Legendary Australian Touring Car racer/engineer/tuner/team manager/CAMS politician Harry Firth ascends Rob Roy aboard a Cisitalia D46 in 1958. What a magic, crisp pan shot.
This ex-everybody car never did much in Australia. Its arrival more or less corresponded with the end of our long handicap racing era, and we didn’t have the right class for the car, 1100cc events here and there duly noted.
‘Only months earlier (May 4, 1958) Reg Nutt took the borrowed Leech Cisitalia to the top of the Hill in 28.30 secs. Now it was Harry’s turn however he couldn’t match Reg’s time. Harry’s time of 29.52 secs was more than 1 sec slower. But Harry probably won the most money on the day driving a Hillman for a second, Triumph TR2 for a first and the Cisitalia for a second,’ wrote Leon Sims.
A great car indeed, see here: https://primotipo.com/2023/09/08/cisitalia-d46/ here: https://primotipo.com/2023/09/08/cisitalia-d46/ and here for Harry: https://primotipo.com/2019/01/29/harry-firths-mg-tc-spl-s-c/
Firth prepared and raced plenty of sportscars before his highly successful 1960-80’ish tourer-era but he didn’t race many monopostos? That SU carb doesn’t look kosher on an Italian car either, surely it didn’t arrive here so equipped…
Leon Sims, ‘This photo is from our (MG Car Club) second annual historic and classic meeting Feb 28, 1994. From the left: John Crouch, AGP winner, Australian Hillclimb Champion and Australia’s Cooper distributor in the 1950s. Harry Firth, multiple class winner and class record holder at Rob Roy. Bill Prowse, Rob Roy competitor from the 1947 LCCA years and also MGCC years.’
Credits…
Leon Sims, The Age via Leon Sims Archive, Gary Hill
Finito…
primotipo... 
Mark, the reason for the Su carburretor sticking out pas the smooth lines of the Cisitalia was that at this time supercharged – perhaps by Harry during the Leach bros. ownership.
Cheers Bob,
That makes sense, didn’t realise it was supercharged for a while.
The first time I saw historic racing was during the Sandown Taxi Enduro weekend in 1973 or 1974, when it was a support category. I was blown away by the Cisitalia driven by one of the Leech bros, and Bob Jane’s D-Type and 300S, Harry may have driven one of those cars that weekend.
M