27 replies to this topic

[Boniver]

Enrico Platé the Swiss entrant of Maserati cars since
early post-war days,
team leader with de Nuvolari, Landi, Kautz, Taruffi, Pagani,de Graffenried, Bira, Schell , Chiron,..........
rebuild the San Remo Maserati cars to Platé-Masarati....

"Buenos Aires City Grand Prix" 1954
Daponte (Maserati works) was travelling at speed when it hit a patch of oil, went into a wild slide and struck the Swiss entrant Platé who standing in front of the Graffenried 's pit.........who dead........


is this correct ?

Was Luigi Platé his brother ......?

[David McKinney]

I believe Luigi was Enrico's uncle

[fines]

BTW, can anyone make sure if the name's Platé or Platè?

Alessandro?

[Boniver]

Fines,

In France and Swiss it is "Platé"


Enrico "Gigi" Platé

[fines]

Boniver, "Gigi" is short for Luigi, not Enrico!

And I believe the name is Italian, so Platè sounds a little bit more likely. But with Switzerland being a land of four tongues nothing's for sure.

David, my info is that Luigi and Enrico weren't related, what's your source?

[David McKinney]

Guess you’ve caught me out on that one, Fines. One of my problems is that the bulk of my research material is in storage in New Zealand: even if I could afford the considerable expense of shipping it here to the UK, I would have nowhere to store it.
It is quite likely my source was a contemporary report from Autocar, taken down by hand and transferred to my own records.
Authorities of the calibre of Nye (in for example the Autocourse History of the Grand Pirx car 1945-65) and Tragatsch (Der Große Rennfahrerbuch) both refer to Enrico “Gigi” Plate but we can be certain they are two different men. Gigi (Luigi) was racing in 1922, when Enrico would have been 13 years old...
Although, again, I can’t prove it, I am sure both were Italian, though Enrico may subsequently have moved to Switzerland.
I would have thought the accent was put on the last letter of their name by English editors to draw readers’ attention to the fact that the name should not be pronounced the same way as the dish. Having said that, I have seen it spelt Platè in Italian publications (eg Settant’Anni di Gare Automobilistiche in Italia)

[alessandro silva]

It should be Enrico Platè as for the accent. Enrico Gigi Platè does not make any sense. Of course they were two different drivers. Luigi, Italian from Milan, was a Chiribiri driver in the early 20's. Always very enthusistic and very short on cash he can be found driving a 20 years old Talbot 700 in the 40s. Enrico was Swiss and started racing around 1934, though I remember having seen sometimes "Swiss-Argentinian" Enrico Platè. There were not related as far as I can remember. Enrico wanted to be a GP driver and was very active in the 40s before confining himself to the management of his team: in truth he was not very good as a driver. In Taruffi's book on the technique of racing (Italian edition, circa 1960), there is a picture showing a Maserati 4CL approaching a turn in a blatantly wrong way. In the caption Taruffi makes some pointed remarks on how the unmentioned driver does it, concluding that that is not the way of doing it. I always wondered who was the unfortunate guy, until, very recently thanks to Sheldon, I discovered that it was Enrico Platè at the Circuito di Milano 1946.

[fines]

Thanks, Alessandro, for the clarification and, incidentally, proving me right!;)

[Boniver]

THANKS

But is it correct that Enrico Platé dead in the "Buenos Aires City Grand Prix" of 1954 ?

[alessandro silva]

Boniver.
Yes.

[Marcor]

In "AUTO", a Swiss magazine dated from June 28, 1949, Emmanuel de Graffenried said: "... In 1947, after a year with the AUTO-SPORT stable from Geneva, I was lucky to meet the great Italian sportsman Platè..."

The text is originally written in French and German, as it was a bilingual periodical.


At Albi in 1946, the two PLATE were entered, #8 Enrico, Maserati 4CL, and #32 Luigi (Gigi), Talbot.

The Maserati's Enrico won the race but the driver was Tazio Nuvolari. The Nuvolari's car was damaged by a roadhog before the race, accurately when Nuvolari went to the circuit by himself. Thanks to Enrico PLATE, Nuvolari could take part to the race as PLATE spontaneously offered his Maserati to Nuvolari who agreed immediately.


