Petrolicious, the creator of high quality, unique movies and articles for traditional automotive lovers, has launched its newest video, that includes Camillo Mekacher-Vogel – who owns the one Dagrada Giannini 750 Sport left on the planet.
Petrolicious celebrates the innovations, the personalities, and the aesthetics that ignite a collective lust for excellent automotive machines, and it seeks to tell, entertain, and encourage its neighborhood of aficionados and pique the curiosity of those that have been lacking out.
At present, Petrolicious takes up the unbelievable story…
The battle was over, however the world hadn’t settled. In Italy, 1949 wasn’t peace, probably not. It was survival in a special key. The nation was nonetheless selecting gravel out of its tooth. Metal that when framed bombers was being melted down for scooters and stitching machines. Total households lived in single rooms with curtains for doorways.
North of Milan, simply earlier than the land suggestions into the Alps, was a strip of nation nonetheless wrapped in soot. Factories ran scorching once more, producing elements for trains, instruments, home equipment, something that may very well be bought, something somebody wanted. The area had cash, however not a lot. Delight, however not loud. It was a spot of people that labored with their palms and stayed out of pictures.
The automotive’s origin was as unpolished as its aluminum pores and skin. Dagrada wasn’t an organization a lot because it was a person. Angela Dagrada. He didn’t simply lend his identify. He constructed the vehicles. Welded the frames. Formed the our bodies. Then climbed in and raced them. Mille Miglia. Membership occasions. Hill climbs. No matter he might afford. The workshop was most likely extra aviation storage than meeting line. Tube metal, rivets, instinct. Not all the things had a drawing. Some issues simply felt proper.
We don’t know a lot about Angela Dagrada. No interviews. No memoirs. No tidy archive of manufacturing numbers or postwar exploits. And perhaps that’s the purpose. Italy’s hills and alleyways have been crammed with one man marques after the battle. These have been small operations that flared up and burned shiny, if briefly. Males who weren’t making an attempt to begin legacies. They have been simply constructing the quickest factor they might think about with the instruments they’d. Dagrada was certainly one of them. Possibly probably the greatest.
Siata, Nardi, OSCA, these names echo now, however many others vanished utterly. After the battle, an odd sort of power unfold via Italy’s workshops and garages. There was leftover equipment, idle palms, and an aching must go quick once more. Supplies have been scarce, however ambition wasn’t. Small constructors sprang up nearly organically, fueled by mechanical know-how, racing goals, and simply sufficient aluminum left to form a physique or two. The nationwide racing scene gave them someplace to go, and the general public’s starvation for movement gave them a purpose to exist. This wasn’t simply cultural, it was integral. Italy’s motorsport ecosystem on the time supported it. The Mille Miglia and numerous native hillclimbs gave small builders actual platforms. There have been few laws and low limitations to entry. You didn’t want a manufacturing unit. You wanted a welder, a shed, and one thing price driving.
These have been builders not aiming for quantity or legacy. They have been chasing one thing extra quick. Pace, escape, relevance. The vehicles weren’t facet tasks. They have been survival with curves and velocity. They lived in garages, raced within the foothills, and died on paper. Dagrada didn’t. Certainly one of his vehicles survived. So far as anybody is aware of, that is it. The one Dagrada Giannini 750 Sport left on the planet. If there have been others, they’ve disappeared. Misfiled in historical past. Damaged for elements. Rebodied, rebadged, forgotten.
There have been others prefer it in postwar Italy. Siata, Nardi, OSCA. Dozens of little garages, every with a dream and perhaps sufficient aluminum for 2 our bodies. However Dagrada was totally different. Not louder. Simply extra centered. The Dagrada 750 Sport wasn’t a scaled-down racer. It was a scalpel. Constructed with precision, with out pretense. “There’s not a single half on this automotive that’s making an attempt to impress you,” Camillo says. “It was constructed to do one thing, not say one thing.”
The numbers are nearly irrelevant in comparison with the romance and enigma of it, however they’ll nonetheless make you elevate an eyebrow. 340 kilograms. 60 horsepower. Giannini 750 engine, twin-choke. That’s 12.5 kilos per horsepower. It could smoke a Porsche 356 (roughly 18.5 lbs/hp), an early 911T (about 18.2 lbs/hp), and run neck-and-neck with a contemporary Mazda Miata (about 16.5 lbs/hp). The numbers give it context, however they don’t clarify it. It raced greater than 30 occasions. Landed on the rostrum in half. Gained a 3rd. That’s not folklore. That’s ledger. “After I began researching its previous, I couldn’t consider how usually it confirmed up in interval information,” Camillo says. “This wasn’t some storage experiment—it was aggressive.”
The unique proprietor didn’t fee it. He got here throughout it the best way you stumble into one thing that already is aware of you. After the battle, he returned dwelling with 19 confirmed aerial victories. A pilot who survived the desert skies of North Africa and flew with precision, not luck. A real ace. A person on the lookout for a special sort of machine to check his nerve.
His identify was Franco Bordoni-Bisleri. The battle gave him his pace and grit. Italy gave him a purpose to maintain utilizing it. The planes have been quiet now. However the machines, the proper of machines, have been nonetheless on the market. He began racing. Maseratis, at first. Then one thing else. One thing lighter. Extra alive. “It was like a hen,” he’d later say.
Driving it’s nearer to flying than anybody has the appropriate to anticipate. You sit on the axle. The automotive doesn’t filter the street, it prints it in your backbone. Startup is a ceremony. No choke. No key and twist. You open the engine bay. Manually fill the carbs. Watch for the gas pump. Blip the linkage by hand whereas pulling a lever inside. It solely runs while you ask it the appropriate method. “You don’t simply begin it,” Camillo says. “You negotiate with it. And in case you rush it, it lets .”
“It’s one thing between a motorbike and a automotive,” says Camillo Mekacher-Vogel, the present steward. “You are feeling it has a lot grip… till it not has it.” He laughs when individuals ask if he’s frightened somebody may steal it. “If they’ll begin it, they should drive it.”
Each inch of the physique is hand-hammered. You possibly can see the impression factors in case you look shut. They didn’t buff the historical past out. “Each dent is a part of its timeline,” Camillo says. “You are taking that away, you are taking away the reminiscence of what it did.” Beneath, it’s all mechanical purity. No a part of the automotive hides what it does. It was made to be mounted. No computer systems, no abstractions. There’s nowhere to supply elements. You break it, you repair it.
Franco’s callsign through the battle was Robur. Latin for power. He stored it after the battle, and a drink by the identical identify continues to be bought in Italy. He lived a life that wanted pace. Angela Dagrada gave it to him.
Vehicles like this weren’t simply constructed. They have been wanted. By males who didn’t wish to go gradual. By international locations making an attempt to recollect who they have been. There’s no nostalgia within the welds. No company committee signed off on the curve of the fenders. It’s the other of recent. It’s what occurs when soul issues greater than software program.
At present, it survives not as a museum piece, however as a residing factor. Camillo drives it. Maintains it. Retains it uncomfortable, uncooked, trustworthy. It doesn’t exist to be admired. It exists to be understood.
