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Period images to relieve some of the stress


Walt G

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The Beast of Turin has an interesting history. As I understand it, Fiat made two of the S76 cars. One car was retained by the factory while the other was sold. As time went on, the usual things that happened to race cars happened to these two chassis. The motor from the factory car survived and remained with the factory. The motor from the privately owned chassis was swapped out and another motor replaced it and the chassis was raced by several subsequent owners well into the 30s. It eventually ended up in a museum in Australia. By that time, nobody knew it was a Fiat chassis. A fellow from England began to research the car and believed the chassis in the Australian Museum might be the chassis. He was able to buy it and shipped it back to England where he further investigated and confirmed it was indeed the S76 chassis. He then entered into negotiations with the factory and was able to buy the motor from the factory car. He put the two together and viola, we have a Fiat S 76. This is the short version.

 

As to the muffler on the car, early race cars were test driven on city streets but would not pass noise ordinances with just pipes so they were fitted with longer pipes and mufflers.

 

It is interesting to note the chassis of the S76 was judged to be superior to a modern chassis and though fitted with several different motors through the teens and twenties, the chassis survived. It is amazing to think even though the chassis was in a race car museum, nobody recognized it as an S76 chassis until this fellow from England came along. All of this occurred after 2,000. I don't remember the exact year. Makes you wonder what other treasures are out there hiding in plain sight.

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This showed up on PreWarCar.com today - given name spelling and location the fellow is most likely a very distant relative.

 

I am guessing a very Custom built 1930 LaSalle despite the 31 style hood louvers. 

 

A neatly dressed gentleman and his stylish PreWarCar, which we believe to be American. We received this photograph from Mr van den Assem. He has already done some research on the picture and made things a little easier for us.

We now know that the registration number P 26973 was issued in March 1936 to a Mr Johannes Baptista Ludovicus Cornelis Marinus, who was also known as Jan. At the time he lived in the Raashuisstraat 1 in Heerlen, the Netherlands. He worked for an oil company and was well-off. In August 1936, Jan Marinus left for the Dutch East Indies but unfortunately passed away in a Japanese internment camp on Bangka Island in July 1944.

 

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Also, I spotted this on PreWarCar.com

 

1930 Lagonda 2 Ltr. Supercharged

"GK3466" was first registered in England on 27.10.1930 and presented at the Lagonda stand at the 1930 Olympia Motor Show in London. In the years 1931 and 1932 the car participated in the Rally Monte Carlo.The car ran in Edinburgh until the end of the 1960s and was later tracked down under a tarpaulin with 54 other cars, including many Lagonda.

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