ELVIRA TELLS

Wifredo Pelayo Ricart, the Spanish designer

14 September, 2017

"Among the projects by Eng. Wifredo Ricart never realized there is also a racing sedan that, if it had been built, would have been a revolutionary car, anticipating very modern construction concepts".

Wifredo Pelayo Ricart started working at Alfa Romeo as a consultant in 1936, but his name only appeared on the company payroll in October 1937, a month after Vittorio Jano's release. It was therefore, surprisingly, a Spanish engineer, originally from Barcelona, the successor of the Turin-based designer.

Everyone was convinced that the assignment would go to Gioachino Colombo. Among the projects of Eng. Wifredo Ricart never realized there is also a racing sedan that, if it had been built, would have been a revolutionary car, forerunner of very modern construction concepts: an extremely aerodynamic sports car with rear engine. In 1941 Ricart and his team designed the Tipo 163, a racing berlinetta for the Sport category with a 3-litre engine.


 

The bodywork was closed with covered wheels to improve the aerodynamic effect. In December 1945 it still appears in a separate list of the existing experimental racing and sports cars and is described as follows: "type 163 car, internal drive, incomplete and waiting to be completed, in storage in Orta (one of the decentrals set up to escape the bombing of Milan).
This is the last document available in the Alfa Romeo Historical Archive on the Type 163. This prototype was never mentioned again except sporadically in a few automotive magazines.

Only Griffith Borgeson, in his book "Alfa Romeo Tradition", published in 1990, outlines the figure of Ricart in depth and dwells more than the others on the "lost" 163.

Returning to Ricart, it must be said that his period in Alfa Romeo coincided with a dramatic historical moment; but his intelligence and his ability to accomplish, together with those of his collaborators and supported by the "mind" of Alfa, engineer Ugo Gobbato, knew how to react to the destruction of the war, casting a hopeful glance towards the future, that future which would see much of what had been thought but which it had not been possible to produce then.

Elvira Ruocco, historical memory of Alfa Romeo, thanks to her more than twenty years of experience at the Alfa Romeo Centro di Documentazione Storica, has become part of the Museum team and in the column "Elvira Racconta" she will share curiosities and anecdotes that you may not know or remember. We will retrace the legendary history of Alfa Romeo with her.