Three Barn Find Nardis Come to Light

By Dino Brunori

A couple of years ago VeloceToday did the book review of my book Enrico Nardi, A fast life and wrote, “Once the book is more widely distributed, more information will no doubt surface.” I’m sure that regular aficionados of VeloceToday are curious to know if something happened in the meantime. The answer is yes, and here are three different stories of recent Nardi barn finds.

In spring 2010, eBay listed an ad showing a BMW 750 twin motorcycle engine with a ND (Nardi Danese) stamping on it with a serial number of 110. A quick across-the-ocean call to John de Boer to cross-check our databases, and we ended up with the same conclusion: this particular engine was originally installed in Nardi chassis number 952/2. This car was purchased by Ferdinando Gatta, the brother-in-law of Gianni Lancia, and had a long racing career in seasons ’52 and ’53 in Italy before being sold in the USA by Tony Pompeo, continuing its career in SCCA races up to the early sixties. 952/2 was still in the States, in the hands of a collector who lives in Florida, and at the time had a Ford engine installed.

Once the owner of 952/2 knew of the BMW engine, it took him only 10 minutes to decide to purchase it to bring back the car to its original condition. This alone was a breakthrough, but the best of the story had still to come.

Barn Find Nardi Danese 750

Recently we had reason to get in touch with the seller of the Nardi Danese BMW engine as listed on eBay. During the conversation, he mentioned that he knew of a person with who had kept a Nardi BMW parked in the garage for the last 50 years with a blown engine. This led us on another chase but several attempts to contact the Nardi owner had no result at all; he did not reply to messages on the phone, to emails, nor would he even open his door when de Boer went to visit him. A dead end, it seemed.

In late spring of this year, I received an email from a man who lived outside of Chicago named Nick. He had just purchased a Nardi Danese 750, stored for a long time along with engine # 103 but blown, and was looking for advice about the restoration. It registered quickly; it was clear that Nick had managed to wrestle the Nardi away from its reclusive owner.

And what a find, for it was a Nardi 750 with an enviable race record, the ex – Gougelmann ND 750, the notable winner of so many races in the ’50s.

Barn Find Nardi Barchetta

During my research for the Nardi book, I had access to the archives of Pietro Frua. Thankfully, the family still takes care of a wealth of documents. Among them I found a folder with the title “Bodies made for Mr. Nardi” containing a few pictures of the pretty barchetta and coupes built in 1951–53 with a note specifying the number of bodies. There was actually a number written with pencil indicating the number of cars built. The number looked like a 6, but it was not very clear.

I had found evidence of 4 cars: a barchetta built in 1951 with a Panhard engine for the French pilot Berthomier, a Nardyna coupe with a Panhard engine shown at the Paris Salon de l’Automobile in 1952, and two barchettas with Crosley engines built for Wacky Arnolt in 1953. We concluded that of the 4 cars, the first two disappeared, and the Crosley barchettas were still around and in the hands of American collectors. But what about the number 6 listed by the Frua files?

Last February I received an email from a French enthusiast who was looking for help and information because he was starting a restoration project of a Nardi originally fitted with a BMW 750 twin. The pictures attached to the email left me breathless. It was a Frua-bodied barchetta with a chassis number not in my listing. I cross-checked with de Boer and he did not know of this car either. The remainder of the story explains what ‘barn find’ means for a car collector.

The car was found in the late ‘70s by the father-in-law of the current owner in a garage located in a small village south of Paris. It was sitting in a corner, covered with dust and with a blown engine. Nobody was interested in it, but our French enthusiast fell in love with the design of the car. He purchased it and parked it, hidden by a cover in his garden, and forgot it for more than 30 years, waiting for a more opportune time to start the restoration. That moment came a few months ago, when he sent me his email. Today the tubular frame looks a little bit corroded by rust, but the aluminium shape of the Frua body still shines. Conclusion: I’m almost sure that the number in pencil was a 6, not a 4 or a 5, and the challenge today is to find the one more missing Frua!

Barn Find Nardyna Coupe

A couple of weeks ago I received an email requesting information and it came from another Frenchman, and he too mentioned a Nardi car. I was a little bit curious and suspicious in the meantime. Why suspicious? Because I’ve seen even recently traders selling cars badged as Nardi that have nothing to do with a real Nardi car. Sometimes it is just an upgrading of standard cars using one or more original bits, sometimes a ‘mix and match’ of papers, but generally my archives tell me the truth very quickly.

So I questioned the Frenchman, asking for more details about his car, the story as he knew of it, where the car was, and so on. When the answer arrived, it had pictures attached. Another surprise! They showed the Nardyna Coupe presented in Paris in 1952 that we all thought was lost. I eventually doubted of the existence of the car when I wrote my book, having received from a German friend two pictures that showed what looked like the rear of the Nardyna. But there was no evidence of where and when the photos were taken, so I stored them in my ‘maybe still existing?’ file.

The car seems in fair condition but in need of a total restoration. It has lost its original Panhard Dyna Type 120 engine, but the Frua body is still there, complete with all the peculiar Frua details like the ‘shark nose’ front grill and thinned tail lights. The story goes that this car was hidden in a barn for a long time, and that the current owner knew of it, but it took him more than 20 years to convince the previous owner to sell it.

To sum up, we believe that the number 6 on the Frua files was correct:

One Barchetta with a BMW 750 in France recently found per above.
Two Crosley engine Barchettas still in the U.S. with collectors.
One Nardi-Panhard built for French pilot Berthomier (presumed lost).
One Nardyna Coupe, in restoration in France per above, long thought to be lost.

This leaves one more Frua to be found. It could be a barchetta or coupe with any one of three engines; BMW, Panhard, or Crosley.