Alfa Romeo 308

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum featured this Alfa Romeo 308 in a special “From the Vault” exhibit at the 2019 PRI (Performance Racing Industry) show in Indianapolis Indiana,  an unusual car with a colorful history. 

This car, one of four built in the Milan factory, is powered by a supercharged 2.99 liter (182 cubic inch) eight-cylinder inline engine was designed by Gioacchino Colombo built for the 1938 Grand Prix season.  

After the season ended the 308 was sold to French racer Raymond Sommer. Sommer, who had raced in the United States in the 1936 George Vanderbilt Cup race, used this 308 to win several hill climbs and a street race in 1939 before he sold the car to a pair of Americans in early 1940 as he enlisted as a private in the French army.

The car was brought to the United States via the Italian liner the SS Rex by its new owners, Richard T Wharton and Thomas W Dewart, who were described as “young wealthy New York sportsmen” and officers with the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), an amateur sports car racing club. Wharton’s mother was a Standard Oil heiress, while Dewart’s father was the publisher of the New York Sun newspaper.

This historic photo shows Deacon Litz in the Richard Wharton Maserati  

on the inside of the last row on the pace lap before the start of the 1939 Indy 500 

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

The previous year, Wharton had entered one of three  Maserati V8RI racers (a total of four were built) entered at Indianapolis in 1939.  Wharton’s silver car that carried number 52 was driven by veteran Pennsylvania driver Artha “Deacon” Litz in the 1939 International 500-Mile Sweepstakes.

“Deacon,” who weighed a plump 225 pounds, qualified with a four-lap average of 117.979 MPH (miles per hour) for his twelfth consecutive ‘500’ start.  Litz qualified for the 31st position and he shared the final row with Harry McQuinn and Billy DeVore. Unfortunately, only seven laps after the start of the 1939 Decoration Day classic, the Maserati, chassis number 4502, was forced into pits with mechanical troubles.

The crew worked over the Maserati V-8 engine for fifteen minutes until the car was retired with “valve trouble,” and placed last. After repairs, Wharton reportedly later drove the Maserati in ARCA events, including a race that was held in conjunction with the 1940 New York World’s Fair.  

Wharton and Dewart initially pursued Tazio Nuvolari to reunite with the Alfa-Romeo 308 for the 1940 Indianapolis 500-mile race, but in early May they hired veteran driver Clarence “Chet” Miller who had raced in ten consecutive 500-mile races at Indianapolis since 1930. Miller left the Boyle team to drive for the new team with their Italian machine.

Miller who had driven the last four 500-miles races in front-wheel drive machines for Mike Boyle, told an interviewer “I have driven front drives for the past four years and become accustomed to the handling. Going into a rear-drive of conventional American racing design, while I felt I could go fast with it, I would be under a strain throughout and would be dog-tired if I got into the latter stages of the race.”  It sounded like Miller was counting on the Alfa’s four-wheel independent suspension to smooth out the bumpy brick surface and help to conserve his energy. 

      

The 38-year old Miller assured his interviewer that he was completely recovered from his injuries sustained in the 1938 Indianapolis ‘500’ three-car crash that took the life of Floyd Roberts. Miller was hailed as a hero after he crashed into the wooden infield fence to avoid Bob Swanson who was prone on the track after he had been thrown from his crashing machine. Chet sustained a broken shoulder after his car flipped - he spent eight weeks in the hospital and was out of racing for six months.

This photo shows Chet Miller weighing our featured car in 1940

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

Chet practiced the Alfa at 124 MPH, but the scheduled qualifying sessions in 1940 were plagued by rain and gusty winds and Miller did not get on track for his ten-mile run until Monday May 27.  Miller posted an average speed of 121.392 MPH, good enough for the 27^th starting position on the outside of the ninth row.

Later that evening, Chet was elected President of the Champion Spark Plug 100-mile per hour club succeeding Zeke Meyer, who gained membership with his 1936 Indianapolis ninth-place finish. Miller had earned his membership in the exclusive club because of his 1935 fifth-place finish in which he averaged 100.474 MPH for the 500 miles.

