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Benoît Musy: aviator, motorcycle and automobile racer

Name: Maserati 200 SI 1956
Brand: Maserati

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Created on August 10, 2011

Text:

Bernhard Brägger

Photos:

Archiv Bernhard Brägger

Musy Benoit on his Maserati 300S at the 1956 race in Portugal

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Musy Benoit on the Maserati 300S at the race in Oulton Park (England) in 1955

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Pierre Musy - Olympic bobsleigh champion in 1936 - the brother of Benoît, the racing driver

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Summary

Benoît Musy's racing career lasted less than ten years. In 1947, he began to live out his speed instinct on a factory Moto Guzzi. Six-time Swiss champion on 250cc and 500cc machines. Winner of Grand Prix races, winner in Casablanca in North Africa and Sao Paulo in South America. But he also won national circuit races, such as in Regensdorf in Zurich and Erlen in Thurgau. In 1954, the Gruyère native switched from two to four wheels. And Musy was fast straight away. Very fast. Victories in Francorchamps, at the "Grand Prix des Frontières" in Chimay, at the "British Empire Trophy" in Oulton Park. Musy always remained loyal to the Maserati brand. First the 2-liter A6-AGCS, then the 3-liter 300 S and finally the 2-liter 200S/1500S - the ill-fated car in Montlhéry.

This article contains the following chapters

Fribourg and its great racing drivers
Benoît Musy, the motorcycle racer
Benoît Musy, the car racing driver
Monthléry, the accident

Estimated reading time: 6min

Preview (beginning of the article)

"Benoit Musy killed in an accident" was the headline in a morning edition of the "Bund" shortly after October 7, 1956. I can see it in front of me as if it were yesterday. The Musy family was a household name to me as a fourteen-year-old: Benoît, the car and motorcycle racer, Pierre, the bobsledder and Olympic champion in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, and the father, the former Federal Councillor. I stared in shock at the photomontage: in the foreground the totally destroyed Maserati, behind it on the right the concrete construction of the steep bend at Monthléry and, beyond its upper edge, the trajectory of the racing car.

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