1935 Alfa Romeo Bimotore

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in March 1996.

It's a 1935 Alfa Romeo Bimotore, one of two cars that were built when the Alfa Romeo competition affairs were run by the Scuderia Ferrari team and it was an attempt to challenge the German Mercedes Benz and Auto Union cars that were dominating the sport at that time. It has two engines, one at the front and one at the rear, and it was conceived by Enzo Ferrari and his development engineer Luigi Bazzi. The chassis was effectively a lengthened Alfa Romeo P3 chassis with an 8-cylinder inline engine at each end, those for one of the cars being 2,905cc and the other 3,165cc. The cars were first entered in the 1935 Tripoli Grand Prix, the 6.3 litre car being driven by Tazio Nuvolari and the 5.8 litre one by Louis Chiron. The cars proved to be fast, but the weight of the cars and the power of the engines took its toll on the tyres though Nuvolari managed to finish in fourth place behind 2 Mercedes Benz and an Auto Union despite having to make 13 stops for tyre changes. Louis Chiron drove a more conservative race making far less tyre changes and finished in fifth place. The project was abandoned before the end of that season and the larger engined car was dismantled, but the 5.8 litre car was sold to British driver Austin Dobson and it is that car that ended up in the Donington Museum. The photograph is rather spoilt by the Merryweather turntable ladder on the fire engine behind the Alfa.