[dropcap]S[/dropcap]eeing the Darracq 120 racer that Louis Wagner (also a pioneer aviator) drove to victory in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup race in Wallace McNair’s shed in Hamilton, New Zealand, felt a little like finding a Rembrandt at a garage sale. The car ranks up there with Ray Harroun’s Marmon Wasp, the first Indianapolis 500 winner, for historical significance.
Unlike Harroun’s Wasp though, which has been lovingly cared for at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame museum over many years, this historically pivotal machine wound up half a world away from its home in France and long forgotten. And sadly, so is the story of how the car got to New Zealand in the first place.
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