Team Equipment

There is always something rather nice about being self-contained, and among the racing equipes there are many who can provide all their needs, as regards transport, from their own factories, Mercédès-Benz, for example, transport their racing cars in diesel lorries of their own manufacture, the team chief uses a model 220 Mercédès-Benz, and one of the drivers has a beautifu 300S coupé, while some of the “boffins” use a 300SL coupé on the road. Alfa-Romeo, too, transport their cars on one of their own diesel lorries, “1900” saloons provide for personnel, and Fangio uses a 2 1/2-litre six-cylinder saloon. Lancia and Talbot-Lago both have transport vans of their own manufacture, and Aurelia saloons seem to be standard issue to anyone connected with the Turin firm, while Talbot-Lago road cars make for fine trans-Continental travel. Ferrari driver Hawthorn used a 2.5-litre Ferrari coupé for road travel last season, though the racing cars cannot be carried in a Ferrari van. At the height. of the Alfa-Romeo/Ferrari battles a year or two ago, the Modena cars were using an Alfa-Romeo diesel transporter, but this later gave way to the well-known O.M. lorries — a nice gesture. At Monza last year the Maserati team used a light open truck powered by a two-stroke engine and built by them, called a Maserati-Muletto, to carry jacks and tyres, etc.

As mentioned above, being self-contained is rather nice, and master of them all was probably the late Ettore Bugatti, who arrived in a Bugatti Royale to watch his team compete and could even have sent his cars by Bugatti rail-car — opulence indeed. In the days of shortage in 1947 a French driver of a Delahaye was in a happy position for his Delahaye lorry used an identical engine to that in his racing/sports car, so he was never stuck for spares!