Chet Miller's 1940 IMS qualifying photo 

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

The 1940 Indianapolis ‘500’ proved to be a disappointment for many drivers, as the last fifty laps of the race was run under the caution flag due to persistent rain showers which froze the field in position, Despite his hopes that the Alfa would preserve his energy, Miller had stopped on lap 148, just before the caution flag came out and been replaced by Englishman Henry Banks. 

With the Alfa Romeo in seventeenth place, all the cars were flagged off the track after Wilbur Shaw and the first three finishers took the checkered flag. The Alfa Romeo 308 #34 finished with 189 laps completed and the Wharton-Dewart Motor Racing Team won $605 compared to winning car owner Mike Boyle who collected $31,675. In addition to a new Studebaker Champion, race winner Shaw also won an electric refrigerator.  

Wharton and Dewart did not enter the Alfa-Romeo 308 for the 1941 Indianapolis 500-mile race, and it and the Maserati V8RI were later sold to Milt Marion in 1944, while both Wharton and Dewart were serving in the US Navy in World War 2. 

Marion ran the Long island-based Marion Engineering & Machine Company and had started racing as a driver on the New York dirt tracks in the mid-nineteen twenties before he tried his hand at Indianapolis in 1931. Marion tried but failed to qualify at Indianapolis as a driver on six occasions, with his last attempt in 1937.

The highlight of Marion’s driving career came on March 8, 1936 when he won a AAA “strictly stock car” race held on a 1.5-mile course on Daytona Beach. Driving a 1936 Ford V8 convertible sponsored by Permatex Form-A-Gasket, Milt won the race which was shortened by nine miles from its planned 250-mile distance when the tide came in, at an average speed of 52 MPH. Another competitor in that day’s race was a local service station owner named William France who years later founded his own stock car racing association that held races on the beach.  

  

With the defeat of Japan and Germany, automobile racing resumed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 1946, albeit with pre-war equipment. Milt Marion entered both his Italian-built machines in March but did not name the drivers.

Once the track opened, Eastern AAA ‘big car’ ace Tommy Hinnershitz, a veteran of the 1941 ‘500,’ was tabbed to drive the Maserati, while midget racer Louis Durant (who birth name was Durant Lewis), was assigned the Alfa-Romeo 308. Durant a Kansas native who lived in Los Angeles, in addition to driving, acted as a race promoter for several pre-war races in his native state.

Durant had initially qualified for the 1941 Indianapolis ‘500,’ but was ‘bumped out’ on the final day of time trials by Al Putnam and the G & S Special became the first alternate. Durant unsuccessfully attempted to bump back into the field with an unidentified car owned by Milt Marion.

Sam Hanks crashed in pre-race practice on May 29 and his damaged car could not be repaired in time, but Chief Steward Ted Doescher stated that the rules called for the “the fastest 33 cars” and would not allow Durant’s car to be substituted.   

The short field due to the lack of Hank’s 7 UP sponsored entry was compounded when on race morning, the garage area fire claimed George Berringer’s rear-engine Gulf-Miller, as well as Marion’s unidentified car, and so the 1941 ‘500’ starting field was comprised of 31 starters.  Louis Durant did manage to compete in the 1941 500’ as he had two stints as a relief driver that covered 84 laps.

Durant, qualified the Alfa-Romeo for the 1946 International 500-mile race in the sixth starting position on the first day of time trials, though he posted the day’s slowest speed average of 118.973 MPH for his ten-mile run. 

Hinnershitz made a qualifying attempt on the final day of time trials on May 28, 1946, but the aged Maserati’s speed was not enough to bump out Al Putman’s qualified machine. Marion later sold the Maserati to the Granatelli brothers who replaced the engine with an Offenhauser.

In the first 500-mile race run at the Speedway in five years, Durant had a steady if not spectacular day as he finished in sixth position crossing the line more than 36 minutes after George Robson took the checkered flag and was the last car to complete the entire race distance. As he averaged 105 MPH for the 500 miles without relief, Durant earned membership into the Champion Spark Plug 100 MPH club.  

