Inside OSCA: The Bolognese Miracle That Amazed The World
by Carlo Cavicchi
“It is already a Monday morning in Italy, 8 March 1954, when the 12 Hours, the second round of the World Sports Car Championship, finishes at Sebring in Florida. News agencies bounce out a sensational piece of news that quickly makes its way around the world. A small Italian car, with a name little known to most, has won the race, leaving behind the big-name favourites.”
Even more remarkable, five of the top eight finishers were OSCAs, the winning car being driven by one S. Moss and B. Lloyd (on the Briggs Cunningham team). The world at large may have needed some time to cotton on to the name OSCA which by then was already old news in Europe and no stranger to winners circles.
Breveglieri’s own 1500.
“It was all my savings and a bit more. But behind the wheel of that car it was like flying.”
If all you knew of this book was its title or dust jacket, what would you be expecting? If you are well-read you would know how the brand fits into the bigger motorsports picture and you would know that the existing literature, being scant and mostly only in Italian and pretty old [1], could use a definitive soup to nuts, cradle to grave treatment. This is not that book, which is not at all meant as criticism but simply to clarify.
Left: that’s a funny-looking car! It’s a hydroplane, duh.
Gold star for penmanship. This table records speeds in each gear.
There are two strong clues on the cover: the use of the word “inside”—pertaining to reminiscences by key players in the story—and the mention of a particular photographer. Both of these factors set this book entirely apart from the rest; and there is at least one more—photographer Walter Breveglieri (1921–2000) actually owned and raced OSCAs in period with serious intent, all the way up to the F1 level (only one race, and a non-championship event at that but still). As a customer, and as a local, Breveglieri was more than friendly with the folks at the OSCA works in Bologna, especially the Brothers Maserati who had started the brand after selling their eponymous auto manufacture to the Orsi family which prohibited them from sticking their own name on any new car, hence Officine Specializzate Costruzione Automobili, OSCA which was active 1947–1967.
Many photos are large; if they weren’t you wouldn’t see see that the driver on the left page is clenching a pipe between his teeth!
Now, if OSCA books had been on your radar, it would have pinged in 2019 and that is because that’s when this very book first appeared, but in Italian, as Dentro l’Osca. Quel miracolo bolognese che seppe stupire il mondo (Minerva Edizioni, 978-8833241869). It is surely no coincidence that that happened to also be the year that the same publisher brought out Walter Breveglieri. Fotografo (978-8833242194), one of several books they have of his work. Its cover image (left) alone tells you something about the man.
Speaking of coincidences, it is a happy one that the English-language edition by Evro can stick to the same page length and layout (similar syntax, vocabulary); not so happy is the increase from €35 to £95 ($120) but then you are now getting a solid hardcover, top-notch photo reproduction on primo paper, and of course Evro had to foot the bill for a really fine translation.
Bittersweet—this is what happens when you can’t use your own name anymore. That said, Fratelli Maserati built OSCAs for just as long as they had initially built cars under their own name.
Almost more important than author Cavicchi (b. 1947) being a long-time and award-winning journalist (also Car of the Year and Car of the Century juror, also a driving force behind the search for the true cause of Ayrton Senna’s fatal 1994 accident [he co-wrote with him the book Senna Vero/The True Senna]) is that he is Italian because it is this shared cultural sensibility that enabled him to have a connection to the employees he interviewed—Mauro Fantuzzi, Martino Avoni, Luciano Rizzoli who talk about their work, drivers, and customers—and also to resist the urge to over-edit their voices and thereby risk loosing authenticity (“their freewheeling recollections do not claim absolute accuracy”) in the name of weeding out overlaps. Kudos also to the translator for being on the same page. The two drivers who contributed are Maria Teresa de Filippis and Stirling Moss. The book has no Index or Bibliography.
Strictly speaking, the text and the photos are on separate tracks, meaning that while some images do happen to fit the texts just so and are laid out accordingly, many more are in stand-alone multi-page sections. Only about 10% of Breveglieri’s 2500 images are used here which means someone—Cavicchi?—had to do not only serious curating but also pick a selection that does justice to both the topic and the photographer’s style. He worked in many more genres than motorsports and it so obvious here that his imagination is engaged by the human condition as much as by cars. Unusual, low angles and wide shots that take in an entire street or paddock scene, or facial expressions that someone else may have put aside as outtakes capture that most ephemeral aspect, ambiance.
Story time. Note the fellow being hoisted up to take a telephone call. Then there’s the cop making to jump on something. Then there’s the cop scratching his chin wondering if he outta do something. Then . . .
Since 2022 there’s been talk that current owner DR Automobiles will revive the OSCA brand “as soon as possible.” No time like the present to read and see how it all started.
- The “newest” book is so new that it’s still not done—if it ever will—even though it was first talked about 20 years ago, OSCA, The Truth And The Rumors by Phillipe Olczyk. He has done a similarly titled book about Porsche and if that is any indication, the OSCA book will also not be an archly historic or comprehensive approach.
Other titles worth tracking down:
- OSCA, la Rivincita dei Maserati by Luigi Orsini & Franco Zagari (Giorgio Nada Editore, 1992)
- Il Cielo Non Ha Preferenze. Osca, Ferrari e Maserati a San Luca 1956–1958 by Carlo Dolicini (Patron Editore, 2004)
Copyright 2025, Sabu Advani (Speedreaders.info
RSS Feed - Comments
Phone / Mail / Email
RSS Feed
Facebook
Twitter