Petrolicious, the creator of high quality, authentic movies and articles for traditional automotive fans, 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 nice 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 the moment, Petrolicious takes up the unbelievable story…
The warfare was over, however the world hadn’t settled. In Italy, 1949 wasn’t peace, not likely. 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. Whole households lived in single rooms with curtains for doorways.
North of Milan, simply earlier than the land ideas into the Alps, was a strip of nation nonetheless wrapped in soot. Factories ran sizzling once more, producing elements for trains, instruments, home equipment, something that might be bought, something somebody wanted. The area had cash, however not a lot. Satisfaction, however not loud. It was a spot of people that labored with their arms 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 may afford. The workshop was in all probability extra aviation storage than meeting line. Tube metal, rivets, instinct. Not every part 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 warfare. These have been small operations that flared up and burned vivid, if briefly. Males who weren’t attempting to start out legacies. They have been simply constructing the quickest factor they might think about with the instruments they’d. Dagrada was one in every of them. Possibly probably the greatest.
Siata, Nardi, OSCA, these names echo now, however many others vanished fully. After the warfare, a wierd type of vitality unfold by way of Italy’s workshops and garages. There was leftover equipment, idle arms, and an aching have to go quick once more. Supplies have been scarce, however ambition wasn’t. Small constructors sprang up nearly organically, fueled by mechanical know-how, racing desires, 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 obstacles to entry. You didn’t want a manufacturing facility. 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 aspect initiatives. They have been survival with curves and velocity. They lived in garages, raced within the foothills, and died on paper. Dagrada didn’t. One among 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 targeted. 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 attempting 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 might 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. Received a 3rd. That’s not folklore. That’s ledger. “Once I began researching its previous, I couldn’t consider how usually it confirmed up in interval data,” 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 warfare, he returned residence 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 searching for a special type of machine to check his nerve.
His identify was Franco Bordoni-Bisleri. The warfare gave him his velocity and grit. Italy gave him a purpose to maintain utilizing it. The planes have been quiet now. However the machines, the correct 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 chook,” he’d later say.
Driving it’s nearer to flying than anybody has the correct to count on. You sit on the axle. The automotive doesn’t filter the highway, 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. Look forward to the gas pump. Blip the linkage by hand whereas pulling a lever inside. It solely runs whenever you ask it the correct method. “You don’t simply begin it,” Camillo says. “You negotiate with it. And if you happen to rush it, it lets you recognize.”
“It’s one thing between a motorbike and a automotive,” says Camillo Mekacher-Vogel, the present steward. “You’re feeling it has a lot grip… till it now not has it.” He laughs when folks ask if he’s apprehensive somebody would possibly steal it. “If they’ll begin it, they should drive it.”
Each inch of the physique is hand-hammered. You possibly can see the influence factors if you happen to look shut. They didn’t buff the historical past out. “Each dent is a part of its timeline,” Camillo says. “You’re 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 fastened. No computer systems, no abstractions. There’s nowhere to supply elements. You break it, you repair it.
Franco’s callsign through the warfare was Robur. Latin for power. He saved it after the warfare, and a drink by the identical identify continues to be bought in Italy. He lived a life that wanted velocity. Angela Dagrada gave it to him.
Automobiles like this weren’t simply constructed. They have been wanted. By males who didn’t need to go sluggish. By nations attempting 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 the moment, it survives not as a museum piece, however as a dwelling factor. Camillo drives it. Maintains it. Retains it uncomfortable, uncooked, trustworthy. It doesn’t exist to be admired. It exists to be understood.
