Eoin talks to Peter Giddings, who raced this lovely French Grand Prix car at the recent Southern Festival of Speed, and outlines the history of the special car.
Words Eoin Young Photos Terry Marshall
Tony Lago chased the impossible dream of French Grand Prix glory in the post-war years. The long elegant sky-blue Lago-Talbot slung between those tall tyres flirted with the fringes of success, but was generally regarded as being wonderfully glorious in defeat. The photos of ‘Phi-Phi’ étancelin, with his cap on backwards, capture the spirit of those days.
The Lago competed at the Ruapuna, Timaru and Teretonga circuits
Peter Giddings is a quietly spoken international motor sportsman, an ex-pat Englishman with a successful business in the US and now a home in New Zealand, who can afford to indulge in his passion of driving grand old racing cars hard enough to wind back the clock and provide the heroic spectacle and sound of his cars from the golden past. He has owned this Lago-Talbot for the past 30 years.
He raced the blue Lago at the Southern Festival of Speed events during February in the South Island, together with Charles McCabe’s Maserati 250F and Jim Herlinger’s venerable, hot-rod based Chamberlain-Mercury. The Lago competed at the Ruapuna, Timaru and Teretonga circuits, the country road hill climb outside Dunedin, and on the street circuit in Dunedin city.
Racing memories
We were spoiled as Kiwis when what amounted to a Grand Prix grid turned out for four races every January for a decade from the mid ’50s to the mid ’60s, and then it all dried up as European racing became more professional and there was no time for colonial holidays. There was no longer an off-season for the teams and the top drivers.
Now men like Giddings bring those track memories back for us with a car that looks absolutely superb on the circuit, and he is happy to let everyone inspect it at close quarters in the relaxed classic paddocks of the Southern Festival of Speed in the South Island.
I was allowed even closer inspection, climbing into what appeared to be a seat of parlour armchair proportions. As I was working out the least complicated method of entry, Giddings mentioned, “Just one thing before you get in, Eoin — if you can’t get out of it, you own it!”
It turned out to be easily the most uncomfortable cockpit I have ever been privileged to address. How Giddings makes it look so effortless, so at ease while motoring so fast, I have no idea. Everything threatens race heat from the oil tank above to the giant hump of the pre-selector transmission that you spread your legs to straddle in order to reach the pedals either side. You sit to the left of the drive-shaft, with the big steering wheel very up close and personal the way it was in those days before Stirling Moss copied Farina and sat back with straight arms.
The tachometer reads to 6500rpm, red-lined at 4500, but Giddings smiles and admits he takes it to 5000 when he’s busy. “These engines go back to the late 1920s in taxis and small trucks,” he says, “making that long six sound as though it’s nigh on indestructible.”
The quadrant for the pre-select transmission sits to the right of the steering column. The gear figures are in period French numerals. “The gearbox soaks up about 30kW (40 horsepower) with all the bands and things.” Asked about gear-change points, Giddings quotes former Lago-Talbot driver Duncan Hamilton, who famously said that he looked back at the wheel and measured the length of the flames from the wheel-spin. But then Duncan was always a driver who could embellish any situation on or off the track.
Touch Wood
In his 1960 autobiography Touch Wood, Hamilton described Tony Lago arranging him to race one of his 4.5-litre cars in 1951. “They really merited the description ‘fabulous’. When you sat in the car the first thing of which you were conscious was the size of the rear wheels: you sat so low they were level with your ears. The ground clearance of the car was only 114mm and this, together with the fact that there were no mudguards or anything else to stop you seeing the road below, gave an impression of great speed, even when motoring gently — insofar as you could motor gently in a Lago-Talbot.
“THE GEARBOX SOAKS UP ABOUT 40HP WITH ALL THE BANDS AND THINGS”
When on the controls your feet actually pointed up-hill, and the prop-shaft, which was offset, ran about level with your hip. At the back of the gearbox there was a train of gears which moved the prop-shaft over to the side of the car, and brought it down along inside the chassis to the back axle which, of course, had to have an offset differential. “Everything about the car was big and impressive: the engine, the bonnet, the wheels and tyres, the brake drums; but what really ‘sent’ the enthusiast was the glorious bellow of the exhaust. I remember an Irish priest, who had stood in respectful silence as if listening to an organ voluntary, remarking after I had switched off: ‘Merciful saints! I don’t believe it¦’”
Racing blue
We tend to refer to the car as a Lago-Talbot, but it’s lettered on the motor as Talbot-Lago. Like Ettore Bugatti before him, Antonio Lago had emigrated from Brescia — starting town of the Mille Miglia — to France. In fact the three major makers of ‘French Blue’ racing cars — Bugatti, Lago and Amedee Gordini — were all Italian!
The modest pedigree of the 4500cc six-cylinder Talbot engine, with piston stroke greater than the bore, meant a relatively low engine speed which meant modest power but an appealing fuel economy, and there were races where this paid off while the all-conquering Alfa Romeos had to pit for fuel and the big Lagos sailed through non-stop. This was a theoretical advantage, but the fact was that the Alfas had usually built up a comfortable time cushion to cope with a fuel stop. The supercharged Type 159 Alfa 1.5-litre straight-eight drank volatile race fuel at the rate of 94 litres per 100km (three miles per gallon) whereas, depending on the circuit, the 4.5-litre Lago-Talbot could comfortably better 23.5l/100km (12mpg)!
