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The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

Graham Gauld

One Family, 100 years of Racing

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Theodore Pilette at the wheel of his Gregoire at the Gaillon event in 1906

By Graham Gauld
Photos courtesy Pilette Family

This year’s Indianapolis 500 will be something special for Belgian ex-racing driver Teddy Pilette, for it will mark the 100th anniversary of his grandfather Theodore Pilette’s remarkable 5th place in the 1913 Indy 500. Remarkably, Teddy himself had three attempts at Indy back in 1979,’81 and’82 but did not manage to qualify. In between, Teddy’s father, Theodore’s son Andre, was a successful Belgain race driver in the 1950s, driving for Gordini and Ferrari. Finally, Teddy’s son John is now racing SEAT sedans!

But it all began with Grandfather Pilette, whose performance at Indy back then was of particular significance because his Mercedes-Knight was the smallest car in the race at just over 4 liters and he even averaged 20 mpg on fuel. So who was Theodore Pilette?
Born in 1883, he was a teenager when the automobile hit town and clearly he was impressed and went into the auto trade as soon as he could and became a dealer for Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (Mercedes).

The Pilette Garage in Brussels: note the dealerships.

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Graham Gauld on Gordini

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Gordini on the way to winning the Index at Le Mans in 1939. Graham Gauld Archives.

By Graham Gauld

Does anyone remember the Fodor guides to hotels, restaurants and the like? Back in 1957, Fodor sent me a review copy of their then-new guide to Italy. It arrived just as I was planning my first trip to Modena, so I looked up the area. I came upon a small hotel, the Albergo della Rocca, in the tiny village of Bazzano to the north of Modena. It was a great choice because it was run by the Rochi family as a typical Italian family hotel. Occasionally Enzo Ferrari came there to dine, but many years later I discovered that Bazzano had another role to play in the history of motor racing. It was the birthplace of Amedeo Gordini.

Amedeo’s father was a horse dealer but died in 1902 when Amedeo was only three years of age. However, it was not long before cars entered his life as Modena was a hot bed of motor sport and was one of the towns used on the Giro d’Emilia car event. (I say car because in 1909 the first Giro d’Emilia cycle race took place and also visited Modena.) Gordini was enthralled and that was it; he was going to become a mechanic, and at the very young age of 10 he took up an apprenticeship in an engineering shop in Bologna.

A man named Weber was an early influence on Gordini. Photo by Mary Decker Vack

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Microcosms from Gauld and Wyss

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Gauld recalls his Heinkel days, Wyss finds a Isetta Convertible

By Graham Gauld

I was recently reminded of a very special trip I made to Modena back in 1958. The reminder was the RM Auction held recently which featured the multitude of microcars that Bruce Weiner had collected and showed in his Microcar Museum in Madison, Georgia.

There have been many microcars built in the history of the automobile but in mid-1950s in Europe they became very popular during the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956. [Read more…] about Microcosms from Gauld and Wyss

Graham Gauld at Retro

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Abarth-750

Europe is finally beginning to see an influx of the Abarth Allemanos.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

It’s the first week of February, and to many that means Retromobile in Paris. This large motoring extravaganza is the meeting place of those who are in the know and looking for customers for their cars, as well as those who are there to drink in a truly diverse collection of cars, memorabilia and artifacts that never fail to produce some surprising items.

I tend to overlook the big historic car dealer stands with the major items that are generally covered in depth by most of the historic rags. I tend to look in the corners and on some of the smaller stands where you can find some really interesting stuff.

Stanguellini-Berlinetta

The Bertone-bodied Stanguellini berlinetta.

I have known the Stanguellini family for over fifty years, but this was the first occasion I have seen one of the 1100cc Fiat-engined berlinettas produced in the early 1950s. They were built as a short run of cars aimed at racing, with beautifully styled coachwork by Nuccio Bertone. As you can see from the photo it was very stylish for 1951 and at the Coppa Inter Europa that year, four of them took part, Manzini’s car finishing 8th in the 1100cc class. The one on show was on the Belgian Marreyt Classics stand with a price tag a shade over $180,000.

You had a choice of Cisitalia 202SC cabriolets on offer at Retromobile. This one was the Marryet car finished in blue/grey...

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ALFA TO ZECCOLI Part 2

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Zeccoli in the ‘Periscopio’ Alfa T33 prototype at the Nurburgring, 1967. (Zeccoli Archives)

Graham Gauld talks to Alfa test driver Teodoro Zeccoli

As we learned in Part 1, ATS was a recipe for disaster. It didn’t take Carlo Chiti long before he had enough. He joined forces with his friend Ludovico Chizzola in his Autosport Company, which prepared touring cars for racing. The company they formed together was Delta Auto, later changed to Autodelta. Chiti recalled the previous approach to ATS from Alfa Romeo and so contacted Giuseppe Luraghi, the Chairman of Alfa Romeo, and was offered the chance to take on the program. Chiti then resigned from ATS and took Teodoro Zeccoli with him as test driver. Zeccoli’s career took another step forward.

The Autodelta years

Racing in the wet with the Alfa Romeo TZ 2 at Monza in 1966. Teodoro Zeccoli brakes for the Parabolica. He would win his class with co-driver De Adamich. (Zeccoli Archives, Alfa Romeo)

[Read more…] about ALFA TO ZECCOLI Part 2

ALFA TO ZECCOLI Part 1

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Alfa-GTA Zeccoli
Zeccoli flat out at Spa in the Alfa Romeo GTA . (Zeccoli Archives, Alfa.)

Graham Gauld talks to Teodoro Zeccoli, Alfa Romeo’s test driver and team member.

