Lost and Found After 60 Years – A Truly Italian History

Lost and Found After 60 Years – A Truly Italian History

By Giuseppe De Angelis

Since the birth of the car at the end of the nineteenth century, cars have been a great passion in the De Angelis family. My grandfather and his brothers were founders of the local Automobil Club of Italy in our hometown of Ascoli Piceno. My father Francesco (born in 1923), and his brothers Vito (born in 1920) and Vincenzo (born in 1925) retained this interest in motoring and continued their pursuits in automobiles and racing cars.

In 1952 Francesco and Vincenzo began racing cars all around Italy, and entered that year’s Mille Miglia with a little Fiat 500 named Topolino. They finished in 228th place and 4th in class. The brothers also competed in the 1954 Mille Miglia (and other races) in the same Topolino.

The 1954 Mille Miglia saw the debut of a true racing car – the Giaur-Taraschi chassis BT004 and engine Giannini G1–085. This car was built by Taraschi in Teramo (close to Ascoli Piceno) during 1949 and 1950 before being sold new to Italo Arlini-Di Brigida from Pineto with licence plate TE 6004. He then ran the 1950 Mille Miglia with this car and then sold it in Grottammare (Ascoli Piceno) to Mario Gustavo Laureati in 1951. In the Giaur, Laureati ran the 1951 running of the Mille Miglia with Elio Celani from S. Benedetto del Tronto, and again in 1953 with Amedeo Francescangeli from Ascoli Piceno to finish 161st overall and 11th in class. It was then that my father Francesco finally bought the car.

My father soon raced the Giaur at Circuito di Macerata with race-number 24, finishing 3rd, then in the 1954 Mille Miglia, where he finished 156th overall and 12th in class. He actively campaigned the car, racing at Circuito di Salerno, Circuito di Terni, Vermicino-Rocca di Papa Hillclimb and other events. Then the car sat for much of 1955, as he drove a Fiat 1100 TV at the Mille Miglia. As usual, he drove with his brother Vincenzo, but a broken transmission prevented them from finishing.

Then, at the end of 1955 he traded the Giaur for an Alfa Romeo 1900 with Alfredo Tinazzo, a fine driver who later raced the Giaur in the 1956 and 1957 running of the Mille Miglia. In 1959, Tinazzo sadly died in a race at Monza. My family had always believed that Tinazzo was actually driving the Giaur at Monza, and therefore thought that it had been destroyed.

Lost and Found After 60 Years – A Truly Italian History

 

I was born in 1966, and as a child my father certainly told me about racing in the Mille Miglia as well as his cars, but never really gave me any clues as to how to go about finding them. The history of Tinazzo’s death with the Giaur in Monza was always too far from his memories, and he didn’t like to talk about it.

When my father died in 1992, I was 26 years old, and in the back of my mind I always had the thought of finding some of his old cars, but it remained only a dream for me. In 2007 I began to collect old cars (three were left me by my father), and started to think more seriously about tracking down some of my father’s vehicles. Every time my mind wandered to the Giaur, though, I still naturally assumed that it had been destroyed in Monza.

In April 2011, I was talking about cars with my older cousin Stanislao De Angelis, a fine racing pilot during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s throughout Italy and Europe. He was born in 1948 and has great memories about our family history with cars. He is also the last member of our family with memory of the cars of that period. Our conversation naturally turned to the Giaur but, like me, Stanislao assumed that it had been destroyed at Monza during Tinazzo’s crash in 1959.

 

Still curious, I turned to the internet for information about Tinazzo’s accident and I was shocked to discover that Tinazzo had perished not in a Giaur, but a De Sanctis-Fiat. Quickly I realized that, over fifty years on, my father’s Giaur could be anywhere in the world, and wasted to time going to the local public registry for automobiles to try to match the license plate numbers visible in old pictures of the car. Through the registry, I found that the car spent quite a bit of time in Rome and, shockingly, had most recently been sold in my home town of Ascoli Piceno in 1999.

I found the phone number in the records and called to the home with my heart beating very fast. After three or four rings a woman answered. I asked her for the name of the owner and she informed me that her husband, who had died in 2003, was the registered owner. I asked her more about the Giaur, but she said something about the car having a bad history, that she didn’t like to talk about it, and that she no longer had it. Very disappointed but still intrigued, I tried to press her for more information. She finally agreed to meet in person, but refused to talk about the car on the phone.

A few days later, I went to her house, still very interested, to find out more about the Giaur, but she told me the same history. She then invited me to the garage to show me her husband’s car collection, and as she opened the door, I was shocked to see that the Giaur was still there!

I asked her why she told me the car was given away when the car was in her garage. She told me that she wasn’t familiar with the name Giaur, and was thinking about another English car called a Jaguar (in Italian the words Giaur and Jaguar are very similar). She had actually been confused twice. The car she didn’t like to speak of was actually not a Jaguar but another English car, a Bentley, that was robbed after her husband’s death. Meanwhile, I was ecstatic to find my father’s car, a machine that I had been hearing about my whole life. I must admit that I began to tear up, surprising the old woman. I then showed her the pictures of my father in with the car and she was very happy to see them. Over the years, many people had offered to buy the car, but she had refused them all. I told her I understood, and asked if she would be kind enough to prefer me if she should finally decide to sell the car. She agreed. Another two days went by, and the woman called me this time. She agreed to let the car go, to me, and named a price. I gave her an emphatic yes without even thinking and on Saturday, April 23rd, 2011 I picked up the mysterious old Giaur to bring it back home, reuniting it with the De Angelis family after 57 years.

Now the car is fully restored, and ready for a FIVA passport. When the weather is right, she will begin her new life on the majestic roads of Italy, ready for Mille Miglia.

 

[Source: Giuseppe De Angelis]