Tony Lago had stepped into the management role at Talbot in 1936, and it concentrated on sports car racing while the German Mercedes and Auto Union teams dominated the Grand Prix scene, with Alfa Romeo nibbling at the borders. After WWII Lago had taken over the racing team, the Lago-Talbot title emerged, and the racing cars were so named.
In 1947 Rosier won at Albi and Chiron won the French GP. A new engine with twin high-set cams was introduced in 1948, and power went up from 145kW to 209 (195bhp to 280). Rosier won the Coupe de Salon at Montlhery with second places at Monaco, Comminges and Albi. In 1949 things were getting better. Chiron won the French GP, Sommer won the Coupe du Salon, Etancelin won the Paris GP, and Rosier drove non-stop to win the Belgian GP.
In 1950 the Lago-Talbots continued winning (the GPs Albi, Zandvoort and Paris), and Rosier won the Le Mans 24-hour race in what amounted to a GP car with mudguards. But perhaps their best performance of the 1950 season was racked up by none other than Juan Manuel Fangio winning the Rafaele 500-miles race in Argentina. He was driving the twin Type 26C to the car that Peter Giddings now owns and races. Fangio’s win would be the swansong for the factory and the team.
Chassis 110054
Years later, Giddings met with Tony Lago and he recalled Fangio telephoning him from Argentina on Christmas Day to tell him about the win. “Mr Lago said it was the best Christmas present he’d ever had.” Froilan Gonzalez retired chassis 110054, the Giddings car, in the 500-miler. While Fangio and Gonzalez were racing in South America the Talbot factory in France was declared bankrupt, and all the factory cars, tools, equipment and spares were offered for sale by the official receiver.
Froilan Gonzalez retired chassis 110054, the Giddings car, in the 500-miler
Etancelin had sold his T26 SA (chassis 110008) at the end of the 1950 season and seriously considered retirement aged 55, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to buy a Lago-Talbot in its ultimate form and the actual car he had raced as the number one factory driver. Thus Etancelin became 110054’s first private owner, racing it in 1951 and 1952 — but pickings were slim for privateers, and at the end of 1952 he retired, but retained the pensioned-off car, probably because it was unsaleable. In 1954 he dusted-off the old car and raced at Aintree and Oulton Park, still jauntily wearing his flat cap back-to-front as he drove the old Grand Prix racer to the circuits on the public roads!
At the end of the ’54 he offered 110054 for sale, and it was bought by American Follies ice skater, Terry Hall. The ravages of methanol fuel had done for the Zenith carburettors, and they were replaced by Solexes and eventually changed to three large SUs. A test on a rolling road showed that the ageing six was still good for 186kW (250bhp)! Hall raced the gallant old Lago-Talbot in California events over three summers in 1955-’56-’57.
Skating seemed to be an even more dangerous occupation than motor racing, and when Hall retired from skating after injuries, he sold the car to his mechanic in 1959 to cover outstanding bills. The gallant old blue car was sold on, and after problems with the French engine a switch to a Corvette V8 was considered, but then Fred Orgeron entered the 110054 ownership papers. He decided to convert it to a sports car for SCCA events, since the Lago-Talbot had already proved competitive as a sports car at Le Mans a decade earlier.
Sports car conversion
Orgeron rejected the simple cycle-guards option and commissioned an American body shop run by Conrad Scott and Jack Sutton to come up with an all-enveloping body that would have three seats, the driver sitting centrally. It was effectively an early version of the centre-seat McLaren F1 road car. The unusually attractive sports car, now named the Orgeron Special, was featured in the US annual publication Sports Car Specials in 1960.
A new engine with twin high-set cams was introduced in 1948, and power WENT UP FROM 195 TO 280BHP
Orgeron sold number 110054 to Talbot collector Lindley Locke, who traded it to Peter Giddings in 1976. He bought the car with the sports car body on it, rather as Ron Roycroft had bought his famous 4.5-litre Ferrari Grand Prix car from Louis Rosier with a centre-seat sports body and changed it back to a single-seater.
Giddings already owned a T26C (Chassis 110007) which had an arguably better history, but 110054 was newer and better technically developed. “In fact to acquire 110054 I had to purchase a Talbot Grand Sport Tourer (110117) together with a spare engine. Even this was only part of the purchase price, and I have to admit that I wasn’t really aware of the amount of work required. Locke had moved premises often during the period he owned 110054, and with each move he lost or misplaced a few parts. On top of this, when I removed the sports body, the chassis appeared dirty and tired. Part of the rear structure that supported the Grand Prix fuel tank and the shock absorbers were also missing.
“To rebuild the car in single-seater form we had to build a new body. I knew that the scuttle on some of the later T26Cs was lower, but I didn’t know whether this was the case with 110054. Paul Grist fabricated 110054’s new Grand Prix body in the UK using his own T26C and the 110052 owned by Count Dunhoff as a pattern.”
Giddings sold the three-seat sports body at the end of 1978 to a collector who planned to fit it to a replica Scarab chassis, but the whole project became too difficult, so the unique sports-racer body remains in the rafters somewhere in a Californian workshop.
