Djurgarsdsloppet 1954

A puzzle for our scandinavian friends

I've found a letter from the organisizors to the German racedriver Ludwig Fischer (not the wellknown Rudi Fischer and non related) about a start at their race.


Fischer owns some eliagble cars for this race in this period.
A German F3 : EAL-Jap


A AFM-BMW F2 also for formula libre

and some small sportscars.

So he could be able to fulfil the organizers wish to compete in F3 and Formula Libre as well.

Now:
Did he enter ?
In which class and with which car?
Did he enter the other race mentioned (Lappeenrannan-Ajo

A very interesting letter Hugo!

As far as I know Ludwig Fischer never entered Djurgårdsloppet 1954. He is not in the official program and I have not found anything about him in the press either.
The non-Scandinavian drivers were:

Rodney Nuckey GB Cooper (FL) and Cooper (F3)
Eric Brandon GB Cooper (FL) and Cooper (F3)
Roger Laurent B Ferrari (FL)
Kurt Kuhnke D Cooper (F3)
Michael Head GB Jaguar (sports)

Apart from them Adolff Lang was expected to race in F3 and sports, but he didn't show up. He wasn't in the program though.

I don't know that much about the Lappeenrannan races apart that they were for sportscars and F3. Head won the sportscar race and in the F3 race Brandon was third and Kuhnke fourth. I haven't found anything about the other foreigners.

I had another look and found an article in a Swedish magazine from April 54. According to that three Germans had entered the F3 race: Theo Helfrich, Werner Lang and Kurt Kuhnke. It seems that only Kuhnke showed up.
"Werner Lang"? I thought it was Adolf... How many Langs were there?

Originally posted by Tomas Karlsson
I had another look and found an article in a Swedish magazine from April 54. According to that three Germans had entered the F3 race: Theo Helfrich, Werner Lang and Kurt Kuhnke. It seems that only Kuhnke showed up.
"Werner Lang"? I thought it was Adolf... How many Langs were there?

It was Adolf Werner Lang. You find very often Adolf W.Lang in programms.

Thanks Tomas for your information on Fischer. Maybe he was rejected as a list of his other placings was asked in this letter. And there were nearly none. As well he answered this letter on March 31.

Hugo - may I ask - who is driving the car in this photo?:

Originally posted by Hugo Boecker
A AFM-BMW F2 also for formula libre

and some small sportscars.

As Hugo already stated the driver is Ludwig Fischer. The picture appears in his auto-biography so (even in Fischer´s case ;) ) no reason to doubt.

Oh right, that's great I've been looking for a photo of Ludwig Fischer's face for a long time, I don't suppose you have a better photo, do you, please? It's just for my private collection.

Sorry, you have to wait for Hugo´s return. He has the book.

well now i'm back
here is a pic of Fischer standing besides his FJ at the Klagenfurt airfiel race in 1960


and here a copy of his 64 Licence - but he didn't race any more in that year.

Many thanks I have a big interest in the 1950s German F2 drivers, especially the entrants from the 1952 and 1953 German Grand Prix. Hopefully, I'll have pictures of all of them one day.

Originally posted by Hugo Boecker
well now i'm back
here is a pic of Fischer standing besides his FJ at the Klagenfurt airfiel race in 1960


and here a copy of his 64 Licence - but he didn't race any more in that year.

Seraching for traces of Ludwig Fischer already in this forum I came across this old post of Hugo again. Is there an explanation why the Bardahl sponsor logo is crossed out on the car?

I think Fischer brought the car in Italy. There was some sort of sponsoring allowed. But when he started outside Italy the sponsorlogos had to be crossed out or removed.
I think there are some shots even from the Mille Miglia with a Butoni-sponsored Maserati.

Originally posted by Hugo Boecker
I think Fischer brought the car in Italy. There was some sort of sponsoring allowed. But when he started outside Italy the sponsorlogos had to be crossed out or removed.
I think there are some shots even from the Mille Miglia with a Butoni-sponsored Maserati.

So would Scuderia Bardahl have originated in Italia??? Interesting that an american company would be sponsoring something like that...there is probably a good story there.

what a facinating little 500 formula 3 the EAL-JAP appears to be, anyone know what happened to it?

