16.6-Liter Isotta Fraschini Aero Engine
1912 Dennis Gearbox
250bhp, 3,000lb-ft of torque
Rigid Front Axle, Live Rear Axle, Double-Chain Drive

*Thunderous 16.6-liter (1,013cid) Isotta airship engine
*Displaces 2.7-liters per cylinder
*Based on a Fiat land speed record car design
*In current ownership for the past twenty years
*Proven over 20,000 miles of road, race, and hillclimb use
*Rated at 250bhp and three THOUSAND lb-ft of torque!
*Veteran of Goodwood Revival and Festival of Speed
*Clocked at 47.25 seconds up Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb
*An astonishing Edwardian racer in every respect


THE CAR OFFERED

While some fine historic cars have an unobtrusive presence, others totally dominate the field they occupy. The remarkable 2.2-ton projectile we offer here falls absolutely into this latter category. And once its immense aero engine is stirred into ground-shaking life, and particularly when it can be seen in thunderous action, then what we offer here is the center of rapt attention from every enthusiast and general bystander for some thousands of yards around...

The world-famous Goodwood race circuit in the county of Sussex, England, is renowned for being based upon the perimeter track of a Royal Air Force Battle of Britain fighter base. Consequently, the sound of low flying aircraft is immensely familiar there.

But in the Bonhams camera car, our specialists were hearing the sonorous beat of an aero engine in a decidedly different situation as this magnificently imposing, essentially 1905-design FIAT-Isotta-Fraschini went booming by on the inside entry line to the right-handed Woodcote Corner and then accelerated away - massive piston stroke by massive piston stroke - towards the tight, right-left chicane before that famous pit row.

Woodcote Corner is a double-apex challenge. As this gigantic 16.6-liter airship-engined projectile - with its near-unique overhung driving position on the deck out back - tucked its tail down under power, its accomplished owner-driver committed it into the right-hander under power, throwing it into a slide which he balanced out with left-hand steering lock. The BONHAMS|CARS camera-car crew enjoyed a forensic view of its hard-pressed rear tires squealing and straining in protest, visibly trying to tuck broadside and roll off each rear-wheel rim.

With a protesting puff of rubber smoke the tire side walls then sat up as cornering load reduced. The great car's tail with its outboard driving position squatted down, and this remarkable projectile slingshot its way towards the chicane. A dab of its gigantic rear-only drum brakes and the owner flicked its 2.2-ton mass first right, then left to power away onto the historic Goodwood pits straight, each individual 2.7-liter blast of its 6-cylinder in-line engine's ignition sequence near deafening its camera-car pursuers.

This is the reality of running in close company with this magnificently imposing beast which, in truth, has something of a schizophrenic character. Dependent upon demand it can be either the fire-breathing, tire smoking beast just described — or quite extraordinarily docile and unusually versatile.

During his 20-year ownership of this remarkable 'special' its current vendor has accumulated some 20,000 miles running, the minority in competition on racetrack, sprint and hill-climb course, while the vast majority of this FIAT's mileage has actually been accumulated amongst everyday traffic, upon the public road both in the UK and while touring or en route to events in Continental Europe.

This decidedly unusual giant of essentially Edwardian-era frontier design actually comprises an original-style FIAT chassis frame conceived for a potential 1905-06 World Land Speed Record attempt, which has in modern times been brought to thunderous life by the highly skilled installation of a World War 1-era 16.6-liter 6-cylinder Isotta-Fraschini aero engine.

In its originally intended form, this particular FIAT project for a 200hp record car was to have been powered by two 100hp premier-league road racing 4-cylinder engines mounted in tandem. While Grand Prix racing did not officially begin until 1906, the great European and American road circuit races of 1905 were contested by four different car categories sub-divided by maximum overall weight. The largest class was for Voitures Lourds ('Heavy Cars'), scaling from 1,430lbs to 2,200lbs. The relevant tailor-made Fiat racing cars of 1905 had 4-cylinder engines with bore and stroke dimensions of 110mm x 180mm, displacing 6.8 liters – 415 cubic inches.

The Turin-based marque's '200hp' model for which the chassis design offered here originated was to use two of a latest '100hp' 4-cylinder engine concept, coupled in tandem and driving by chain to the rear wheels. It has been suggested that the FIAT design team's understanding of the time was that a maximum wheelbase length of 3-metres (118-inches) was to be applied by relevant international authority. Since the length of the two 4-cylinder engines in tandem occupied most of that wheelbase, the solution was to site the two-seat cockpit – or perhaps better described as the two-seat driving platform – outboard behind the back axle, the seats actually being mounted above the overhung chain-drive system with its twin-chain sprockets upon either side, the chains then driving forward to the axle itself. This unusual configuration is plainly illustrated in the superb 1:5-scale FIAT factory general-arrangement blue-print drawing – dated May 19, 1905 - which accompanies this Lot today.

