Rosso Corsa!

Text: Srinivas Krishnan
Photos: Deepak Tolani

It's the kind of car a grown up Abdullah would have. Remember Abdullah? Yes, that irritating brat in Tintin whose father is Emir Bin Kalash Ezab, the simpering ruler of Khemed. I remember seeing a miniature toy race car something like this in The Land of Black Gold, where Abdullah is kidnapped. Page 36: to be precise.

Over time, a teenage Abdullah would have had one of these replicars to race around the narrow streets of Khemed and terrorise the locals, perhaps. Replicars? Yes, that's right. What you see is not a real racing car, but driving it today gives you a fair idea of how the evolutionary days of motorsport would have been. It's a rather unusual classic that we are featuring in our pages this time, and experiencing it was, well, unusual. Very raw and very extreme.

To me today, driving one of these cars feels like outright madness. For a couple of reasons. First, there's hardly any space for two grown up men to sit abreast – and the cars needed to have a driver and a mechanic/navigator/general factotum to fit inside at the same time. Then you are totally exposed to all the elements, including an ear-splitting exhaust note and the radiator, which was spewing excess water that was flying right onto our faces – restricting my vision by fogging up my glasses. Over and above that, the driver has to somehow shift gears using his right hand through the large four-spoke steering wheel! Which means that you have to master the art of being in the right gear before a turn, or else you would end up with a broken arm. All this, in a quest for moving faster than any other human being or machine on the most treacherous terrain possible – without brakes on two of the four wheels!

Open Corsa
This is a Fiat Corsa 501 S, of 1925 vintage, nothing less. It was created to satisfy the whims of an Indian maharaja, who saw a Fiat Grand Prix car on one of his visits to Europe and wanted one for himself. While the body style is that of a race car, what's powering it is a normal, road-going car engine from the 1920s. Legend has it that when the car arrived in India, it had fancy wire wheels instead of the authentic artillery wheels – not one to make a compromise, like many others of his ilk, the maharaja sent the car back to be refitted with the wheels that you see on it today.

What happened after that no one knows, but one fine day, it was found lying in a derelict state with a small tree growing through it somewhere near Hyderabad – the cost of breaking a wall to extract the car was also included in the price! The man who discovered it was one of the distributors for industrialist and auto enthusiast Vijay Mallya's company, and it soon became one of the jewels of his awesome collection, painstakingly restored by Chubi Lalwani. Not more than ten of its kind exist in the world today.

Actually, the 501 series of Fiats were immensely successful. They were the first all-new cars to be built by Fiat after the first World War, the smallest in the Italian automaker's model range at that time – and it was designed by Carlo Cavalli, who, of all things, was a lawyer! Over 45,000 of these were produced between 1919 and 1926. But seeing a demand for some performance variants of the run-of-the-mill 501s, Fiat introduced the 501 S and 501 SS sports versions. Making more horsepower than the standard 501, over 2,600 units of these sporty 501s were produced between 1921 and 1926. They came in three sporty body styles, but a Corsa (or racing/competition car) replica manufactured by the Torino-based major were few and far between, an idiosyncrasy of only a few, like our own maharajas. Only that it was based on competition Fiats that were raced to great success in various rallies, hill climbs and at the Targa Florio over several years. A grown up man's serious toy? Yes, you could say that.

Race-derived
Of all the classics that we have featured, this one is as straightforward as it gets. It is not designed with any aesthetic purpose in mind, its purpose is its beauty. The Corsa stands surprisingly tall for a competition car; one would assume that the more ground- hugging it gets, the better. But that thinking would come much later in the future. The stubby front ends up in an aerodynamic boat shape at the rear – a characteristic of all Corsa Fiats of that era. The peculiar pear-shaped front end is actually a tribute to a massive 300 bhp land speed record Fiat from 1911, where it was devised to link the cooling area with the engine cowling – a design that would be used in all post-WW I touring models, albeit in a reduced size. The headlamps, of course, are there because it's a road-going car, as is the stepney. The real Corsas were stripped of all things that were not necessary – mudguards, stepneys, footrests, etc – to make them lighter.

