Solved NIC#680 - 1954 VM (Tatra engine) by Viglielmo Matozza

[nicanary]

This will either be solved very quickly, or reach the Pros.

What is this car?

[nicanary]

Experts?

[tobytwirl]

is it an LTE?

[Willie McCrum]

Belgian ?

[nicanary]

It's not an LTE, nor Belgian, but it's main claim to fame occurred in that country.

[Willie McCrum]

In my mind there's some connection to Chimay, but there's nothing else coming through at the moment......

[nicanary]

In my mind there's some connection to Chimay, but there's nothing else coming through at the moment......

Keep thinking along those lines.

[D-type]

Is it perhaps a supercharged DB-Panhard?

[Willie McCrum]

The initials VM came through in my morning tea leaves....I think that's as far as I'm going to get though, unless I stumble across whatever I stumbled across before...er...again, if you see what I mean.

[nicanary]

The initials VM came through in my morning tea leaves....I think that's as far as I'm going to get though, unless I stumble across whatever I stumbled across before...er...again, if you see what I mean.

It's not a DB, because it's the VM!!  Your morning tea is full of surprises, Willie. Somehow you dredged that up from the back of your mind.

I only asked "What is this car?" so I suppose you get the point for that. It was built by Viglielmo Matozza using a rear-mounted Tatra engine and looks an awful lot like the Tatra F1 car which is well documented.  So much so that I have wondered whether it's the same car, but sources say it was influenced by the works car. The record books show one entry for the car - the 1954 GP des Frontieres at Chimay. Matozza turned up ill-prepared and worked on the car overnight before practice. He slept in his support vehicle and missed practice, so was unable to race. All very sad.

I had never seen a photo of the car until very recently, when this puzzle picture appeared in another well-known website. It's from a local paper issued at the time of the race. That's why I claimed the puzzle could be easy - it depends which sites you lurk on.