primotipo…

Favourite shot of a favourite car…

Reg Nutt aboard the Leech Brothers owned Cisitalia D46 Fiat at Rob Roy hillclimb in Melbourne’s glorious Christmas Hills on May 4, 1958. He ran second in his class that day behind multiple Australian Hillclimb Championship winner, Bruce Walton, Walton J.A.P with a time of 28.30 seconds.

Nutt was a riding mechanic in the first decade of Australian Grands Prix at Phillip Island in the 1920s and 1930s and then a racer of note in his own right, including AGPs. “Reg told me that he had raced 27 cars and never owned any of them,” recalled Bob King. What a lucky man.

The car – chassis D461.1 according to John Blanden, and #0020 “the 20th of approximately 30 D46s built” according to a dealer in more recent times – was built in 1947 and sold to Frenchman, Roger Loyer (5/8/1907-24/3/1988) of the Ecurie de Paris. See here for a full-profile of Roger; https://gprejects.com/centrale/profiles/drivers/profile-roger-loyer

Loyer was a two time French national motorbike champion who switched from two wheels to four postwar aboard an old Delage D6. He then bought the Cisitalia – two D46s in fact, the other Ecurie de Paris car was driven by ‘the mysteriously self-styled Robert’ – which was prepared in his Ecurie de Paris garage located in the swish 17th Arondissement.

His D46 debut was at the Circuit des Remparts, Angouleme on June 15, 1947 and netted a heat victory, and third in the final sharing the car with Raymond Sommer. In the Coupe des Petites Cylindrees at Reims he was ninth, much better was third in the Coupe de Paris at the Bois de Boulogne in central Paris. Another strong fourth in a field of depth in the 330km GP du Comminges followed at St Gaudens in August, the three cars in front were Talbot Lagos. Late in the month Roger was third in a field of 12 Cisitalia D46s on the Circuit del Montenegro in Italy. A DNF late in the season at Lyon wasn’t representative of qualifying pace, fourth again at the Prix de Leman at Lausanne in October was followed by a season ending DNF with rear axle failure at the GP du Salon, Montlhery.

In a limited 1948 season – when the D46 was still very competitive in F2 events – Loyer raced at Pau in March, then Geneva in May for a DNF, then shared a car to third in the Circuit des Remparts with Robert in July. 1949 was worse in an even more limited campaign. DNQ at the Circuit du Lac in June and a crash at the Circuit des Remparts in July despite finishing second and setting fastest lap in the second heat. Robert and Roger shared a drive to sixth in the Circuit de Lac in a Simca, then contested the Grand Prix of the Nurburgring, where Roger was again a DNF.

Loyer then joined the Simca Gordini F2 team, selling one of the D46s to Melbourne’s Dale Brothers in April 1951 – https://primotipo.com/2018/08/23/words-from-werrangourt-1-by-bob-king/ .

Alan Watson was the buyer, but he didn’t use it much, notably giving it a run at Longford in March 1955. The car passed through several owners hands, albeit who were owners and who were drivers is lost a bit in the mists of time; the roll call includes Tony Osborne, John Doherty, Harry Firth, Syd Fisher, Ian Wells, Ray Gibbs and Ian Wells.

Lou Burke sold it to the Leech Brothers in 1964 and they used it for decades in Eastern Seaboard Australian historic events. The car was painted red circa 1980 when the pretty-Italian formed the bloke-magnet for the Lombard Insurance stand at motor shows. The car left Australia for the ‘States in 1987 and has pinged around the auction scene, some of the sales-prose Arthur Daley would be proud of.

More about Dante Giacosa’s most significant design here; https://primotipo.com/2017/02/24/the-cooper-t23-its-bristolbmw-engine-and-spaceframe-chassis/

Design and Production…

While the Piero Dusio founded (1943) and funded – Compagnia Industriale Sportiva Italia or Cisitalia – Dante Giacosa 1946 spaceframe design is rightly lauded as one of the world’s first, certainly of one built in volume, Australian historians point to the Chamberlain Brothers’ Chamberlain Indian/Eight of 1929 as a stunning much earlier expression of multi-tubular spaceframe brilliance. See here; https://primotipo.com/2015/07/24/chamberlain-8-by-john-medley-and-mark-bisset/

In 1944 Dusio, via an interlocutory contacted and contracted Giacosa (to the end of 1945), a Fiat engineer to design ‘the outline and technical hypothesis of a racing car using Foot 500 and 1100 components.’

