At the 1928 Schwabenberg race, Count Tivadar Zichy won. His time was an unbelievable 3:09:61 seconds with a Bugatti 2.3-liter Type 37 (if my memory serves me right it was a type 37 and not a type 35).
Maybe someone from UK can help me finding some more on this gentleman, because he was a British citizen
Theodor Bela Rudolph Zichy was born in 1908, the son of Count Rezso Bela Zichy, one of the founders of the Hungarian Automobile Club and Mabel Elizabeth Wright. He was born at Eastbourne at Sea in Sussex.
The whole family moved back to Hungary when "Count Tivi" was very young.
In his autobiography, That was no gentleman, that was Zichy he mostly describes his endeavours with ladies. But there's a chapter on his racing activities.
"At the age of seventeen I was fumbling my way through rallies, graduating from being placed last to fifteenth, tenth and sixth. Then Ettore Bugatti came into my life and for seven years nothing else mattered much (except drink and women). I raced a series of Signor Ettore's exciting types, showing "great promise" until, in 1928 I acquired the 2.3-litre "Targa Florio" which did 125 mph plus, and I realised with respect that this was not the kind of car which sould be driven unless one was completely sober".
Here's a typical example from his biography on how he won the 10 km "speed test" which is most probably the 1928 10-km speed run at Rakaaz organized by the Tiszantul Automobil Club (Tisztantul means over the Tisza, meaning one of the most eastwards part of Hungary):
"A Hungarian provincial car club organised a ten-kilomtere speed test, with a flying start, over a stretch of road.. As additional harads, the course had several sharp bends and a humpback bridge about half-way. Diriving a 2.3, I was well on the way to my top speed of 127 mph when I flashed accross the starting line. The car was bouncing on the uneven surface like a yo-yo. Safety belts were not invented yet, neither were crash helmets and the only way to remain in one's seat was by clinging grimly to the steering wheel and hooking one's left foot under the clutch pedal, but even so one's bottom was in the air like a jockey's most of the time. Owibng to other commitments I had arrived only the day before and had not had the time to study the course in detail. Quite suddenly the humpback bridge loomed up and I realised it was too late to lose speed. The Bug bounced off the bridge,literally took off, flew fifty fee through the air and landed with a sickening crash of springs on the dust shoulder...
After this there was nothing for it but to press on and I set up a time 116.5 mph. The narrow squeak had won me the race, as the other drivers prudently and sensibly slowed down at the bridge, and the next best time was 12 mph slowe than mine. The racing correspondents raved about my "heroic disregard for safety" and 2bulldog determination" and maybe I should have explained that I was so petrified I forgot to take my foot off the accelerator, but I didn't.
..
For several years, during the summer season, I raced week after week, mainly in Central Europe and the Balkans, against Caracciola, von Stuck, Brauchitsch, Werner, my team-mate von Morgen, Zawodowski, Prince Lobkowitz and on a few occasions against the great Louis Chiron, Count Ulrich Kinsky and the reigning Hungarian veteran chamion, Walter Delmar, from whom, by sheer luck, I wrested the championship in 1928".
His biggest victory was the 1928 Schwabenberg race, Though he said that he'd remained sober driving the Bugatti, one of his friends claimed in an interview in 1987 that back then, Zichy was not entirely sober...
By the early 1930s Zichy went bankrupt several times and ended up being back to United Kingdom.
In later life he became a film director and then a photographer.
He committed suicide on 30, December, 1984 aged 77.
His last known address: 8 Sandwich Street, London WC1
I would like to know what happened to his possessions. Anyone, got any ideas how to research further?
) from abroad. Through a nice friend I got some very nice pictures from the Porsche Museum.
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