History Auto racing 1894-1942

1908 targa florio count vincenzo florio

 

1915 astor cup, sheepshead bay






.

 

1904 vanderbilt cup george arents

 

1904 gordon bennett trials, isle of man john hargreaves

 

1937 mille miglia franco cortese, angelo guatta

 

Btt

 

Btt

 

1932 targa florio tazio nuvolari

 

1938 mille miglia franco cortese, c fumagalli

 

Wild guess-

Sunset Club
Let's see: 1938 Indy 500 and the riding mechanics go off into the sunset.

 

Is this a Hisso Tulipwood???

 

I've been lucky enough to be allowed to draw and photograph the rebuilding of a Fiat S76. It's early days yet but if you're interested please have a look at the blog and flickr site...

http://stefanssketchblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/look-out-theres-monster-coming.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefanmarjoram/sets/72157625974670240/

 

Stefan....Thanks for posting this....I have been following the progress on this project thru mutual friends. We people that like these early Dinosaurs will all enjoy this. Below is my favorite Fiat match racer....Look closely at Cedrinos feet under the car..... Thanks, David
www.roadinosaur.com

 

Good guess!

 

David, I see that this car appears to have left hand drive - unusual for a racing car of this era. I presume there was only one FIAT Cyclone? I google it out of interest and found a link to The Old Motor where you had posted a couple of coloured postcards of cars at Ormond Beach. The FIAT there is right hand drive. I wonder if the big touring car in the other postcard is also a FIAT. It looks very much like the 1904 car that George Wingard has (had?).

 

Ivans Thoughts on the Cyclone

 

Jim Dillions thoughts on the Cyclone:

 

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The Cyclone was a match racer much like the Simplex Zip which you can see on The Old Motor, it was also L.H.D. when the other Simplex cars were R.H.D. I believe they did this to get the drivers weight closer to the inside of the car on a circle track.

The top photo shows the car on Daytona Beach. The middle photo which I just obtained recently shows DePalma probably at a track in the I presume after it was rebuilt after the wreck that Jim Dillion refers to. In both photos it is L.H.D. and I have another photo of it at Milwaukee (bottom) that also shows it as L.H.D.

 

My grandfather Erhard Benad took this photo. He had a keen interest in cars, bikes and photography. living not far from Dresden he didn't have to go far to watch the Auto Unions on their first outing at Avus. I have a couple of his albums. There are a few more photos here...

http://www.pbase.com/smarjoram/motorracing1930s

http://www.pbase.com/smarjoram/more_1930s_racing

http://www.pbase.com/smarjoram/hohnstein1933

 

Stefan,


Thats awsome, thanks for the links to some great photo's and with a home made camera...........!



Keith

 

Almost certainly.......


The 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C 'Tulipwood' Torpedo was commissioned by André Dubonnet who, at the age of 26, was an accomplished aviator and racing driver. The Dubonnets had amassed a fortune from the aperitifs and cognacs that continue to bear the family name.
Dubonnet contracted the Nieuport Aviation Company to build a lightweight body suitable for both racing and touring. Nieuport craftsmen formed a frame of wooden ribs measuring up to 3/4-inch thick which were covered with 1/8-inch wooden veneer. Strips of mahogany (earlier thought to be tulipwood) of uneven thickness and length were fastened to the veneer with thousands of brass rivets.
The body was then sealed, sanded and varnished; when fully equipped, the body was to have weighed approximately 160 pounds. The torpedo tail enclosed a 46-gallon gas tank for long distance racing. In 1924 Dubonnet entered the Hispano-Suiza in the Sicilian Targa Florio and he finished sixth; he also finished fifth in the Coppa Florio and first in the over-4.5-liter class.




.

 

Thanks Keith, I thought I recognized the brass nailhead pattern! I grew up staring into Gerald Wingrove's books on scratchbuilding for hours- his Tulipwood is one of my favorites

 

Nice stuff Stefan. Thanks for posting.

 

PASSE-PARTOUT. Built by Reyrol to compete in the 1907 Coupe des Voiturettes.

 

About the Fiat-Cyclone, I believe there was only one, and it was always the same car from 1908 to '16, although it was changed in appearance quite a lot. There was, however, also a Fiat-Torpedo, said to be a twin of the Cyclone, and raced by Fred Horey (and probably others) in IMCA events. Maybe that was PR BS, though - like many other things to do with the IMCA in those days.

It was, indeed, a special dirt track racer, and I'm not even sure the chassis was of Fiat manufacture - the idea was to mate a powerful Fiat engine to a light chassis, the car weighed less than 650 kg in 1908, making it elligible for the Light Car class. Early reports said the car had a Kaiserpreis engine, meaning an 8-litre four of 140*130 mm built in 1907. Originally, this engine was called a 60 HP, but later it was sometimes called 75 HP, or even 120 HP (surely a mistake).

The car was driven by various drivers over the years, mainly Emanuele Cedrino (1908), Ralph de Palma (1909/10), Caleb Bragg (1911/12), Teddy Tetzlaff (1912/13), Barney Oldfield (1914/15) and then George Hill and Cliff Durant in 1916, when the car was still owned by Oldfield. By then, it had a Duesenberg WB engine, although Durant raced the car also as a Chevrolet-Cyclone - probably just a PR gimmick. In early 1917, Jim Crosby drove a Fiat-Cyclone in at least one AAA event in California, and later that year Art Garwood and Harry Milburn drove a Cyclone Special in IMCA events in Wisconsin - still the same car? By 1921, Bill Strickler drove a Chevrolet-Cyclone in Eastern "outlaw" events, and a year later George Shumaker and William Suddith in the Midwest, but I don't really think this was still the original Cyclone. The name was used by several builders in the twenties and thirties.

 

E. R. Hollander was, together with a Mr. Tangeman, an importer of Italian cars (mainly Fiats, but also Lanicas) throught the Hol-Tan Co. in New York. Cedrino was contracted to Hol-Tan when driving the "factory" Fiats. William Wallace's Fiat was a 1904 Gordon-Bennett model, later in 1905 purchased by one Major C. J. S. Miller, who had Louis Chevrolet drive the car. It was Chevrolet's very first racing car, still owned by Wallace when Louis won on his driving debut at Morris Park in NY on May 20, 1905.

 

This is my grandfather, August Carlson. It would have been in the midwest before 1939, but other than that I don't know a thing about it.

 

Wilbur Shaw is sitting in the car. I do not see Jigger amongst the crowd.

 

Has your friend finally revealed his evidence of a second car being built?

 

Well there goes that guess. Old eyes need help these days.