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PEGASO TIDBITS PART 1
READING OLD R&T MAGAZINES is like experiencing a time machine, in this case, back to November 1954. Robert C. Goldich’s “The Flying Horses of Barcelona” was about the Pegaso, Spain’s attempt to enter the world of high-end sports cars. Here in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow are tidbits gleaned from this article as well as from modern links concerning Pegaso’s revolutionary Z-102. Quotes following here are those of author Goldich.
Background: “Few people here know that the Pegasus trademark of the E.N.A.S.A. [Empresa Nacional de Autocamiones, Sociedad Anonima] state-owned auto company is on virtually all the trucks and buses of Spain and that these expensive, largely diesel machines are of such advanced design that they are in great demand in other European countries as well.”
Spain at the time under the control of Francisco Franco was a fascistized outlier of European countries, with a rigid import ban that had Pegaso making “such unlikely parts of the car as springs, brake shoes, shocks, steering wheels, even bolts and nuts. Spain simply has no supporting industry.”
The Ricarts, Father and Son. “Señor Wilfredo P. Ricart, managing director and technical chief of the organization along with his son Señor Ricart Jr., is the man principally responsible for the firm’s decision to go into the private car field…. Señor Ricart is well qualified for such a task, being widely known for his design work at Alfa Romeo in the late ’30’s and at the now defunct Spanish Pescara Company before that.”
Señor Villamil. Goldich continues, “My first intimate contact with the Pegaso came in Madrid where I had opportunity of meeting Senor Leopoldo Villamil of the well known Spanish silver family and a number of his fellow members of the Madrid Automobile Club.”
“Senor Villamil has a superleggera coupe by Touring of Milan (there is at least one identical one in the club, and at one time I saw three works-bodied examples parked in front of their building!).”
“I soon learned that Senor Villamil really believed in utilizing the Pegaso’s strength of construction to the utmost. Senor Ricart Jr. later told me dryly that the firm believed having Villamil own their car was an honor indeed but also was as rugged a test as it could get.”
Rugged Indeed. “The car is amazing, particularly the transmission of a unique constant-mesh design, but my conductor’s full-throttle clutchless shifts from 3rd to 4th to 5th with the tach needle bouncing off the 8000 rpm pin really made me wince.”
“ ‘Can’t break it!’ he shouted gleefully as we dodged through the bicyclists and baby carriages of the public park the club members favor for their fast testing—over a hundred miles an hour uphill on a pave with brakes alternately squealing, horn blaring and the rear-mounted transmission grunting an obligato to the four-cam engine’s screech. Bull fighting is clearly for sissies.”
Alas, so it would seem, walks in the park were clearly not.
Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll share Pegaso tidbits from other interesting sources. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023
Simanaitis Says 
Gad, Dennis!
You keep digging up my secret weaknesses and all but forgotten memories!
Barely in my teens in Pacific Beach, I had just been exposed to sporty cars by our Porsche owning dentist and went to a local ‘art theater’ … in those pre-Bridget Bardot days, showing foreign produced films that you could tell your mother about.
Saw “Spanish Affair” in which architect lead sported around in an exotic roadster with an even more exotic sultry babe!
I was so taken I got a projectionist friend to snip a good frame and had it printed. I identified it as a Pegaso. Researching, I found that one had claimed to make a 400 mile run on narrow Spanish roads, averaging over 100 km/hr!
From then on, it was a dream car to me, making plebian Porsches, Jags and 300SLs pale by comparison.