 

In 1947, Milt Marion entered his Alfa-Romeo and was allied with Speedway management, rather than siding with the upstart ASPAR (American Society of Professional Auto Racers) organization which was campaigning for a higher purse and threatened to boycott the race.

Marion had signed sponsorship for the Alfa-Romeo from the New York-based Permafuse Corporation, which manufactured and marketed a new system of relining brakes. Instead of the use of rivets, the installer used a strip of patented Permafuse tape to attach the new shoe to the lining. With the assembly clamped together, it was heated in the Permafuse electric oven. When completed, the manufacturer claimed that their system doubled the life of brake linings as the shoe and new lining were “virtually fused together.”

As Louis Durant had allied himself with the ASPAR group, Marion selected Indianapolis rookie Walt Brown from Massapequa New York, an Eastern AAA ‘big car’ racer who was the current track record holder at the one-mile track in Trenton New Jersey as his driver. 

Brown had appeared in several pre-war championship races and had been entered by Marion in six races held in late 1946. Walt was not at the Speedway full-time in the early part of the month of May 1947, as he was a regular on the AAA Eastern big car circuit and ran several big car races in early May, then passed his Indianapolis drivers test on May 22.

 Brown qualified the Alfa-Romeo on May 26 at a speed of 118.355, which placed it fifteenth in the field of 30 starters, and as the fastest non-ASPAR qualifier of the day received a check for $500. 

On Race Day, Walt steadily moved up through the field, largely by attrition as the machines of Ken Fowler, Russ Snowberger, Cliff Bergere and Shorty Cantlon were eliminated by mechanical failure or in the case of Cantlon a fatal crash.

Brown at age 35, wound up as the second-highest finishing rookie in seventh place as fellow rookie 39-year-old Bill Holland finished second. Walt was the last driver to complete the full 500 miles, flagged off a full 37 minutes after winner Mauri Rose took the checkered flag. 

         

Milt Marion entered the Alfa-Romeo for the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race but despite its record of two top ten finishes in the last two races, it did attract the interest of any drivers. Late in the month, Colorado driver Johnny Mauro struck a deal and bought the car from Milt Marion.

Mauro reportedly raced for several years in the pre-war period using the nom de guerre “Jack Morris,” although the author has been unable to find any results to confirm this story. Mauro entered a car under his own name in the 1940 22^nd annual Labor Day race up Colorado’s Pikes Peak, and finished either third, fourth or fifth, depending on which newspaper article one chooses to believe. 

In 1947 Mauro became an unwitting player in the ASPAR dispute with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In early 1947 Mauro reached an agreement with Babe Stapp to act as his crew chief for his inaugural entry at Indianapolis and he sent his entry form to Stapp’s home in Los Angeles. Stapp mailed the form onto the Indianapolis Motor Speedway office marked “in care of Ralph Hepburn,” as Hepburn was the original president of the ASPAR group.

The entry form arrived at the Speedway office at 444 North Capitol Avenue before the April 15 deadline, but Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Wilbur Shaw would not open the envelope, as Hepburn the addressee was not associated with the Speedway. Shaw instructed a secretary to place the envelope in the office safe. In early May, Mauro arrived in Indianapolis with his race car and was shocked to learn that he and his car, an older small displacement eight-cylinder supercharged Miller, was not entered. 

Mauro tracked down the paperwork, and the envelope with Stapp’s return address was retrieved from the safe, but Stapp initially refused to allow Shaw to open it. Finally, on May 15 in the presence of several reporters, Shaw opened the envelope which contained the completed entry form and Mauro’s check inside. Shaw allowed Mauro’s entry, which carried sponsorship from the local Phil Kraft Southside bakery chain. Mauro passed his required physical and practiced but was unable to complete his drivers test.  

Mauro, who worked as an accountant when not racing, returned with the supercharged Miller in 1948 but was not competitive in the car which press reports indicated had the smallest engine on the grounds, which leads the author to suspect it was a 91-cubic inch powered Miller. Mauro saw the unused Alfa Romeo 308 in the Garage Area and struck a deal with Milt Marion to buy the car and transferred the Phil Kraft sponsorship to his new ride.    