Giacosa’s small team comprised draftsman Edoardo Grosso, and from August 1945, Giovanni Savonuzzi, Dante’s replacement. ‘The project number 201 in keeping with those used by Giacosa at Fiat. While the car was later called D46, this remained the basis of the subsequent numbering of Cisitalias: 202, 204, 303, 505, 808 etc.’

Overcoat clad Giacosa susses one of his early D46s. He later remarked, “When I came to build the chassis it was in my mind to make it of tubing. That’ll appeal to Dusio, I thought, since he builds Beltrame bicycles in his workshop.” It’s also thought that the tubular cockpits of the Rosatelli designed aircraft Giacosa worked on during the war was also influential.

Whatever the case, the ‘framework chassis’ adopted was light and stiff and provided a platform to ‘which the mechanical parts could be easily mounted in a low position…using existing equipment and staff already specialised in this kind of procedure. The molybdenum chrome plated steel (remember how scarce high quality material was in this immediate post-war period) used came from leftover Aeritalia stock ‘used by Rosatelli in the construction of CR and BR aeroplanes during and after the war.’

To better exploit the chassis further lateral thinking was applied to other key components. The rear axle and diff was turned upside down, with a small aluminium crankcase developed for the Fiat engine allowing a bevel gear pair to take the drive from front to back passing under the differential towards the driveshaft turned from a steel billet -the gear pair offered a range of ratios to driver choice. This lowered the engine by 12cm.

Front suspension was lifted straight from the Fiat 500. ‘Hydraulic shock absorbers were fitted on the prolongation of the lower triangle’ (wishbone), but turned upside down compared to original Fiat fitment. An upper transverse leaf spring performed compliance and locational duties.

Equally brilliant was the Grosso drafted three-speed, semi-automatic mechanical gearbox ‘intended to save time for the drivers during races’, later in the D46’s life (1948) four-speed conventional Fiat ‘boxes were used.

Short tests of the prototype took place on a short circuit backing onto the railway at the rear of the factory in Corso Peschiera in February 1946: Adolfo Macchieraldo, Carlo Dusio, Giacosa and Savonuzzi all had a steer. More importantly the vastly experienced engineer/racer Piero Taruffi drove the disc-wheeled, sketchy bodied prototype a short while later, and was appointed the official test driver. Evolution of the then car progressed quickly.

Initial problems included rear end judder rectified by replacing the two rigid lateral suspension arms with two quarter elliptic springs ‘five to the axle, rotating freely on two pinions integral with the chassis, offering only resistance to torsional stress like an anti-roll bar, leaving the real springing to two short coil springs. The axle was connected to the chassis via a hinged triangle mounted to the diff and a spring at the point of chassis attachment which allowed suspension adjustment.’

The chassis cracked in the central area so was strengthened, in part by enlarging the body side and inserting a welded shaped metal panel of greater size. Note the differences clear in side views of the frame of the prototype and production cars, it evolved from Colin Chapman straight tube-runs to Owen Maddock wonky-ones! and worked as well as Owen’s!

By September 1946 seven D46 Fiat 508B/1100cc powered 62bhp @ 5500rpm, 370kg Voiturettes had been built. ‘The line of the car was fascinating and aggressive at first sight, offering pleasing solutions such as the double fairing on the front suspension which gave it something of the air of a biplane. The nose was perfect oval which incorporated a small upper air intake which fed the carburettor via a duct, brining a certain amount of overpressure when racing.’

The steering wheel could be tipped to allow easier access for the portly. The six-piece, beautiful, quick-fitting Itallumag body was made by Turin’s Rocco Motto, the riveted 45 litre duralumin fuel tank by De Gregori, another local.

