5 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

Here's another strange thing - the transverse 8-cylinder Ruggeri-Franchini....the Milanese project which possibly gave rise to the strange 'Auto Italiana' feature of the early 1960s declaring that ferrari was building an air-cooled lateral-8. I've never really had the reason or the time to trawl the bottom of this Ruggeri project - Alessandro??? Others??? What was it really all about????



DCN

[Wolf]

Maybe it had something to do with Bugatti T251... Could somebody have seen the potential in the concept and decided to give it a try?

[alessandro silva]

Doug,

I know very little about the Ruggeri-Franchini car. In fact yours is the first photograph that I remember to have seen. I only remember that it was in fact yet another Speluzzi project with the collaboration of Enrico Franchini.
I have written it down among the things that I'll have to look for in my next trip to the Turin library next summer.
If you can provide me with more information about:
1) the approximate date of the photograph
2) the approximate date of the Auto Italiana issue about the air-cooled 8cyl Ferrari project
3) Why do you surmise that there was a connection between the two projects
it will speed up my research (did Franchini go to Ferrari?).

[pedro]

Come on Doug, April Fools day only lasts for one day, not the whole month! First you tell us about a car that leans as it corners, and now you're trying to convince us that this pile of scrap oil drums, dexian shelving and a tractor seat is a F1 project? Are you sure the engine is meant to be transverse, and hasn't just been dumped there?

[Doug Nye]

No Pedro - that one was the 1957 Trubshaw-Wartburg. I haven't posted that picture yet...

DCN

[karlcars]

Doug, I have a nagging feeling that in his early Ferrari days Carlo Chiti had the idea of using motorcycle components or derivations thereof to make a transverse air-cooled F1 engine. He may even have mocked something up. Of course it didn't progress.

I'm sure there's no connection between the chassis shown and Colombo's transverse-engine concept for Bugatti.

In this thread we mustn't overlook the wonderful transverse V-12 1.5-liter Maserati engine that never raced!