On May 25, 1948 the day following the finalization of his purchase of the Alfa Romeo 308, Mauro took the car out on track for practice and promptly spun in turn two, but he managed to collect the car without hitting anything and returned to the pit area with a bent wheel. Two days later May 27, Mauro was the slowest of the seven qualifiers with a four-lap average of 121.790 MPH, to start from the 27^th position.

Once again in 1948 in the 32^nd International 500-mile Sweepstakes, Mauro and his Alfa proved the old adage that the best finishes do not necessarily go to the swiftest, as the trusty 308 posted its third consecutive top ten finish when Mauro crossed the line in ninth place with 198 laps completed when he was flagged off the track forty minutes after winner Mauri Rose took the checkered flag. 

To complete the race, Mauro relied on the relief efforts of Louis Durant, the 1946 Alfa driver, who drove the car from lap 112 to lap 140. The day following the race, race officials announced that a recheck of the scoring tape revealed that Mauro had finished in eighth place and for his efforts, Mauro the car owner earned $4115.     

   

On Labor Day 1948, Mauro drove his Alfa Romeo 308 in the 12.42-mile AAA-sanctioned Pikes Peak Hill Climb and finished third with a time of 16 minutes and 55 seconds, one minute and six seconds slower than the winner Al Rogers who drove an Offenhauser-powered machine to victory. Mauro’s finish was celebrated in a nationwide advertisement for Mobil Oil that appeared in newspapers just days after the event.

Johnny Mauro entered the now eleven-year-old Alfa Romeo, for the 1949 Indianapolis ‘500,’ but technology had caught up as the “railbirds” opined that it would take an average qualifying speed of better than 126 MPH to make the 33-car starting field. Mauro himself never presented the car for qualifying, but Tony Bettenhausen gave it a try on May 28^th after his original entry was bumped.

Tony and his Flavell Special powered by a Sparks “little six” 183-cubic inch supercharged six-cylinder engine was bumped from the starting field. Robert Flavell from Los Angeles purchased the car in late 1946 from the original owner, Joel Thorne, after Joel got himself into one of his periodic legal jams and needed some fast cash. The Flavell/Sparks car had easily qualified for the 1947 and 1948 editions of the ‘500,’ but like the Alfa, it had reached the limit of its speed at 125.754 MPH and was bumped.

Tony could not find the speed in the Alfa Romeo 308 in a desperate attempt to bump back into the field, so the Mauro Alfa Romeo 308 missed the big show at Indianapolis in 1949.

Mauro qualified the Alfa 308 fourth overall for the annual Labor Day 1949 Pikes Peak Hill Climb, but on race day, crowd control was lax and errant spectators caught several drivers out. Mauro was within sight of the finish line when he had to swerve to avoid two women with cameras who had wandered into the racing line. Though he avoided a tragedy, Mauro crashed the Alfa Romeo into a parked car and did not finish.

On March 23, 1950 it was announced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that it had received Johnny Mauro’s entry of the Alfa-Romeo along with two others for Jack McGrath and Cecil Green. Headed into the final weekend of time trials, the 308’s engine threw a rod and the damage was not repaired in time to make a qualifying attempt. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway would not see another Alfa-Romeo entry until 1990.    

In 1952, Mauro entered a Ferrari 375 Grand Prix car at Indianapolis with sponsorship from the locally-based Kennedy Tank company. Mauro probably used his family connections to obtain the 4.5-liter V-12 powered machine as his brother owned an exotic car dealership in Denver. Unfortunately, the white with blue trim Kennedy Tank Ferrari 375 never approached qualifying speeds.    

Mauro raced the Ferrari 375 at Pikes Peak through 1956, and in 1958 Mauro founded the United States Truck Driving School, Inc. (USTDS) to train professional truck drivers. Mauro donated the Alfa Romeo 308 to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1969, and in 2003, Mauro  was killed in a traffic accident in his hometown of Denver when he was 92 years old.

Color photographs by the author