spend the next several years restoring the car, one of perhaps ten Formula Juniors built by Angelo Dagrada from 1958 to about 1960. When the restoration was complete, Schildkamp gathered the notes and photos of the car’s history and restoration and instead of putting them in a loose-leaf binder, used a vanity press called ‘blurb’ to produce a hardbound booklet. There is very little text, but a great deal of photos and information about Dagradas, most in color.

As such, this can’t be judged as a book, but a glossy binder of relevant information about his particular Dagrada. However, since published information about the Dagrada is so scarce, this is a must-have book for anyone who is interested in Lancia (particularly the Appia), and Formula Junior racing.

Banging heads

Schildkamp, who resides in Heerlen in the Netherlands, introduces himself with a bang right up front. Next to a photo of himself with a nasty looking head wound, he explains that when carrying the Dagrada head, he tripped and fell. “I wanted to protect the Dagrada head and held it firmly in my hands. When I hit the floor the Dagrada head bounced back towards my forehead. The head was saved but I had to go to my doctor to get my head stitched.”

Schildkamp got his priorities right though…it was probably easier to get his head fixed than the Dagrada head. And the head is the heart of the Dagrada story, for while most of the rest of the car is standard Italian Formula Junior issue of that era, the modified Lancia Appia head is the jewel that makes the car.

When putting the book together, Schildkamp emailed this author for permission to reprint parts of the Dagrada article published in VeloceToday back in 2002. He makes use of it in the first part of the book to describe the intricate and fascinating manner in which Dagrada changed Vittorio Jano’s cooking Lancia head into a fire breather.

Schildkamp follows that up with a complete list of race results for the various Lancia Dagradas from 1959 to 1961, and podium finishes for the car (all of which were achieved by Giancarlo Baghetti). Included are some rare photos of various Dagradas in action, unfortunately with no captions to identify time or place.

Restoration

As found, the Schildkamp Dagrada had crashed due to a bad weld on the steering arm, resulting in a badly damaged front suspension. It was decided to do a complete job, going through every element of the chassis, suspension, and braking system. The body was also taken down to bare aluminum, straightened and repainted.

This was to be expected, but when Schildkamp’s mechanics checked the engine and found the oil to be the consistency of heavy brown syrup, they thought they’d have a good look inside. Eventually, the entire engine and transmission had to be completely rebuilt. Since the head is the crown jewel, a great deal of attention was given to its repair. Small cracks had to be filled and the head re-milled. Tools had to be created to grind the head and new valve guides were fitted. The head was then vacuum-impregnated by Henkel Loctite in Germany.

New pistons and rods were installed and the compression ratio increased to 10.5 to 1. The twin DCO 3 Webers were rebuilt and tuned when the engine was on the dyno.

There are excellent photos of the entire process, but again, this is a glamorized three-ring binder, so details are sparse.

At the end, Schildkamp lists the four events in which chassis #001 took place in 1959, driven by Franco Bordoni Bisleri. And in the end, the restoration began in 2004 and would not be completed until 2010. He took it to the Hockenheim Formula Junior races in 2011, but he was now 72 years old and has since decided to sell the Dagrada. The asking price is € 99000, and Leo can be contacted at lancia.lambda@planet.nl.

There are other Dagradas being raced today, such as chassis #009, now owned by James Steerman. That is described in our accompanying article.

The book can be viewed electronically at the blurb bookstore. blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3446260