An unknown brand hailing from fascist Franco's backward and isolated Spain caused jaws to drop at the 1951 Paris motor show when it unveiled a Grand Touring car brimming with F1 technology: a free-breathing, four-cam V-8; a rear-mounted, motorcycle-style five-speed transaxle capable of clutchless shifting; and four-wheel torsion-bar suspension with a unique leading-arm De Dion axle at the rear. It was Ferrari-trumping tech while Enzo was still building his road-car business, and it was conceived by the gifted (and somewhat arrogant) engineer responsible for driving Enzo Ferrari out of a cushy job running Alfa Romeo's racing program and into business for himself. So who knows -- if not for Don Wilfredo P. Ricart and the car you see here, the Ferraris we know and love today might never have come to be.

Ricart got his industrial engineering degree in 1918, and by 1920 he was doing business as Sociedad Anónima de Motores Ricart-Pérez, designing and manufacturing industrial engines. Two years later he went racing with a naturally aspirated, 1.5-liter DOHC 16-valve twin-spark four-cylinder engine that made a heady 58 hp. Mounted in a lightweight voiturette, it won its second race. In the later '20s, Ricart entered the road car business, first as Motores y Automóviles Ricart and then as Ricart-España. Lack of credit and political unrest eventually scuppered that concern, and when Franco's army invaded Spain in 1936, Ricart decamped to Italy for a consulting job with Alfa Romeo designing diesel engines.

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Management was impressed, and soon Ricart was promoted to technical advisor on the managing director's staff, where he began designing engines for aircraft and racing as well. Many were extremely complicated -- like his four-bank radial 24-cylinder aircraft engine and his Type 162 64-valve V-16 engine, with two carburetors and three-stage supercharging via five different compressors. Enzo Ferrari was so riled by Ricart's input on the racing program that the hot-headed Italian eventually made (and lost) an it's-him-or-me ultimatum.

Ricart may have won the Alfa battle, but events conspired to prevent his high-concept engineering from ever seeing production or racing glory. The advanced mid-engine race car with the V-16 crashed while its dodgy handling was being sorted, killing the driver. World War II and its aftermath stymied most of his other ambitious designs, including one for a flagship called the 6C-2000 Gazella, featuring an advanced monocoque chassis, a 2.0-liter I-6, and a rear transaxle with suspension by transverse torsion bars that was deemed too expensive to tool up for in Alfa's badly damaged factories, so the prewar 6C-2500 continued instead.

When his contract expired in 1945, Don Wilfredo returned to his native Barcelona and was offered a lucrative job with Studebaker, only to turn it down when the president of the Instituto Nacional de Industria (formed in 1941 to rebuild Spain's Civil War-torn industrial base) invited him to establish a Center of Technical Studies of Transport. That entity's job was to plot Spain's return to car and truck manufacturing.

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Step one was to launch a truck manufacturing concern called ENASA (headed by Ricart and located in the former Hispaño-Suiza factory) to put the country's industrial renaissance on Spanish wheels. For step two, Ricart sold his bosses -- including Generalissimo F. Franco -- on the merits of building an expensive, state-of-the-art car incorporating all his wildest engineering dreams. His argument was that it could serve as a teaching platform to hone ENASA workers' machining and manufacturing skills, with the high selling price paying for said training. Franco initially wanted the car to be a limousine ambassadors could use to impress their foreign hosts (and indeed a 4.4-liter V-12-powered Z-101 sedan design was sketched up), but Ricart prevailed in pushing through a Ferrari-fighting GT coupe and roadster.

Design work commenced in 1950, incorporating many Gazella features and an engine that looked like half of his Alfa V-16, with four gear-driven camshafts running in needle bearings, sodium-filled exhaust valves, hemispherical combustion chambers, a nitrided crankshaft, and dry-sump lubrication with oil filters mechanically swept clean with every press of the clutch pedal. By September 1951, five cars were completed and offered for sale, with a 3-year unconditional warranty! Named Pegaso, after the winged horse of Greek mythology, the Z-102 absolutely stole the 1951 Paris show. After all, who would choose a prancing horse over a winged one?

The car bristled with innovation. To ensure balanced weight distribution and a high polar moment for good handling, the transaxle was located behind the ZF-licensed limited-slip differential, between twin saddlebag fuel tanks. That transaxle employed its own oil pump, featured five ratios (when three or four were the norm), and utilized motorcycle-like dog-clutch "crash box" engagement so experienced drivers only needed the clutch for initial launch.

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Rear suspension was via a de Dion tube that arced over the front of the diff and was linked to transverse torsion bars above the trans. This tube was located laterally by a ball and roller that ran in a channel on the body-mounted differential, and longitudinally by long diagonal leading links that met at a single point at the far rear of the chassis. Front geometry was the typical unequal-length control arms (forged and magnafluxed), with the lower ones pivoted by longitudinal torsion bars. The brake system featured separate front and rear brake circuits -- common now, but unheard of in the day -- with huge ventilated aluminum-finned drums, inboard at the rear to reduce unsprung weight. Unassisted worm-and-sector steering was geared for 1.7 turns lock-to-lock -- a handful at low speeds, but at least the column telescoped 3.5 inches, so the driver could adjust it for maximum leverage.