However, during this Italian car's construction - on January 24, 1905 - a Mercedes '60'-based American special named 'The Flying Dutchman II' ran in the Speed Week trials on Ormond Beach, Daytona, Florida and was timed at a new World's fastest mark of 109.75mph. The car was owned by Boston-based felt processor Herbert L. Bowden and had been engineered for him by his own technicians. Bowden proved to be a bold and adventurous driver, shattering the Speed Week's previous best one-way run speed of 104mph set barely an hour earlier by Arthur Macdonald's British 15-liter 6-cylinder Napier.

However, 'The Flying Dutchman II' – which was powered by two 9.25-liter Mercedes 60 engines coupled in tandem, not by one unified power unit - exceeded the official permitted Speed Week weight of 1,000kg (2,204lbs) by some 179kg - which saw its outstanding speed disallowed in the event's official results. What's more the World Land Speed Record of the period was regarded internationally as a mark recognized by the dominant Paris-based Automobile Club de France. That august governing body's Article 13 speed-record regulation made it plain at the time that "No record will be recognized as official unless it has been established over distances rigorously tested, and unless the time has been checked by several official timekeepers recognized by the Automobile Club de France."

In its tandem 4-cylinder twin-engined configuration, Bowden's special Mercedes matched the intended FIAT design. In Turin the FIAT management perhaps took note of such ingenious and costly effort going unrewarded by promotable recognition. They quietly abandoned their own in-house 200hp twin-4-cylinder engined speed car project.

However, four of its very special 100hp 4-cylinder engines seem to have been produced, and with the 'speed car' proving a non-starter they were fitted subsequently to the company's 1905 race team cars to be driven by Felice Nazzaro, Alessandro Cagno, Aldo Weilschott and Vincenzo Lancia. The power units' distinctive overhead-valve rocker gear driven by one common camshaft rendered these distinctive engines instantly recognizable in contemporary photographs.

Another relevant factor in the 200hp FIAT story is that a British 1911 registration record survives for a motor vehicle which was sold under that title to a wealthy sometime British-domiciled American marque enthusiast named Arthur Henry Schlesinger.

Under the British system, individual motor vehicles had to be road registered for legal use upon the public road, each one under a distinctive dedicated combination of letters and numbers. While it was common for each individual registration to remain essentially with the self-same motor vehicle throughout its life, an enthusiastic owner could transfer a 'cherished number' from one car to another if that was his choice.

The contemporary document-copy accompanying the car that BONHAMS|CARS offer today is from the relevant British 'County of Leicester Register of Motor Cars' showing registration number 'AY84'. That number per se was first issued in 1903 to a "blue lined white" 10hp Panhard owned by one Cecil Alfred Grenfell of Leicester city, but then transferred to Arthur Henry Schlesinger apparently when he acquired that car on July 29, 1905.

On March 16, 1906, this registration was then cancelled, and Mr. Schlesinger had the "cherished registration" 'AY84' transferred to his latest "red tonneau" 24hp Fiat, his address at that time being given as 13 Linden Gardens, Bayswater, London - a fashionable, pillared and balconied address indeed.... Here was a gentleman of some substance.

Over the following five years Arthur Henry Schlesinger owned a further four FIATs, all bearing this favored 'AY84' registration number; the car models being in turn a 16hp, then 18-24hp and 28-35hp designs culminating in the apparently unique 200hp FIAT.

By the time that Mr. Schlesinger is recorded as having acquired this remarkable machine he was resident at Hillfield House, Cuckfield, deep in the East Sussex countryside of southern England, and the machine was listed officially as having a "two-seated sports body", finished in red. Its registration date under his name is recorded as having been March 4, 1911.

However, Mr. Schlesinger passed away soon after in his native America. Celebratedly his grieving widow – not wanting to see his favorite FIAT (not the somewhat mysterious 200hp model) sold or broken up– had the car buried upon the couple's private estate in Cape Cod, Maine. While it was later unearthed in the early 1940s – whereupon it proved to be in a decent state of preservation and would thereafter spend some 55 years in the renowned Uihlein Collection – the 200hp was at best reduced to component parts, its post-Schlesinger story unclear.

What is known is that a British early-car enthusiast/entrepreneur accumulated a chassis plus a mass of associated or relevant parts through the 1980s-90s - plus the Isotta-Fraschini aero engine as a potential substitute for the 200hp FIAT project's long-lost tandem 4-cylinder units.

The current owner/vendor then acquired this startlingly configured and very special mechanical jig-saw puzzle in 2004. The aero engine is a 16.6-liter 6-cylinder in-line Isotta-Fraschini V6 power unit - 'V6' in this case indicating not engine configuration as in V6, V8 or V12 etc, but instead indicating 'Volo 6' - 'Flight 6' in Italian - reflecting the engine's intended use as an aeronautical power unit for heavier-than-air aircraft and lighter-than-air airships. The unit had bore and stroke cylinder dimensions of 140mm (5.5-inches) x 180mm (7.1-inches) to displace 16.6-liters (1,013 cubic inches). Its weight dry was 281kg (619lbs) and its nominal power output was 250hp at a leisurely 1,650rpm.

