The Beast of Turin comes to life. Photos courtesy Stefan Marjoram.
In the early days of motor racing, there really was no replacement for displacement. Going faster meant constructing ever larger engines, and in 1910, Fiat set the bar by designing a 28.5-liter (1,729-cu.in.) inline four-cylinder to power its S76 Grand Prix car. Two were built, but just one survives today; now, thanks to the efforts of restorer Duncan Pittaway, the surviving “Beast of Turin” has awakened after its century-long slumber.
Duncan Pittaway (L) works through a coil problem with a pair of assistants.
Fiat’s 28.5-liter four was in direct response to the 21.5-liter four-cylinder that powered the Blitzen Benz, which Barney Oldfield had used to set a world land record speed of 131.7 MPH at Daytona Beach in 1910. Not reserved exclusively for Grand Prix racing, the Fiat S76 was also used by American driver Arthur Duray in a 1911 land speed record attempt at Ostend, Belgium; as The Old Motor explains, Duray managed a higher one-way speed of 132.27 MPH, but was unable to complete a return run within the hour allotted. The Beast of Turin would be denied the record, and would soon be rendered obsolete by smaller and lighter multi-cam engines from manufacturers like Peugeot.
The first S76 constructed was sold by Fiat to a Russian noble in 1911, prior to Duray’s record attempt. Following the First World War, this chassis surfaced in Australia, where it would come to be powered by a Stutz engine, the fate of its massive Fiat four-cylinder unknown. Fiat retained possession of the second S76, but dismantled the car sometime after the war’s end. Both cars may have been lost to history were it not for the efforts of Pittaway, who began his quest to resurrect the Beast of Turin in 2003, when he acquired the chassis of S76 number one.
Sometime later, Pittaway was able to purchase the surviving S76 engine from chassis number two, which required a complete tear-down and rebuild. For its day, the engine was remarkably advanced, featuring an overhead camshaft and four valves per cylinder; yet it’s the sheer size of the block that is most impressive.
With pieces of the car in hand, Pittaway began the laborious process of recreating other major components, such as the dual chain-drive gearbox and complete body. Period photos and blueprints helped, but the hand fabrication required dragged out the process longer than anticipated. The car was supposed to be started at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, but century-old race cars do not always abide by schedules. Goodwood came and went, but despite the superhuman efforts of Pittaway’s team in the days leading up to the event, the Beast remained silent.
Then, in late November, the planets aligned. With a Herculean pull of the starter crank handle, the massive four-cylinder engine sputtered to life with a deafening roar, belching fire, smoke and sparks from its open exhaust ports, like the mechanical demon it was. For those in attendance, it must have been a truly impressive (and somewhat terrifying) experience; after all, there are no modern piston engines that could prepare one for the sheer violence and excess of the Fiat’s four.
The process of restoration has been beautifully documented by British filmmaker and photographer Stefan Marjoram. He’s working on a slightly longer film about the Fiat’s rebirth, due in February of 2015, but the three-minute short below does an outstanding job of setting the stage. It is, in a word, captivating, and paints an all-too-brief picture of the effort that went into reawakening the Beast of Turin.
Bravo, Stefan, and we’ll be watching for the release of the full video in 2015.
from Hemmings Daily - News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1yq5WnM
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