Une bolide mystérieuse au Massachusetts

Hi Peter,

There is a Charlie Chaplin comedy short based on the Little Tramp encountering this car or a similar model. It is very funny but I cannot tell you its name. This sketch was silent and pre-First World War. Charlie tries to impress a pretty young lady by hand-cranking the car but is unable to do so. A handsome young man appears and easily starts the car with the crank handle, smiles and nods to the young lady who promptly gets into the car and they drive off at speed leaving the Little Tramp disconsolate.

The young man may be the race driver Bruce-Brown but I am not sure.

Many of the early Los Angeles comedy sketches were made on the fly and this is probably one of those. The Little Tramp is a developed character when this was shot so it is not very early. The Little Tramp began with a oversized jacket and very tight trousers unlike the final realisation of tight jacket and baggy pants.

F.I.A.T. certainly brought a team of race cars over to compete in the Long Island races and elsewhere and one of the drivers was Vincenzo Lancia.

I'm still recovering from the Polymyalgia Rheumatica I contracted 14 months ago.

Cheers,
Bruce.

Thanks all for the comments and clarifications, I knew you lot would be able to crack this nut in no-time.
And it's great to learn that the car survives, too!

FIAT S74 seen here at Goodwood Festival of Speed

This is a photograph of the FIAT taken in 1962 at George Waterman's home, while he was still alive. In the first issue of Automobile Quarterly.

The Fiat S74 that belonged to the late George Waterman. Waterman purchased it in 1936. The wheels were changed because he could not get tires but the original wheels were preserved and are on the car right now. It was featured in an exhibit titled "The Vintage Racing Car" at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970. The picture is from the exhibit catalog. Around 1973 I saw it at the Waterman home.

The listed provenance is:
Caleb S. Bragg (1911-1914)
Vincent Astor (1914-1936)
George H. Waterman (1936-

Raceland, not Graceland. Yes, VMCCA meets were held there in the early days, before WWII.

Might it have been connected with the Lars Anderson collection ?
Jim Mead
Owego, NY

It's a FIAT S.74, probably from 1911, with a 14.1 litre SOHC 4 cylinder engine.

Fiat S 61 or possibly S 74 but only seven of the latter were made.

Surely its a Fiat S74 Grand Prix car of 1911-1912, an example of which resides in the USA today.
Americans David Bruce-Brown and Ralph de Palma raced them in period.

Esay one: The Fiat S74, on American 1920s wheels

FIAT - same car Bruce-Brown raced at Dieppe on June 20 1912.

It looks like George Wingard's Fiat S74

The 1940 video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ETu-SieQ8&t=149s. A vehicle looking very much like this one appears on the starting grid at 2:29 and is glimpsed briefly racing at 2:40.
There is color video of the 1939 event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFu031seK4s. This car appears racing at about 14:28-15:20 head to head with what appears to be a Vanderbilt Renault.

Taken at Graceland in Framingham, Massachusetts, venue for the Motor Car Club of America's first meeting in 1939? There is video of the 1940 event on YouTube, which includes a brief glimpse of a monster car like this one.