The Isotta-Fraschini V6 was a late-World War 1 design, first run and entering service in 1917-18. The unit featured six lightweight forged-steel thin-wall cylinders mounted in pairs with common cylinder heads and enwrapped in screwed-on tin water jacketing. A single overhead camshaft-powered two-valves per cylinder and of course the unit has dry-sump lubrication. These 'Volo 6' engines were rated at some 250-horsepower and were used in CANT, Caproni, Macchi, Piaggio, Savoia-Marchetti and SIAI aircraft and also in some airships. And in this automotive application it develops some 820lbs/ft torque...

The unit as installed in the chain-drive FIAT chassis today is itself worth close study. Typically for the time it has an imposing presence and majesty all of its own.

Its individual serial number is clearly stamped as '6721' while each individual cylinder is also stamped with its firing order, in sequence.

Fascinatingly, there is evidence visible upon the engine of some potential wartime action in that the sump has what appear to be two bullet (or shrapnel) holes which have been carefully plugged and peened in repair. Furthermore, the original airscrew boss relevant to this engine is included within the spares available and it is noticeable that each of its eight propeller-mounting bolts is slightly bent and distorted – and all in the same direction of rotation. Such minor damage is normally related to a ground-strike by the propeller when under power or at least when wind-milling in a flowing airstream. Perhaps this is evidence, then, of the airship which this unit is believed to have powered – as opposed to a heavier-than-air aeroplane – having been "brought down" by enemy action during the conflict?

Postwar, it is also significant that one such engine powered the 1921 Schneider Trophy-winning Macchi M7bis biplane flying-boat piloted by Lt. Giovanni de Briganti in that highly prestigious international air race. These Isotta-Fraschini units were quite properly highly regarded within Italian and European aviation circles at that time.

Into the 1920s legendary American power boat racer and World Water Speed Record contender Garfield Wood bought many surplus WW1 aero engines and shipped them to the USA for evaluation as potentially competitive power units for his boats. We understand that the engine used in this FIAT today was one of Woods' armory, and since he preferred to adopt a rival American Packard unit he sold '6721' here to the American Air Force. During 1921 they reputedly ran tests on the engine to evaluate its suitability for mass production. However, their conclusive report reads "... owing to its over-complication of thousands of handmade screws and parts, it was not a contender for the American market...". The unit eventually found a home under preservation in an American museum. Another, possibly the ex-Gar Wood twin of the engine now powering this revived FIAT, survives in the British Imperial War Museum aeronautical collection at Duxford. Interestingly, the FIAT-Isotta-Fraschini unit has two indented areas upon its unit-topping cam cover which are matched precisely by matching 'dents' upon the Duxford unit. There is evidence that these 'dents' were made deliberately simply to clear structural bridge-pieces otherwise obstructing the units' airship installation.

The present owner/vendor is a naturally gifted fabricator/engineer who has plainly compensated for lack of formal training through sheer enthusiasm for the task in hand, and tremendous commitment to his goal of reviving "the 200hp FIAT" in this staggeringly impressive aero-engined guise. The revival project, from a maze of parts to running order, took him some eight years' dedicated work. A contemporary commercial-vehicle 4-speed manual gearbox was adopted whereas the 1905 project would have been direct-drive. Since the 6-cylinder Isotta engine is shorter than the originally intended tandem-twin 'eight' a scuttle fuel tank was hand-crafted to occupy the otherwise vacant chassis length. And to keep the steering box in its original chassis location the steering column is accommodated within a tunnel through that tank.

Driving this extraordinarily imposing 'bolide' is itself something of an acquired art, and the owner/vendor declares he is prepared to provide a new owner with suitable driving instruction by separate treaty... He likens the experience to "steering a canal boat with a stern-mounted teller - you think ahead, make arrangements, turn in to a corner, then steer it on the throttle, balance it on the steering. Against the clock on a hill-climb the rear tires last about seven minutes overall - in a race, well, you can make them last a race...".

In recent years this FIAT-Isotta-Fraschini has been a frequent star at the historic British Shelsley Walsh hill-climb, winning repeatedly, its best time having been set on 5th July, 2016, at just 47.25 seconds. The car has also been an immensely popular frequent entry at the Prescott hill climb in Gloucestershire, its best time there being 53.82 seconds.

It also starred successfully at Goodwood's 74th Members' Meeting, while in the immensely popular 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed it took second place just 4-tenths of a second behind a very much lighter-weight Mercedes 90 Gordon Bennett Cup car. It has also been raced at Castle Combe in Wiltshire, and has appeared many times at the uniquely historic Brooklands Motor Course in Surrey, at Bicester aerodrome and Carfest amongst other major UK Vintage events.

On the public road this tremendously spectacular machine has been driven to Düsseldorf, Germany, and to Retromobile in Paris, France, while also being raced at Schloss Dyck in Germany.

So here we proudly offer one of the most versatile, most imposing, and most spectacular one-off speed specials that we at BONHAMS have ever been privileged to present. It is unique, it is challenging. As a magnificent beast "in which to be seen" we commend it unreservedly to the market.