In the alphabet of the world’s racing drivers, Teodoro Zeccoli comes somewhere near the end. He is a driver we have all heard about, due to his particular exploits with Alfa Romeo, but he is more than just a young Italian who grew up wanting to be a racing driver; Zeccoli was one of the favored test drivers of Carlo Chiti. Apart from being one of Chiti’s principals at Autodelta he was also the test driver for Chiti’s Formula 1 bad-egg, the ATS.

Zeccoli was one of a group of young Italian hotshoes who came to light in the 1960s that included Spartaco Dini, Ignacio Giunti, Roberto Bussinello and Nanni Galli.

I met up with him about ten years ago at his svelte BMW dealership in Imola, within earshot of the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Circuit. Though in his seventies, the tall and elegant Zeccoli was at first perplexed that anyone should want to know about his racing, but it was clear his racing years were dear to him.

The back wall of his dealership had an array of trophies, photographs and certificates highlighting his racing career. There were diplomas from the Automobile Club of Milan naming him Italian 1600cc Sports Car Champion in 1966 (Abarth), Touring Car Champion in 1970 (Alfa Romeo) and Sports Car Champion in 1971 (Alfa Romeo) and photographs of him racing all over the world.

Born in 1929 in Lugo, near Imola, Zeccoli did not fancy joining his father in the family business – which was making saddles for motorcycles – but had a passion for racing. His first race car was a Zagato-bodied Ermini Fiat 1100TV that he ran successfully in hill climbs and races during 1957. Later he had a Fiat 8V Zagato which he bought second-hand from a local Fiat dealer, and such was his success in events that he was approached by Sig. Dei of Scuderia Centro Sud to drive an OSCA MT4 in the Grand Prix of Liberation in Havana, Cuba. This race was put on by
Castro to celebrate the overthrow of the Cuban government. Zeccoli finished 9th in the class driving a three-year-old Tipo S 1500 version of the OSCA MT4 (Chassis 1179).

Teodoro Zeccoli with his first race car, a Fiat 1100TV Ermini Zagato coupe. (Zeccoli Archives.)

[Read more…] about ALFA TO ZECCOLI Part 1

Graham Gauld: Special-Bodied Showcars

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By Graham Gauld

Show cars fall into two categories:
A. “Let’s put this apparently mad idea up and see if anyone takes any notice.”
B. “We will call this a show car but really show the way we are thinking for the future.”

I have always had an interest in coachbuilding and design. Perhaps it was due to the first books I ever bought about cars. They were the soft cover books produced by Fawcett Publications in the USA and I treasure them to this day. I particularly liked “Sports Car Album” by John Wheelock Freeman because, with photographer Alexandre Georges, he traveled round Europe and wrote stories about the manufacturers and coachbuilders of that time. I was serving two years National Service in the Royal Air Force at that time but little was I to know I would be visiting some of those exact same factories just a few years later. So don’t be surprised if, from time to time, I write about various special-bodied show cars that appeared only to disappear again.

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Graham Gauld: Rally round the (Deutsch) Flag

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The two factory Mercedes 220SEs beside the monument on Loch Ness to the English racing driver and adventurer John Cobb, who was killed sixty years ago whilst attempting a new World Water Speed record on the loch.

By Graham Gauld

Unlike the Continent, rallies in the U.K. did not use special stages on closed roads to decide the winners; they normally used gymkhana style driving tests; in 1960 the RAC rally was going to use special stages for the first time. These were a handful in Scotland mainly using loose-surface tracks in the forests and prepared by the Forestry Commission.

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Daniele Audetto by Graham Gauld

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Chrysler, Lamborghini, Iaccoca, left, Audetto right.

Story and Photos by Graham Gauld

You can’t help but like Daniele Audetto, the tall, urbane Italian who has been involved in international motor sport all of his life. Earlier this year when I saw him at his villa in Bordighera on the Italian Riviera, he and his wife were about to head off for Spain where he has been working with Hispania Racing in Formula 1. He was not sure what his role would be this year following the take-over of the team by Thesan Capital, a Madrid based investment Group, but he didn’t appear too concerned about it.

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Sunshine and Great Cars at Paul Ricard

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Ferrari 275GTB-Gregory-Noblet-

His dad Pierre took third place at Le Mans in the 60s with a Ferrari SWB; now Gregory Noblet races this 275GTB. Noblet is a VeloceToday reader, of course!

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

Probably most people reading this have never heard of Patrick Peter, but he is one of those race organizers who always comes up with some good ideas. He tried out one of them last weekend at his huge Dix Mille Tours historic meeting in the sunshine of Paul Ricard in the South of France.
[Read more…] about Sunshine and Great Cars at Paul Ricard

Mike Sparken: Private Entrant Part I

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Mike Sparken, winning at Oulton Park in the rain with his trusty 750 Monza.

In the 1950s, if you had talent and the necessary finances, you could become a successful racing driver as a private entrant. This is the story of one of them, a French-born racing driver by the name of Mike Sparken. We were working on this article when on September 21, Sparken died at his home in the South of France at the age of eighty two. Our sincere condolences to his family; we wish he could have lived to read the following story.

By Graham Gauld

Mike Sparken, or Michael Poberejsky, to cite his proper name, was born in Paris in 1930 to a wealthy Russian family that had left Russia for Paris at the time of the 1917 Revolution.

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Franco Zagari 1930-2012

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Franco Zagari 2007

Franco Zagari in 2007.


This week we sadly note the death of famed Italian photographer Franco Zagari, who passed away on August 15th at the Maggiore hospital after a fight with cancer.

Photographs by Zagari and from his collections graced many outstanding books, some of the best produced with his longtime friend Luigi Orsini.

Below, Matt Spitzley and Graham Gauld fondly recall Franco Zagari. Our thanks to Matt and Di Spitzley for permission to use some of Zagari’s favorite photographs.
[Read more…] about Franco Zagari 1930-2012

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