{"id":492284,"date":"2012-04-01T17:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T00:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=28821"},"modified":"2024-01-04T22:25:17","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T22:25:17","slug":"race-and-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/race-and-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Race and Road"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So, you might be\u00a0 asking yourself, \u201cWhat happened to my Vintage Racecar? There seems to be another magazine stuck to the back.\u201d Correct you are! This month marks the debut of our new magazine Vintage Roadcar and our new magazine format, where both magazines are bound together back-to-back.
\nRight from the beginning, let me allay any fears you might have that the Vintage Racecar that you\u2019ve come to know and love for the past 15 years is somehow being compromised, because it is not. As you\u2019ll see, all the same columns and features that you\u2019ve come to expect are still there and will continue to be. Rather, what we\u2019ve done is to give you an entirely new and separate publication\u2014in addition to Vintage Racecar\u2014and all for the same subscription price!
\nAfter years of having devoted readers ask us to provide the same in-depth treatment to unique and significant sports and luxury cars that we\u2019ve given to exceptional racecars, we\u2019ve finally decided to take the plunge. From this point forward, you\u2019ll receive a larger magazine each month that encompasses the \u201cying and yang\u201d of your automotive life\u2014the world of racing history and historic competition on one side and the full gamut of automotive history, concours, auctions and road rallies, on the other. If Vintage Racecar was good, the addition of Vintage Roadcar now makes it even better.
\n\"\"<\/a>When you \u201cflip over\u201d and join us on the Roadcar side, you\u2019ll see our \u201cRoadcar Profile\u201d of a fascinating slice of postwar history, the Pegaso. Designed and spearheaded by former Alfa Romeo engineer Wifredo Ricart, the Pegaso was a remarkable engineering tour de force made all the more unbelievable by the fact that it was a 100 percent bespoke vehicle made in fascist Spain, at a time when that country had literally no industrial infrastructure or technology to speak of. Pegaso built the 1950s equivalent of a boutique supercar\u2014alongside its bread-and-butter trucks and busses\u2014as a way of training young technicians and engineers, as well as to improve Spain\u2019s international reputation. Considering that Ricart played a key role in the engineering and development of many of Alfa Romeo\u2019s most advanced racing car designs (including the prewar 158 \u201cAlfetta\u201d Grand Prix car), it is perhaps not surprising that Pegaso would try and use competition as a way of building brand image and prestige. Sadly, few racing stories ever have fairy tale endings.
\nPegaso\u2019s Z-102B came with either a 2.8-liter or 3.2-liter overhead cam V8 engine that could produce up to 195-hp. Ricart was instrumental in developing twin-stage supercharging on the Alfa Romeo Alfetta, and so by adding supercharging to the Pegaso lineup, he was able to boost that horsepower rating to as much as 350. With almost unrivaled power in the GT category, the Pegaso looked like a potentially front-running contender in international endurance racing.
\nAs early as 1952, two Pegasos coup\u00e9s (2.8-liter) were entered for the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Fabregas\/Iglesias and Palacio\/Jover. However, early testing revealed that while top-end speed was remarkable (over 151 mph) the combination of high vehicle weight and drum brakes would make it difficult if not impossible to stop the Pegasos reliably over a 24-hour period. As a result, the team scratched its entry before the race.
\nFor the next year\u2019s race, Pegaso invested in a novel catamaran-style car (See VR Sept. 2011) but the cars were destroyed in a fire prior to the race and the team had to revert to two, blown 2.8-liter roadsters. Despite a lighter roadster variant, braking problems again cropped up, forcing one car to be withdrawn during Thursday practice. Surprisingly, the sister car of Metternich\/Jover was showing excellent speed in practice until it was driven off into the banking, just past the Dunlop Bridge, while trying to pass a backmarker. The result was total destruction of the car and another year of DNSs.
\nWhile an attempt on the 1953 Carrera Panamericana was planned, the special Touring-bodied \u201cEl Panamericano\u201d model could not be finished in time. However, the following year Pegaso did make it to Mexico with a 3.2-liter, supercharged roadster for Joaquin Palacio. Palacio struggled for the first couple of days, as the highly tuned Pegaso did not care for the low octane Mexolina fuel available to the competitors. By the third leg from Puebla to Mexico City, however, the supercharged Pegaso came into its own in the thin air, finishing a surprising third fastest, behind the Ferraris of Phil Hill and Umberto Maglioli. Sadly, Pegaso\u2019s bad racing luck struck on the fourth leg when Palacio was one of four cars to fly off a dangerous curve in the fog. Palacio\u2019s Pegaso slammed into the Borgward of Bechem\u2014killing a soldier trying to aid Bechem\u2014breaking Palacio\u2019s shoulder and burning the Pegaso to the ground!
\nDue to lack of commitment, development and funding, Pegaso never achieved any semblance of success on the international endurance scene, though they did win numerous hillclimbs (where brakes were less a factor) and set several speed records on Belgium\u2019s famed Jabekke highway.
\nWith outright power and speed to rival any manufacturer of its day, the Pegaso remains one of the great \u201cWhat ifs\u201d of automotive history. As you\u2019ll see in Vintage Roadcar, a fascinating story of both\u2026Race and Road.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n