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Chuck
Tannlund finished 6th at Stockton on March 23, 1958 in his 2000cc.
Maserati A6GCS. Since the car shown in the photo above
has the Maserati trident in its grille, and no other Maserati than Tannlund's
appeared in the results for the Stockton event -- your webmaster mistakenly
identified it as Tannlund's car, thinking it was a special-bodied A6GCS
The car shown here has earned full-scale "Mystery Car" status.
Stu "Dr. Etceterini" Schaller, an expert on small-bore Italian sports/racers,
identified the car as a Cisitalia. A look at the Cisitalia
website (Entrar-Galeria-Pasado-2-6) shows the "Cisitalia 202 SMM Spyder
Nuvolari". The details of that car and this one match up, except
for one thing -- that pesky Maserati trident in this car's grille!
So the car in the photo above has nothing to do with Chuck Tannlund
-- but what the hell is it?
Here's Stu "Dr. Etceterini" Schaller on this car:
"I think the car might even be one particular car, called the Razzo,
rather than a "standard" Nuvolari spider. If you look close,
you can see kind of wings at the top of the front wheel arches, and as
far as I am aware, the Razzo was the only Cisitalia spider that had them.
The Razzo also
had cut down doors, but it is impossible to see if the car has them
in the photos shown. Regardless, I am 100% certain that it
is a Cisitalia; you can even see the Cisitalia badge between on the top
of the nose of the car, in front of the hood. The standard
motor would have been 1100cc, but it is certainly possible a 1500 or 2
liter Maserati A6 motor could have been put in the car."
The Stockton results (Bob Norton's MotoRacing scans Vol. 1 "Results")
show Tannlund finishing 6th o.a. and lst in class E Modified in a "Maserati".
There's no mention of a Cisitalia anywhere in the Stockton results.
Tannlund himself states: "I also drove an A6GCS/2000
a couple of times in 1958, but I have no pics of that car. It was later
destroyed in a structure fire."
If someone actually transplanted a rare, fragile, expensive and exotic
Maserati A6GCS engine into a super-exotic one-off Cisitalia Spyder WHY
HAVE WE NEVER HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT IT???? (TM)
Stu & I started a discussion of this car on the Atlas
F1 "Nostalgia Forum". |