To maximize the training value (and because Spain had absolutely no indigenous automotive supplier base), ENASA made almost every Pegaso part, including nuts and bolts. Exceptions were the Weber carbs, Borrani wheels, Bosch ignition, some Lockheed brake parts, and Pirelli tires, though even these were molded in Spain. This certainly makes that short development time and 3-year warranty seem all the more impressive. It should also be noted that the four-cam engine was offered in three displacements (2.5, 2.8, and 3.2 liters), with four compression ratios to suit countries with lower-quality fuel, and with a choice of carburetion ranging from one two-barrel, two four-barrels, or four two-barrels. The top competition engines received single or twin (sequential) supercharging. Output ranged from 128 to 355 hp.

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Then, at the 1955 Paris show, Ricart introduced a new engine that aimed to reduce cost and complexity by swapping high-strung overhead cams for big-lunged displacement with pushrod-actuated overhead valves good for 5800 rpm. It retained the hemi-head, all-aluminum construction and sodium-filled exhaust valves, and picked up twin-plug ignition. Three displacements were planned (3.9, 4.5, 4.7 liters) with the usual array of carbs and supercharging culminating in one reportedly capable of 350 hp and 170 mph. Only two were installed in Pegaso coupes, as they were intended for a higher-volume five-seat sedan that was widely publicized.

Ricart knew only too well that generating real respect required more than press accolades, so ENASA took the Pegaso racing in 1952, and found success in hill climbs and rally events (winning 10 of the former and five of the latter outright in five years), but the Pegaso had less luck in higher-profile road races. Two supercharged 2.8-liter cars were sent to Le Mans in '52, but were withdrawn weeks in advance after testing revealed weakness in the cam-drive. Tests at Monaco shortly thereafter revealed braking and oil system problems, forcing another withdrawal. A 1953 assault on Le Mans was complicated by a fire that destroyed the two aero-optimized race cars, each equipped with compound-supercharged 2.5-liter engines. They were replaced by standard roadsters with single-compressor 2.8-liter engines. One, being driven by Spain's top driver, Juan Jover, crashed severely and he later died from his injuries. The other was retired with brake problems, though not before recording a 143.6-mph top speed on the Hunaudières straight. Another crash ended a promising run at the Carrera Panamericana in 1954.

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Top speed would become a Pegaso claim to fame for a brief moment, but here again the team was dogged by bad luck. A special aerodynamically optimized "Bisiluro" or catamaran record car was built, featuring a narrow greenhouse for the driver on the extreme right of the car that tapered to a stabilizing tailfin, with a similar fin on the left side. In trials, the compound-supercharged 2.5-liter engine blew when spark-plug troubles holed two pistons. (Clearly, short duration and lower-stress events like hill climbs and rallies better suited the Pegaso.) Desperate to set a record, the team brought the blown 2.8-liter roadster that had retired from Le Mans to Jabbeke, Belgium, where Celso Fernández set four records on September 25, 1953, the fastest of which was 151.042 mph in the flying kilometer. Jaguar had held these records with its XK120, and the Brits wasted no time returning weeks later with a "mildly" modified XK140 to set a new 172.411-mph best in the flying mile.

So let's grant that perhaps the Pegaso's stout chassis and supple suspension were best suited to Grand Touring across Spain's dodgy road network -- and to making a splash at concours events in the day. The latter was especially true of the Pegasos that wore coachwork by firms like Barcelona's own Carrocero Serra, Paris' Saoutchik, or Touring of Milan. The last got the bulk of the business, thanks to the personal relationship Ricart engendered with founder Felice Bianchi Anderloni during his time in Italy. It was largely Touring's various coupes and spyders, penned by Federico Formenti, that defined Pegaso's corporate identity.

Our subject vehicle was the 72nd Pegaso of 86 officially built between 1951 and 1956 (another was assembled from spare parts in 1962), and it features Touring's later Panoramica windshield, with Yankee-style reverse-raked A-pillars on the revised Z-103 chassis. This example served as an auto show model, displayed on the Turin and Paris stands in 1956 without an engine. Later that year it received an engine and was loaned to race car driver Romero Requejo while his racing Pegaso was repaired. It was returned to the factory and thoroughly refurbished for sale in 1958 to its first official owner, Florentino de Lecanda Arrarte, who registered it in Bilbao. His name and license plate number, the one still shown on the car, are inscribed on a plate in the engine compartment.

Over the next 14 years, number 72 was repainted red, transported to the U.S., and, along with a Saoutchik-bodied coupe, wound up in the hands of a doctor in California. Both were looking pretty rough when a local teenager named Jeff Vopal learned of their existence. Jeff had discovered and fallen in love with the Pegaso brand, and eventually cajoled his parents Jack and Vi into buying the pair for $6000 in 1972. Father and son planned to restore the cars and show them at Pebble Beach as soon as Jeff finished college and got established, but one thing or another put the project off until it was too late. In 1992, Jeff was diagnosed with lymphoma, and passed away later that year.