The initial batch of seven cars were raced in the Coppa Brezzi at Valentino Park, Turin on September 3. Piero Dusio won from Franco Cortese and Louis Chiron, poor Tazio Nuvolari had the steering wheel come away in his hands when it broke away from its hinge, below.

‘Selection of first gear or reverse was carried out by means of a lever set on the side of the steering column, while to change from first to second or from second to third or back down again the clutch pedal had to fully depressed. To change from second or third to first or neutral, the clutch pedal had to be fully depressed again, but after having moved the hand lever to the desired position. To use the clutch without changing gear, the pedal had to be depressed about halfway, when a hardening was encountered beyond which the gear shift was operated.’ Yeah right, buggered if that makes sense to me despite driving a couple of cars with pre-selector ‘boxes recently…

Towards the end of 1947 Rudolf Hruska and Carlo Abarth joined Cisitalia as Technical General Manager and Racing Manager respectively. The D46 was modified and shown at the October 1947 Milan Motor Show (above).

The nose was still oval but more horizontal, the fairings deleted, sides extended to house two lateral fuel tanks. ‘The overall line of the car was influenced by the design of its big sister, the supercharged 1500cc Grand Prix car taking shape on the firm’s drawing boards.’

In addition, the semi-automatic gearbox was dropped in favour of a standard Fiat 1100 4-speeder, the rear suspension modified by fitment of twin torque arms on each side, and telescopic hydraulic shock absorbers adopted all-round.

Etcetera…

Cisitalia D46s at the Circuit des Remparts, Angouleme in 1949. #2 is Loyer, #28 is Guy Michelot and future, fast GP driver Harry Schell is on the move in the family Ecurie Bleue #20 machine.

Roger Loyer having a gargle alongside ‘our’ D46, perhaps, Ecurie de Paris raced two, after a strong showing, place unknown. Fosters Lager stubby perhaps…

Who said tits don’t sell, it’s always worked with me? A couple of delightful lasses resplendent in much less than acceptable attire these days, during Melbourne’s March Moomba festival in the early 1960s.

Looking quite the beauty queen at Sandown in the 1970s above, and below in the old pits at the same venue in June 1963; so distinctive from every angle, form and function…

Not Tazio’s tiller but the altogether more flash one of ‘our’ D46 at Calder when owned by the Leech boys circa 1966.

Ian Wells with elbows out at Calder in the early 1960s. The car in strife behind is the “Platypus MG”, Greg Smith tells us. “By this time it was fitted with a big Healey-four, later to be reconfigured by Lou Molina as Vulgarilla (famous Oz MG Special raced by Molina, an equally legendary racer/hotelier/raconteur) and still sports the same alloy tail, maybe Murray Nankervis at the wheel.”

Jim Leech taking on the challenging Mount Tarrengower hill, in Victoria’s Goldfields region, 1964. The Brothers Leech had a small but very select collection of old cars they used extensively.

WTF…

The Sehab Alma Bey Trophy was an invitation race for Cisitalia D46s held on the 1.48km Circuit El Guezireh – The Pyramid Circuit around the Guezireh Park – Cairo on March 9, 1947.

Franco Cortese won the first heat and Piero Taruffi the second, and Cortese the 50 lap final from Alberto Ascari, Taruffi, Piero Dusio and Mario Tadini (below entrant numbers unknown).

Credits…

Reg Nutt Collection via Leon Sims, Troy Davey Milne, Mark Wells Collection, Graham Shepherd via David Zeunert, Jannaud, Russell Jackson, Ashley Tracey, New York Times, ‘Profile – Roger Loyer’ Jeremy Scott, ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’ John Blanden, ‘Cisitalia’ Nino Balestra and Cesare Agostini via Tony Johns, Stuart Murray Collection

Tailpiece…

Rendition by Martin Vins of a famous original photograph of Felice Bonetto – replete with fag – sliding his D46 Fiat at the Circuito di Mantova in 1948.

Finito…