Classic car whisperer Ernst Chalupa passes away
09/16/2018
The classic car scene has lost one of its most famous names. Ernst Chalupa died at the age of 66 on Thursday, August 30, 2018 in Lugano.
Chalupa was on the road as a supervisor for a customer at a classic car competition in Switzerland when he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. He was taken to Lugano by rescue helicopter, where he unfortunately did not wake up after being in a coma for days.
Hardly anyone knew as much about old British cars as he did, and hardly anyone could push an ancient car to its limits like he could. His company "Fast & Vintage" in Möllersdorf near Vienna is the first port of call for repairs and restorations of Lagonda, Bentley, Talbot, Lea Francis and other exotic cars. Ernst Chalupa knew them down to the last screw, he was a kind of "classic car whisperer", one of those mechanics who could tell more from the sound of an engine alone than a modern diagnostic device would reveal.
Based on his test drives in a pre-war classic car, before the first Ennstal and Planai Classic we sounded out what we could trust in the sheet metal of the early years - including up the Stoderzinken, where Ernst Chalupa set a time in a Ford A model that nobody has driven to this day ...
Incidentally, his father Josef was one of the most successful sand track racers in Austria. He started as early as 1934 in the Vienna Krieau and in 1939 in the Vienna Höhenstraßen race, and after the war he was one of the best in the Kamper-Dirtl era.
Ernst Chalupa prepared the Lagonda in which Alexander Deopito became the overall winner of the Ennstal-Classic in 2017, which also demonstrates his expertise.
The Ennstal-Classic has lost a true friend. Our condolences go to his wife Ingrid and daughter Katharina.