The car features neat riveted panels, and a long vented hood that hides the road-going 501 engine. Natural materials like wood and leather have been used to make it match its original looks, and whatever external metal panels are there, have been painted Rosso Corsa, including the wheels, contrasting beautifully with the bare-basic aluminium inside. Instruments are also rudimentary, what you get is all that you need – a speedo marked in miles, oil pressure, amps, a reading light, and of course, a clock. What's that huge handle on the left? All will be revealed in good time. The driver's seat is marginally ahead of the passenger's, with a footwell where the pedals end. The pedal arrangement is also typical of that era, with the accelerator in the middle, and the brake at the right. The clutch and brake pedals are large, and the throttle is diminutive – maybe because these racing cars needed no encouragement to speed, and were rather reluctant to stop!

The Corsa doesn't have a battery, and makes do with a high tension magneto for ignition. That's right, you have to start it by cranking the handle at the front below the radiator – that's what the co-driver's for (but wait, the poor chap has something else to do). What emerges from the long, exposed silver muffler is a raspy note that turns into a angry burble that wakes up the denizens of sleepy Mandwa, a coastal town off Mumbai, where Mallya houses some of his precious automobiles. Has it been engineered to produce this untidy symphony or is it natural to the motor? Search me.

In your face
Remember, the engine is a sporty iteration of an entry level Fiat of that era – an inline side-valve four, displacing 1460 CC, and offering an output of 26.5 bhp at just 3000 revs (the 501, on the other hand, produced 23 bhp at 2600 revs from the same capacity engine, and the 501 SS, 30 horses).

Shifting gears, as mentioned earlier, is meant only for those who are extremely dextrous – and fearless. You change gears through the shift gate, and the long lever on the right hand side of the driver can be accessed only by putting your hands through the leather-encased steering wheel – thankfully, there's enough space between the four spokes to shift a cog and withdraw your hands without getting hurt. But try doing that at its rated 100 kph top speed, over a curvaceous hill road, and you know the inherent madness of the design. The gearing is tall and the power is delivered at low revs, which means that you are reluctant to shift through all the four forward gears for the sake of your precious right hand.

To prevent the gears from grinding, you have to really depress the clutch pedal really well, which is why it is rather large, I guess. Getting the hang of the pedal arrangement (and their sizes!) takes some time, but soon you learn the ropes of powering this wannabe vintage racer. The Corsa picks up speed and soon is just droning around the roads of Mandwa – it's good I am pootling around here, rather than Mumbai. That's because, as mentioned earlier, it's a non-polluted, non-dusty ocean wind in the hair feeling. It's like riding a four-wheeled motorcycle, with the front mudguards moving along with your steering inputs. You sit exposed, and the radiator insists on you taking another shower. The raspy exhaust note is blaring behind you, and there's no isolation from the road to speak of.

There are some things that resemble leaf springs at the front and are attached to the car frame at the rear, but they do nothing to stop you from bouncing around. The Corsa shudders, judders, quakes, vibrates (and some more similar words) and you and your fellow passenger are undoubtedly part of this movement. The Corsa bounces on 18" Firestone Deluxe Champion 'Gum Dipped' rubber, but its only because you're tightly packed with your co-driver that you are prevented from being ejected. If you have mastered the art of driving it, stopping is another experience altogether. Brake drums work only on the rear wheels, which means that you have to anticipate your stop. The front wheels move a little wildly away from your intended path, and sweat appears on your forehead in spite of it being relatively breezy around. Why, there's the handbrake mounted outside on the right that acts on the rear wheels, you say. Sure, but try doing that in a panic. You'll get a beautiful handbrake turn without intending to.

If you think that the driver gets all the action, you're mistaken. The Corsa gets two fuel tanks, one at the front and one behind. See that handle on the facia? That's what the co-driver has to use to pump fuel all the time once the rather small front tank gets empty. Imagine this on a hill climb. The car's doing maybe 90 kph on some really tight stretches. Inevitably, the driver and the co-driver are blinded thanks to dust or mud, the driver's steering and shifting gears through the wheel, and the navigator's furiously pumping fuel – what a sight!

No, I'd rather not trade places with these maniacs (like Felice Nazzaro, Antonio Ascari, Alfred Neubauer, Achille Varzi, Tazio Nuvolari and Enzo Ferrari). Give me one of these replicars any day, and I'll be happy indulging myself like Abdullah, rather than risk my neck.