|
|
The lives of Hruska and Abarth had been crossed in the past,
and in this ocassion they were joining once more again. They met in the city
of Merano, in the north of
Italy, of where the family of Abarth was original, and where they had
returned, fixing their residence shortly after the end of the war.
In the beginning of
1945, Hruska, went to Brescia to negotiate the manufacture of pieces with the
manufacturer of automobiles OM, but he could not come back to Stuttgart due to
the
ocupation of the city by the Allied forces. Therefore, he set his residence in
Merano, in where he made friendship with Abarth.
When the American authorities
let them to travel to Austria to visit Porsche, they had already
decided that they would like to represent Porsche in Italy, even though
did not have at that moment any products to sell.
Hruska and Abarth, had a
commercial partner in Italy, Piero Dusio, this relationship would set a very
important landmark in the future immediate of Porsche.
Dusio
was an sportsman, he had been an athletics champion , a soccer star , but
its sporting career was truncated due to an injury, he had kneaded a
considerable
fortune before the war, firstly with a textile company, and also as a banker and
running hotels and a sport equipment company manufacturing bicycles.
The IInd World war did not decrease its fortune, on the
contrary he increased it by making boots for the Italian army. Its company of
sport material was called Consorzio Industriale Sportivo Italy or, of brief form
Cisitalia .
Dusio was also an enthusiastic racing car sponsor and also loved to drive
himself racing cars. During the war along with the FIAT
engineer, Dante Giacosa had projected a series of sport single-seaters with a
Fiat
engine of 1.1 liters and 70 CV, that were manufactured in limited numbers . The
cars had great success, both in the races and the
public. Dusio that felt passion for the sportcars, also embarked in the
manufacture of the Coupe Cisitalia 202 designed by Pininfarina but nevertheless
his top ambition was to create and to produce a Grand Prix racing car that
could outperform its opponents.
Tazio
Nuvolari a living legend of the racing arena and one of the few racing drivers
that had
driven Dr. Porsche's Auto Union racing cars in the pre war Grand Prix , was
looking for a car to resume its racing career. A friend of him that worked in
OM, put
him in contact with Hruska in Merano and, naturally, they arrived to the the
conclusion that Porsche was the man that could project and build the racing car
that they wanted,
Through their friendship, Hruska and Abarth made Dusio, who had the economic
capacity to finance the project ,contact Nuvolari , and all the pieces then
began to fit. Finally an agreement was made between Dusio, Hruska, Abarth and Porsche by which, the
last one
would project a Grand Prix racing car, nd even a tractor for
Dusio that would finance the project. An important part of the
initial payement made by Dusio was used to pay the bail demanded for the
liberation of both Dr Porsche and Anton Pīech jailed in Dijon, so began the
postwar development of Porsche.
When in 1947 the
Professor was set free by the french and he could return to his home in Gmünd the Cisitalia had already
been completed , when he saw it , he was very impressed by the work of his son
and his loyal collaborators Karl Rabe and Erwin Komenda and commented " I
couldn't have done it better, I would not change nor a single bolt nor a
screw "..
Ferry Porsche recruited Professor Robert Eberan Von Eberhost to
supervise the project in Turin , because after the war, Porsche
did not have in Gmund the production facilities of the Italians. Von Eberhost
was already known by Ferry because his father had worked with him in the Auto
Union company where both had worked to develope the Auto Union D type.
The car for Grand Prix of Formula 1, satisfied all the
expectations of Dusio. It was constructed with traction to the four wheels
with synchronous five speed transmission, supercharged engine mounted in the
center, all the pieces were of own manufacture with the exception of the Weber
carburetors , The Cisitalia was in all aspects and engineering masterpiece ,
specially if one considers the state of the art of its time , but the project
collapsed due to skyrocketing costs and when the Cisitalia company went
bankrupt, its fall was precipitated by FIAT, one of its suppliers, when it
cancelled the credit to the company,cutting the supply of the pieces that were
used for the manufacture of the Cisitalia 202 but probably the true reason was
that FIAT disliked the alliance of Dusio with Porsche.
At the beginning of
the 1949, Dusio went to Argentina invited by its President Juan
Perón, to
begin from zero, but its star already had been extinguished and it could not
either come out ahead. In 1953 without preparation some presented/displayed to
the Cisitalia in the Great Prize of Argentina but it could not classify in the
trainnig runs . The only data known of the top speed of the Cisitalia
were timed when Clemar Bucci established the Sudamerican km speed record
, in 233 Km/h. Dusio finally sold the project to an
Argentinian company that also went bankrupt. The car was recovered by
Ferry Porsche by the end of the 50 in a trip to Argentina where it was
deteriorating. From the ashes of the crucible of the Cisitalia, the Porsche
company arose with force.
The former head of mechanics, Carlo Abarth, created in 1949
his own company in Turin, latelly he would build for Porsche the Porsche 356 B
Carrera GT Abarth. Rudolf Hruska
worked as chief desing engineer for Alfa Romeo developing the Alfasud, Von
Eberhost
worked for the English ,developing the Jorwet Jupiter and the mythical Aston
Martin DB3, afterwards he returned to Germany as development
director of Auto Union. All those that participated in the Cisitalia project
contributed with its experience and knowledge to the
development of the modern European industry of the automobile. Of the initial
amount of money paid by Dusio, one millon of french francs were used to pay
he
bail out of Professor Porsche and the rest for the initial expenses of the
Cisitalia. Just a short time later, the Professor was judged in absence, and
declared innocent, but the French never gave back the bail. The
disappointments undergone by the Dr Porsche and his imprisonment in Dijon
in a humid cell without heating, decreased their health and extinguished their
creative genius.
Jean Pierre Peugeot.
During the War Jean Pierre Peugeot had
been jailed several times by the Germans, after the war he accused Porsche of
using enslaved manual labor for the Nazis during de war . In this way he took
revenge against the hated Germans,and besides the oportunity to eliminate a
future competitor .
Dr. Porsche in an occasion had saved the
neck of Peugeot when after being arrested by the frightful Gestapo, as a
result of a sabotage of the Peugeot factory by the Resistance, he took part in
his favor, obtaining his release. A political interpretation of these facts is
that to the Professor was used as a Turk head to distract the French public
opinion of the political responsibilities of Renault, that was then being
accused of colaboration with the German occupation forces.