Interwoven stories
02/27/2022
On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, I interviewed the well-known Swiss racing mechanic Edi Wyss (book tip: The Swiss Wiz) as part of the Autohalle fireside chat. The two dozen or so participants listened intently to Wyss, who humbly reviewed his career and his insights. An impressive evening!
Incidentally, it was also Wyss who shared his experiences as a racing mechanic in the magazine "Powerslide" 60 years ago.
Without too much experience, Edi Wyss had hired on with Jo Bonnier in the second half of the sixties after completing his training in order to get into racing. It worked out and soon the 25-year-old Swiss rider found himself in the middle of the race preparations with his tools.
When asked where he had learned to work on racing cars, Edi Wyss told me about a sports car project that had been pursued in the Zurich area in 1960/1961.
I didn't have to think long, as I had recently written a report on the Edra II sports car for SwissClassics Revue (picture above).
André de Reynier had built two Spiders with his buddy Hansruedi Ehrensperger and a team of knowledgeable mechanics/helpers at the time between the "dung heap and the shed" on the basis of his own tubular frame, a self-laminated plastic body and many Fiat/Nardi parts. And racing enthusiast Edi Wyss was on site at the age of 18 to hand-race. He traveled the 20 kilometers or so on his bike.
You can read the full story about the Edra II sports car in SwissClassics Revue 90-2/2022 , which will appear on newsstands after mid-March 2022.
