Itala 1904-1934 - Victory reference
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Summary
There were around 10,000 car brands and designers - most of them have disappeared. Itala is one of these lost brands. The brand became famous through the Peking-Paris race, which it won. There were successful racing entries for Itala and revolutionary racing car projects were realized...until 1935 when the end came.
Estimated reading time: 3min
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Itala's fame is focused on a sporting success: on August 10, 1907, an Itala 35/45 hp was the first to arrive in Paris after a 16,000 km forced journey from Peking and was welcomed by a huge crowd with pomp and fanfare. The race across Asia, organized by the newspaper "Le Matin", was completed in 60 days by Prince Scipione Borghese, mechanic Ettore Guizzardi and reporter Luigi Barzini; they were celebrated as heroes, and Barzini's book "Peking-Paris in an Automobile" became a long seller. Matteo Ceirano had founded the Ceirano brand with his brother in 1901, but from 1904 he built robust touring cars based on the Mercedes model at his Itala Fabbrica Automobili SA, Turin. Under chief engineer Alberto Balloco, he produced four and six-cylinder models with displacements of up to 15 liters, opposed valves and cardan drive.
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