The easiest in French is to write the name PLATE in capital as there's no accent in capital...

[Marcor]

Here some results of Enrico PLATE (maybe not complete)

Prewar (voiturette 1500 cc)
28 June 1936 Circuit of Milano, 7th Maserati
30 May 1937 AVUS, 2nd Maserati 6CM #14
21 August 1938 Prix de Berne, 10th heat 2 Maserati
18 September 1938 Circuit of Modena, 4th Maserati
07 May 1939 Tripoli (1500 cc class), 12th Maserati 6CM
14 May 1939 Targa Florio (Park Favorita, Palermo), 6th Maserati
28 May 1939 Coppa Principessa di Piemonte (Posillipo), 9th Maserati
13 August 1939 Coppa Acerbo (Pescara), DNQ Maserati
12 May 1940 Tripoli (Mellaha), 15th Maserati 6CM #30
23 May 1940 Targa Florio (Park Favorita, Palermo), 9th Maserati 6CM #20


Postwar
12 May 1946 GP de Marseille (Prado), 2nd, Maserati 4CL #24
30 May 1946 Résistance (Bois de Boulogne), not accepted, Maserati 4CL
14 July 1946 GP d'Albi, DNS (gave his car to Nuvolari), Maserati 4CL #8
1 September Valentino (Torino), 5th, Maserati 4CL
9 February 1947 Buenos-Aires GP (Retiro), DNF Maserati
15 February 1947 Eva Peron Cup(Buenos-Aires), DNF Maserati
18 May 1947 Marseille (Prado), 2nd Maserati 4CL #32
1 June 1947 Nîmes, 7th Maserati 4CL
8 June 1947 Swiss GP (Bremgarten), DNS (gave his car to "Bira") Maserati 4CL
17 January 1948 Buenos-Aires GP - Heat 2 (Retiro),8th Maserati 4CL
18 January Buenos-Aires GP - Final (Retiro), DNF Maserati 4CL[p][Edited by Marcor on 12-17-2000]

[Marcor]

Related by his friend Emmannuel de Graffenried, here are the circumstances of the death of Enrico PLATE...

...The Platé team Maserati A6GCMs would run in the Argentine GP and Buenos Aires City Libre race in Jannuary 1954 for de Graffenried and "B.Bira".

Tragedy
Into the New Year "Bira" placed 7th and "Toulou" 8th in the Argentine GP and two weeks later they were out again in the BA City Formule Libre GP. Toulou had retired and was having a shower behind the pits while Platé was out on the pit apron signalling to "Bira". The pits at the BA City Autodrome are preceded by a fast left-hand curve and they are in the firing line of anything running wide. Jorge Daponte lost control of his A6GCM, it hurtled onto the apron, and hit and killed poor Enrico Platé...

" They were 100 people packed there all just to be seen and poor Platé was the only doing a job and he didn't see the car coming and he was killed. We were leaving the very next day for home, but poor Platé was dead. I am very fataliste, you know, and I thought that was the time to stop racing..."

[Boniver]

Alessandro Silva, Marcor
Thanks
)

[Patrick Italiano]

Since there is a Platè thread, I forward this query (from one of the Alfa-digest) I couldn't satisfy up to now.

Do you, by any chance, have photos of either of the 2 Alfa/Plates from the
1938 Mille Miglia, race numbers 154 and 155?

[Boniver]

1950 GP van Nederland

(22) Enrico Platé - Maserati 4CLT/48 (team Enrico Platé)
out after 1r - Engine


1950 GP Italia
(34) Luigi Plate - Talbot 700 (team Luige Plate)
not start - dna

[fines]

Interestingly, exactly seven months after the Platè accident in the Argentine, noted chief mechanic Clay Smith died in a very similar accident at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds. Smith's driver Chuck Stevenson raced Jimmy Bryan for second when he touched Rodger Ward's brakeless car while lapping him, spinning it onto the pits apron where Smith stood holding his pit board. The car hit the rail, vaulted over and dropped upside-down, killing Smith instantly and hurting eight more.

