Stanguellini Formula Junior

Chassis S-0130, Engine 55911, ex-Giacomo "Geki" Russo

Text taken from display plaque beside car at Brooklands

In 1959, a teenager saw an unknown driver win a Formula Junior race in a Stanguellini. Many years later, the car became available and the young man of 1959 was an automotive engineer. He bought the Stanguellini, which was totally original, and had it rebuilt to the highest standards. It was a labour of love.

The original Stanguellini FJ car was often said to be a Maserati 250F in miniature, down to Borrani wire wheels. That was natural because the Stanguellini was the work of Ing.Alberto Massimino who, with Ginacchino Colombo, had been responsible for the 250F.

The first driver of this car was Giacomo Russo who, like many drivers of the day, raced under a pseudonym for family or business reasons. Russo chose "Geki" and it was as "Geki" that he won the 1960 Italian Formula Junior Championship and the 1964 Italian Formula Three title. He twice ran in the Italian GP alongside Jim Clark in Team Lotus, and delivered respectable performances, and he also raced Alfa Romeos T2s and T33s for Autodelta. "Geki" had come to racing relatively late in life, but seemed destined for a fine career in endurance racing when, in 1967, he was killed in a freak accident not of his making.

"Geki" entered the Stanguellini in 29 events, 1959-1961, and took eight wins, eight seconds and two third places. In 1960 he was an outstanding second in the Monaco Grand Prix support race.

"Geki" sold the car to Giancarlo Malso who placed it in the top three in half of the ten races he entered. Not once did the car fail to finish in the 39 events in which it ran. Then it was stored, untouched, for 16 years in a garage, whereupon it was acquired by the vendor.

The new owner had it race prepared by the Benanni Team, who had ran the car for "Geki". The process took two years - it was a rebuild, not a restoration - and the car emerged as perhaps the finest early Formula Junior machine in the world. world. It still has its original scrutineering tags and ballast weights.

In 1982 it was the first car to receive an FIA Historic "passport" and was subsequently raced, with success, in a handful of Historic events. For much of the 1990s it was exhibited in the Monza museum.