Hugo's original post dates from 2005; we have come a bit further in our knowledge since. It appears that "EAL" is a fantasy name provided by "King" Ludwig Fischer. The car is clearly the Walla F3 built by Josef "Pepi" Walla in Austria.

Walla was born in 1906, has started racing motorcycles in 1925 and has been multiple Austrian champion. Although one Austrian source credit him for having built this little racer as early as 1947, we know through some extensive research work done by eukie that F3 racing did not really take off there before 1953 - at a time when it had already vanished from the German scene.

The earliest photographic proof of the Walla F3 dates from a speedway race on the Baden horse racing course on 31/10/1954, another one from the Prater cycle track in Vienna on 14/11/1954. It had to face the likes of Kurt Kuhnke and Kurt Ahrens Sr. in very competitive Coopers and did not leave much of an impression. However, it appears that on all these occasions "Pepi" Walla himself has been at the helm.

No trace of Fischer in all this - and by the time he had been issued with the "Wagenpass" (06/05/1954) it was clear that there was virually no possibility to race old F3 racers in Western Germany anymore.

According to the same Austrian source mentioned earlier, the car has survived and is currently in storage, awaiting restauration.

The first trace of the EAL was found in 1952 when Johannes Herda raced it at the national AVUS ace on June 1st 52. Herda was from Ostheim. Fischer raced the car once at Hockenheim Mai 10th 1953.

Originally posted by 275 GTB-4


So would Scuderia Bardahl have originated in Italia??? Interesting that an american company would be sponsoring something like that...there is probably a good story there.

Bardahl was a big sponsor in the early days of Formula Junior in Italy, if you do a search with keywords "Bardahl" and "Stanguellini" or "Ciaffi" you'll find a thread we had about this a couple years ago. Scuderia Bardahl was the official entrant for most of the leading FJunior drivers like Roberto Lippi or Raffaele Cammarata (sp?) back then.

from Duncan Rabagliati

"Josef Walla’s ........was @ Sachsenring on 17 8 1958, and the car , # 17 was entered as a HELL

And not a glorious race !! He was at the tail of the 26 car grid with a practice time of 5m 58.3, compared with pole man Curt Lincoln’s Cooper-Norton on 4m 02.4, so poor old Josef was set to be lapped almost every couple of tours !!. anyway it seems that he was put out of his misery , and retired !!"

so is this the same car? the time diffrence could suggest an earlier JAP engined 500?

Originally posted by fines

Bardahl was a big sponsor in the early days of Formula Junior in Italy, if you do a search with keywords "Bardahl" and "Stanguellini" or "Ciaffi" you'll find a thread we had about this a couple years ago. Scuderia Bardahl was the official entrant for most of the leading FJunior drivers like Roberto Lippi or Raffaele Cammarata (sp?) back then.

Thanks Michael...damn FJ..they are a like a virus

Originally posted by rbm
from Duncan Rabagliati

"Josef Walla’s ........was @ Sachsenring on 17 8 1958, and the car , # 17 was entered as a HELL

And not a glorious race !! He was at the tail of the 26 car grid with a practice time of 5m 58.3, compared with pole man Curt Lincoln’s Cooper-Norton on 4m 02.4, so poor old Josef was set to be lapped almost every couple of tours !!. anyway it seems that he was put out of his misery , and retired !!"

so is this the same car? the time diffrence could suggest an earlier JAP engined 500?

That sounds very much like it! Perhaps "EAL" = misunderstanding/misspelling of "Hell"? Hugo, do you have those three letters seen on any original document?

But 1958 still in Walla´s hands, wouldn´t this exclude Fischer as owner of the car?

The Hell-JAP was a cooper look alike built at around 1954. There were two built one for Kurt Koresch and a second one for bikeracer Kussin. Walla later used this car from, I think 57 Gaisberg, onwards. So the HELL-JAP is definitiv another car than the EAL-JAP.
The name EAL I have from the German F3 register. It was entered for Norisring and AVUS 52 by J.Herda with race number 165 - still on the car in the car-pass.