The Etceterini Files Part 22: De Sanctis---Powered by Fiat, Lancia or Ford

Many vintage racing fans (or racing fans of a certain vintage) might have glanced at the car pictured in black and white below and assumed it was a Dino 206 SP.  This would not have been a bad guess, as the car was bodied by Piero Drogo's Carrozzeria Sports Cars not long after they bodied a small series of the road racing Dino 206 SP for Ferrari.  It is in fact a De Sanctis Sport 1000 Prototype, and unfortunately the only one with this sleek berlinetta shell because it was a rebody of an SP1000 spider which had been crashed.  But what, exactly, is a De Sanctis?

                                             

Gino De Sanctis was one of many mechanics and would-be engineers who migrated to Italy's big cities from small towns to be part of the automotive revolution in the first decades of the century. Instead of going to Turin or Milan, however, he walked to Rome from the Abruzzo region, got a job in a garage, and was soon racing his own Fiat Balilla during that car's heyday in the years between the big wars.  In the years after WWII he was running a Fiat dealership with his son Lucio, an engineer, and making enough of a success of it that father and son were able to get involved with racing cars again.  The De Sanctis racers may have been late to the postwar etceterini party, but over a decade of racing on Europe's road courses they achieved success by combining clever engineering with meticulous preparation. Their cars first appeared in 1958, as Formula Junior, an idea for a low-cost racing series hatched by Count Johnny Lurani, had a successful launch. Formula Junior required the use of production road car engines with modifications strictly limited, and a minimum car weight of 400 kg for 1,100 cc engines and 360 kg for 1,000 cc.  Naturally enough, most of the successful early Formula Junior racers were front-engined and based on Fiat 1,100 inline fours, like the Stanguellini.* This wasn't, however, the format that appealed to engineer Lucio De Sanctis...

First of all, De Sanctis placed the engine directly behind the driver and in front of the transmission, while the radiator was at the front…a format similar to the Coopers which had scored some wins in Formula 2 and even Formula 1. The chassis was a tubular space frame, with independent control-arm front suspension by coil springs, and swing axles with a transverse leaf spring at the rear. Engines were initially Fiat 1100 units, and transaxles  were VW units modified by Colotti.  

Later in the same year De Sanctis had lowered the profile of the car in search of better aerodynamics; an example of this design is shown below. De Sanctis cars achieved early success in Formula Junior, and to stay competitive the father and son team soon enough went to fully independent rear suspension and 1,100 cc versions of the English Ford 105E.

During the early 1960s De Sanctis also produced the mid-engined 2-seater Sport 1000 in a small series. These also used Ford power under sleek aerodymanic shells.  The three examples shown below, all built in 1964, show the detail differences common on hand-built road racers... 

The red car above, for example, has a larger air intake and covered headlights, while the one below has a smaller intake mirroring Lotus practice, and hidden headlights. By this time De Sanctis chassis design had moved closer to British designs which were then ascendant in Formula Junior and sports cars, especially those of Brabham.

According to the late Jonathan Williams, who raced Formula 2 and 3 cars as well as sports racers for De Sanctis and later raced for Ferrari and Serenissima*, these sports cars were less hardy and trouble-free than the single-seaters. The yellow car below certainly looks effective, though, recalling the Lotus 23 in its spare, pared-down aerodynamic shell.  It's still in use as a vintage racer...

Meanwhile, Formula Junior was evolving along with Formula 1. During the early years of the 1.5 liter Formula 1, Formula Junior effectively replaced Formula 2. In 1964 though, the race organizers split Formula Junior into a new Formula 3 based on production engines of no more than 1,000 cc, and a revived Formula 2 which allowed limited-production racing engines also limited to 1,000 cc. The Formula Junior De Sanctis won the Italian championship in 1963 in the hands of Giacomo Russo, using Ford power. In 1964 the improved design above appeared, and the next year a similarly sleek, minamalist design was tried with Lancia power.  Russo's drives attracted the attention of Jonathan Williams, and by 1966 he was driving for De Sanctis, in chassis like the one below.  Note the tight space for the pilot ahead of the canted engine...

In his entertaining memoir about racing during this period, Williams reports that the Cosworth engines delivered for use in his F2 cars were stripped down by the De Sanctis crew before being run, rebuilt and re-balanced with attention to reducing friction and improving oil flow to the bearings, with a resulting power increase of nearly 10 percent. Williams won seven F2 races with De Sanctis in 1966, including Monza, Imola, Mugello, and his favorite race at Lake Garda as well as a 2nd place at Villa Real. The aluminum bodies for the cars were built by the Filaccione brothers.  Williams reports this was a happy time not only for the De Sanctis team, but for living and working in Italy, commenting that he could walk to work and see nothing but beautiful townscape in the years before spray-painted graffiti, and when Italian-style long lunches and late dinners were more a requirement than an optional extra...

In the years since the De Sanctis team reached its peak performance, other etceterini, mostly ones with more exotic engines and special bodywork by the likes of Zagato, or Frua, have pushed their cars out of the spotlight in the eyes of collectors.  This phenomenon, however, may have the advantage of making the cars a bit more accessible to vintage racers who can find them.  In March 2016 a 1959 De Sanctis Formula Junior, the third chassis built*, sold at auction for just over $43,000.  A month earlier, Sotheby's had estimated the value of their 1959 Stanguellini Junior at $90,000 to $120,000.  It was, perhaps, a case of fame being valued over engineering...

*Footnote:  The Serenissima, a car even rarer than the undeservedly obscure De Sanctis, was profiled in these posts on March 20, 2019, in "Forgotten Classic: Serenissima —The Winged Lion is the Rarest Beast of All."  Stanguellini was featured in "Chasing a Mirage:  The Last Stanguellini", posted three years earlier on March 21, 2016.

*Postscript + Errata:  That 1959 car may have been the 3rd chassis built that year, but not the 3rd chassis overall.  Recently a front-engined De Sanctis from 1958 showed up for sale, and was claimed to be the 5th chassis built.  So there could be several front-engined De Sanctii out there, from the short period before mid-engine location became the rule at the firm.

Photo Credits:

Top:                  targapedia.com, sourced from the Antonio Garufi Archives

2nd:                  pinterest.dk

3rd:                   altroquotidiano.it

4th:                   i.wheelsage.org

5th:                   woiweb.com (WOI Encyclopedia Italiana)

6th:                   ritzsite.nl

7th:                   woiweb.com (WOI Encyclopedia Italiana)

8th:                   pinterest.com

9th:                   youtube.com

10th thru 12th:  www.f3history.co.uk