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A year later, the Vopals reluctantly returned to Pebble Beach for the annual concours, where they learned that Pegaso was to be a featured marque the following year. Jack and son-in-law Karl Baker decided to clean the Touring car up enough to show, in Jeff's honor. Despite never having restored a car, Karl dove right in, treating it like "a $3000 used European car," albeit one for which absolutely no spare or NOS parts exist. Fortunately, Karl is handy with machine tools, and he bought a machine shop that year to help fabricate all the parts that were too far gone to restore -- things like the taillamps, the vertical grille bar, the muffler, etc. (Karl has since produced precision parts for the Opportunity and Spirit Mars landers.) Just 51 weeks later, the fully restored Z-102 drove onto the 18th green. Since then it's won more than 80 awards and made a pilgrimage home to Barcelona for a cultural exposition in 2001.

Today Karl exercises the car in events like the Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance -- and for photo shoots like this one. Such use has revealed a weakness in the exhaust valve guides, which are letting a lot of oil into the cylinders today and suppressing the insect population. The vibrations from a morning's worth of shooting has also caused the idle set screws to back themselves out of the Weber dual-quads, so before my turn at the helm, Karl runs them back in.

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The warm engine starts easily and settles into a cacophony of gear noise, exhaust rap, and intake whoosh unmuffled by any sort of air cleaner (as delivered from the factory). Period reports describing it as "a staggering noise machine" were not hyperbole. Ten minutes driving around the grounds of Santa Barbara's Grayholm Estate had neighbors complaining, but the soundtrack does heighten the sensation of speed, which, given the tallish gearing in first, might otherwise have seemed modest. Smooth launches demand throttle and clutch slippage, and the shift pattern is a backward dogleg with first down and to the right and fifth up by your right knee. The linkage isn't hyperprecise, so finding second involves palming the stick out of first and letting the detent spring line it up with the 2-3 gate. Karl requests I double-clutch it, rather than crash-boxing as drivers did back when parts were available. Ride quality seems rather abrupt, given that so many reviewers in the day praised its supple rough-road ride, but the quick-ratio steering makes the car feel eager to reel in corners and the firm pedal of the dual-circuit brake system inspires confidence to charge into them hard.

As the car clicks and cools after my brief run, I admire the high-quality craftsmanship that certainly seems on par with that of a contemporary Bentley R Type Continental or Mercedes Gullwing, though the Pegaso was more expensive. Evidence of its handbuilt nature are everywhere -- from front fenders that are not perfectly symmetrical left and right, to the fact that the many winged horse emblems around the car all differ slightly.

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By the late 1950s, Ricart's "jewels for the rich" had served their instructional purpose. Don Wilfredo would have loved nothing better than to continue making cars -- a Z-104 sedan was on the drawing boards and was promoted to the press (inspiring an eight-page story in the December 1959 issue of Motor Trend's Sports Car Graphic). But the truth was, truck and bus production was bursting at the seams and required ENASA's full attention, so the automotive operations were quietly shuttered. In 1959 Ricart resigned as CEO, resuming his freelance and consulting career. (The bulk of the truck business was sold to Iveco in 1990.)

It's fun to ponder how different today's supercar landscape might look if Don Wilfredo had never gone to Italy; if Alfa had chosen to keep Enzo; or if Pegaso had continued pressing Ferrari on the technological front throughout the '60s and '70s. Instead, we have but 60-some survivors being preserved by gifted restorers like Karl Baker and making cameo appearances in movies like "Cars 2."

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ASK THE MAN WHO RESTORED ONE

Karl Baker studied electronics engineering while working construction jobs to put himself through college, only to discover that he preferred mechanical pursuits. When his in-laws acquired their two Pegasos and undertook a year-long restoration of the Panoramica, Karl jumped right in.

WHY I LIKE IT: "The complexity; the level of engineering required to put this thing together was just extraordinary. That's what really excites me about this car."

WHY IT'S COLLECTIBLE: Wilfredo Ricart delivered 86 Spanish supercars, very few exactly alike, but all bristling with F1 technology and aimed squarely at archrival Enzo's Ferraris -- that's a recipe for extreme collectibility.

RESTORING/MAINTAINING: Be prepared to machine, cast, or mold every replacement part from scratch, so having access to a complete car from which to copy said parts is crucial. Glass, the crankshaft, and a few other things are nearly impossible to replicate, so if these are gone, forget it.

BEWARE: The fuel pump, driven off the right intake cam, used a leather seal that can leak gasoline into the oil and kill an engine quickly. Timing the cam-drive geartrain requires a clocksmith's patience and precision.

EXPECT TO PAY: Concours-ready, $944,000; solid driver, $755,000; tired runner, $444,000. (Source: Hagerty Price Guide)

JOIN THE CLUB: Seven of the 60 surviving Pegasos reside in California, but there is no club at the moment.

OUR TAKE

THEN: "From the fierce-looking grille to the abruptly curved rear panel, the Pegaso gives an immediate impression of ruggedness, fully capable of mastering the open highway in the hands of a driver who wants a man's car." -- Walt Woron, Motor Trend, April 1955