Stevenson finished second and effectively retired after the race, while Ward had to endure another nightmare crash at Indy the following year before he turned into the star driver of the late fifties and early sixties.

[Barry Lake]

Michael

It wasn't exactly seven months, was it?

The date I have for Clay Smith's death is 6 September.

Or do I have the incorrect date for the Buenos Aires City GP?

[fines]

Barry, you caught me out!

I have actually two dates for the BA GP, Jan 31 and Feb 6 - which one is the right one?

[Milan Fistonic]

According to the 1954 Motor Year Book the BA GP was on January 31

[Roger Clark]

Autosport caried a report in its edition dated 5 Feb 1954.

[fines]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
Autosport caried a report in its edition dated 5 Feb 1954.

That settles it

[alessandro silva]

MarCor
I have been away for some time and I can post only now. I was very puzzled about de Graffenried's words about Platè's nationality that you reported so I looked around. It is certain that Platè used a Swiss licence, it is not clear whether it was a driver or an entrant licence or both.He was also the holder of an Argentinian licence. As for his citizenship now we have to take de graffenried's word. At this point I am no longer sure that he was not related to Luigi. I have no certainty either whether he kept premises for his team in Italy or Switzerland or both, only a distant memory, as in the case of his citizenship so it can be deceptive, that for sometimes it was based in the Ruggeri shop in Milan and for sometimes in Lausanne.

[Bjorn Kjer]

From the new book on Toulo de Graffenried I have found some info on Plate´s transports and id´d the truck :

After winning the GBGP in 49 with Toulo at the wheel of their 4CLT the car was loaded on a small airplane to go to the Sweden GP.

At the Dutch GP in 49 the cars was loaded 2 stage on their open truck.

After the Richmond Tr. at Goodwood in 1950 , the truck was loaded with both Maseratis etc. for shipment to San Remo GP. Hoisted up by a crane one of the wires brokes letting the truck fall upside down into the ships bunker , blocking it with the 2 racers etc. underneath. From around 15 meters height ! After a difficult recovery the remains was then loaded on a train with no time to spare. The chassis was straightened at San Remo by eye measure by Plates 2 mechanics using blow torches.

The truck was a Bianchi "Miles" Build from 34-46 . A bonneted version with a 4 cyl. diesel.

[Bjorn Kjer]

Who is the "lucky" one ? I see a search on another thread : Anyone have the Plate logo to show here ?

[dretceterini]

Originally posted by Patrick Italiano
Since there is a Platè thread, I forward this query (from one of the Alfa-digest) I couldn't satisfy up to now.

Do you, by any chance, have photos of either of the 2 Alfa/Plates from the
1938 Mille Miglia, race numbers 154 and 155?

The 2 Plate Alfas in the 1938MM were driven by

#154 T.Musso/R.Ruvioli
#155 E.Vicentini/A.Vicentini


both cars were DNFs.

I'm wondering if T.Musso was any relation to the Maserati driver G.Musso??

[Doug Nye]

Own-up time - I believe the quote used from de Graffenried came from an interview I conducted with 'Toulo' at his home in the 80s. I also appended my impression of the incident, which was nonsense.

I had assumed that the BA Autodrome was being lapped in the direction most familiar to me, which would have been with the cars negotiating the start and finish straight with the pits to their right. In 1953 this was not the case - they circulated with the pits to their left. Consequently Daponte did not spin out of what would become 'Giunti Curve'. He was not leaving that corner when he lost control - he was heading the other way, and was - in fact - aiming to stop at his pit.

What happened was that as Daponte found himself in trouble with Maserati A6GCM belching smoke, he tried to stop at the pits. As he braked in the straightline approach, intending to call at the pits which he was approaching to his left, a wheel locked-up, he was drawn nearly into the pit wall to his left, and in startled reaction swerved right, careered out into the centre of the track and then over-corrected. This caused him to spins backwards into the pit lane area of the course - which of course in those days was provided with no physical separation/protection from the finishing straight, where his right rear wheel struck down Plate, who reputedly had his back to the action, watching the one survivor of his own cars drone away out of sight...to the left from his vantage point, Daponte therefore spinning in from behind his back.

DCN

[fines]

Thank you for that clarification, Doug!