Meet the mighty Beast of Turin

0 0 March 06, 2026 Edit this post

by Bill Buys

WHO, in the world of motoring, has not heard of the Beast of Turin?

Everyone at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed in recent years will certainly never forget the deafening bellow from its flame-spitting 28.4-litre engine, nor forget the sight of the tall, bull-nosed Italian beauty of 1911.

It’s the mighty Fiat S76, in its day the fastest car in the world and capable of speeds in excess of 130mph (210km/h).

There’s a special race for the so-called Edwardian Leviathans, when about 20 contemporary machines take to the track, but the Beast is hard to miss: it’s the biggest and noisiest of the lot.

The fact it’s there is testament to English classic car enthusiast Duncan Pittaway.

"I saw a picture of this funny-looking car in one of my father’s books when I was a child, and it always stuck in my mind," he said.

Once he’s focused on a particular car, he sets his mind in acquiring it – he has a few other rarities too.

But the Beast was a serious challenge. Once he found all the bits and pieces, he spent 13 years restoring it.

Fiat built only two S76s in 1910, specifically to beat the land speed record then held by the Blitzen Benz.

Its 28.4-litre four-cylinder engine with two spark plugs per cylinder delivered 210kW of power.

It had a four-speed transmission, with double chain-drive to the rear wheels and hit a verified top speed of 132.27 mph (213km/h) at Ostend, Belgium.

Of the two built, Fiat retained one and the second was snapped up by Prince Boris Soukhanov, of Russia, who hired professional drivers to set the speed record.

Along came WWI and at the end of it, Fiat dismantled the first one to prevent rivals from copying their technology.

The other somehow ended up in Australia, where some reports say it was rebuilt, fitted with a Stutz engine, and raced and crashed by someone in Armadale.

Boris Soukhanov kept it until 1914 – after that the trail went cold, says Pittaway.

"By 1914 the Russian aristocracy realised the writing was on the wall and the revolution was coming.

"Many of them fled with their cash and possessions and it’s often hard to find out where they went because they didn’t want to be found."

He also believes the car probably made its way to Australia during WW1.

"Australia was an extremely wealthy country at the time because it was producing food and raw materials for the armies that were fighting on the Western Front and elsewhere.

"Between 1910 and 1918, for example, Rolls-Royce sold more Silver Ghosts in Australia than anywhere else in the world."

It was lucky for him that the S76 had ended up where it was.

"Because of the climate, enough remained to make restoration a possibility. If it had been lying in a hedge in Herefordshire it would have been compost by the time I got to it.

"It had been in a crash, so there was a bent and rusty chassis with axles, steering, wheels, pedals and levers."

Pittaway shipped the remains back to the UK, but for several years he was left wondering what to do next, reluctant to begin restoring it because the S76 was missing a key part – its enormous engine.

"Without that, the car somehow didn’t have enough heart, so I put out the word to people I knew saying I needed one.

A solution finally emerged from Fiat itself. The engine of the second S76 had survived; it was found tucked away in a warehouse in Fiat’s giant industrial estate.

There followed a painstaking process of restoring chassis and engine and bringing the pair together successfully, culminating in the ear-shattering moment when that mighty engine came back to life.

"It’s easy to forget that the S76 was originally built in 1910," he said.

"Everything else you see from that period is so different. They look like something out of the 19th century, but the Fiat, with its serious attempt at streamlining, looks as though it belongs in the 21st century.

"It must have looked like a spaceship to people in 1911."

"The truth is it wasn’t a big, heavy lumbering thing. It was timed at 136mph – faster than the fastest aeroplane of the day."

The S76’s original bodywork was lost to history, so Pittaway had the aluminium skin re-created using company drawings and in-period photographs.

The Beast looks much like angelfish on wheels.

In profile, it’s comically bulky; from head-on, its body is only 70cm wide at its thickest and with its tapered tail and the sculpted radiator surround, daringly streamlined.

To get an idea of the engine size, consider that each of the S76’s four cylinders has more capacity than an entire Ford or Chevy big-block V8.

The Beast is a racing car, but Pittaway has driven it on public roads many times.

There is no fuel gauge and the tank holds only 38 litres so on the 230km trip from his house to Goodwood, Pittaway has to stop for petrol 11 times.

By the time station attendants register the horror of the Beast spitting flames at the pump, he is usually gone.

And when you see and hear that 28.4-litre inline-four run, with each power stroke individually recognisable and flame, spark, and smoke blasting from its two rectangular exhaust stubs, you will know why it’s called the Beast of Turin.