[iicarJohn]

Thank you to "mubezzi" and "rdcm1985" for their knowledge and observations!
Thank you as well to "martinue" who started this thread and for his synopses from which I will attempt to build a bit and add some possible insights. Some repetition may seem to be in order but I will try not to cover too much ground that has already been covered.

As mentioned earlier, I have gathered a few bits of information about some of these cars and am pleased to see bits of information offered by others. We are going to need more if we are to figure some details out. I would welcome input from anyone who has some real insights as to the possibilities offered below.

There is a chance that Giorgio Ubezzi might have been involved in more than one SVZ? There is a chance that he was the nominal "owner" of a car that was raced mostly by others? There are confusions and there may be a few errors in older references that have added to the confusions?

I did do research many years ago on the Torino plate (PRA Torino) that followed the original Milano plate issued for the SV N. 01944. Note that registration documents often do not tell the whole story and, aside from occasional errors, often do not reflect actual sales dates or details as the information recorded is sometimes based merely on declarations. In any case, from that document, it seems that AR1493*01944 was given a Certificato d'Origine on 26 April 1956 and was sold to Massimo Leto di Priolo in Milano. As we know, after crashing badly on the MM of 1956, the car was sent to Zagato and became the first SVZ, spawning additional similar examples and, arguably, perhaps the SZ and GTZ versions that followed. Regardless, Massimo raced the car quite a lot more in the Zagato-bodied configuration but it appears that he was essentially finished with it by late in 1957. It might seem likely (but would be incorrect to assume) that it was sold at about this time to Giorgio Ubezzi even though the sale was not recorded and made official until October of 1959 and the new Torino license issued 15 January 1960. More about this "sale" date will follow after I digress a bit from the Turin registration document information.

It is also possible that the car remained in Leto di Priolo's ownership (as implied by the registration document) and was simply used by other Scuderia Ambrosiana team members and friends including perhaps Ubezzi? A potential confusion is one photo that appears in print indicating that Ubezzi had the "ex-Abate" car. This is either in error or perhaps Ubezzi had two different cars (or the use of them?) at different or overlapping times?

In any case, Ubezzi raced an SVZ on the Rallye Sestriere in February of 1958 and finished 17th overall. I will upload a scan of a results listing from the ACI Notiziario CSAI for the event. I have a Bertazzini photo of an SVZ with Conrero markings on the '58 Sestriere event but am not sure yet it was this car as Abate also ran and finished 12th overall in an SVZ, so Ubezzi was (almost) certainly not in the "Abate" car at this time. The question is, was Ubezzi in 01944?

As an aside, it was an Abarth 750 Zagato Double Bubble that won overall and this was the event that gave name to the subsequent "Sestriere" cars that were built and sold by Abarth. Some of these "Sestriere" cars were "Double Bubble" and some of them were a smooth-roofed variation bodied in steel and having large and distinctive air scoops at the rear. The "Sestriere" version apparently had a specific level of mechanical preparation as there was a specific tipo designation given to the engine used.

Back to the SVZ, 01944: What might be this car with race #8 (listed as "ex Abate" by Alfa Romeo Veloce – The Racing Giuliettas (1989, by Donald Hughes & Vito Witting da Prato) photo on page 28) might perhaps be "Orville" (Jean Aumas) at the GP della Lotteria at Monza in June of 1959? I have not yet sought to confirm or deny this possibility. If it is Aumas, then it might tend to confirm that the car was indeed still owned by Leto di Priolo but was perhaps available for hire at that time? Or, to keep our minds open, it could be that Ubezzi (or another interim but unrecorded owner) rented the car out to others?

Returning to the PRA Torino document, there is the recorded sale date of 16 October 1959 to Ubezzi. In September of 1960, Ubezzi borrowed a significant amount of money against the car and then sold it the following month. The curious thing about this sale is that it is recorded that a certain Attilio Broletto sold the car on behalf of Ubezzi and the new owner was Broletto's wife! I suppose this could jive with "mubezzi" conjecture that the car was lost in a wager or as a gambling debt of some sort? In any case, Broletto's wife (Maria Di Gioia) sold the car in July of 1961 to Valentino Urbani who apparently borrowed some monies from a local bank in order to purchase the car, apparently keeping it in the Torino area.

It is there that the PRA Torino record ends except for a rather typical stamping in the 1980's that the car was essentially removed from the road with what we might call a "cancellazione d'ufficio" in response to an Italian law that demanded that any cars that had not been registered for the road over a certain period of time must be considered demolished.

More to follow?

John de Boer
The Italian Car Registry